“Take a look around,” I said to Sophie. “Make yourself at home.”
Sophie
If Xavier’s place in Back Bay had left me floored, this one left me breathless.
“This is so beautiful.” My gaze swept over the gray-tiled walls to the burnt orange drapes along the tall, yet narrow, windows. This wasn’t a bachelor’s home. This was a showcase in craftsmanship with exquisite detail. So many leatherbound books filled custom bookcases. And the artwork! When Xavier said he enjoyed Klimt, that had only been a hint as to his affinity for the arts. I spied four paintings in the living room alone. I couldn’t identify them, but their quality boasted his wealth.
Instead of walking around, I reached out to touch the leather chairs. I’d never seen such a style before. A stripe of black leather ran from the top of the seat down the middle. Smooth gray cotton on the rest of the seat added a softness to the hard edge of the leather.
“Those were custom made in Switzerland,” he said from behind me.
I snorted at his casual comment. “Custom furniture from Europe?” I guess I did that all the time with my IKEA stuff.
The whole vibe seemed modern to me, yet sleek.
“How long did it take for you to decorate this place?” I asked.
“A year and a half.”
“Where did you live before then?”
“For the longest time I stayed in my first condo. Before I made it big with Silver Sparrow I lived in a two-bedroom condo near campus. With not the tidiest of neighbors, I might add.”
“The joys of college campus living.” I weaved around his furniture, a glint of light catching my eye. “Now this is different.” I picked up a heavy, gorgeous crown made out of metal. Intricate etchings swirled along the outside.
“Be careful.” Xavier reached in to take it from me, but not before I caught the engraved text chiseled in small letters on the inside.
EVERY KING DESERVES A CROWN. I BOW BEFORE YOU. FROM ROSALIE.
Now that was unusual. “I wasn’t going to break it,” I said softly.
His serious expression faded quickly.
“It’s rather fragile.”
A metal crown was fragile? That polished metal had to be titanium. This was a new one. I opened my mouth to ask who Rosalie was, but he took my hand and led me into the kitchen.
A kitchen twice the size of my bedroom. We passed two professional-style stoves on the way to the stainless steel fridge.
“You hungry?” he asked. “Ian had the fridge stocked up with the good stuff.”
“Not really. Like you said, your aunt is a really good cook.”
I watched with curiosity as he gathered together vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, sour cream, strawberries, and a small bottle of brandy.
“What are you making?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” He tapped the granite countertop. “Have a seat.”
While he mixed together the ice cream, whipped cream, and sour cream, I checked my text messages, only to learn Jesse had a few issues for me to handle. Another day, another diva. By the time I glanced up, Xavier had two glasses of sliced strawberries prepared. He poured the cream mixture on top of the strawberries. I couldn’t wait to sample what he prepared for us.
Instead of handing me a glass though, he took a spoon from a drawer, and scooped out a portion. The slight curve to the side of his mouth spoke volumes of his naughty intentions.
“I can’t have my own?” I asked. My phone buzzed with a message, but I ignored it.
“No Strawberries Romanoff for you yet.” He edged between my legs, his left hand traveling up my thigh while his right hand brought the serving toward my mouth. I opened wide—only to have him smear the cream along my jaw.
“Hey—” I swallowed my protest when his mouth sucked away the food, leaving sparks along the sensitive skin on my neck. Over and over he teased me with a taste, only to leave a bit of cream here and there. By the fifth time, I managed to steal a bite.
He stole a kiss instead.
That single long kiss wasn’t heated or frenzied like in the past. It was slow and measured. His lips gliding over mine. Our kiss grew heated and I couldn’t help but drown in the sensations I experienced: the sweetness of the Strawberries Romanoff I’d sampled, the saltiness of his skin on my tongue, and the tingles along my spine. His free hand holding the crown of my head to keep me in place while he swallowed my soul whole.
I liked this relaxed Xavier Quinn.
He ran his hand down my leg. I quivered from his touch. “I want you to stay with me,” he whispered.
I flinched. Stopping myself wasn’t possible.
“Just hear me out, Sophie. I’ll set up your business on the West Coast. You’ll have your own office space, everything.” He kissed my shoulder and my skin sang from the attention.
How I wanted to give in to the fantasy. My own corner office. Staff to help me manage unruly clients. But reality hovered and pecked at me. What about my friends in Boston? All my business connections wouldn’t be as valuable. Distance was a factor when dealing with people who liked seeing your face.
I’d be starting from scratch.
You’d be starting from scratch if you moved to London, I reminded myself.
A cold chill coursed down my back. The very idea of having nothing scared the hell out of me.
If I went to London, I’d have Carlie and all her clients, but I wouldn’t have him anymore.
His words pierced me, but I forced them to go in one ear and out the other. I had to. This weekend wasn’t a promise but a chance for me to think things through.
“I need time,” I finally said.
He nodded and fed me another bite. I wouldn’t be deterred from helping Carlie, no matter how much my heart wanted me to stay. Loving him was far too easy a thing to do.
When he reached back to get another scoop, I snatched the spoon from his hand. “My turn.”
