by July Hall
Come and Get Me
The Magister Series: Book 2
July Hall
Lucky Opal Press | 2017
COPYRIGHT
Come and Get Me: The Magister Series, Book 2 by July Hall
Copyright © 2017 by July Hall
First published in 2017 by Lucky Opal Press, www.luckyopal.com
ISBN: 978-0-9980542-2-3
Cover design: Aria Tan, www.resplendentmedia.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author, save brief excerpts appropriate for reviews or discussion.
Come and Get Me
July Hall
The saga of Charles Magister and Sandra Dane’s forbidden affair continues in Come and Get Me, the steamy sequel to If You Want Me and the second book in the Magister Series. Charles and Sandra have given in to their attraction and embarked on a relationship—but if they’re discovered, it means discord with their loved ones, and public scandal that would strike at all they hold dear.
If only it didn’t feel too good to stop.
As their affair grows more and more intense, Charles and Sandra find their lives becoming increasingly entwined. It’s as terrifying as it is thrilling—why risk everything when you’ve been burned before? Isn’t it safer to keep desire from blazing out of control?
Of course, that’s easier said than done when desire becomes obsession...
Come and Get Me opens up new vistas in the high-stakes world of the Magisters. Follow along for more romance, passion, and power plays.
Sign up for July Hall’s newsletter to get the latest updates on new releases, sales, freebies, and more!
CHAPTER ONE
The new normal.
Sandra had heard the catchphrase many times. It had seemed like a purely abstract concept. Now she wondered how long it would take her to get used to the new normal. Especially when it meant starting the day off with jewelry.
It was Monday morning. She’d just shown up for work after spending a heady weekend at her lover’s mansion on Long Island’s exclusive North Shore. That alone would have made for an extraordinary new normal, but there was even more to it than that. She still couldn’t wrap her head around it.
After all, her lover was none other than Charles Magister, the billionaire who ran his corporation and his family as if they were synonymous. To him, in fact, they were.
In two days, she’d fallen head over heels for a man she’d met the week before, after spending six unremarkable months with his nephew. It wasn’t like her at all. If anyone had asked her, she would have said that it wasn’t like Charles, either.
Maybe she didn’t know Charles as well as all that, though. She’d told him only yesterday that she didn’t want expensive presents. Maybe that made her a killjoy—he wanted to spend money on her, and he had plenty of it. But still…these were early days, and after the debacle with Bradley, extravagant gestures made her a little nervous. Everything still seemed too good to be true.
And yet here she sat at her desk in Arnaud Diallo Designs, looking at a red Cartier box. A personal courier had delivered it five minutes ago, right when the studio opened. She’d known immediately what it was: déjà vu.
Sure enough, when she pulled the lid off the box, she saw a very familiar barrette. Made of yellow gold and inlaid with cabochon emeralds, it was the same barrette Charles had tried to give her last week and which she had refused because of Bradley. Now it looked like all bets were off.
The new normal.
Sandra sighed. The barrette hadn’t gotten any less gorgeous since the last time she’d seen it, which not coincidentally had been in Charles’s office. They’d kissed there for the first time. She should have known how inevitable everything was after that. No kiss had ever turned her on more, except for maybe all the ones that came after it.
Before they’d kissed—when they absolutely should not have kissed—Charles had asked Sandra to put on the barrette. He’d said it was beautiful. He hadn’t been wrong.
Sandra chewed her lip as she looked at the shine of yellow gold against the plush bed of black velvet. Maybe this didn’t count as a present. Not a new present, anyway. He’d already given it to her once.
She turned the lid of the box over. As before, a note was affixed there. Unlike before, it wasn’t a Magister Enterprises card. Instead, it was a piece of heavy cream paper, neatly folded so that it fit into the lid. Her hands trembled as she opened it.
Charles’s previous note had been impersonal, almost perfunctory, printed on the card. This note was written in his own hand. Sandra’s heart leapt into her throat just at the sight of it. Oh God, she was totally gone.
The note read:
This is yours, as am I. Accept it.
Sandra’s heart stopped and then raced, and she was unbelievably grateful to be alone in her office. She had to leave for a client consultation in ten minutes. Maybe that would be enough time to collect herself.
Or not. She looked at the note again and felt her whole body light up with joy, desire, all the things he made her feel so effortlessly.
Gold was nice, but the words were infinitely more precious. It would be a huge test of willpower not to look at them every five seconds and hold on to this warm feeling all day long.
She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks and allowed herself one quiet squeal of delight as she wriggled in her chair. And wouldn’t he just think that was hilarious? He loved breaking her composure.
He wouldn’t think it was hilarious if she returned the barrette, though. Sandra sighed. It would be ungracious, and she would never be that. Courtesy was the best armor she had.
Well, there was only one courteous response in a situation like this.
Sandra mulled over it all day long, letting it percolate in the back of her head while she went to the East Village condo of Alexios Mykoulos, an aging Greek magnate who’d made millions in the shipping industry. Mr. Mykoulos lived primarily in Athens but spent three months of the year in New York, and he seemed to think this warranted a pied-à-terre. No complaints from Sandra.
