by July Hall
His only heir.
Charles stalked to the window, looking at the immaculate grounds outside but unable to enjoy them. Someday, all of this would go to that ungrateful little shit. Rosalie had miscarried once after Bradley’s birth, and later had confessed she wanted to have no more children—certainly not with Robert. Stephen said he didn’t want to have children at all, via test tube or any other means. Charles could have remarried, done his duty to the family yet again, but that was the one piece of his soul he couldn’t barter.
Now everything he’d built was going to end up in Bradley’s hands, where doubtlessly it would fall apart even more quickly than it had in Leon Magister’s. All his work for nothing. That couldn’t happen. Should Charles do the unthinkable and take the company public? Would that save it after he was gone?
He took deep, steady breaths, trying to compose himself. After a while, a soft knock came at the door. Charles turned to see Warrick standing there with a solemn look on his face. “Mr. Bradley has left, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. The security cameras showed him pulling out of the driveway and on to the main road.”
“Did he say anything before he left?”
“Not that I know of, but I saw him put on a headset as he drove away.”
Charles snorted, wondering whom Bradley would call to complain about the unfairness of the world. Probably Rosalie. And then she’d say that Charles was too hard on Bradley, and…
“Thank you, Warrick,” Charles said, and strode out of his office, heading toward his suite. Toward Sandra. He turned off his cell phone. “I am to be disturbed for emergencies only.”
He half-heard Warrick say yes, sir as he continued on his way. This was not the mood he’d hoped to spend the rest of the day in. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, trying to let his anger go out with his breath. It would not do to greet Sandra like this.
She’d seemed so happy earlier. Radiant at the thought of spending the weekend with him. He wanted…no, needed to put that look back on her face. Surely the rest could go to hell for a little while.
He’d spent ten years wanting nothing for himself. The next thirty-six hours were long overdue.
When he arrived at his suite, he saw Sandra in the sitting area, curled up on the Queen Anne chaise longue. Her flats lay neatly placed on the floor. She had a book in her lap, but when she heard him, she looked up so quickly that she couldn’t have been focused on it.
Charles sat on the end of the chaise. Sandra watched in evident shock as he placed her feet in his lap, rubbing his thumb over her right instep. “What are you reading?” he asked.
She blinked and then showed him the cover. “Great Yachts of the North Shore.”
“You enjoy yachting?”
“I grabbed the first thing I saw on the shelf.” She set it on the floor. “What happened with Bradley?”
“He’s gone. He never knew you were here.” Charles took a deep breath and continued rubbing her feet. She had lovely feet. “Your suspicions were correct.”
She frowned. “My suspicions? You mean—” Her eyes cleared, and she went pale. “The women. The…” She gulped. “Prostitutes and stuff.”
He continued looking into her eyes. “Yes.”
“Fuck.” To Charles’s dismay, she removed her feet from his lap. She curled up into a ball at the end of the chaise. “I knew it.” She blinked, and he saw her eyes go glassy. “Asshole.”
“He isn’t worth your tears,” Charles said sharply.
“I know that,” she said just as sharply, dashing a hand over her cheeks and looking furious. “I’m not crying for him, not like that.” And she was crying, Charles saw. He started to see red, and reminded himself yet again that no matter the provocation, you didn’t hit your nephew.
“Then why are you crying?” he asked, trying to sound calm.
She gave him a bleak look. “You seriously can’t imagine it, can you?” she asked. “Feeling like this. He thinks I’m nothing. He was doing this the whole time, wasn’t he? It wasn’t just once, was it?” Charles set his jaw and shook his head. Sandra laughed bitterly, and another tear streaked down her cheek. She wiped that one away, too. “Try to imagine it. I’ve been thinking about it the whole time you were talking to him. I wasn’t a person to him. Has anyone ever treated you like you weren’t a person?”
“Sometimes they treat me like a bank.” Sandra glared at him. Charles sighed, “No. No one’s ever treated me like Bradley’s treated you.”
She shuddered. “It’s so sordid and gross. It’s…it’s what I never wanted my life to be. My parents taught me to respect myself, to know what I’m worth. I forgot that.” She gulped. “He was using me.”
“He was.” He couldn’t take much more of the pain on her face. How to make it go away? It wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. “Bradley respects nobody. That’s no reflection on you.”
“How far would it have gone?” Her lips trembled. “You thought he did it just that one time, but if you learned the truth and you and I weren’t…” She waved her hand back and forth between them. “Whatever we are. Would you have told me?”
“Yes,” he said.
She blinked at him. She clearly hadn’t expected that. “Really?” she said. “Even though it could have embarrassed your family?”
Charles took a deep breath. “If you had stayed with him, and I had learned the truth farther down the line…I would have told you. No matter what happened.” Even if he had never touched her.
Because he knew that if Sandra had stuck around, married Bradley, and remained in Charles’s life, he would never have been free of her. The more he saw her and spoke with her, the farther he would have fallen. Soon enough, he would have arrived at the place he was now. Dazzled and enraptured and lost.
“You would have?” she said.
“I would have. Yes.”
For a moment, she looked at him without speaking. Then she sat up and shifted toward him on the chaise, straddling his lap and looking into his eyes. “I believe you,” she said.
