Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2)

by Laurelin Paige

  He only smirked and took another bite.

  “It’s our grandmother’s recipe,” I said, as if that explained why it was so delicious. It certainly wasn’t due to anything I did.

  “On your mother’s side, I’m guessing.” He took a swallow of his wine.

  I tensed slightly. “You guess correctly.” His guess was educated, probably based on the knowledge that our mother’s mother was full Italian, the first generation born in the United States.

  I exchanged a look with Audrey. I’d told her that Donovan had a file on me and that he’d obviously been watching me for years, but I hadn’t given her many details about the contents. Had she realized there were places where her own life’s information intersected with mine? Like our family tree? Had it occurred to her that my past was her past, that Donovan knew that too?

  If it hadn’t, she didn’t seem too bothered by learning it now.

  She had her own history on her mind, history that she also shared with me. “If it weren’t for Nonna’s lasagna, Thanksgiving would be a holiday that I’d be fine skipping all together,” she said. “Our dad died over this week, so there are bad memories. But we had so many years of lasagna dinners with Mom that are tied into my memories of her—I can’t get rid of this week and the bad memories of dad without losing the good memories of her too. It makes it a complicated time.”

  “I understand,” Donovan said, piquing my full attention. “I lost someone over Thanksgiving too.”

  Amanda. I’d forgotten she’d been coming back to school from the Thanksgiving break when she’d died.

  He looked only at Audrey as he went on. “But, a year later, I spent a really nice day in my office at Harvard with Sabrina. I can’t wish one didn’t happen without losing the other, too.”

  Audrey and I had talked repeatedly about this time being difficult before—losing Dad, remembering Mom.

  And I often thought about leaving Harvard now too. About Donovan. About losing my virginity to him against a bookcase. About realizing I liked sex that was filthy and dubious and involved power plays.

  I hadn’t ever stopped to think about what this time might mean to him.

  Yes. Complicated was right. For all of us. Then and now.

  After we’d finished dinner, conversation was even easier. We didn’t leave the table, choosing to stay there to pick at tiramisu and drink coffee and whiskey. Over a glass of scotch, I discovered that Donovan Kincaid was quite an expert in art history. He and Audrey debated long and hard the merits of modern art versus the classics—Donovan particularly liked the works of Jackson Pollock and Shiryu Morita while my sister preferred the romantics and gushed profusely about Carl Blechen.

  I’d learned enough over the years from Audrey to add an opinion here and there, but I was happy to sip my drink and listen to these two very different, very important people in my life. It suited Donovan to favor the bold, abstract strokes of the modern expressionists, just as it suited Audrey to love the dreamy wistfulness of the romance period.

  Did it suit me that I liked the pointillism of Seurat? Was I made up of small, distinct pieces that combined to form a bigger story? Was it easier to appreciate me from a distance? Was that what made a man like Donovan choose to love me so long from afar?

  He was nearer now. In my life, in my home. Would he keep loving me when he saw me this close up?

  Eventually, the discussion lulled and our glasses emptied. I got up to take our dessert plates to the kitchen. When I returned, I didn’t sit, instead choosing to lean against the dining room wall.

  The evening was ending, and I was unexpectedly nervous again.

  Audrey stood and stretched. “It’s almost midnight? I didn’t realize it was so late. I need to get packed.”

  Donovan nodded toward her. “Thank you for letting me intrude on your last night in town. I hope I wasn’t unwelcome.”

  She waved her hand, dismissing the idea. “Not at all unwelcome. We invite friends…and boyfriends…to this all the time.” She glanced at me in time to see the death glare I gave her. “Besides, it gives me a chance to deliver the My-Sister-Is-My-Only-Family speech.”

  His brow rose. “I don’t believe I know this speech.”

  “It’s a good one,” she promised.

  “Audrey!” I hid my face with my hands. I was going to kill her later. I loved her, but I’d kill her.

