Suddenly, Susan's not all that concerned about her lack of employment. I hear her whisper breathily. "Dayum. Your landlord? My landlord is like a hundred years old. And he smells like floor varnish and urine…” Her eyes are a little bit desperate when she glances at me. “Looking for a roommate, by chance?"
Bitch, you don't have a job!
"Stop staring," I scold them. "I don’t want him coming over here."
Susan gives me a baffled gaze.
"It's a long story," Nat tells her then sets both elbows on the counter and cradles her chin, peering dreamily in Xavier’s direction.
"Stop. Staring."
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
His gaze moves slowly around the bakery, starting at Sophia and her daycare brood on the window bench before moving to Romeo and Juliet on the beanie chairs and then sliding to the drowsy seniors in the armchairs. An image of what I currently look like flashes across my mind. Oh horror!
And I do what any sane girl would do in this situation—I spin around to make a dash for the back office.
In hindsight, it was a pretty dumb move. And totally out of character for me, too. I don’t care about the opinions of random strangers, remember? But I guess it was sort of a reflex.
A reflex I quickly come to regret.
I scream as I crash into an employee carrying a jumbo pitcher of lemonade toward the countertop juice dispenser.
The poor, flustered girl apologizes profusely as the contents of the plastic jug splash across my chest before falling to the floor, dashing lemonade up all around. The arctic juice seeps through the layers of my clothing, making my bones shake and my teeth clatter. Natalie and Susan gasp in unison.
And, of course, the commotion draws Xavier’s attention, the very thing I was trying to avoid.
When I glance over his way, I find his eyes on me. Actually, every person in the cupcake shop is looking at me.
I sprint into the back of the bakery anyway.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I’ve never been that girl. The one who loses all her wits and makes dumb life choices anytime a hot guy looks her way. I’ve always pitied that girl, found her weak. But here I am, hiding behind a wall, perched on top of our new delivery of brown takeout paper bags, questioning the meaning of my life and too flustered to face the charming bastard who claims to be my temporary landlord.
What am I doing? This is not me. I don’t let men intimidate me, no matter how pretty and well-built and suave they are.
From my hideout on the other side of the wall, I hear Natalie using her best customer service voice. "Good morning," she chirps. "Welcome to the Broken Cupcake. What can I do for you?"
Meanwhile, cold, syrupy juice dribbles past my belly button into my crotch.
I loosen the strings of my wet apron and tear it over my head before flinging it to the floor. I shudder when I hear Xavier’s mirthful voice speaking to Nat. "Good morning, love. You can get me Sadie, please."
My stomach flips at his request. What the hell does he want with me? Oh hell no. I'm not moving from back here until he leaves.
I grip the hem of my shirt and give it a good wring. A few sticky droplets fall free onto the box I’m crouched on. "I'm not here,” I mouth quietly as I shake my head vigorously, sending my bestie a telepathic signal.
And because Nat is the best of all time, she says, “I-I’m sorry. Sadie just…stepped out."
Telepathy is real, y’all.
"We can take a message if you'd like," Susan volunteers, her voice husky and seductive.
Well, that proposition doesn’t satisfy the bastard. "Are you sure she’s not around? Because I'm pretty sure I just saw her standing here."
Nat immediately starts stuttering. Because she’s a freaking girl scout. And girl scouts are terrible liars. "She, uh, she...just…"
“Might have been another one of the employees,” Susan offers. “They all look the same in that boring, old uniform, don’t they?”
Gee. Thanks, Susan.
Xavier chuckles in his throat. “If this place has more than one employee walking around with a black eye, I’d say it might be time we call someone in to take a look into the working conditions here. Don’t you think?”
I can almost feel his energy shuffling closer now. I hear shoe soles scuffing the concrete floor.
Natalie squeaks with panic. "No! Sir, you can't be back there." I imagine her pointing at the big, red sign above the doorway. “Employees only! Employees only!”
