If You Want Me: The Magister Series Book 1: A Billionaire Romance

by July Hall

  “Tell me you’re not talking about that pebble,” he said incredulously.

  She sighed. The pebble was already in her suitcase. “You know what I mean. You gave me a moment that meant something to you. I wanted to give you one too.” Something priceless for both of them.

  He gently squeezed her shoulders. She couldn’t make herself turn to face him, not until she had herself under control. God only knew what she’d blurt out if she looked into those green eyes.

  She might be coming back to this house to do her job, but would she ever be coming back to him? How could that really work? It would be so stupid, so imprudent, so…impossible. They’d had an amazing weekend. There was no reason for them to have more, except for her foolish heart that wanted what was worst for it.

  Time to face facts, before he faced them for her.

  “I have to leave now,” she whispered. To her horror, her eyes pricked with tears.

  His grip turned tight on her shoulders. She felt him stop breathing for a second. “Yes,” he said.

  “And, um.” Her head bowed forward. She looked at her lap, where she still kept her hands clasped so they wouldn’t tremble. Never let them see you sweat. “I probably shouldn’t come back. I mean—not for this. You and me.” She bit her lip hard. Would she draw blood? “It’s…it’s a bad idea, right?”

  He let go of her shoulders and stepped back from her. The air suddenly felt freezing. Sandra almost wrapped her arms around herself again, but refrained at the last second.

  “It is indeed,” Charles said behind her. His voice was cool, showing no particular emotion. He might as well have been reporting the stock market index. Maybe he was relieved that she’d said it for him. This way he didn’t have to figure out how to let her down easy.

  “It was really great, though,” Sandra said, still looking at her hands. “I don’t want you to think…anyway, this meant a lot to me. Like I said before. I’m really glad I met you.”

  And I’m really sorry I fell in love with you in two days and fucked my whole life up, but at least you don’t have to know that part.

  Silence. She couldn’t manage to turn and look at him. After a moment, Charles said, “I have some matters to take care of in my office. Let me know when you’ve finished packing. I’ll meet you at the front door.”

  Sandra listened to the sound of his footsteps walking away. Her heart pounded so hard it ached. She pressed a fist against her chest. It didn’t help. Everything hurt.

  It was worth it, though. She hadn’t been lying about that part. Learning that it was possible to feel this way about something, about someone, when she’d spent her adult life hoping for everything to be just good enough…that was worth it.

  She rose from the piano bench, feeling older. Like she’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes. By the time she finally turned around, Charles was long gone from the hallway.

  With that weight in her chest, Sandra made her way back toward the guest bedroom. She’d re-packed everything after they’d returned from their walk on the beach. Their last walk on the beach. Fuck. It’s worth it, she reminded herself, you had something beautiful for a little while, and that means everything.

  As she walked down the hallway, Warrick rounded the corner. He raised his bushy white eyebrows when he saw her. “Ah, Miss Dane,” he said. “Will you be staying for—”

  Then he got a good look at her face. His mouth snapped shut while his eyes widened. “Oh dear,” he said quietly.

  Shit. Warrick, of all people, was not going to make her cry. She’d held back in front of Charles, and she was sure as hell going to hold back in front of his butler. She cleared her throat. “It’s okay,” she said. “Like you said, we…we figured out what we wanted.”

  “Yes,” Warrick said, his eyes still wide. “So I see.”

  Sandra dug her fingernails into her palms. She kept her voice polite when she said, “I enjoyed the weekend a lot. Thanks so much for your hospitality. I expect I’ll see you again soon—I’m still working on the study.” Just while Charles was away, that was all.

  That was going to be painful, too, spending days in the place where she’d been so happy and knowing it wasn’t going to happen again. But it wouldn’t be forever. She’d finish the job as soon as she could. And then…

  “I see.” Warrick looked a little sad for a moment, but then it disappeared, and he was again the consummate professional. “Ronny will help you with your bags.”

