When he broke the kiss, he again caught her gaze.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since you walked down to breakfast this morning in that skirt.”
“I’m glad I gave you an early opportunity.”
He grinned, touched his nose to hers, and when he did that, a simple gesture, but so goddamn sweet, Sixx got lost.
Lost in the idea that this could be their life. Her in the neighborhood, as it were, using her passcard to pop up and have a banter with Susan, a chat and a quick fuck on his desk with him. That she’d work, and he’d work, and she’d come to him asleep, wake him up to let him know she was home safe. Come down to breakfast wearing something he wanted to take off her, down her vitamins every morning and listen to M chatter.
But scars were forever, and hers were crippling.
They didn’t heal.
Did they?
“I might be late tonight,” she said quietly.
“Can you meet me at The Gladly for a quick dinner?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’ll try. I’ll let you know.”
“If you can’t, darling, that’s all right.”
She nodded again.
“Do you want me to clean you up, or do you want to do it?” he queried.
“Do you have your own bathroom?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
“Show me the way, and I’ll take care of it,” she said.
He slid out.
She missed him the second he was gone.
He helped her to her feet and pulled up his trousers, but didn’t do them up before he bent and nabbed her panties from the floor.
He handed them to her, fastened his slacks as she yanked down her skirt, and then he took her hand and led her to what looked like just another wood panel on his wall but when he reached to it, she saw the cleverly hidden latch. He opened the door and exposed a fabulous bathroom with beautifully tiled walls in mellow browns and grays, contemporary fixtures and wood-framed cabinets covered in sliding doors of milky glass.
“Your interior designer really is amazing,” she mumbled.
“I’m very good at finding the very best of people, and when I do, holding on,” he drawled in reply.
But she stopped dead in the doorway, turned her head his way and looked up at him.
His handsome face was soft, sated and serious.
“Get cleaned up, sweetheart,” he murmured, using a hand in the small of her back to push her into his bathroom.
She went.
He closed the door behind her.
She found a pile of plush, thick, perfectly white washcloths in a cabinet. She cleaned up, put her panties back on, rinsed the cloth well and hung it over the side of the sink.
She then walked out to find Stellan standing behind his desk, looking down at a laptop open on it.
He didn’t have a PC. Just that laptop.
He also had a view of the Valley spread out along the entire side of his office where she could see Camelback Mountain in the distance.
She moved to him, looking at the view, and only turned her attention to him when she had to skirt his desk.
When she got close, he pulled her into his arms.
“I’ll walk you to the elevators,” he declared.
“I’m not sure your staff could handle that,” she quipped.
“I don’t give a fuck,” he returned.
Before she could say anything, he bent to touch his lips to hers and then he picked up her clutch, handed it to her, and moved them toward the door, not holding her hand, not curling her fingers around his elbow, but with his arm around her, their hips and legs brushing as they moved, his hold making it impossible for her not to curve her arm around him as well.
His hair was slightly messy from her fingers being in it, and he hadn’t fixed it (not that he should—as with everything Stellan, it was hot). It was too late to mention it when he unlocked and opened the office door and guided her through, not letting her go.
“Sixx is heading out,” he informed Susan. “Did you get a passcard for her?”
“Right here,” Susan replied, lifting up a card and shaking it in the air.
Stellan moved to the desk, took it from Susan, handed it to Sixx, and let her go long enough for her to tuck it in her clutch.
When she was done, Stellan claimed her back immediately, but Sixx looked to Susan, who spoke.
“See you tomorrow, babe. Totally cool to meet you.”
“Right back at you,” Sixx replied, earning a huge smile from Susan.
She returned one not as huge, but definitely genuine as Stellan moved them into the hall.
“You know, this is actually kind of cruel to do to your hungry-for-your boss’s-business staff,” she noted under her breath as they moved along.
“I find I have absolutely no response to that,” he replied, pulling her closer so she looked up at him to find him gazing down at her as they walked. “I don’t get into their lives. They really have no place getting into mine.”
“You’re rich, gorgeous and wear a suit way too well. When you’re that, it happens.”
He smiled down at her.
“No. Seriously. Have you ever seen David Gandy in a suit?” she asked.
“I don’t even know who David Gandy is.”
“Google him.”
“I don’t Google.”
She stared up at him.
“Who doesn’t Google?” she asked.
“I have so far found no need to Google, but if I did, I have staff to do it,” he answered, then suggested, “I could ask Susan to Google him.”
“I wouldn’t do that unless you wanted to lose her for the rest of the day.”
His brows went up. “That attractive?”
“She mentioned Harry, didn’t say much, I could still tell she was devoted, but regardless, she’d drop him like a rock if Gandy crooked his finger at her.”
“And you?”
Stellan Lange just ate her out on his knees at the side of his desk then fucked her on it.