  She pivoted toward me. “This would have been a lot worse coming from Dad. Admit it. You can bear my version.” She turned back to Donovan. “It’s short. It’s standard. But it’s serious. Try not to hurt her. That’s all.”

  Donovan focused on his finger as he ran it along the bottom of his empty tumbler. “Audrey, I’m going to be honest with you.” He looked directly at my sister. “I’ve done and said a lot of the wrong things already in an attempt to not hurt her. But I came back from France to fix it.”

  “Okay then,” Audrey declared. “Fix it.”

  Donovan nodded.

  Satisfied, Audrey took his glass from him as well as her own and carried them to the sink.

  I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Definitely didn’t look at Donovan. I wasn’t in this moment—I was outside it, looking on. If I let myself be in it, I’d feel it, and that would be too much. I’d hold it for later instead, bring it out when I was alone and try to feel it in pieces. Not all at once where it would too easily overwhelm me.

  She came back quickly, announcing, “I’m going to my bedroom to pack now.”

  “I’ll go,” Donovan said with no motion to get up.

  Audrey’s expression grew panicked. “No! Don’t! I’m going to my bedroom. I’ll close the door. I’ll turn on music. I’ll pack. I’m not coming out. But I’m an adult. What that means is that you definitely don’t need to go.” She looked from me to Donovan and back to me, making sure that we both understood exactly what she was saying. That she was giving us permission to be adults too.

  I wanted to crawl into the wall.

  But God, I also wanted Donovan.

  “Goodnight, Audrey,” I said flatly.

  “Goodnight.” With a waggle of her brows she slipped away. A second later, music did indeed start playing from her room.

  Now it was just us. Just Donovan and me. Alone.

  I pulled a lock of hair over my shoulder and tugged at the end, trying to hide my flushed cheeks. “She’s a meddler. I’m sorry. Protective but also overly sentimental. She believes that All You Need is Love and that kind of idealistic crap.”

  Donovan tilted his head, his gaze scorching every inch of me. “Whatever will you do with her?”

  I shrugged. “Send her back to art school, I guess.”

  I dropped my hands and put them behind my back against the wall, hoping that might ground me. Because I needed to be grounded. I was floating right now, and I loved it and it scared me all at once.

  Maybe I didn’t need to be grounded. Maybe what I needed was to let go.

  I forced myself to look directly at Donovan. “I’m really jealous of her right now, actually.”

  “How so?”

  “Her head doesn’t get in the way. Maybe if I were her, I wouldn’t have all the noise in my brain that’s preventing me from crossing the room and crawling into your lap.”

  I panicked the minute the words left my mouth. “I don’t even know if you’d want me there.” Then I panicked some more. “And that wasn’t a desperate way of asking you to reassure me. Not at all.”

  Donovan’s eyes darkened. “All I’ve thought about the last hour is bending you over the back of that couch, tying your hands with your apron strings, and fucking you raw.”

  I shivered. “Yes, please.”

  I became putty when he talked like that. In that gravelly tone that rumbled through my bones. In that way that made me feel his words as if he were already doing those things to me, already bending me and tying me. Already fucking me raw.

  His gaze raked over me. “You’re tempting. Very tempting.”

  “But…?”
/>
  “But a wise woman once told me that sex doesn’t fix things.”

  Karma. I probably deserved this.

  I scoffed nonetheless. “Wise? That doesn’t sound wise. That sounds annoying.”

  “In my experience, wise is often annoying.” He smiled, like that was a concession prize. His grin in place of his body. His admission that this was comically torturous for him too.

  It was a terrible concession prize.

  My skin was buzzing and alive. My pussy was aching and wet. But more urgent than my body’s arousal was the itch inside me that couldn’t be named or explained. The spot that burned when he talked about fixing things and wanting to be here and when he called me his.

  “I don’t want you to go.” It came out almost as a whisper.

  “We’re going to talk tomorrow.”

  “That’s so far away.” You’re so far away. Six feet too far. Might as well be miles.