But he wasn’t going down without a fight. We laughed, giggled, and snorted, our arms flying madly about to control the spoon. He tried to hide it behind his back so I dove into the curve of his neck and planted a healthy hickey there.
“No fair. You play dirty,” he grunted.
Right next to us my phone vibrated on the counter and he froze. “I thought we discussed how I don’t like to share,” he teased.
“It’s not a client, it’s Jesse. He’s having trouble and I’m his knight in shiny armor.”
“And he’s having trouble with your clients.” He backed away from me, a good-natured grin on his face and Strawberries Romanoff smeared all over his nice clothes.
Somehow, I’d managed to escape with food only on my hands and face.
“You’re a mess.” I swiped a bit of cream off his jacket and placed it in my mouth.
“Care to clean me up?” He leaned in to kiss the cream off my lips.
“As tempting as the offer sounds, I need to talk to Jesse in a bit. We have a troublesome client to handle.”
“I see.” He began to unbutton his shirt and I had to look away when he revealed the hard muscles underneath. “Are you sure?”
I turned around. “Go change, Mr. Quinn!”
He kissed the side of my neck. “I rather like it when you call me that. You’ll have to do that more often when we’re alone.”
Xavier disappeared around a corner. The moment he was gone I tackled the phone call with Jesse. Apparently, a premier regatta was coming up in Boston and a client wanted to have a ladies’ weekend on the bay during the boat races. Arrangements needed to be made and I had to move the sun and moon. Poor Jesse. Most of it he could do, but he needed me to make a few key phone calls. Pull a string or two.
Compared to cleaning up the mess on Xavier’s shirt, a call or two was easy.
After I made the calls, I cleaned up. Even if he had a maid, I refused to be seen by his staff as untidy. A girl like me had an image to maintain.
When I finished cleaning, I was still alone.
I drifted back to the
sitting room. Immediately the crown caught my eye. I should’ve asked him who Rosalie was. None of the relatives at the compound had that name, but that didn’t mean she might not be one.
And yet, the words etched on the crown wouldn’t have come from an aunt or a cousin. The very meaning seemed intimate.
Instead of sitting and letting the crown bother me, I explored the rooms down the hall Xavier had disappeared into. The penthouse was silent, except for the faint sounds from my heels clicking on the mahogany hardwood floor. I took them off and left them along the wall.
The place seemed like a tomb. Far too quiet and lonely. After having noisy roommates for all these years, the very idea of living like this seemed unthinkable. I passed two locked doors before I came to a doorway that was cracked open.
Once inside, I could only see the shadows from what little light the moon leaked into the room. Unlike so many other rooms in the house, this one had shiny, bright disks all over the walls. The mystery of the disks was solved when I finally found the light switch. Countless medals, ribbons in cases covered the walls in another smaller study. Only a dark wooden desk and chair sat in the middle, but the walls were covered with countless things. FIRST PLACE, HURDLES, MCCOY HIGH SCHOOL. Another one read FIRST PLACE, 400-METER HURDLES, BLUE RIDGE HIGH INVITATIONAL. So many others.
“Xavier Quinn, you’ve been holding back on me,” I said with a small laugh. “You used to run track,” I said with awe.
“Yeah, I had a personal coach who trained Olympic athletes and everything.”
I turned around sharply to see him with wet hair. Sweatpants slung low on his narrow hips and a towel was draped over his shoulders.
Instead of letting him distract me, I continued to scan the wall. The dates kept going until ten years ago. Then everything came to a halt.
“These are amazing. How come you don’t have any from college?” I asked.
“I didn’t win any.” He was following me. Hovering close enough to stir the butterflies dancing in my stomach.
“Is the scar on your knee from running?” All this time I’d been curious about the scar, but he’d seemed pretty tight-lipped about it after I’d asked.
Xavier sighed. “Yeah. Happened in college. It was one of my first meets of the year and I was running the eight hundred–meter. There were a bunch of guys from the rival team who wanted to mess me up, so they crowded me in during the first lap. Naturally, I tripped—”
“Ouch.”
“But that wasn’t the end of the story. I got back up.”
We shared a smile. “I bet you caught up and won the whole thing,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Things grew quiet. He reached out and touched his knee. Countless times I’d run my hand down his legs, over his thighs. I’d brushed against the straight scar.
“During my fall, my right leg came down hard. I overextended my knee and partially tore every ligament you can imagine.” He shrugged as if it was nothing, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to train so hard, only to have to later focus on something else. “I recovered, but after that, no more scholarships. No more early-morning practice.”
While Xavier looked over one of his cases, his mind falling into the past, I noticed a lone image sitting in a frame on a desk. The frame was quite tiny, but the woman in the picture shined. Long blond hair framed a stunning heart-shaped face. Her head was slightly turned as if she had been caught by surprise. Xavier sat beside her and he wasn’t looking at the camera. His loving gaze rested on the woman beside him.
“Who’s this?” I asked. “She’s beautiful.”
Xavier strolled over to me. “That’s Rosalie.”
“So she’s the one who gave you the crown.”
He only nodded, not glancing at me once. “Yeah, she’s an old friend.”
I swallowed the rude noise I wanted to make. “An old friend? Do you mean an old girlfriend?”