Mr. Mykoulos had a vision for his second home that Sandra loved—a tribute to Greece with lots of genuinely ancient accents and furnishings. Both of Charles’s houses had plenty of pieces that were hundreds of years old, but she hadn’t seen any vases that dated from 450 BCE. Last month, Mr. Mykoulos had told Sandra to go forth and find more treasures that would create his home away from home. She was having fun with this one.
She loved her job, and now she loved the rest of her life too. This thing with Charles was only three days old, and it came with a whole bunch of secrets and complications, but somehow she was still walking on air. She’d thought for a while that she knew what happiness was, that her relationship with Bradley Cliffe was everything she ought to want. How wrong she’d been.
When she returned to Arnaud’s studio with her notes, Indira grinned at her. Indira was the studio’s administrative assistant, and she never seemed to miss a thing. Now her large, dark eyes twinkled at Sandra. “Somebody had a good morning,” she said.
“Why do you say that?” Sandra adjusted her heavy tote bag on her shoulder.
“You were humming.”
“I was?” Damn. Sandra made sure to keep her voice casual. “I’m not surprised. I
’ve had this song in my head all day.”
“An earworm, huh? I’ve had those. You just look sunny, though. The job at Charles Magister’s house must be going well. Arnaud said you were there all weekend.”
Sandra’s smile felt a little fixed. “Oh, uh. Yeah. It’s going great.”
“Are you still just working on that one room? The study?”
“The second study. And I…I don’t know,” Sandra said. “I haven’t heard otherwise. But—maybe?” If she asked Charles to let her loose on the rest of the house, he’d probably say yes. He’d said he’d give her anything she wanted.
Any material thing, that was, but Sandra didn’t want material things from Charles. She wanted something far rarer and more valuable. And there was no way she could tell him so, not yet. He might say he was hers, and he might claim her for his own, but she had yet to find out what that really meant to him.
“‘Maybe’ has possibilities.” Indira smiled. “Did Bradley show up to keep you company?”
Before Sandra could help it, she felt her own smile drop right off her face. Oh, shit. She was going to have to explain her new circumstances to Arnaud.
Hopefully not much. Arnaud was discreet. A business like his thrived on not intruding into his clients’ private lives, even as he redecorated their homes. There was probably only so much he wanted to know.
“What’s the matter?” Indira asked, her eyes wide. “Was it something I said?”
“No,” Sandra said quickly, shaking her head. “Sorry. I was just…thinking about something else. I better get these notes organized before I talk to Arnaud.”
“Speak of the devil.”
At the sound of Arnaud’s deep voice, tinged with amusement, both Indira and Sandra turned. Their boss had emerged into the waiting room, his hands in his pockets. He wore a dove-gray, Italian-cut suit in a glen plaid. Dolce & Gabbana’s latest collection, Sandra was pretty sure.
It looked great on him, of course. Arnaud Diallo wasn’t just a brilliant interior designer. He was also one of the most handsome men Sandra had ever met. Born in America to Senegalese parents, he spoke French as beautifully as he spoke English. He had exacting, elegant taste and carried himself like royalty. And though Sandra tried not to pry into her boss’s personal life, she’d heard too many rumors about his reputation as a ladykiller to dismiss them out of hand.
Fortunately, Sandra already had a man who made her melt, otherwise she might have been in trouble. As it was, she smiled at Arnaud with no ulterior motive and said, “I don’t think you’re allowed to say ‘speak of the devil’ about yourself.”
“It’s always about following the rules with you, isn’t it?” Arnaud asked. His tone was light and easy, but the words still made Sandra’s face heat up. “Come on. Let’s talk of Mykouloses and Magisters.”
He must have been planning that sound bite all morning. “And cabbages and kings?” she said.
“Those too, Alice.”
Sandra followed him down the rabbit hole, or at least to his office. He looked over her notes from the other side of his handmade hardwood desk. “Seems like it’s coming along. When’s the last time you spoke with Alexios?”
“Friday morning, while I was driving out to Long Island.” She hoped she wasn’t turning pink. “He seemed happy with my progress. He gets back to New York at Christmas.”
Arnaud nodded. “And he’ll want his condo all ready for entertaining. Well, we can make that happen soon enough. What else are we making happen? Tell me about Long Island.”
Sandra fought the urge to squirm. Instead, she gave as cool an appraisal of the situation as she could manage. Renovations for the second study were well under way; she’d already pulled up the carpet and ordered new accents and furnishings. If Mr. Magister was happy with it, she might have a chance at more of the house.
When she’d finished filling in the details, she gave Arnaud a bright smile.
He didn’t smile back. “What are you not telling me?”
Sandra blinked. “Um—”
“Is there a problem with the job? I need to know. This is a big deal for us, Sandra.”
“Oh, yeah. I know. I…listen, it’s not going to impact the job. I promise. But, uh, Bradley and I sort of broke up this weekend.”