David Gandy was … well, David Gandy.
But Stellan was Stellan.
“I think I’m good.”
He threw his beautiful head back and shouted with laughter.
She watched him do it, not having any idea how gentle her face was and how openly blissful she looked doing it.
She did notice they were in the reception area but only because he stopped her by the elevators and tagged a button.
“Call me about dinner,” he murmured, pulling her around to his front and trapping her in both his arms.
She lifted her hands and placed them on his pecs. “Will do.”
He bent and touched his mouth to hers then twisted his neck to touch his mouth to her jaw before he went even further and brushed his lips at the skin behind her ear.
She pressed closer as she shivered in his arms.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“Can I share how elated I am that you decided to drop by?”
“I’ve been noticing you seem to like me,” she muttered.
“I’m glad you’re noticing,” he murmured in return.
Suddenly, it all came back, all of it, hitting her like she’d been hurled bodily at a wall.
“Stellan—”
His face came right into hers and he whispered, “Don’t fuck it up. Please, God, Simone, this has been one of those rare slices of perfection in life. Let us both have it, honey, without fucking it up.”
She closed her mouth and nodded.
He took in her nod, got closer, touched his lips to hers again, and when he lifted his head, the elevator binged.
He moved her to it, scooted her in, and stood outside as she stood inside, looking up into his dark blue eyes.
“Later at dinner, darling,” he bid.
“Right, baby,” she murmured.
The door closed him off from sight, but the entire time they slid shut, he did not move.
She stared at them, t
hinking she was supposed to remember something …
But she couldn’t quite …
Wait.
I’ve chosen a woman to spend my life with …
He’d said that.
He’d said, Spend my life with …
“Oh God,” she whispered to the doors.
He was lost too.
Stellan was in love with her.
And that was all Sixx could think about as she made her way out of his building, down the street and into the parking area of the building that housed her own office.
Which meant she didn’t think, not once that day, that she was down to two weeks and four days.
* * *
And hours later …
After she tiptoed into their room, quietly got ready for bed, and slid in beside him only for him immediately to pull her into his arms, then roll to his back with her mostly draped on his front while she whispered, “I’m home safe, baby,” to which he replied, drowsily but with a squeeze of his arms, “Good,” and then they promptly both fell asleep …
She still would not consider the fact that she didn’t think it at all.
sixteen
Right to the Sun
STELLAN
The next evening, Stellan was in the kitchen, his light rock Pandora channel coming through the speakers built in around the house, his hands engaged in preparing the salad they’d have with dinner that night, when he heard the garage door go up.
This was followed surprisingly shortly after by a cacophony of sound that could only be a hurrying woman entering a home.
He didn’t look to his watch to know that Susan, Harry and Crosby were due to arrive in fifteen minutes.
What Simone didn’t know was that, when it didn’t have to do with work, after Crosby was born, Susan was routinely at least ten minutes late, usually more to the tune of twenty, so he was prepared for them not to be on time.
He probably should have shared that.
“Oh God! Shit! Fuck!” Simone exclaimed the minute she rounded into the kitchen, dashing straight to him on gold, no-heel sandals, wearing dark gray harem pants and a butter-yellow suede top that fell off one of her shoulders, making that street chic look haute couture. “I’m late. So late! I’d hoped to be home in time to help. But you … would not … believe,” she declared directly prior to practically accosting him in order to press a hard kiss on his jaw.
She did not tell him what he would not believe. She also didn’t give him a chance to say anything, for instance, ask what she thought she could do to help considering she had no interest in the goings-on of a kitchen, including when drinks were being mixed, except the end result of all of that.
“I need to freshen up real quick. Gah!” she cried, moving swiftly away from him, finishing, “Be back as fast as I can!”
With that, she threw her purse and laptop bag to the table at the foot of the stairs and raced up them.
Stellan stood still in his kitchen and stared at his stairs long after she disappeared.
Something had happened the day before.
Something had broken.
In Sixx.
He knew this because Simone was shining through.
Everywhere.
They’d had dinner the night before on a break from whatever it was she did to do what she did for Joel, and they’d had breakfast that morning with M.
In other words, they had not shared a lot of time together since she’d come to his office the day before.
And still, he knew.
It was that blatant.
It was that beautiful.
The woman who just arrived in his home had just come home.
She’d come home to him.
He smiled down at the baby spinach leaves in the bowl just as his cell rang.
He looked to where it was sitting on the counter, suspecting it would be Susan unnecessarily sharing they would be late.
It was not.
He frowned.
It was his mother.
He did not ever want to take a call from his mother, particularly not then.
But it was of an hour in the evening that if he did not pick up, she would simply call again. And again. And again. One right after the other.
He had little hope of making it quick, even if he had an excuse to do so. But if he turned off his ringer, he might miss a call from Susan, and dealing with his mother’s petulance that he didn’t pick up was worse than dealing with her rambling when she was nearing the end of bottle number one of the night.
