By the time I returned home, I was exhausted but satisfied with the results. Raymond was a hard man to break down but, as was always the case with successful business deals, the trick was to play to his ego while at the same time checking for chinks in his armor. And I’d found them.
He was a family man, through and through. He was looking forward to the wedding, he’d said, because Sienna was his pride and joy, his little girl, the love of his life. I got the impression he’d never been particularly happily married, and he was keen for Sienna to have a wonderful union with a man who deserved her. And Tom, he said, was the perfect guy.
I’d struggled not to raise an eyebrow when he waxed lyrical over my little brother, but I certainly wasn’t about to contradict him, either. I needed him to think Tom was the best thing since sliced bread. And, realistically, I needed Tom to be the best thing since sliced bread, too.
There was no doubt that he loved Sienna. For all of my brother’s faults, he’s not heartless. He’d never dream of settling down with someone for business reasons. Their marriage was a love match; it just so happened that it was incredibly convenient for me at the same time.
All the same, he was a young man, with a young man’s drive, and he was a sucker for a pretty face. Rachel Evans had such a face and had a body to match, that was for sure. And, if that wasn’t enough, she had brains, too, a quick tongue and a sharp edge that I was beginning to see a lot more of working with her these last couple of weeks. I was sure Tom wouldn’t have noticed that in her, but her physical appearance alone was enough to make him pant like a Boston terrier suffering from heatstroke.
So far, though, my plan had worked. Rachel had been in New York for almost two weeks straight, even choosing to stay the first weekend as well. In order to keep her in the city, and under my watchful eye, I’d offered her the use of one of the company’s apartments, so that she didn’t have to travel to and from Long Island every day. It made sense, I told her, to be near the site so that she could go down there at any time and check on anything she needed.
She’d also met Jennifer, and the two of them were working well together. I was confident that the project was in good hands as I left to jet over to Hawaii.
I arrived back home late on the Friday evening. While I had, of course, called Noah every evening to say goodnight to him, it was never a substitute for doing it in person. I popped my head around his open bedroom door. He was sleeping as he always did: on top of the covers, arms wrapped fiercely around his teddy bear, his fair hair sticking up in all directions.
I didn’t want to wake him and should have slipped out of the room again, but I’d missed him so much that I couldn’t resist walking inside and carefully sitting down on the edge of his bed. He stirred a little but didn’t move. I reached out and stroked his face, warm with sleep, then leaned down to kiss his temple.
At this, he moved his little hand up and touched my face. “You need a shave, Daddy,” he said, his eyes still closed. I chuckled and kissed his little hand.
“I’ll do it in the morning, Little Man,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’m going riding tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to see Rachel.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, go back to sleep now and it’ll be morning before you know it.”
He didn’t need asking twice. Within a few seconds, he was back in a deep slumber. I watched him for a little while, taking in his blond hair, his little button nose. He looked so much like Amy. At first, looking into his eyes so soon after his mother’s death had been difficult.
Sitting there in the low light, I was taken back to the first few hours after his birth, when my wife sat up in bed, holding this tiny little figure in her arms. He was dressed in a white sleeper and warmly wrapped in a plush baby blanket.
“He’s supposed to look like his daddy when he’s firstborn,” she said. “But he looks just like me.”
“Why should he look like me?” I asked.
“No reason. I just thought he would. But looking at him right now, it’s like he’s my double. He looks just like I did when I was a baby.”
“That’s a good thing, love,” I said, looking down at my beautiful son. She was right. He was the mirror image of his mother. “You’re definitely the better looking of the two of us.”
She turned to me, frowning. “That’s nonsense,” she said. “You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever known in my life. And I hope Noah grows up to look just like you.”
“And I’m glad he looks just like you,” I said, kissing her softly.
She looked at me, her eyes sad. “I hope that whoever he looks like, I’m there to see it,” she whispered, and a moment that should have been nothing but joyful, was tinged with such a deep sadness, that in that moment, I think my heart shattered into a million pieces. It had been broken even before she’d died, a couple of months later, and I thought it would never mend again.
Noah had been the only thing that kept me sane for a very long time, and now, sitting on his bed, looking down at his little face, I wanted to tell him how grateful I was to him. He would never understand how he had been the one thing that had kept me going, the one who had given me a reason to get up in the morning.
Amy hadn’t wanted him to grow up without a mother. In some ways, it’s a gift to be given advanced notice of death rather than it happening swiftly in an accident where nobody is prepared and everyone is left shocked and helpless. Her cardiomyopathy caused her to live every day as though it could literally have been her last. She’d known for many years that she might not live past thirty, but she didn’t even make it that far. She passed away three days after her twenty-sixth birthday.
“Don’t sit in the house and be miserable forever,” she’d told me, in quiet moments when it made sense to talk about the future, even one she knew she’d not feature in. “You’re too gorgeous to be single for the rest of your life. I want you and Noah to be looked after.”
“I’ll look after Noah,” I always assured her. “You will never, ever have to worry about that.”