  “I don’t think I can wait on Ronny,” Sandra said. Her face was starting to get hot. “But if you can just get him to pull my car around? I’ll head straight to the front door and be on my way.”

  She could even make her escape without telling Charles. He probably wouldn’t mind. He’d probably be grateful for an excuse not to say any awkward good-byes.

  “Of course, miss,” Warrick said, narrowing his eyes a little.

  “Great. Thanks!” Without waiting for his reply, she hurried down the hall, her eyes stinging with tears she refused to shed.

  When she arrived at her room, she saw that somebody had made the bed again, even though she hadn’t slept in it. At least there weren’t any chocolate mints on the pillow. Her suitcase sat next to the overstuffed bench in the bay window, with her tote bag right next to it. She was all ready to go.

  Sandra sat down on the bench and took one deep breath. And then another. She wiped her cheek, because one stray tear had found its way out of her eye, and that was just ridiculous. She never cried, and Charles Magister had reduced her to tears three times in one weekend. He hadn’t even been trying. It was pathetic.

  She stood up on shaking legs, hoisted her tote bag on one shoulder, and took the handle of her suitcase. Everything felt so heavy, but she wasn’t waiting around for Ronny or anybody else to help her. She had to do this on her own. She took one step toward the doorway, and then two. There, it was getting easier. Three. By the time she made it to the front door, she’d be ready to run. Four—

  The bedroom door opened without a single knock, and Charles stepped in. He took one look at her standing there with her luggage, and his eyes flashed.

  Then he slammed the door behind him. Sandra gasped, unable to think of a single thing to say, because what—?

  “No,” Charles said, his eyes glittering with fury. “No, no, no.”

  Sandra stood frozen as he stalked forward. He yanked the suitcase from her grasp and tugged the tote bag from her shoulder. Both items tumbled onto the floor.

  Charles pushed her back against the wall, cradling her face in his hands and looking into her eyes. Sandra gaped at him like an idiot. His body was pressed to hers, so alive with heat, and she’d thought she would never be so close to him again.

  She didn’t know what to say. What the hell are you talking about? What the hell are you doing to me?

  But none of that had time to pass her lips before Charles kissed them. It was a hard kiss, and so hungry, as desperate as if they hadn’t been kissing each other for days on end.

  All her self-preservation instincts, all her good intentions, vanished. She threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back. He opened his mouth and she caught just the faintest taste of Scotch—he didn’t stink with it, but sometime between Debussy and now he’d knocked one back.

  She pulled back from him. Their lips parted with a wet sound. “I drove you to drink?” she asked breathlessly, trying to tease, but it came out serious.

  Charles snarled, “I’ve got my vices. That’s not one of them.” He cupped her face again. “Kiss me.”

  She dug her hands into his chest and pushed back instead. Oh God, his mouth was right there, so tempting…and only offering a beautiful illusion.

  “Okay, for how long?” she said. “Five more minutes? A couple of hours? Then I leave so we can go back to real life and act like this never happened?”

  “The hell we do.” He let go of her face, only to slide his arms around her waist. By now, every inch of her body knew every inch of his. It was like
coming back to life, like she’d been packed in snow for the last half hour and now she was melting again. Being in each other’s arms just seemed so natural.

  Charles felt it too. She saw it in his face. His beautiful eyes fluttered shut. “Feel this,” he breathed. “You must feel this.” He opened his eyes again, looking into hers. “This is where you belong.”

  Everything was spinning again. Why was he doing this? What did it matter where she belonged, if it was somewhere she couldn’t stay?

  “No I don’t,” she said, her voice breaking. She looked around the beautifully appointed room. “I mean, are you kidding? We can’t stay here forever, we can’t even stay here tomorrow. I don’t ‘belong’ here.”

  “I don’t mean just here. You belong with me.” His voice pulled her attention back to his face. She gasped at the look in his eyes. She’d never seen such unrelenting, absolute resolve.

