My office phone rings, and I check the time.
“I’ve got a conference call with senior management in web services,” I say, motioning toward the door.
He leaves, and I pick up the receiver.
When I’m done, I make another call, this time to Sophie.
She answers on the second ring.
“You getting settled?” I ask. It’s strange knowing she’s in my home without me.
“Trying to.” Her voice is an echo, like the sweeping halls of the estate swallow her as she makes her way around. “Only got lost twice today.”
I laugh. “Won’t be long until you know the way around there like the back of your hand.”
“I’m aiming for the end of the week, but that might be slightly ambitious given the fact that you have an insane amount of rooms …”
“To be fair, I don’t know what’s in half of them. One of these days you’ll be giving me tours,” I say. A flight itinerary reminder pops up on my screen. “Don’t forget to pack for this weekend.”
Not that Seattle is littered with paparazzi, but I’m already envisioning grainy shots of the two of us strolling the city blocks, in baseball caps and sunglasses, arms around each other like some kind of celebrity couple trying to enjoy the real world incognito.
We’ve got this …
“I’ll have my assistant add you to the manifest,” I say. “We leave Friday at noon.”
“I’ll be ready.” Her tone isn’t colored with excitement, but I’ll ensure she enjoys every minute of our weekend away. That and I’m excited to get her out of her element for a bit. Could bring out a side of her I’ve yet to meet …
I tell my future wife I’ll see her tonight, and end the call. Then I send an email to my first assistant to add Sophie to the flight. When I’m finished, I take a moment to relax. But only a moment—I don’t have all day, and my next meeting starts in fifteen minutes.
Broderick was right.
Things always work out for me.
At this point, I don’t think anything could go wrong.
Thirty-One
Sophie
Present
Seattle is pretty from way up here. I slide the door to the hotel balcony and inhale the earthy petrichor that saturates the air. Rain clouds roll in and below a blue-gray fog settles over the city. We landed in Trey’s jet over an hour ago at some small airport east of the city. He arranged for a driver to bring me here while he hightailed it to a meeting.
Ever since my time with Nolan, I’ve hated hotels because they only remind me of him.
They all smell the same—bleached linens and shampooed carpet, icy air conditioning and a cocktail of random people with a mélange of intermixing colognes and fragrances. The furniture is always arranged the same way. The towels are always white.
It doesn’t matter which hotel I’m in or the city, the ghost of Nolan is always here, haunting me.
That said, our suite is gorgeous with its extra-wide balcony and sweeping views of the city. The concierge left a bottle of wine, a box of Belgian chocolates, and an assortment of artisanal soaps on the coffee table along with a handwritten note from the hotel manager.
I slide the door closed behind me and perch against the limestone balcony railing. A dozen stories down cars honk, buses hum, and people hustle and hurry like ants on a farm.
I spend the better part of the hour taking it all in, and when I’m done, I grab the book I threw in my bag at the last minute, read a few chapters, and catch a quick nap on the king-sized bed in the next room.
It’s impossible to remember the last time I had a lazy afternoon where I hadn’t a single thing to do or care in the world. Even on my laziest of days at home, there’s always a nagging to-do list haunting my thoughts.
When I wake, it’s almost six.
Trey mentioned dinner was at seven-thirty and that there was a dress code. I unpack my suitcase, hang my clothes in the closet, and select a classic black number before heading to the bathroom to get ready.
I’m securing my earrings ten minutes later when the gentle open and close of the hotel door tells me he’s back. A moment later, he appears in the open bathroom doorway.
“How’d it go?” I ask.
“Just as I expected.” He leans against the jamb, casual, his suit jacket slung over one shoulder. His expression is unreadable as his stare weighs on me.
Nolan used to look at me that way, utterly transfixed.
Or maybe I’m projecting.
“So … you got it?” I select a rose-pink lip stain and dab it onto my lips.
He nods. “Of course.”
“Congrats.” I can’t help wonder if anyone ever tells him that. Or if it even matters. Grabbing up businesses is just another Friday in his world. “I’m happy for you.”
“Think we’ll order champagne tonight,” he says when he snaps out of it. I exhale. All that heaviness from his gaze left me holding my breath, woefully aware of every angle my body held as he studied me. “We should celebrate.”
Champagne always brings me back to my first date with Nolan at that party, the way it flowed like a river and left delicious bubbles on my tongue that tasted like sugared lemons and gave me a sample of true freedom for the first time in my life.
“Sounds great.” I meet his gaze in the mirror, forcing a smile. And I make a silent promise to myself not to let Nolan spoil this weekend for me.
I can’t. I won’t.
He’s already ruined enough.
Thirty-Two
Trey
Present
It’s not quite eleven when we return from dinner. The hotel room is soundless and pitch black, save for the bathroom light pouring from the open doorway, illuminating a path to the bedroom like an implied invitation.
If she were any other woman, we’d have torn our clothes off by now and I’d have her pinned against the wall, hands over her head as I did what I pleased.
But Sophie’s not any other woman.
She’s the kind you savor, not the kind you devour.
