“That big, sexy brain started working?” Sophie ran her fingers through his hair. Henry tilted his head, eyes wide with surprise.
“You think my brain is sexy?”
Sophie shifted on his lap, a flush staining her cheeks. The truth was, she thought everything about him was sexy. “Maybe. So, where in Switzerland is this project you’re pondering?”
His lips twitched into an amused smile, but he let her change the subject. “Lausanne.” He pronounced it with the French accent, low-zen.
“Oh! I love it there. It’s a beautiful city. Is the property on the lake?” Joy sprang in Sophie’s chest as she remembered the lovely Swiss city on Lake Geneva. Henry blinked in surprise.
“You’ve been there?”
It was Sophie’s turn to raise her brows. “Of course! The Prix de Lausanne is a big deal in the dance world.”
“I didn’t think you were interested in ballet.”
“My training is classical. I just prefer the energy of tango.” She shrugged one shoulder, dismissing her past as a ballerina. “So, where in Lausanne is the property? Are you thinking of apartments or hotels? There’s a fair bit of competition of you’re thinking hotels.”
“That’s true. The city is fairly cosmopolitan, based on the report. Perhaps a club would be better for the location.” Henry frowned at the packet of paper as if he expected it to chime in.
Sophie held out her hand. She didn’t want to just take the report. This was new ground for them and she didn’t want to push. Still, the business conversation had at least helped diffuse some of the awkward, morning after tension. She smiled when Henry slid the thick bundle of pages into her grasp.
“Have you never been there? Oh, but you said you oversee the construction phase, so someone else chose the location and the property, I guess.”
“Precisely. All I’ve got is an empty plot, in this case.” His lips thinned.
She flipped through the pages of the report. Demographics, median incomes, popular tourists spots. All the information he might need to decide what to put up in the location. “Well, a fair percentage of the population are foreign nationals, so you could do something in an American style and it might feel like home to people. When we were there, the clubs were more in the style of the European disco. We’d have killed for someplace a little more...” She trailed off, unsure of what word she was looking for.
“American?” Henry’s grin flashed.
“Yeah. That’s terrible, I know. But when you travel as much as I did, a little bit of home can be nice. But you must know, you travel a lot too, right?” She couldn’t help herself, she reached out at stroked his chest. The temptation to touch him was just too great. Henry’s eyes heated, but he didn’t remark on her caress.
“I do understand. The travel can be a bit wearing at times.”
Sophie toyed with a button on his shirt. “Where was your favorite place to go?”
“That’s hard. There are so many great places. I enjoyed Germany, and Turkey. Oh, and Italy, of course.”
“I love Italy. I think I would live there if I could. At least some of the time.” She grinned, remembering a cascade of memories from various trips to Italy. She loved the history and the food and the weather of the place. She sighed.
Henry brushed a lock of damp hair back off her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist. Sophie settled a little against his chest. They sat silently for a moment. She was content to relax against him and just feel him breath. At least for a little while. But quickly, the tension began to mount again. The conversation they hadn’t yet had.
She felt him growing tense too, most likely for the same reason. Was he thinking about sending her away? Had he made his decision already? If so, Sophie wished he’d just tell her and get it over with. The anticipation was killing her.
“Sophie, I—”
“I should get going if I’m going to get to the studio on time.” Maybe it wasn’t the anticipation that had her tied in knots, because she bolted to her feet as if he’d lit an actual fire under her butt.
Henry frowned. “I thought the studio didn’t open until eight?”
“I have to go change first. And I should probably get there before Darren just to make sure we didn’t leave any... um... evidence of our activities behind.” She flushed, remembering their heated encounter the night before. The muscle that jumped in Henry’s jaw said he was remembering too.
“Okay.”
“We’ll talk later?” She was being a big old scaredy-cat. Sophie knew it. The prospect of him saying he didn’t love her, didn’t want to give this relationship a chance, terrified her. Give him a little more time to think, make sure he’s sure of what he wanted. They could talk tonight. Or tomorrow. Or maybe they didn’t have to talk at all. They could just keep doing like they’d done last night for the next, say, fifty years.
“Later,” Henry confirmed, making her heart drop into her stomach and then leap into her mouth.
Sophie swallowed, cupped his chin, and brushed her mouth across his. “I love you, Henry.”
She hurried out of the room, and his penthouse, before he could say anything else.
***
“Listen, girl, you can’t just hang up on me in the middle of a conversation and then never call me back and tell me you’re okay! I almost called the cops!”
Darren stood in the office doorway, hands on his hips, green eyes blazing at her.
“Sorry, babe. Henry showed up just then and...” She dropped her gaze, heat staining her cheeks as she thought about the “and.” Darren quirked a blond brow.
“That’s what I figured. It’s the only reason I didn’t call the cops. I didn’t guess you’d want New York’s finest bursting in on your make-up time.” He sank into the desk chair and crossed his arms. “So, the plan went well then?”
Sophie swept past him, heading for the front classroom. The first class of the day was due to start in twenty minutes, their professionals class, and she should really stretch before getting into the more complex routines she tried with her working dancers.
“Yes, and no.”