  All of a sudden, Warrick’s voice echoed in her memory: Nobody’s ever crossed him and lived to tell the tale. When Charles Magister wanted something from someone, he got it. This must be what it was like to face off with him in a boardroom, or across the desk in his massive, lonely office.

  “The rest can be dealt with,” Charles added. “We’ll find a way. It’s not negotiable.”

  Negotiable? Who even said that? “A way,” she repeated slowly. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Do you want to continue this?” he asked flatly, pinning her with his eyes again. She couldn’t hide from those eyes. She’d never been able to, not since the night they’d met. “No qualifiers. Just ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

  She wasn’t getting out of this one. But maybe he’d believe her if she said no. Or even if he didn’t believe her, he’d have to accept it. Even Charles Magister had to take no for an answer sometimes. Didn’t he? It wasn’t like he could lock her up in his basement until she agreed.

  “Do you want this to end?” he persisted, his eyes burning.

  This time, she ought to lie. And she couldn’t. Not to him. Sandra shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t.”

  Now she’d said it. Too late to take it back. He could break her heart now, if he felt like it.

  Charles took in a breath and then exhaled. “Good,” he said, resting his cheek on the top of her head. Sandra pressed her face to his chest. No, she never wanted to leave him. She never wanted this to end. She wanted more than a weekend, any way she could get it.

  So much for the ice princess.

  Charles drew his hand up and down her back, between her shoulder blades. “We’ll find a way,” he repeated. “This is where you belong.”

  He sounded so certain. In spite of herself, she felt the resolution in his voice warm her all the way down to the tips of her toes. She’d just decided to screw up her life six ways from Sunday, but she couldn’t help smiling.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “Sure looks like it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  All right. Fine. He was in love with the girl. Desperately, as it happened.

  It wasn’t ideal—it was so far from ideal—but Charles would find a way to work with it. For so long, love had been a useless concept to him. After Eleanor’s death, there wasn’t love. There was duty and obligation.

  And, sometimes, there was desire. Sandra, in a very short period of time, had become something he wanted past all reason. He thought he’d dealt with that. Hadn’t he thought in last night’s darkness that it would be safer to move on?

  Then she’d played the piano for him; she’d played her heart out, just as he’d asked her to. He had nobody to blame but himself. It wasn’t the music that shook him, but that it had opened a window on her, through which playing a piano became an act of bravery. She was letting him see her.

  He’d sat in that chair, watching and listening to her until he couldn’t bear it anymore. He had to touch her again. He had to make sure she was real. When he put his hands on her shoulders, he’d felt the vibrations of the music running through them both. He didn’t know the piece, but that hadn’t mattered. It was beautiful, and delicate, and orderly, until it wasn’t anymore. It was Sandra.

  Truths were meant to be faced. Sandra wasn’t something he wanted. Sandra was someone he loved. And it was impossible to get up tomorrow and go to work, and then again, and then again, for a dreary succession of days—for the rest of his life—without her.

  Then she’d said something nonsensical about ending it, telling him he was never going to have it again.

  In the end, he had his butler to thank. Charles had been contemplating both his next step and his half-finished glass of Scotch when Warrick arrived and informed him that Miss Dane would be departing at any moment. Did Charles wish him to convey any messages?

  Now they lay together on her bed. They were fully clothed and only embracing, but he’d fucked other women with less intimacy than this. Sandra rested her head on his chest and played with the buttons on his shirt.

  “So what now?” she whispered.

  Charles briefly closed his eyes. How to answer her? He certainly couldn’t lie here and start babbling about love. She’d run for the door. He wouldn’t blame her.

  “I mean, what happens next?” she persisted. “What do we do?” Her throat clicked when she swallowed. “I don’t know what you want.”

  Her, obviously. He wanted her. Every part of him, every synapse and sinew, wanted her. It wasn’t her nightmares that ought to alarm him, it was the cold light of day, when the world intruded to take her from him.