He brushed a thumb over one damp cheek. Then he leaned in and kissed it. It tasted salty.
She gulped. “At first, I thought you were the one who wanted to use me. That you didn’t care about me, just what I could be for your family.” Charles kissed her jaw. He’d tried to see her in that light. He hadn’t succeeded for a single hour. “But that was him, not you.”
“You are more than that,” Charles murmured, already losing himself in her scent and her taste. He kissed her other cheek. “He’s an idiot, and he always has been.”
“He sure made me an idiot for a little while.”
“Sandra—”
“No, just listen. It’s so messed up, but I keep thinking…at least it brought me here with you. At least I got last night with you.” She wiped the traces of a final tear from her cheek. “Does that sound pathetic? It’s true. I didn’t know anything could ever be like that. It was worth all the rest, one night with you was…”
“One night?” He couldn’t have heard that correctly.
Sandra sighed. “One weekend, I guess. However long we have. I know it’s not much.” She took a deep breath and held her head high. “But it’s worth it.”
One weekend? She seemed to believe that. Well, she had no reason not to. He hadn’t spoken of the future. Now, obviously, she was trying to be prudent.
She wasn’t wrong to be. If they were found out, then scandal would rock the company. Rosalie would probably stop speaking to him, and the Magister name would be a joke again—just like it had been with his father. Charles would be a laughingstock, having an affair with a girl half his age whom he’d poached from his own nephew. Sandra had hit the nail on the head: “sordid” was the least of it.
The damage to her own reputation would be even worse. They’d call her an opportunist who went for the bigger fish. None of her hard work or professional accomplishments would matter. She’d be Charles Magister’s midlife crisis, and that
was all. Why should she throw away her good name for him?
He’d think of something. He could protect them both from scandal. Did she really think she’d walk away from him after a torrid couple of days with a “thanks for the memories”?
“We don’t have to talk about that right now,” he said, stroking his hands up and down her sides. “You don’t have to think about any of it yet.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “I don’t have to worry my pretty little head?”
Refusing to be baited, Charles said, “You made a request of me. I agreed. I don’t back out of my agreements.”
“What?”
“You asked if I would make love to you.” She turned a lovely shade of pink. As well she might. “Although you might not be interested just now.” He danced his fingertips over her blouse, up to her breasts. She must be wearing a very thin bra; her nipples pebbled beneath his fingers, and he knew he’d be able to see their peaks beneath her shirt.
He didn’t look. He kept gazing into her eyes. She was breathing more quickly and turning even pinker. “Are you interested?” he asked. “I am. I’ve been waiting.”
“You have?” she asked, pushing forward against his fingers. Victory. “You seemed pretty calm during breakfast.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You read the paper!”
“In self-defense.” He kept looking into her eyes as he moved his hands to cup her breasts completely. She gasped. “I had to have something to think about besides your ass in these jeans.”
The last of her distress faded away before his eyes. She even gave him a hopeful smile. “I was wondering if you’d like the jeans.”
Her smiles would be the end of him. They’d melt him like wax. To distract himself, he cupped the perfect ass in question. “Did you spray-paint them on?”
She said innocently, “They’re so tight that when you take them off, my underwear comes off too.”
He gaped at her.
Sandra slid her arms around his neck and brushed her lips over his forehead. “We don’t have to think about anything else yet?” she whispered. Her kisses moved downward, across his cheek.
He hoped not, because he’d never manage it. “Nothing but this.” He slid his hands up beneath her blouse, touching the soft skin of her back.
“Good. I don’t want to.” She trembled against him. “I just want to have you again and forget about everything.” He groaned into her throat. “Did you want me too, on the beach?”
He remembered the sight of her face, eyes glazed and lips parted, while the wind tossed her hair. “I had you on the beach.” He clasped her tighter to him. “I made you come and now I’m going to do it again.”
“Will you fuck me?” she asked, a tiny whimper in her voice as she pressed down with her hips. “Will you be inside me again?”
At her words, his cock began to stiffen beneath her. She felt it, and undulated against him with a sigh. “Is that how you want it?” he growled. “You want to get fucked?” He let himself imagine it, remember how heavenly it had felt. And there was no reason to deny himself; he’d looked up birth control implants while she was still sleeping. Impressive. He should have known Sandra would choose something reliable.
Apparently they also stopped women from having periods a lot of the time. That would be nice.
“Can you be gentle?” she asked, scratching her nails lightly over the nape of his neck. She shivered again. “I want it hard. I like it like that. But…today, I think I need you to be…”
He’d tried to be gentle last time. She’d had other ideas. “If you cooperate,” he rasped, tugging at her blouse and pushing it up her torso. She obediently raised her arms above her head, and together they worked to pull it off. It fell to the floor.
She wore a plain, unlined nude bra. “I didn’t know you’d be seeing my underwear,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “I didn’t pack anything sexy.”
He would buy her lingerie, he decided, tracing his fingers over the beige shoulder straps. Lovely, obscenely expensive things. What could be more satisfying than to see her in his gifts?
He probably shouldn’t put Violet on that one.