Darren followed her with a put-upon sigh. “Meaning what, Sophie? Did he fall at your feet and pledge his undying love?”
“Yes to the first part, no to the second?” She could barely look at the barre without picturing Henry’s muscled form bending over her, the hot length of his cock pushing inside her. She shook herself and began a series of floor stretches instead. Darren frowned.
“Sophie,” Darren groaned. “Can we get to the part where he didn’t confess his love?” He leaned to the side, stretching an arm over his head.
“I confessed mine,” she replied with a small sigh, avoiding Darren’s gaze. Her friend froze mid-stretch, his eyes going wide.
“You did?”
She forced her gaze up to Darren’s. The worry she saw there made her smile. “I love him, Dar. I wanted him to know. If he’s going to make a decision about whether or not we’re worth fighting for, he needs all the facts.”
Darren’s lips pursed, but he went back to stretching. “Okay. Let’s say I don’t think you’re looney tunes. He didn’t say he loved you back?”
“He said he cared about me.” She bit her lip. It wasn’t the same thing, and the bleak expression on Darren’s face, the thinning of his mouth and the tightening of the skin over his cheeks, said he believed Henry was going to hurt her again. “And as far as non-verbal communications go, he was pretty adamant about his feelings.”
“Sex is not love, Sophie. You know that.” His words were spoken with a gentle inflection, but she still flinched.
“I do know that. But I’m not just talking about the fact that we had sex. I’m talking about how we had sex.”
“I do not need to know your kinky details, Soph.” Darren held up his hands. Sophie slapped at them.
“When he touched me... Dar, he touches me like he loves me.”
Darren face lost some of its tension, but his eyes still roamed hers
with concern. “So, why do you still look like you might possibly cry?”
He knew her too damn well. She bit her lip. “I know he’s holding back. I don’t know what, but there always seems to be something he’s keeping away from me.”
“Not the Nicole thing?”
Sophie shook her head. “No, not the Nicole thing. I don’t know what. Just, things he seems determined to keep close to the chest. He keeps me at arm’s length, emotionally. And I’m not sure he’s willing to bring me closer. Or if he even wants to.”
Wouldn’t he have said he loved her back last night, if he really wanted to? That was the thought that plagued her. She’d said it, and he’d told her he needed to think. But the way he’d made love to her, the intensity with which he’d looked at her each time she said the words. Surely she wasn’t misreading all of that?
Darren hopped to his feet and pulled her to hers as the first couple of students began to stream in. They tossed Sophie and Darren waves and hellos and began to warm up themselves.
“What are you going to do?” Darren asked softly, his hand still on hers. Sophie shrugged, her smile slipping a little.
“Whatever happens, I’m glad I told him. I’m glad he knows someone loves him. If...” She swallowed. “If he doesn’t love me back, then at least I’ll know I didn’t leave anything on the table. I won’t have any regrets.”
She spun away from him and clapped her hands, drawing the class’s attention. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
Darren’s eyes were solemn on her, but as soon as he turned on the music, his teacher persona slid into place. She was the task master, he was the joker. It was a nice balance between the two of them and kept the classes from either degenerating into chaos or becoming boring and stuffy.
Sophie tried to keep her attention focused on the class, on Darren, on the dance steps, and not on Henry. He would meet her half way, or he wouldn’t. She’d done everything that she could think of to convince him they had something worth fighting for. Now, the ball was in his court.
“Make sure your partner’s attention doesn’t wander, class!” Darren’s voice was laced with a sharp edge of irony that yanked Sophie out of her daze as he spun her around. “If your partner’s not focused on you, you could both get hurt. It’s your job to keep them engaged.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, heat flushing her cheeks.
Darren’s smiled crookedly as they executed a complicated volcado. “Thinking about Henry?”
“I know I need to stop. If he’s not willing to risk it, then I need to move on.” She exhaled a short breath at the pain that clutched at her heart.
“I wouldn’t be in quite such a hurry.” Darren’s eyes twinkled as they flicked over her shoulder, and then he drew them both to a halt.
“Darren, what—”
Henry’s fingers brushed her shoulder. She’d know the electricity in that touch anywhere. “May I cut in?”
Darren clapped his hands. “Class, let’s all direct our attention to Sophie and our special guest for the day, Mr. Henry Medina.”
Sophie shot Darren a glare, but he just grinned wider. Henry extended his hand. “I’d hate to disappoint your class,” he said softly out of the corner of his mouth.
His dimple flashed at her and Sophie relented with a sigh, slipping her hand into his. And just like last night at the party, they moved together with a passion and grace that she had never felt before. When Henry lifted her against him, she didn’t tense, and when he tilted her suddenly backwards, she didn’t worry about falling.
Here, he had never let her down.
He spun her out, brought her back. She kicked up her leg and he caught it, bending her back. Once again, the hoots and hollers surrounded them. Henry grinned down at her. Sophie couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips in reply.
“Will you come with me? Now?” His voice was low as he righted her. Sophie’s heart jumped into her mouth and refused to return to its place in her chest no matter how many times to swallowed.