She kicks off her heels, hips swaying as she makes her way to the foot of the bed. She’s somewhere between buzzed and drunk and she hasn’t stopped smiling—or chatting—all night, even taking the time to make small talk with our server. While we were leaving the restaurant, a college-aged kid stopped us and asked for a picture with me. Sophie happily took his phone and snapped three shots because his eyes were closed in the first two.
“Seattle suits you,” I say as she rubs her feet. “Maybe we should move here after the wedding.”
She smirks. “You would never leave Chicago. You’d have to uproot your entire company.”
“I know.” While I like the idea of leaving, I couldn’t do that to my employees. And the Westcott name is synonymous with Chicago. Practically royalty. I’d be pissing all over my family’s legacy if I left.
I sit beside her.
“May I?” I point to her feet, which are covered in welts the color of bitten lips.
Sophie nods, and I take her right foot, pressing my thumb along the center of her arched sole. Her skin is baby smooth, delicate and feminine, and her toes are painted a milky white.
She exhales, head tossed back until her hair nearly touches the top of the mattress. The Seattle drizzle earlier tonight dampened her waves until they became swollen and untamed, and as the evening progressed, I couldn’t look at her without picturing her naked body wrapped in sheets, sex hair spilling around her shoulders and a satisfied smile claiming her ripe mouth.
Her lips part, followed by a sweet burst of liquor-scented breath. A pleasured wince covers her pretty face.
I’m certain this is what she’d look like if my tongue were between her thighs right now …
I massage the spaces between her toes and then I work my way to her Achilles tendon before moving higher, to her calf.
“My god. How are you so good at this?” She bites her lip as if stifling a moan, eyes squeezed tight.
My cock swells,
straining beneath my boxers. I massage deeper, but not too deep. Just enough to incite another breathy moan.
“All I have to do is watch your face … it tells me where I need to go.” The technique has never steered me wrong in the bedroom. But it works for this, too …
She gives me a sideways glance before trading one foot for the other.
“Thank you for celebrating with me tonight.” It was different commemorating an acquisition with someone for a change. I didn’t hate it.
“How do you normally celebrate?”
“By prepping for my next deal.”
Her eyes widen. “You don’t stop to appreciate it? You don’t take a trip or have a drink or … I don’t know, get laid?”
“Why? Are you offering?” I laugh through my nose. I’m teasing, but it doesn’t hurt to plant the seed. There’s nothing wrong with a little physical release when the moment’s right.
In my twenties, getting laid was all I cared about and there was no shortage of beautiful women clawing down my door, blowing up my phone, throwing themselves in my path—figuratively and otherwise. But after a while, my reckless ways grew unfulfilling and the women were all the same. I tried the dating thing. Raquel was my longest relationship on record, and toward the latter part of our relationship, I’d kept meaning to end it but work obligations were getting in the way so the talk got sidelined until the day I came home early and found her by the pool doing a line of blow off her tennis coach’s six-pack.
“When was the last time you got laid?” she asks.
“Last month.” I don’t remember her name, just that I met her in an exclusive Chicago speakeasy and she wore a red dress that left little to the imagination. Unfortunately it turned out to be false advertising. I might as well have been grinding against a dead fish for an hour—silent, unmoving, wide-eyed. A handful of times I debated whether or not to check her pulse. When it was over, she told me she had a boyfriend, grabbed her things, and got the hell out of there. “What about you?”
“Same,” she says.
“Boyfriend or hook-up?”
“Hook-up. Always a hook-up.” She runs a hand through her mussed-up mane.
“Relationships,” I huff, half-teasing. “Who has time for that?”
Sophie snickers. “Apparently not us.”
If I had a drink in my hand, I’d drink to that. Instead I continue working on her calves, inching higher by the second.
“You look beautiful tonight. I don’t think I told you that.”
“Thank you,” she says without pause. Her lashes flutter as she stares at me the way women do sometimes, mesmerized, starstruck.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” I say, bored with small talk.
“This game again?”
“It’s not a game. Just trying to know you more. In a couple of months you’ll be my wife, so …”
“I’m allergic to cantaloupe.”
“Don’t insult me with tedious trivia,” I say. “Give me something better than that. What’s your greatest fear? Who was your first love?”
“I fear nothing.” She spreads her arms wide and wears a goofy grin. “And I don’t have one.”
Bullshit.
“As per usual, you’re a terrible liar.”
“I used to be terrified of spiders when I was little,” she says. “But I grew out of that. And fine. I had a first love, but he was a jerk.”
“Aren’t they all …”
“Every last one.” She leans back on the bed, arms behind her neck, and the hem of her skirt rides up her thighs, exposing her silky soft legs.
I lie beside her, watching her, head resting on my hand. “I still don’t understand you.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“Either your eyes are lit and you’re slinging sassy one-liners my way or you’re completely shut down, and there’s nothing in between,” I say. “I want to know who you are, Sophie. The real you. Tell me, what makes you tick? What gets you going every morning? And what made you finally agree to marry me?”
“One question at a time, Tom Brokaw …”
“Just answer.”