“Just as well,” he said, unhooking Sandra’s bra. “Suppose you were in that blue satin again. I’d be inside you already, on the floor.”
“Oh,” she gasped. She bent over so he could slide the straps down her arms. The bra joined the blouse on the floor and he looked greedily at her breasts, all rose and cream. “I mean, that sounds rude of you.”
“I’d hate to be rude.” He took the tips of her nipples between his fingers and began to pinch and twist them, remembering how she’d responded before. Sure enough, she arched into his hands with a groan. “I’d hate to be inconsiderate.” He tugged gently. “I’d hate to be mean.” Then he pressed the pads of his thumbs to her hardened nipples and rubbed her in firm circles.
Sandra’s hips bucked, and she ground her denim-clad ass against his erection with a little moan. He rested his forehead between her breasts as he tried to keep it together. He was already losing himself.
“Yes, please.” She stroked his head, and he took her meaning, gliding his lips over her flesh until he could take one nipple in his mouth. He sucked hard, and she cried out.
“You’re so good,” she whimpered, rocking her hips again. “Oh God, I love your mouth.”
He loved hers as well. He needed it. Charles raised his face to hers and pulled her down for a kiss, and then more kisses, more than he could bear. Her warm weight on his thighs was becoming a torment, putting pressure on his cock with no promise of relief. He needed to move them to the bed, where they could stretch out again and he could show her how good it could…
With a sigh, Sandra stopped kissing him, slid off his lap, and knelt between his legs.
Charles’s brain tripped over itself. Sandra looked up at him with a mischievous smile, her lips swollen and her breasts reddened from his kisses. His plans turned into dust as she leaned forward and pressed her face into his lap, rubbing her mouth and nose against the length of his erection through his pants. He gasped.
“I loved sucking you,” she whispered. “I didn’t know I would, but I did. I want to see how deep I can take you.”
Charles grabbed hold of the edge of the chaise instead of her hair. “I thought you wanted me to fuck you,” he croaked.
“Well, yeah. I want both,” she said, and he heard the unspoken “duh.” She gave him another hopeful smile. “You can tell me what you like best.”
What he liked best? That was unfair. It was like asking a drowning man what color life vest he preferred. “Anything’s fine,” he said through his teeth.
She scowled at his waist. “Why did you wear a belt?” she said, and reached for the buckle. “It’s just going to slow me down.”
He always wore belts. He put on his pants and he put on a belt. Why did he do that? Sandra was licking her lips. Maybe he would stop wearing belts. That sounded sensible.
She began pulling the belt open. Before it was too late, Charles stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and nodded to the open bedroom door. “In there.” He rose and tugged her to her feet.
“Why?”
“Because I want to do this. Put your arms around my neck.”
“Oh!” she said as he scooped her into his arms and began to carry her to his bedroom. She blushed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Seems like squash is a good workout.”
“And it seems you eat like a bird.” He bounced her a little. She yelped and tightened her grip on him as he gained the doorway.
He hadn’t made love to a woman in his own bed in years, here or in the city. It had never felt right before. Today, nothing seemed more right.
“You’re really grabby,” she said when he laid her on the bed. She was flushed as she looked up at him, but a smile lingered on her mouth. “You’re always grabbing me whenever you feel like it.”
“How else can I make sure you don’t get away?” he asked, u
nbuttoning his shirt and looking again at her bare breasts. She probably thought he was joking.
“Maybe you should trust me not to go.” Sandra rolled to her side and propped herself up on one elbow, red hair falling over her shoulders.
“Oh, no,” Charles said. He shrugged his shirt to the floor. “Not yet.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sex with Charles could be fun. That was something Sandra would never, ever have guessed. He was by turns ice and fire, sometimes scary, always intense. Their first encounter had wrecked her. Their second had shaken her. He’d made her fall to pieces on the beach.
But this morning—afternoon, now?—he seemed content to revel in her, indulging her whims. If something made her moan, he did it again and again; if she whispered a request, he was delighted to oblige. A smile lingered at the corners of his mouth, as if he had everything he wanted, even though his own arousal remained unsatisfied. He didn’t even seem to need her to do anything to him.
Was this him being happy? Sandra kissed him again. His mouth parted willingly for hers. She’d never been with anyone who liked kissing as much as he did. Was it possible she could really make him happy?
“Come back,” Charles breathed in her ear, pushing two fingers inside her. She gasped. “Come back here with me.”
“I am here,” Sandra managed, quivering around his fingers. “I was…I was thinking about you.”
“We’ll have to fix that.” Charles curled his fingers gently. “I’m not thinking at all.”
Wrong. Gears were turning behind those gorgeous eyes. She knew what he looked like when he wasn’t thinking, when his need was too much to bear and he lost himself. This wasn’t it.
“Yes, you are,” she said, passing her hand over one cheek. “You’re plotting. Ooh.”
He’d found the rough spot inside her, the one that sent flares of pleasure through her whole body, and was lazily rubbing it. His movements were loose and unhurried, but his voice sounded a little edgier when he said, “What could I possibly be plotting right now?”
“I don’t know, but you are. I can tell. Oh God.” He began to rub more firmly. “Oh, yes!”