The flap of the countertop slams and my blood pressure spikes. I stand here, paralyzed by disbelief. He wouldn’t actually come back here…
“I’ll just be a minute, love,” he assures her calmly.
Would he?
Oh yes, he would.
I see his shadow stretching across the back wall before I actually see his face.
"You can't be back there!" Nat protests weakly.
But it's too late. And now, Xavier is standing in front of me, arms folded across his broad chest as he peers down on me, braced against the side of the wall. His grin widens. "There you are, darling."
Ugh! What an asshole!
I bounce to my feet with an angry huff. "Okay, fine. You win. Here I am," I shout, flinging my arms up into the air.
And he freezes.
The smirk falls from his face. His eyes haze over and zero in on my chest. His Adam's apple scales the length of his throat as he swallows. Following his gaze, I look down at my shirt.
Now, before I go any further, let me tell you my views on bras. Y'see, bras suck!
They squeeze your tits. They hurt your back. Underwire is generally a pain. I usually don’t wear them, especially not to work. The bib of my pink and black Broken Cupcake apron is huge and it usually acts as the perfect cover up. But right now, my apron is laying in a soggy pile at my feet and the hardened peaks of my areolas are poking through the wet fabric of my thin, white uniform top like a pair of headlights on the hood of an old Chevy.
Xavier yanks the neckline of his own T-shirt away from his throat, his skin suddenly looking heated under the fluorescent lights.
"Fucking shit!" I mumble as I fold my arms across my chest, glancing down at the unopened box of brown paper bags. Never in my life have I been so tempted to yank one of those suckers over my damn face. I resist the urge. Instead, I growl, pinning him with an unfriendly stare. "What do you want?"
His tongue travels across the seam of his lips and he slowly lifts his attention from my chest. When his eyes meet mine, his pupils are dilated and intense. He shakes his head brusquely, snapping his attention back to the situation at hand. "I just—I need the key to your apartment. For the plumber." He gives me an impish smile.
I really want to be mad at him because he’s so damn frustrating. Did he have to show up at my job right now, especially when I’m still so keyed up from last night? And does he have to smell so masculine and mouth-watering? The space between my thighs really likes the way he’s looking at me. What the hell is wrong with me today?
I think I’m more pissed at myself than I am at him. This attraction is stupid. It's making me act like a fool. I barely recognize myself when I'm standing close to him. The feeling is overwhelming. Maybe that's why I'm constantly trying to run away, to escape through a bathroom window or hide behind a wall on a box of brown paper bags. But I'm not doing that anymore.
Jutting my chin out stubbornly—black eye and sticky T-shirt and pounding heart and all—I make the decision then and there. I'm not running anymore. This is me. He's free to make whatever judgment he wants to.
Fuck his intoxicating accent.
Fuck his potent smile.
Fuck his many, many muscles.
I’m done playing the spineless, helplessly-smitten damsel. I’m attracted to him and I’m going to roll with it. "I'll go get the keys," I grate out.
I hurry off into the office to grab the keys from my purse and deliver them to him. The sooner I get him out of here, the sooner I'll be able to slip i
nto a spare uniform shirt and get my head together.
My fingers brush his palm as I'm dropping the clanging scraps of metal into his hand. Another powerful throb hits me between the thighs. By the grace of god almighty, I manage to stifle back a sigh.“I’ve got another copy of the keys,” I tell him roughly, “so just keep these until you’re done with all the repairs.”
His eyes flick down the front of my shirt again and he nods distractedly.
"What?" I hiss snappily.
Shrugging a shoulder, he lets his gaze bounce back to my face. "Just appreciating the branding." Then he flashes me a teasing smile that should be trademarked. Or patented. Or whatever. "Interesting concept. The uniform, I mean. Sort of like Martha Stewart Living meets Hooters of America. No wonder the place is packed."
I step up into his face, a finger pointed threateningly at his eye. “Y’know, the nerve of you—”
He takes a quick step back, both hands up in the air. Defenceless. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I’m not buying the innocent act, though. He’s barely biting back his smile. He loves watching me squirm.