  “And after we talk,” he said gently, “you might not want to fuck me anymore.”

  I nodded because he was right—he had to go. “But you should know I can’t imagine that right now,” I told him.

  He nodded back.

  A beat passed. Then, as if we both felt the energy shift together, he stood up at the same time as I moved to the closet to get his coat.

  “You still want me to come over tomorrow?” he asked as we walked to the front door.

  “About that,” I’d been meaning to bring this up. “As you’ve mentioned already, the apartment is awfully…distracting. I thought we could meet instead at the office?”

  He looked at me carefully for several long seconds. “You really think it matters where we are?”

  No, it didn’t matter where we were. If he wanted to fuck me, he’d fuck me, and having him remind me like that made my pussy throb with need.

  But I had my reasons. I needed to be at the office.

  I shrugged. “Humor me.”

  “The office it is.”

  I opened the door and he walked past me out to the hall. When he turned back toward me, I wanted him to kiss me, but I knew he couldn’t, that if he started, neither of us would be able to stop. Instead, he reached his hand out and traced his thumb along my jaw.

  “Goodnight,” he said.

  “Goodnight.”

  I was glad he made me shut the door and lock it before he left so I couldn’t watch him walk away. It already felt too much like when we’d said goodnight, we’d really meant goodbye.

  Chapter 8

  With Audrey leaving and the talk with Donovan looming, I didn’t sleep well. It was still dark outside when I finally gave up on sleep. I took a long shower. I shaved—everywhere. I plucked my brows. I gave myself a pedicure. I put on sexy lacy panties and a matching bra and stood in front of my bedroom mirror. If no one saw it but me, at least I knew I looked good.

  I finished dressing, pulling on black leggings and boots and a cream sweater that fell to my thighs, and when Audrey woke up, we walked down the street for a last breakfast together.

  Afterward, I’d planned to accompany her to Grand Central to see her off, but she vetoed that plan.

  “That’s stupid and out of your way,” she said. “We can say goodbye here just as easily, and then you can get to Donovan sooner.”

  I wasn’t usually the affectionate one of the two of us, but I pulled her into a tight hug. “I love you,” I told her, worrying suddenly that I didn’t say it enough, that she didn’t know how deeply I felt it, that she would walk away now without understanding.

  “I love you, too.” When she pulled away her eyes were wet. I had a feeling she got what I’d meant. I had a feeling her words meant more than they said too.

  Thirty minutes later I was at the office.

  It was too early for Donovan to be there, which was a good thing. It gave me time to sit down at my desk and get my head straight. I needed to go into this with the right mindset. Like it was an interview. A trial, even, and I was the prosecutor.

  Because as much as I didn’t want to be cold or harsh, Donovan was on trial. He’d done things to me—he’d violated me in very real ways—and he was going to have to answer to that.

  I just had to make sure I didn’t let him in my pants before then.

  But that wasn’t the reason I’d chosen to meet at Reach.

  Another half hour later, I heard the elevator open. My light was the only one on. I knew he’d find me, and I waited for him to do so. A minute more and there he was, standing in my doorframe dressed in another pair of dark gray pants, this time with a crisp white dress shirt and a black pullover. The scruff on his jaw was more rugged than usual, his eyes a little less green, and I wondered if he’d had a hard time sleeping too.

  I wouldn’t blame him. This was going to be hard for me. But I had a feeling this was going to be even harder for him.

  “You want to do this in here,” he asked without preamble.

  My heart thudded against my ribcage, but I managed to keep my voice steady. “I was thinking the conference room.”

  He nodded, and I stood up, but before I’d moved out from my desk he asked, “Do I need to go get it or are you already prepared?”

  Now it felt like my heart was in my throat. He knew. He already knew what I had planned.

  I blinked, unable to speak.

  “Because you and I both know that I’d just as easily fuck you on the conference table as anywhere, so that can’t be the real reason you wanted to meet here.”