She’d stroked my face, her long, delicate fingers smooth along my rough cheek. “And who’ll look after you?” she asked. “You have so much to give, Alex. Don’t shut yourself off from love. If you find it again, sweetheart, you grab hold of it with both hands and don’t let go. Besides, Noah should have brothers and sisters. I grew up as an only child and I don’t really want that for him.”
We had many conversations like these and thinking about them now made me wonder whether I’d failed her. Because I’d never met anyone else who could hold a candle to Amy, and it meant that Noah was growing up as an only child.
“We’re doing all right, aren’t we, Little Man?” I whispered softly to him, but he didn’t wake up.
Lying in bed an hour later, sleep still eluded me. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong, but my mind was whirling. I’ve always been a good sleeper. Matters of business had no place being in my bedroom, and I’ve always been able to leave them outside. But something was playing on my mind.
I was thinking about the new project. The designs were on my mind. No, Rachel was on my mind. She was just so damn alluring, strutting around in those tight little work outfits she seemed to love so much, distracting me just that little more than I’d care to admit to myself. Shit, she could have worn a paper sack and it would still have had the same effect on me.
Even so, she was far too feisty for my liking. I’d married such a meek, mild and delicate rose, to which Rachel was the polar opposite. I wondered why it was that Noah liked her so much.
And yet, even with my eyes closed and the bedroom at the perfect cool temperature, I couldn’t sleep because behind my eyelids I could see a dark figure of a woman standing in the heat of a Spanish evening, sipping a glass of wine while everywhere around her, a fire was blazing. It must have been the photos I’d seen of Rachel’s designs of the bullfighter’s exhibition that played on my mind. T
he fire was now alight in her eyes.
God!
I rolled over onto my stomach, which wasn’t easy because I was hard. I rolled onto my back again and held my cock. Breathing deeply, I knew there was no use but to dispel the thoughts of Rachel Evans in the quickest way possible. So, I allowed my mind to wander, and I thought back to how incredible her ass had looked in that white pantsuit, as she’d walked away from me, across the room to fetch the water.
My hand moved up and down the long shaft of my cock a little faster now, and my breathing was getting heavier. In my mind’s eye, my nose was in her hair, my lips grazing her neck, and I was holding her close to me. My hands were holding her firm, round ass, and then they were moving up her back, slipping under her shirt. Her skin was soft and smooth, tanned from the Spanish sun.
We were in the office, and I was holding her hands now, but instead of kissing them, I was holding them above her head, but she was no longer in her shirt. In fact, she was wearing nothing at all. Her breasts, gloriously round and peaked, each peaked with a stiff nipple, were now pressed against my chest, and keeping her hands firmly in my grasp, I lowered my head and took one of her nipples between my teeth. I sucked on it and gave it a little tug with my teeth, and I could almost hear her gasp in delight.
I was pumping my cock faster and faster, and I barely had the image of her legs wrapped around my waist before I knew I was close to orgasm. I thought about plunging into her hot, soaking wet depths, and that was enough to send me into oblivion. My cock jerked furiously, and onto my chest spurted bullets of hot cum. My balls were on fire, as red-hot as a matador’s cape, and I couldn’t help but groan loudly into the night.
I lay in the darkness for several minutes, my heart pounding, and now I was thinking about Rachel’s legs around my head, my tongue gently lapping up the last traces of her own orgasm. Finally, I reached for a Kleenex and cleaned myself up before tossing it into the bin at the other end of the room.
Then, finally, I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t move a muscle until the following morning.
Chapter 19
________
RACHEL
“What happens if we go riding in the rain?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does the horse not like it?”
“I have no idea. I don’t think Bonnie would mind too much. She’s spent plenty of time outside.”
“Then why can’t I go riding?”
“Oh. Because I don’t want you to get wet.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t think your Dad would thank me for it.”
“He won’t mind either.”
Noah’s eager little face was looking up at me as we sat on a bale of hay, staring outside into the empty riding ring. The rain was coming down in torrents, a freak downpour that nobody had seen coming.
“Please, Rachel,” he begged. “I really want to go riding today.”
I smiled down at him, but shook my head. “It’s too wet,” I said. “When it’s wet, you can catch a chill and that’s not good. It can give you a bad cold and you’ll be sneezing and coughing. You don’t want to be sick and then have to stay in bed for the rest of the weekend, do you?”
He nodded. “Nope, but I won’t get a cold. I promise.”
“We can ride anytime. Your daddy owns all these horses.”
He seemed content with that, and after a few seconds, he leaned his head on my arm. “I don’t mind. I like being here with you.”
I was so touched that I found myself giving the top of his head a peck. “And I like being here with you, too.”
“Why aren’t you married, Rachel?”
Great. I was just starting to like the kid’ and now, even he was reminding me that I was on the shelf and quickly nearing my sell-by date.
“I was engaged once,” I told him. “When I lived in Spain. But we decided not to get married after all.”
“Why?”