His hands fall to his sides when he sees that the threat of me clawing his face off has passed. “I don’t understand where all this hostility is coming from.” He blinks guilelessly. “I’ve been nothing but kind and helpful since we met…Talk to me. Tell me why you’re so upset.”
I scoff, taking a firm step back and tightening my arms across my chest. “You are just unbelievable. Unbelievable. And rude.”
His big shoulders rise and fall as he exhales, running a hand through his thick hair. His forehead is knitted with fake sincerity. “Look—I understand, darling. My dashing good looks tend to get you all hot and bothered when you’d prefer not to be. You can’t help it, it’s a natural reaction." My jaw is hanging loose in disbelief at this point. He continues anyway. "Plus, I’ve caught you in a compromising position yet again and that’s left you a wee bit embarrassed…but we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next—what is it?—eighty-nine days…so let’s just be adults about this, yeah?”
“Wow—you’re good, turning all this on me.” I’m seething. My cheeks are on fire. But before I can really tell that asshole where to shove it, his lips curl into a slight grin and he takes a step closer.
“I’ll cut back on the teasing, okay?” He almost sounds genuine, like he actually cares that he's unnerved me. "I hate seeing a frown on this pretty face. "
The startled sound that comes out of me is completely involuntary and frankly, sort of embarrassing. It's just that the non-asshole side of him is the last thing I was expecting right now.
In response to my shock, he smiles genuinely, a set of perfect, white enamel glinting. His voice dips low. "Yes, it is the prettiest face in town, Sadie. Pouting lips and swollen eye and all.” I stop breathing. Probably for a full minute. His fingers sweep tenderly across the discolored skin beneath my eye. He smoothly diverts the topic. “Remember to ice the swelling, yeah?"
He flashes me a wink and strides for the door.
Crazy butterflies in my belly right about now. Where’s my fly swatter when I need it?
4
Xavier
Whoever designed the flag of Ridgeland was a hot mess.
I lie back with my legs hanging over the arm of the wingback chair and examine the crumpled picture in my hand.
A golden shield stands proudly in the middle of the purple rectangle of fabric. The glittering sun rises above it, propping up the monarch’s crown. Ex nihilo nihil fit, it says in Latin at the bottom. Nothing comes from nothing. On the left, there stands a soldier clad in a full suit of body armor. On the right stands a virgin, draped in a white cloth…with a sword plunging into the middle of her chest and blood dripping down her gown.
What the fuck?!
Apparently, it all has some deep, philosophical significance. I’ve had the thing explained to me at least a dozen times by the Royal genealogist but I can never seem to remember what all of it was meant to convey.
My gaze leaves the flag and sweeps across the photo to the trio of youthful, exuberant faces lined up in front of it. We're sticking out our tongues and holding up peace signs for the camera. Perfectly disheveled in our preppy boarding school uniforms. Stanley is making bunny ears behind my head and Charlene has got one arm wrapped around me, her eyes riveted to my face with a dreamy expression. Me, I stand in the middle. Center of the whole universe. As usual. And why not? I was born with an entire kingdom to my name.
So clueless, we were. Innocence shining in our eyes. Dumb fuckers. We had no idea of the misery on the horizon. All we knew was that we were the best of friends. We were all so damn happy. All we needed was each other.
That seems like such a long time ago. Almost like it never happened. Almost like that happy era in my life was just a dream. Now, my reality is the guilt, the blame, the responsibility for being the one who ruined that amazing thing. The memory is sharp. Scalding grief throbs in my heart. The pain is like running barefoot through a field of broken glass.
My eyes burn and I rub them with the heel of my hand. I try to tell myself that I’m just tired, the result of skimping on sleep. But I know the sleep deprivation is effect, not cause.
The guilt forever saddling my conscience is the cause.
I’ve got to fucking move past this. I just don’t know how.
