by Amelia Wilde
“You will be disappointed,” Hugo says, sounding rueful.
“Can you always read women’s minds?”
He dips a fresh spoon into the sauce and tastes it. “Ah, that’s perfect. Salt and pepper and enough heat that it feels warm going down. And in answer to your question, usually.”
“That must have come in handy.”
“It is…” He searches for a word, looking perplexed. “A curse.”
I have to laugh. “It’s a great loss to the female kind that you’re now monogamous.”
A small bell rings near the elevator, which I assume means someone is coming up. “Well, perhaps you will not be disappointed. Sometimes you remind me of my old friend. It is the way you both seem to be more alive than the average person, more… feeling.”
“That’s also a curse,” I say, a little wry.
The elevator door opens, and none other than Sutton Mayfair walks in. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his slacks a little rumpled. He clearly has spent a long day at work, maybe solved a great many problems related to economics and real estate and law. From my perch on the sofa I can watch him without him noticing me, not at first.
Hugo greets him with one of those manly back slaps and a French expletive. “A nineteen eighty-five Chablis? It’s truly indecent the volume of great wine we’ll enjoy tonight.”
Sutton takes a few steps into the penthouse and freezes. His expression is blank, which must be what surprise looks like on him. There’s no indication whether he’s happy to see me or whether he wishes he’d never come. No indication whether he likes this white gauzy evening gown, which was included with a few other dresses in the box that Avery sent.
She’s thorough, that girl.
I would have said I had no desire to see either Sutton or Christopher so soon after our country club confrontation, but I can’t deny the beat of pleasure in my veins. Colors seem more vibrant when Sutton’s in the room. The strains of piano through the door more bittersweet. This must be what Hugo meant, that he’s more alive than everyone else. More feeling.
“Harper,” he says, cautious the way he might be around an animal. Careful not to spook me. Do I seem so wild to him? There’s definitely something inside me that wants to be soothed by his large hands. It’s too dangerous, though. He’s too close to Christopher to be safe.
“You already know each other?” Hugo asks. “This is fortunate, then.”
“Fortunate,” I agree, though my voice is faint.
“She’s going to be working with us on the Tanglewood Library restoration.”
“I thought it was going to be more of a teardown and rebuild?”
“She’s changing that,” Sutton says, his voice warm with approval. And gratitude? Somehow I’ve gone from being the troublemaker to the guardian angel. “We’ll need the buy-in of the upper crust if we want to gentrify the west side.”
That snaps me out of my Southern-drawl-induced haze. “The west side? I haven’t spent a long time in Tanglewood, but isn’t that a really dangerous part of town?”
“You won’t be going there unescorted,” Sutton says.
Even though I have no desire to stroll through dark back alleys, I don’t want Sutton to worry about protecting me. It’s too close to what Christopher has done. “I can take care of myself.”
Sutton advances toward me, making my stomach clench. He leans over me, resting one hand on the back of the sofa. He’s not touching me, not anywhere, but I can feel the heat of him. I can scent the male essence of him. It’s an intimate position, his body hovering over mine.
“Don’t mistake me for him,” Sutton says, his voice low.
“Then don’t act like him. No one has to save me.”
“Save you? No, sugar. I want to peel that sexy little dress away from your body and make love to you so hard and so long you’re going to beg. You can’t take anymore, that’s what you’ll say, and if I were a better man, one who wanted to protect you and keep you in a safe little box, I would stop. Except I won’t be done with you for a long time.”
A sound escapes me. It should be a protest, an outrage, but instead it’s a moan. God, he’s making me want this. “You’re making Hugo uncomfortable.”
Sutton gives a rough laugh. “He’s pretending he can’t see anything except his fancy French sauce, but if he thought you didn’t want me, he’d have already given me a black eye. And I’d have deserved it. Do you know why he hasn’t done that?”
Because he always knows what women want. It really is a curse.
I’m tired of having Sutton pursue, not because I don’t want this, but because I do. Why am I holding myself back from him on account of Christopher? It’s in this moment that I can admit that I still want him. Still love him. That’s the only reason I could be thinking about him when another man stands right in front of me. It hurts to admit that, even privately. My fortress of protection against men and their transience, torn down in an instant of self awareness.
The heart is fickle. It doesn’t listen to reason.
But I don’t have to obey my heart when I know it’s wrong. There’s no loyalty I owe Christopher Bardot, and none he would want from me anyway.
I grasp the red silk tie in my hand and pull. A grunt of surprise, and then he’s falling forward. His lips meet mine without any semblance of softness. We’re all determination in this moment, which is more potent than a thousand sweet caresses. More real than a hundred whispered promises.
He deepens the kiss with one arm beneath my head, his other hand against my cheek, angling my mouth to take him better. It’s consuming, this kiss… and public.
A polite cough sounds from a few yards away.
Distantly I realize the music has stopped. It’s almost painful to tear my gaze away from the burning blue eyes staring down at me, made hazy and harsh with desire.
Bea stands just outside her music room, looking scandalized. “We really need to have more dinner parties, Hugo.”