  Let it try. Charles’s hackles rose. His blood heated in a welcome, familiar way, the way that enjoyed taking on the world. Nothing was worth winning if you didn’t have to fight tooth and nail for it.

  “We’ll find ways to meet,” he said, his voice rough with promise. “I live alone in the city, and not far from your workplace. Just a few blocks, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But won’t people notice if I start going in and out all the time? It’s not the most inconspicuous address.”

  His heart grew about ten times lighter. If Sandra was focused on logistics, and not the general concept of an affair, then she’d made up her mind.

  “The Park Avenue entrance isn’t,” he said, trying to keep the triumph out of his voice. “But there’s another door on East Seventy-First, a side entrance.” He often used that one himself. A thought occurred to him. “Or I could set you up in your own place.”

  Yes, that would be convenient. Somewhere in the Upper East Side, where Sandra’s aristocratic bearing would fit in naturally.

  “You could what?” she said in a voice that suggested she wasn’t entirely taken with the idea.

  Well, she hadn’t considered all the angles. “Think about it,” he said. “A place of your own. No long commute, no sister to ask you where you’re going and when you’ll be back.”

  And of course she would enjoy living somewhere far better than whatever creaky Brooklyn flophouse she was borrowing from her parents. He supposed the borough wasn’t the worst place on earth; property values had skyrocketed in the last ten years. But still. Brooklyn, for God’s sake.

  Sandra said, “I guarantee you, if I move out of my free housing, Kristen will have a lot more questions than that. Nuh-uh. Besides, I don’t want you to pay for…I mean, I don’t want to be…” Her voice went a little small. “Kept.”

  In his mind’s eye, he saw her handing him a Cartier box, her eyes narrow with disapproval. The image made him growl, “Don’t be absurd. It wouldn’t be like that.”

  Sandra propped herself up on her elbows and glared down at him. “You’d pay for me to live somewhere so it would be easier for us to have sex. What else would you call it?”

  How moral. “I wouldn’t call it anything. I’m a very rich man, and I want to spend money on you.”

  She turned pink. That was always a pleasure to see. After a moment, she said feebly, “Well, I guess you don’t beat around the bush.”

  “What’s the point?” He stroked her arm. �
��What else should I spend my money on?”

  “Um, I can think of a few things,” she said incredulously. “Schools, hospitals, feeding people…”

  “The Magister Foundation is extremely generous in that regard.” It had been the work of Eleanor’s too-short life. Charles had made sure to carry on her legacy as she would have wished. “Do you want to keep being Mother Teresa, or do you want to let me give you jewelry?” She’d definitely be taking back that damned barrette.

  Sandra narrowed her eyes. “Neither. I want to see how things go before anybody starts buying necklaces or real estate.”

  A thrill ran up and down his spine. She’d sounded exactly like him for a moment. Had she realized it? “That sounds sensible,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s us,” Sandra said. “Sensible.” But she couldn’t quite hide a smile. A small one, not one of the beautiful, uninhibited ones that had taken his breath away in this very bedroom. He’d have to try to coax more of those out of her.

  “Of course, I wouldn’t have to buy anything,” he said. “I already own various properties throughout the city. I’m sure the leases on one or two of them must be nearly—” She bumped him with her shoulder. He bit back his own smile. “We’ll see how things go.”

  Sandra regarded him silently for a moment. She was trying to see through him again. Maybe she could.

  “I’ve got your number,” she said.

  No arguing with that. “You certainly seem to.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I mean your phone number.” Oh. “We can call and set things up. I…I guess it wouldn’t be hard for me to meet you at your place after work, if that’s okay with you.”

  He’d like nothing more. It would be riskier than giving her an apartment of her own where they could meet whenever they wanted. But risky or not, what could be better than having her in his own home?

  “Why wouldn’t it be okay?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s your space,” she said. “You’re used to being by yourself there.” Then she added, with the slightest edge to her voice, “I mean, you are, right?”