“Go,” Darren shooed them both with a flick of his fingers. “I can handle the studio today.”
Electric anxiety burned in her belly. “Okay.” It came out as a croak. They were finally going to have the talk, the one that could spell the end of their relationship.
She was glad when Henry tucked her fingers into the crook of his arm and led her out the front door. Pinned between his arm and his body, he wouldn’t be able to tell how badly she was trembling.
***
She’d thought—dreaded—that he would begin talking the minute he got her in the car. But they drove in silence for what felt like an hour. In reality, it was little more than ten minutes.
They didn’t head toward his apartment, which would have given her hope. Instead, he headed to the Upper West Side. There, among the upscale buildings, he pulled up beside a tall, blank metal security fence. Sophie couldn’t see over it to what was on the other side.
“Where are we?”
Henry didn’t answer. He merely got out of the car and went around to open her door. His face was hard and grim, dark eyes flat, mouth a thin line. Sophie’s heart beat hard in her chest.
“Henry?”
He led her to the fence without a word, his hand on the small of her back. Several padlocks secured the gate. Henry bent over them, a ring of keys jingling musically in his hands.
Sophie stared at the back of his neck, the dark hair curling there. Her fingers knotted into a ball. She was anxious and, frankly, a little afraid. She wanted to reach out and touch him, feel the connection that she always felt when they were skin to skin. But his face was so bleak. He would just shrug her off, and she wasn’t sure her poor, pirouetting heart could take that.
When the last padlock was undone, he pushed open the gate and ushered her inside, closing it behind them. Sophie jerked to a halt, frowning at the sight before her.
There was nothing. Just an empty dirty lot. This was a prime location on the Upper West Side. A building here could bring Medina Properties a lot of money. But it was empty, and clearly had been for awhile. There was no sign of impending construction. The dirt was packed down, and grass had grown in uneven patches.
No graffiti or other signs of vandalism or homeless inhabitants littered the lot, surprisingly. Though, she supposed Henry’s company paid for top notch security.
“Why did you bring me here, Henry?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, his gaze intent on the empty lot. “This is where I grew up,” he said finally, his voice a harsh whisper.
Sophie stumbled back a step in surprise, her wide eyes scanning the barren plot. She hadn’t expected anything like that to come out of Henry’s mouth. “W-what?”
“When my father moved my mother from Argentina, he brought her here.” He poked at the straggly grass with the toe of his polished Oxford. “It was a very nice building, and a very nice apartment. We lived here until I was six.”
“That’s when your mother died.” It wasn’t a question. Sophie only had to look at the nearly tortured expression on Henry’s face to guess that whatever he was struggling with, it had something to do with the mother he obviously still mourned, all these years later.
He turned, his dark eyes meeting hers, and the anguish there took her breath away. “That’s when my mother committed suicide.”
Sophie pressed her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Henry.” She covered the few steps between them in an instant and touched his hunched shoulder gently. “I’m so sorry.”
“She was miserable here. She’d given up her acting when she left Argentina, and my father was a very busy man. She was alone.” His voice was almost a whisper when he spoke these last words.
“She had you.”
Henry flinched as if she’d struck him. “I was a very boisterous child. Very demanding. I never gave her a moment’s peace.” He spoke as if by rote, and ice filled Sophie’s veins. Those didn’t sound like Henry’s words. It sounded as if he was repeating what someone else had said
. Jorge?
“Henry –”
“I... It became too much. She took a handful of pills and then just... didn’t wake up.” He stared into the air as if he could still see the apartment building there. Sophie thought he probably could.
She circled in front of him and slid her arms around his waist, squeezing. “That’s a horrible thing for you to have experienced, especially as a young child. But Henry, surely you know that it wasn’t your fault? Not at all.”
He still didn’t meet her gaze.
“After the funeral, my father bought the whole building, evicted everyone, and had it torn down. He refuses to allow anything to be built on this spot.”
Sophie laid her cheek against Henry’s chest, listened to his heartbeat, her eyes resting on a patch of lush, green grass. She was more than a little surprised by Jorge’s actions. They seemed like behavior of a man who’d genuinely loved his wife. For all he cared about Medina Properties and his legacy, to have such a lucrative piece of land sitting undeveloped... he must have loved Catalina.
Was his vile, bitter attitude today all because he’d lost his love? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Henry said he’d been very busy before her death, leaving her alone with a young child. Guilt and bitterness could eat away at a person, if you let it. Sophie knew that well.
Maybe his obsession with his “legacy” and seeing Henry’s future secure was some sort of attempt to honor his dead wife’s memory. If it was, he’d forgotten to take Henry’s happiness into account. Though she didn’t know much about Catalina Flores Medina, she’d bet everything she had that the woman would have wanted to see her son happy.
Whatever her own struggles, she had clearly loved Henry. That love had marked him, just as surely as her death had. It had helped make him the man he was today. Without the ghost of his mother’s love, Sophie doubted he would have made it through growing up with Jorge.
You’re killing me, Henry.
Don’t say that Sophie, you don’t know how much those words hurt me.
“Henry, what I said on the phone. I—I had no idea. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it, I was hurt and I didn’t know.”
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