He crosses the room and greets her with a kiss. “Do you have a bit of the voyeur? They do make a beautiful couple.”
“We’re not a couple,” I say quickly, but the objection loses some of the steam considering Sutton is still half over me, my leg draped over his from where I had pulled him close. Roughly I push him away and sit up, shame making my cheeks warm. “I just work for him.”
“But of course,” Hugo says agreeably. “That’s how Bea and I met as well.”
19
Goodnight Kiss
With any other couple I probably would have died of embarrassment, but Hugo and Bea have a way of putting me at ease. They share a few funny stories about their cooking mishaps. There are a stack of cookbooks from around the world on a tall shelf. Mostly Hugo is a brilliant cook, but when he encounters an ingredient that’s hard to get, he improvises with mixed results.
“Did you cook for Sutton when you were roommates?” Bea asks.
“I made many packages of cheap noodles.”
Sutton smiles, looking a little distracted. “They were all we could afford at the time, but Hugo used to talk about food. About caviar and foie gras and other shit I’d never even tried back then.”
“And what do you think now?” I ask, twirling the wineglass. A few pours of that Bordeaux, and I’m feeling downright pleased with my short public performance.
Sutton’s blue gaze meets mine. “I’m a simple man.”
“You know,” I say, drawing a little circle on the marble table, “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”
Hugo laughs. “She has you figured out.”
“Not all the way,” I admit. I’m a little tipsy after helping finish two bottles of wine. Not drunk. Enough to lower my guard, that’s all. “Enough to know that good-old-boy act hides a lot underneath. Tell me something about you that I don’t already know. No, that’s too easy. Tell us something that Hugo doesn’t know about you.”
Sutton looks away, a half smile on his face. Not quite refusing. “And what will I get in return?”
/> “You’re always looking to make a deal.”
“That much is true. So what are you going to give me, in exchange for this secret you want?”
“What do you want?” The question comes out more seductive than I meant it to, my voice low and thick with desire. He turns me into some other woman, one who doesn’t need to be rescued. One who rescues a man instead.
“A goodnight kiss,” he says in that way that sounds simple but isn’t.
“Only a kiss?”
He smiles. “Only that.”
“Then you have yourself a deal.”
“Aren’t you going to shake on it?” Bea asks, her cheeks pink even though she’s the only one of us who didn’t touch the Bordeaux, her green eyes bright with mischief. “If the deal’s going to be official, you should shake hands.”
Sutton appears solemn as he offers his hand over the table, on top of the empty platter of coq au vin and the brandy-sauce green beans. I grasp the warm strength of him, the rough calluses of him, and squeeze. He gives a gentle squeeze in return. Our bodies can speak a language more fluently than our mouths, communicating, negotiating.
“A good secret,” I warn him, “or the deal is off.”
He considers the final swallow of red wine in his glass, taking his time to come up with what he’s going to share. “There was a horse named Cinnamon,” he finally says.
“That’s your secret?” I mean, it’s an adorable secret. But it’s not enough. “I’m going to blow you a kiss. That’s all you’re getting for that secret.”
He holds up a finger, and I realize he’s tipsy too. “That’s not the end of it. Giving her a name was more wishful thinking. She was wild, that one. Unbreakable. My dad kept her because she was a beauty, hoping one day they’d tame her. But really it was shitty to keep her locked up when she wouldn’t let anyone near her. And then one day I went out to the stable, and she was gone. I checked everywhere—the whole stable and the pastures, but the latch had been moved from the outside, so she couldn’t have gotten out alone.”
This suddenly strikes me as a tragedy, and I realize I should have been more specific. A funny secret. The kind that will make us laugh. Instead something terrible is going to happen.
“Finally found her down by the lake, where the kid who worked as a farmhand in the summer was trying to coax her to keep going. She wasn’t budging.”
“He was running away,” I whisper, recognizing the ache in my chest.
There had been an unfortunate number of times I contemplated that action, not because the streets of LA would have been hospitable but out of pure desperation. But I worried about who would take care of my mother if I left. She would have blamed herself.
Daddy would have blamed her, too.
“His home life was pretty shit. Everyone knew that. Daddy drank too much. Mom worked to pay rent and to stay out of the way. He showed up with bruises that people pretended not to see. But he rode Cinnamon when no one else could go near her. Rode her bareback without getting thrown off and breaking his neck. If the beast weren’t nervous about crossing the stream at the border of the land, if he hadn’t been worried she’d break her leg, he would have been halfway across the county with her.”
“What happened?” Bea asked, looking sick with worry.
Hugo touches her hand, a caress that speaks volumes. “Do not worry. Even Sutton is not so careless that he would tell a tragedy over dinner conversation.”
Then he gives Sutton a look that promises stark retribution if Sutton had really been so careless.
Sutton grins. “Where I’m from, we had more tragedy than comedy. But this story does have a happy ending. I brought the boy and the horse back home, and my dad moved him up from shoveling hay to working with the horses. He tamed Cinnamon before he grew up and left.”