“Not anymore. She…passed away five years ago.”
Heat filled my face. “I’m so sorry—”
“You didn’t know. It’s not a big deal.”
But it was a big deal. No man kept an old girlfriend’s custom gift or her picture unless he cared for her deeply. I felt so foolish. What his mother said earlier this evening during dinner echoed through my mind: “My son never brings his women here. The last time he did, a few years ago, he thought it was funny to bring one of his playthings.”
No wonder he was so angry. He had loved Rosalie.
Maybe he still did.
Xavier walked to the doorway. He flicked off the light while I was still inside. “Are you coming?”
I left the room and its dark memories behind.
Chapter 24
Xavier
“Most people love Saturdays,” Sophie said as I drove us into Phoenix. “The sleeping in. The trips out and about. But, to be honest, I loathe weekends with a passion as powerful as a comb-over held down with crazy glue.”
I chuckled. With such nice weather, I decided to take her out in my Bentley convertible. After I’d found her in the one place where I tried to bury and burn all my skeletons, the breeze and the open sky were welcome. Last night hadn’t gone as I’d planned. What should have been a romantic evening had ended with us sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms.
I had to make it up to her today.
“Everyone plans activities on the weekends. Before Jesse helped me, I worked hours that were subhuman. You wouldn’t believe the requests I’ve had.” Sophie might’ve been venting, but she looked relaxed in a red sundress that ended at her upper thighs. Her gorgeous legs were stretched out. If she had any thoughts about finding Rosalie’s picture, she kept them to herself.
“Condoms?” I tried.
“Oh, that’s the kind of request the nice ones make. One guy wanted me to buy lingerie for his mistress—but he wanted me to try it on first.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I’d stretch out and destroy anything that’s under size 4, but honestly I’d drop any man who wanted me to wear undies some other gal had tried on first.” She shuddered at the thought. “This is a lesson for you. I like stuff that’s brand-new.”
“Brand-new,” I echoed. Everything I had planned for Sophie would be top of the line and directly from the manufacturer. A few phone calls on the plane here from Boston had set everything in motion.
“So where are we going?” she asked.
“To see a painting.” Ever since the opera, I’d wanted her to see the painting that reminded me of her. There was something about Sophie’s profile that constantly ran through my mind every time I thought about it.
Our final destination was the Phoenix Art Museum. As expected, Ian had made arrangements for our private showing.
“This should be fun.” Her eyes brightened considerably.
The largest art museum in the southwestern U.S. beckoned us inside. I took her hand and we walked into the lobby to meet our guide.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Quinn,” said a young man whose name tag read ANATOLY. “You’re right on time.”
“As always,” Sophie quipped from beside me.
“Beauty never waits,” I said.
Anatoly gave us a tour of the general exhibit, showing us pieces from Degas to Renoir. Sophie showed a bit of interest, but her face lit up when Anatoly brought us to a private room. Chilled champagne had been left for us, along with the particular painting I wanted her to see: Gustav Klimt’s Water Serpents.
She passed the table and went straight to the painting. “Amazing. It’s much smaller in person than I’d expected. After you told me about it, I looked it up online, but it’s breathtaking up close. With those golden hues and lush backgrounds, those two figures look ethereal.”
I took her hand and drew her to the table. As expected, our tour guide had left us behind and closed the double doors to the room.
Then she looked at the closed doors. “Did he just leave us alone with a priceless painting?”
I poured
two glasses for us. “I’m the one who paid for this museum to borrow it from the one in Austria. You could say I have an agreement with the foundation that countless lawyers have read and signed.”
“For one private viewing?” She tilted her head with a smile as I offered her a glass.
“For one viewing with you. I’d do anything for you, Sophie.”
That made her blush. She turned toward the painting. “I don’t know. The nymph at the top holding the other one is far prettier than me. She’s got a fish’s tail, too. Guys like that?”
I downed my champagne, enjoying the smooth, crisp flavor across my tongue. “I didn’t say you looked exactly like her. You remind me of her.”
She took a sip as I drew her in front of me. I wrapped my arms around her waist. Just feeling her close to me set me at ease. If I could keep holding her like this all day, I would. She leaned back and I placed my mouth against the strong pulse point at her neck. She was here in the present and I wanted to spend every moment with her until she agreed to stay with me.
We stared at the painting for a bit. Sophie must’ve grown restless. Her right hand continued to hold her glass while her left reached behind her to run down my thigh. When she drew her hand behind her, she deftly brushed near my hardening length. So teasingly close.
“Why does she remind you of me?” she breathed.
“Look at her face,” I said close to her ear. “The parted lips. The eyes closed as if she’s about to come.”
“Maybe she’s dreaming.” She sucked in a breath when my hips pushed forward.
I ran my hands down her hips, then back up to her breasts. “Could be…Look at her breast. Klimt made it perfectly shaped. The nipple wonderfully pert.” My fingertips drew circles over her nipples until they pebbled.
She moaned when I squeezed and kneaded her breasts. “I actually like The Kiss more than this one. Now that painting was amazing.”
I stopped to chuckle against her neck. “Forever the romantic.”
Bound to You Page 18