I yank open the bedside drawer and shove the wrinkled picture at the bottom, under my T-shirts and socks. The shot glass is in my hand before I've even slammed the drawer shut. My gut churns with anxiety and regret as the cognac goes down fiery and smooth. The overpowering scent of fried chicken rising up from the ground floor restaurant isn’t helping with this nausea at all.
Grabbing my phone beside the liquor bottle, I scroll furiously through my contacts.
I need to apologize. I don’t want to punk out and change my mind again. This time, I'm going to do it.
Thankfully, I remembered to load my old contacts into my new burner phone before I got started on this bender. I find Stanley’s number and hit ‘dial’. My chest squeezes tighter and tighter as the phone rings. Once. Twice. On the third ring, he answers. “Hello?”
My words scrape through my vocal chords. “Stan. It’s me. It’s Xav.”
A loaded silence greets me. I hear his heavy breathing, his anger.
And then the line goes dead.
He hung up on me. All it took was the sound of my voice and the person who used to be my very best friend in the world hung up on me. He hasn’t forgiven me. He’ll never forgive me.
Stanley used to be my partner in crime. The person I’d drag unwillingly into all my schemes, with his smudged glasses and his bowl haircut. He’d come along, whining and complaining but secretly loving every second of our wayward adventures. And Charlene would trail behind us, annoying and fussy, but we could never get rid of her. As children, it started as jaunts through the meadows, trapping frogs and chasing butterflies. As we grew older, it became all about going on joyrides and kissing pretty girls. But then Charlene was the pretty girl I wanted to kiss. And that’s when everything changed.
So I don’t deserve his forgiveness. I can’t blame him for his bitterness. I have no right to relief from my remorse. But it still burns to know that his life is forever ruined by the poor decisions I’ve made.
My loneliness swells, filling the whole damn place with shadows that reach out to strangle me and echoes that drill into my conscience. It's misery.
I want to talk to somebody. I don’t care who, really. I just don’t want to be alone right now.
The first person my mind flits to is Sadie but I quickly dismiss that thought. I’ve already been doing way too much as far as that girl is concerned.
I made up a pathetic excuse about needing her keys and showed up at her job…Ethel left me spare keys to all the apartments in the building.
I really just wanted to see her, to confirm to myself that the real thing couldn’t possibly live up to the fantasy of her I built up
in my head. Well, that turned out to be a mistake because the sight of her pert nipples, erect under that wet T-shirt has had my cock aching ever since. Add that to my list of ninety-nine problems.
So, no. No more Sadie for me tonight.
I scroll through my phone, passing dozens of names. All acquaintances. People I share forced laughs with at social events. Chaps who invite me to the pub to pick my brain or lobby for their business interests. Women whose flirtations and seductions are motivated solely by their royal aspirations. I just want to talk to somebody real.
And I must be lonelier than I initially realized because I find myself dialing the office of the Queen. The call has to be screened, passing through three different under-secretaries before my grandmother’s personal assistant tells me coldly that she’s indisposed at the moment.
Well damn. I didn't expect that Grandmum would be camped out by the phone, waiting for the me to make contact but I figured that she'd at least take my call. I am the appointed conveyor of her bloodline after all.
A half-breath later, the phone rings and when I answer the Queen’s voice comes over the line. “Xavier?” She sounds a bit weaker than usual but the note of authority is still there, the unquestionable strength, the awareness of the power and stature she was born into.
“Yes hello, Grandmum."
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the prodigal prince." There's not a single note of humor in her tone.
I ignore her snarky greeting, trying to keep my tone pleasant. "How are you feeling?”
"How am I feeling?" She laughs but I hear the stark displeasure in her tone. "Well, my physician would have you know that my blood pressure has soared over the past week. The spike coincides with the sudden disappearance of a certain wayward heir and the arrival of an excitable American commoner. You might have heard of that."
There's no record of it anywhere but I'm sure the woman secretly obtained a doctorate degree in sarcasm at some point.
Rich Boy: A Royal Landlord Romance (Blue Collar Bachelors Book 5) Page 5