There are tears in Bea’s eyes. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Hugo makes a clucking sound before pulling her into his arms, onto his lap, uncaring that he has an audience. I could paint them this way, the handsome charmer and the old-world beauty, both of them made hard by the world and soft again for each other.
And then something clicks. “Oh my God.”
“You see it?” Sutton asks, his voice low. “I thought it would just be me, pretending not to.”
“What are you talking about?” Hugo says, a notch between his brows. “Ma belle, are you ill?”
“No, but she does have a condition,” I say, trying to contain my excitement and failing. “Bea, why didn’t you tell me? I hate you! Okay, I’m over it. I love you again. This is so exciting!”
There are many expressions Hugo can wear comfortably—amusement and sarcasm and seduction. I’ve never seen this one. Astonishment. “What?”
Bea’s cheeks are more than pink now. They’re a deep peach, so dark they match her freckles. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” she says a little shyly. “We didn’t talk about children.”
Hugo’s mouth remains open. He looks shocked beyond words.
“Not a sip of wine all evening,” Sutton says in that drawl. “Even though I brought the Chablis because she loves it.”
“And she got emotional over the horse story,” I add. “Really, for someone who is famous for being able to read women, you completely missed this one.”
“We never have perspective about the people closest to us,” Sutton says, watching the embracing couple with satisfaction.
Hugo murmurs in French, sounding breathless and adrift. “Un enfant?”
“Are you angry?” Bea whispers.
She might be worried, but I can already see the stirrings of hope inside him. They may not have talked about children, but Hugo is committed to her fully. And a family is exactly what he needs to feel grounded in this life. He kisses her with a passion so raw and charmless it looks like a different man, one without an ounce of finesse. There’s only love.
“We should go,” I whisper to Sutton, who has already pushed back his chair. We make our exit with discreet haste, not a second too soon judging from the way dishes crash as the two move their passion to the top of the dining table.
I’m laughing with breathless anticipation as I collapse against the mirrored walls of the elevator. “She’s going to have a baby! Oh my God, we should make them name it Harper if it’s a girl or Sutton if it’s a boy. We were there when she told him.”
He does this silent huff of amusement. “Sutton is too rough of a name for any child of theirs. Maybe they can name him Harper, even if it’s a boy. It works for both.”
“I like that plan,” I say, grinning because I can’t seem to stop. I blame the wine that I was forced to drink since Bea didn’t have any tonight. My heart beats fast and light, effervescent as a Chardonnay.
The elevator opens to the bottom floor, and I step out—my smile giving way to nerves. There are a hundred people milling around the lobby, but I might as well be alone with Sutton. The way he looks at me, it’s like I’m the only woman in the hotel.
A couple in a hurry jostle me, and Sutton moves to block me with his body. It’s only a small pain, the bustle from a crowd, but he takes it from me. There’s a gentleman underneath all that laconic Southern charm, but it’s different from Christopher. He doesn’t claim to know better than me. He only wants to shield me from any pain. In some ways it’s a subtle distinction, but in another way they’re worlds apart.
“Invite me upstairs,” Sutton says, his voice low and private.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The words come out unsteady, my body humming with anticipation as if I’ve already agreed to whatever happens next.
“A goodnight kiss,” he says. “That was the deal.”
My lips feel ultrasensitive, even thinking about kissing him. “You didn’t really finish the story. We were interrupted.”
“That’s why you’re going to invite me to your room. Where it’s private.”
A catch in my breath. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
He le
ans close, pressing me into a corner behind the penthouse’s private elevator. The only people near us are passing by, on their way to a restaurant or a theater. “I’ve been poor longer than I’ve been rich, but you know one thing that stays the same?”
Sex, my mind supplies helpfully. Sex is the same. “No.”
“People underestimate you because you’re different, that’s what stays the same. The way you looked at me and heard my accent and figured you could use me to get to Christopher.”
“I d-didn’t think—”
“Now look at you, so close there’s only linen and silk between us, your cheeks all rosy, your eyes wide. You would let me do anything to you with people a few feet away, but I’m not going to touch you.”
A sense of loss rushes through me, like a hollow opened up beneath an ocean. I may not have thought I was underestimating him, but clearly I had. “Come upstairs.”
Blue eyes flash with triumph. “Lead the way.”
Lead the way, because this is under my control. It’s up to me whether Sutton comes upstairs to my room, whether I use the key card to let us both inside, whether he wakes beside me in the morning. How would his body look, sated and tangled in white rumpled sheets? His skin would be leather-rough everywhere, exposed to the elements from a young age.
Or would he still be velvet and smooth in some places?
We take a regular elevator up to my floor, both of us silent in front of an older couple returning after an early night. The only place we touch is his palm at the small of my back—such an innocent place, that. There shouldn’t be a fire burning, spreading outward, down to my ass and between my legs. His gentle pressure shouldn’t make me think of other ways he could hold me.
Even when the older couple steps out, we don’t move from our assigned spots. My feet have become part of the floor, too heavy to move. He’s immobile beside me.
The dial that tells us which floor we’re on is made of a brass arrow and roman numerals. Nothing so coarse as a digital screen could grace this elevator. A low bell signals that we’ve arrived. The doors slide open.