Because he was a cheating bastard who couldn’t keep it in his pants for longer than five minutes, I thought. Aloud, though, I simply explained in the kind of terms that a five-year-old could understand, that sometimes, things just don’t work out.
“My daddy was married once,” said Noah. “But my mommy had a sick heart and she got ill and died. So now he isn’t married.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about your mom,” I said.
“Why are you sorry? Did you do something?”
I sipped my coffee and shook my head. “No, of course not. But when someone dies, we tell their loved ones that we’re sorry.”
“Why? If it’s not our fault?”
“It’s because we feel sorry for them. We’re sorry to hear such a sad story.”
“Oh, okay.”
He lifted his head and pointed to the house, a sudden gleam in his eyes. “If Daddy’s not married, and you’re not married, why don’t you marry Daddy?”
Oh, God. This was worse than if he’d suddenly decided to ask me where babies came from. I smiled at him. “I guess it’s because it doesn’t always work like that. We’d have to be in love and we’re not.”
“Oh.” He looked crestfallen, so we changed the subject.
After I took him back to the house, I wondered if I should have raised it with Alexander. I certainly didn’t want to talk to him about it, but I thought he might want to know what was being discussed. He was a protective parent, more hands-on than plenty of dads I’ve seen who weren’t running an empire for a living. He might have wanted to know about the sort of things that played on his son’s mind.
But I decided against it. He wasn’t there, anyway; Alastair opened the door and told us that his father had gone into the city on urgent business and wouldn’t be back until later. I was relieved. It saved me an awkward conversation if I’d ended up changing my mind.
Back at the house, I sat and wondered what might have been the reason for his rush into the city. It must have had something to do with Skyline. I sat on the couch, toying with my phone, wondering whether I should text or call him to see if everything was okay. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going into New York on a busy Saturday afternoon, but it wasn’t just my reputation that was on the line; it was Kate’s, too.
So, although I knew I’d probably regret it, I dialed his cell and, to my surprise, he picked up immediately.
“Rachel.”
“Alex. I heard at the house that you’d left for the city. Is everything okay?”
“No, it’s fucking not,” he said. “The contractors have dropped the ball in a huge way. They’ve gone and misread the plans, and now I have a huge fucking space where there should have been walls. They’ve put up other walls where I would have been running the inside plumbing and the gas fittings for the kitchen. It’s a damn mess.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s not good.”
“No shit. They’re no better than trained apes,” Alexander said, and he sighed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now. The plans will have to be re-drawn, which means the designs are going to have to change, too. The floor plans are different. It’s going to add weeks to the project.”
“Were they holding the blueprint upside down or something?” I asked.
“It sounds farcical, but yes, I think it was something like that.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in a little while.”
“Great. Take my Jeep.”
He hung up. I looked at the phone and tutted. “You’re welcome,” I said aloud. I’d been doing him a favor that morning, taking his son riding. He wasn’t to know just yet, that the ride hadn’t happened due to the weather. Not that I really minded teaching Noah, but the least he could do is give me the courtesy of a descend good-bye before hanging up.
All the same, I wanted to know what was going on with the project. I wanted to get there as soon as possible. Thinking that I was going to be full of mud from riding, I hadn’t showered that morning, so I quickly hopped in. I don’t know why, but I even washed my hair, which
was usually a very long and arduous task, thanks to my mother’s Italian genes.
Once out of the shower, I slipped into some skinny jeans and a t-shirt. I scooped my hair up and twisted it into a clip, fastening it tightly so I knew it would stay put for the rest of the afternoon. I put on some makeup and slipped my feet into some smart high heels. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. I had no idea why I spent so much time looking at myself when I was going to work, of all places. But something didn’t look right. I looked too plain. Not for the job, but for Alex.
So, I opened the closet again and this time found a black skirt I’d bought in Spain. It was one of the most expensive pieces I owned. It came down to just above my knee, and there was a slit on the side that went all the way up to my thigh. I rolled on a pair of stockings and tossed the t-shirt aside, settling for a dress shirt and a camisole instead.
I hurried across the grounds of the estate with my portfolio case tucked underneath my arm, clutching my purse tightly in one hand, the other holding onto a large umbrella I’d found back at the house. The rain was coming down in sheets and I felt sorry for Dad, out there in on the estate, overseeing the cleaning operation of an old pond that the Maitlands were having restored.
At the main house, Alastair didn’t seem even slightly fazed when I asked him for the keys to Alexander’s Jeep. It was strange to hike up my skirt and climb inside the car, but once I was in, boy, did I feel at home. The leather seats were so soft and comfortable that it might as well have been kissed by God himself. I literally groaned with pleasure as I slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. Only, it didn’t roar to life. It purred.
The ride to New York was a dream and by the time I arrived in the city, the sky was black, and I saw that the rain, which had stopped as suddenly as it came, was once again threatening, as though it was up there in the clouds, biding its time before releasing another downpour. I parked the car outside the office and hurried inside before it started again.
ELEMENTAL LOVE: A Second Chance Single Dad Romance Page 11