He sighed, wiped his hands on a dish towel, and picked up the phone, taking the call.
“Mother.”
“My son,” she replied, and it was not slurred.
A good sign.
“I have—” He started to share his excuse that he could not talk long, moving away from the island toward the windows to stop and stand, looking out at his pool with its light flowing through different colors, the waters rippling from the water feature.
“I’m coming down, spending the weekend, starting tomorrow,” she cut him off to announce.
Stellan stood still and stared at the pool, feeling a surge of fury rush through him, the kind he had not felt in years.
She did not ask how he was.
She did not ask after his health.
She did not ask if maybe he’d met someone he enjoyed spending time with.
She did not ask if he might have plans this weekend and perhaps could not entertain his mother.
She called about her, not to talk to him.
“I have some shopping to do, and the symphony is doing Stravinsky,” she carried on. “I thought I’d make it a long weekend, visit some friends, go home on Tuesday. Can you see to Susan getting tickets for us and have Margarita put fresh sheets on the bed in my room?”
He kept his voice carefully modulated when he replied, “You can’t come down this weekend.”
“I’m sorry?” she asked.
“You can’t come down this weekend,” he repeated.
This was met with silence.
“Actually,” he continued. “You can’t come down at all, Mother, not for the foreseeable future.”
“I … for goodness sakes, why?” she asked, not hiding her shock.
“Because this isn’t your home to call and announce you’re coming down and you want my housekeeper to make your bed,” he answered.
“You’re my son. I’m your mother,” she returned. “And I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“I no longer live alone,” he shared abruptly. “A woman who means a great deal to me has moved in. At an appropriate time, we’ll come up to Sedona, take you out to dinner so you can meet her and start to get to know her. However, until she’s comfortable with you, you cannot come down and stay with us.”
“You’ve moved a woman into your home?” she queried, quiet, wary and sidling toward wounded.
“Yes.”
“One I haven’t met?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been … hiding her from me?”
“Of course not,” he sighed.
“Then why have I not met her yet?”
He didn’t answer that and not simply because it was none of her business.
He said, “I can’t get into this now. We’re having company for dinner and they’re arriving soon. I’ll call you when I have time, and we’ll talk about when Simone and I can come up and have dinner with you.”
“This is … Stellan, this is outrageous,” she declared.
“I’m not certain how it’s outrageous, Mother,” he replied.
“You’re not certain?” she demanded. “You’re living with a woman who hasn’t met your mother!”
“I’m hardly at an age where I need my mother’s approval of the women I see,” he returned.
“You’re always at an age where you should respect your mother,” she fired back.
And it was then, Stellan was done.
Done with the kind of people in the world who thought they coul
d produce children and then leave them entirely to their own devices as they attempt to learn to become functional human beings. Done with dealing with family members you had to endure rather than enjoy.
His mother had once been a good mother, loving and nurturing.
Life had then surprised her simply by sharing the knowledge she’d chosen the wrong man to love, to make a family with. And for decades, she’d been entirely unable to cope, and there was no nurture, no support, no tuition. Instead, she had railed and scorned and exhibited every selfish, self-involved behavior you should not teach a child.
She had not lived a life devoid of love or access to anyone in it that could give that to her.
She had not witnessed her only anchor in the world being gunned down right before her eyes directly after he’d moved to protect her.
She had been relatively wealthy and privileged before she met his father. And after him, she had not been forced to learn a trade or fend for herself.
And it occurred to Stellan right then that she was one of those women who simply could not function without a man to take care of her, and she had decided precisely how she should be taken care of.
Therefore, when Brigette Lange lost her husband, and she was saddled with two children after being spurned by a powerful, rich, well-known man and of an age where it was easy to convince herself that her prospects were few and certainly none of them had the promise of an Andreas Lange, she’d given up.
She had been in her late thirties, had decided she was washed up, and had set a course for her life to make that so.
And simply because Stellan was bored of her nonsense and entirely unmotivated to deal with the fallout should he make the effort to exit her life, he’d unwittingly enabled her dysfunction by negligently supporting it.
He was done with that as well.
He also didn’t hesitate to share he was.
“And can you explain how it’s respect to call your son the day prior to your arrival to share you’ll be coming to spend time in his home, not to mention tell him to bother his assistant and housekeeper to see to your wishes, also without any notice?” he queried.
“I—”
“It’s not,” he answered for her. “It’s not only disrespect, Mother, it’s rude. It always has been. I had no reason to share this with you before because your selfishness would only affect me, and I’d had decades to become used to it. Now, should I allow it to continue, it would affect Simone, and I’m afraid that’s unacceptable, so I’m telling you it will no longer continue.”
The Greatest Risk Page 33