Dragging in a breath, she says, “What makes me tick? Sunny days. Wandering the public library on a lazy Saturday morning before grabbing a coffee on my way home. The scent of warm laundry. My sister’s smile, my mother’s hugs …”
They say the best things in life are free. Clearly Sophie’s mastered that mantra. Perhaps I went about it all wrong, dumping millions of dollars into her lap when all she wanted was a basket of dryer-fresh towels on a sunny day with a side of coffee.
“What gets me going every morning?” she continues. “My alarm and my intense, irrational fear of being late for work. And why did I finally agree to marry you?”
She rolls to her side to face me.
“Because someone once told me that life is fucking short,” Sophie feeds me my own line and accents it with a slow wink that tells me tonight’s champagne is still making its rounds through her veins. “And he was right.”
“Smart man,” I say. “But that still doesn’t answer my question.”
“Does it matter? I said yes …” She sits up, gathering her hair at the nape of her neck before letting it go. The strap of her dress falls down one shoulder. “It’s warm in here. Do you think it’s warm?”
Sliding off the bed, she tiptoes across the room and adjusts the thermostat before returning to my side. The air kicks on with a steady hum, chilling the air around us.
“Sophie.” There’s an edge in my voice. I need to get her back on track. “Why did you really agree to marry me?”
She’s quiet at first, picking at a fingernail before sliding her hands beneath her thighs.
“Because you’re not what I thought you were,” she finally answers. “And because I can put a lot of good into this world with that kind of money. The positives outweighed the negatives.”
“And what were the negatives?” Other than sacrificing some pie-in-the-sky hope of finding the elusive myth of true love, I can think of none.
“The potential for complications.”
“Fortunately for you, I’m as uncomplicated as they come. And everything’s in writing. We’re both protected.”
“I’m not talking about what’s in the contract,” she says. “I’m talking about …” Sophie bites her lip, glancing down, uncharacteristically pensive. “The way you looked at me tonight … you telling me I looked beautiful … the way you touch me, so tender and careful … and your eyes keep drifting to my mouth … You want to kiss me, Trey. And part of me wants to let you because everything feels so easy with you in this moment.”
Then kiss me. I lean in, hand cupping her cheek, but she turns away.
I’ve never been rebuffed.
Ever.
Leaning back, I say, “What’s the worst that could happen? One thing leads to another and we wake up two orgasms richer? I thought I made myself clear, Sophie. I’m not looking to be your boyfriend. I’ve no need to steal your heart. We have an arrangement. And as two consenting adults who are wildly attracted to each other and are about to spend an incredible amount of time together, why should we deny ourselves physical pleasure?”
“You make it sound simple.”
“Because it is.”
She rolls her eyes. “What if it gets messy?”
“What if it doesn’t?”
She doesn’t answer my question, then again it was rhetorical.
“Let’s make a pact,” she says a minute later. “If we do this … and either of us begins to feel something, we speak up—and then we stop before it goes too far.”
I used to think I was the king of noncommittal, but Sophie has officially dethroned me.
“I’m one hundred percent on board with that,” I assure her. “You’re clearly allergic to feelings and I don’t have time for them. Rest assured we’re on the same page.”
Her posture loosens and her shoulders fall as she exhales. “Shake on it?”
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She extends her right hand, the bathroom light behind me showcasing a teasing glint in her eyes. She’s serious yet she’s deflecting with humor.
Typical.
I slide my hand into hers, and then I pull her into my lap. Gripping her hips, I push her against me. The resistance between us fades as our lips finally meet. She rocks back and forth, her hemline gathered around her waist and her tits pressed against me as our mouths crash into one another. My cock throbs until it aches, and she moans before accepting my tongue.
A moment later, she slides off me, dropping to her knees at the foot of the bed, unfastening my belt followed by my zipper. I lean back as she frees my cock. It fills her hand and she pumps the length before swallowing the tip, tonguing circles down the shaft.
“Holy shit.” I gather her hair in my fist, guiding myself deeper into that fuckable mouth I’ve been staring at for the past six hours.
Intensity builds. I’ve never had issues lasting, but tonight might be an exception.
Taking her hand, I pull her from my cock and guide her on top of me. “I want to taste you.”
Lying back, I position her spread thighs over my face, pushing her panties aside and dragging my tongue against the length of her seam. Gripping her ripe ass in my hands, I devour her arousal with greedy, painted strokes until her legs begin to quake and her breath begins to shorten.
She reaches for the headboard, bracing herself as I grip her harder and circle my tongue against her sweet clit. Riding my face, her hips buck and quiet moans fill the room. I’m certain she’s about to come when she sits up, flips her position, and turns her attention back to my cock. Taking me into her wet mouth once more, I melt into the mattress beneath her, gaze fixed on the ceiling and hardly able to see straight. When I get my shit together, I run my hands along her inner thighs before dragging her panties down and sliding two fingers into her wet slit. A minute later, she’s riding my face, reverse cowgirl style, my cock deep in her mouth as she moans, the vibrations taking me out of this hotel room, out of this fucking world.
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