  I nodded, acknowledging he was correct in his assumption. Acknowledging that we were here because I didn’t just want him to tell me about it, I wanted him to go through everything with me. I wanted all the details explained.

  I wanted him to get the file.

  “I didn’t want to go through your office,” I told him earnestly, sounding timid.

  He cocked his head. “I think there’s some irony there, don’t you?”

  “I’m well aware.” I swallowed. The air between us stretched taut and thick.

  And his eyes, where they’d been so warm last night, seemed cold and shielded today. As though he didn’t want me to see anything inside of him.

  I might not have walked in prepared, but he did.

  “I’ll meet you in the conference room,” he said. Then he turned to walk to his office, and I turned and walked the other way.

  Five minutes later he joined me, the overflowing manila file tucked under his arm. He studied me for a second. I’d chosen to sit at the middle of the table, unwilling to choose the head for myself, not wanting him to choose it either. In his eyes I could see him deliberate—should he sit next to me?

  He chose to sit across from me. It was the right choice. We weren't here together today. At least, we hadn't come together. We might leave together—that remained to be seen—but for now, we were on opposite sides.

  Donovan slid the folder across the table in my direction. I reached out to take it from him, my fingers on the edge closest to me, so far from where his hand still gripped the side, and pulled. He didn't let go, and I looked up to meet his eyes. They were empty, and I realized that might be the closest to afraid that I'd ever seen him.

  It almost made me feel sorry for him.

  Then I glanced back at the thick folder, its contents practically spilling out from its seams. This would be hard for us. But if we had any chance together, we had to get through it all.

  My eyes still locked on his, I tugged on the folder again. This time he let go, and the whole thing slid easily to my side.

  With a shaky hand, I opened up the front cover and smoothed it down onto the table.

  "So," he said. "Where do you want to start?"

  God, there was so much in there. So many papers and photos I had questions about. So much I needed to know. "How about the beginning?"

  "A very good place to start." He leaned back in his chair, but he was by no means relaxed. His shoulders remained tense, his jaw tight.

  That wasn't my problem.

&nb
sp; I took the first paper out of the folder and scanned it. It appeared to be a receipt for a wire transfer from Donovan's bank to the mortgage account in my father's name dated shortly after his death.

  I turned the paper around and scooted it toward him. "What's this?"

  Donovan glanced quickly at it. "It seems to be proof of payment of some kind.”

  I drew my eyes into narrow slits. "Is this really how you want to play this?” I asked. Admittedly, it was almost easier if he did want to be an asshole. Then I could be an asshole right back.

  He cocked his head this way and that ever so slightly, and I understood it wasn't me he was wrestling with—it was his own need for control. His own drive to hold the reins. To deal the cards. To run the show.

  Eventually he let out a short audible breath. "It's the payoff for your father's mortgage. I paid the balance after his death."

  "Why?"

  "For you.” For him, the answer was plain as day.

  When my father died, everything had been left in my name. I'd been as surprised then to find out my childhood home had no mortgage outstanding as I was now to hear Donovan proclaim his reason for paying it off. I'd expected to be paying that loan for ten more years. When I didn’t receive a statement for several months after the funeral, I'd even gone to the bank and questioned it.

  "The loan officer told me that my father had made extra payments over the years," I told Donovan. It seemed impossible at the time. My father had saved every extra penny to send me to Harvard. Where had he gotten the money to pay off his mortgage? But I hadn’t been about to argue with the bank.

  His mouth twisted. His jaw ticked. "I have friends,” he admitted. “A friend. He made the register appear the way I wanted it to appear.” He was about to leave it at that, but then, as if realizing I’d demand more, he added, “I knew if there'd been a lump sum, you would've gotten suspicious."

  "You didn't want me to find out it was you." I couldn't decide if I was mad or grateful. Having the mortgage paid off had been a real blessing. It would have been really hard for me to go back to college and pay for my sister's expenses with house payments on top of it.