Arnaud closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his forehead.
Shit. “I can’t tell you more than that,” Sandra said. “I just can’t.”
Now Arnaud looked surprised. “That sounds—official.”
Sandra swallowed. “Mr. Magister says the job’s still on. He was very clear on that. That’s all I can tell you, except…” She trailed off, wondering if she ought to say the rest.
“Except what?” Arnaud said. His brow furrowed.
“Except if I don’t do it, it won’t get done,” Sandra concluded. She didn’t want to strong-arm anybody, but it wasn’t wrong to assert her worth, was it? It seemed like the kind of thing Charles would do. “If I’m off the job, then so is the firm. Mr. Magister said he wants me to do it, and nobody else.”
Then it took all her willpower not to squirm in her seat as she remembered Charles growling, I want no one else. No one. No other woman, no other lover. She thought of the note, which she’d slipped into a zippered pocket inside her purse.
“Hmm,” Arnaud said. He tilted his head to the side. “You break up with Bradley and won’t tell me what happened. Charles Magister still wants to keep you on the payroll. I can see that something’s going on, and” —he raised both of his hands, palms up— “it’s none of my business and I don’t want to know. Just do your job.”
“Will do,” Sandra said, nodding briskly to conceal her relief. “In fact, let me show you what I’ve got…”
“I’m all ears,” Arnaud said dryly.
The rest of the day passed with no further surprises, unpleasant or otherwise. That was fine by Sandra. The last few days had brought enough surprises to last her for a while. It would be pretty great just to enjoy life as it came and hope the boat didn’t get rocked again anytime soon.
As she took the subway home that night, Sandra admitted to herself that her boat had needed some rocking. Maybe Charles’s had too. Maybe they would be good for each other, even though their affair had to remain a secret.
They’d both understood that right away. Magister Enterprises didn’t need a scandal, Charles didn’t want to alienate his whole family, and as for Sandra…she could live without her name in Page Six, thank you very much.
Besides, maybe there was something thrilling about an affair. Maybe it was kind of exciting. She was a powerful man’s dirty little secret, and he wanted her so much he couldn’t stay away, even though he knew he ought to.
Wow.
When Sandra got home, balancing her work stuff, a shopping bag, and a take-out salad, she nearly groaned. Her sister Kristen was already there, and she wasn’t alone. She was surrounded by the four other members of her psychology “study group,” though from what Sandra could tell, studying wasn’t really their main interest. The living room smelled of weed, and two empty pizza boxes sat on the floor.
“Oh, dammit,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face. At least her bedroom door was closed and the smell wouldn’t get into her things. That was all she needed, to show up at work smelling like secondhand pot. “Seriously, you guys?”
“Seriously?” Kristen mocked from where she lay sprawled on the couch. She wasn’t smoking, but she didn’t have a textbook out, either. “Lighten up. It’s our house, we’re not gonna get arrested.”
“Yeah,” added one of Kristen’s study buddies, a guy named Trevor with hair that was even redder than Sandra’s. “I’ve read the ACLU website, like, a thousand times. The cops can’t come in without a warrant unless you invite them, and—”
“Okay,” said Sandra, who didn’t worry for a minute that the police were going to bust anyone in her apartment, and who didn’t want to spend another second on this conversation. “You guys have fun. I’ll be in my room.”
“Hey, wait!” Kristen said. “You clammed up when you got home last night. I want to hear about what happened with Bradley.”
“Yeah,” agreed a girl named Najia. “We all do.”
Sandra glared at Kristen. “Oh, thanks.” So much for sisterly solidarity, not that they’d ever really enjoyed that.
“What?” Kristen said. “I told them your ex-boyfriend is a douche. That’s all I know.”
“Why’d you break up?” Najia prompted. “Do you think it points to, like, some deep-seated issue?”
They all laughed. Sandra’s heart and stomach automatically went cold. She knew they weren’t being malicious—they were just stoned college seniors who thought they knew everything, and right now, everything was hilarious. Still, being laughed at by a group of people always took her back to her childhood, when she’d been the butt of way too many jokes. The shy girl, the carrot-top, the crybaby. Aww, you gonna cry now, you big baby?
Never let them see you sweat. Words to live by. Sandra said, “It’s none of your business.”
“Oh, come on,” Kristen said. She sat up and brushed crumbs off her T-shirt. “Who else are you going to tell?”
Without another word, Sandra went into her room and shut the door. They were only going to get worse. She was so glad she’d never confided in Kristen about the situation, though she’d been tempted.
She sighed and took her salad out of the plastic bag as her mood turned sour. She could have lived without the reminder that she wasn’t swimming in friends. There were a couple of people from Pratt that she’d hung out with on a regular basis. She’d made friends with one of the girls in Pattern Drift, the Chelsea firm where she’d been an intern. But in the past six months, she’d mostly hung out with Bradley and occasionally a few of his buddies who had probably covered for him on those nights he was just “out with the guys” or “not feeling so hot, think I’ll stay home, babe.”