by Amelia Wilde
“Good man, Laurence,” I say, putting my arm around Cate. She waves to Laurence over my shoulder.
It’s not a very long walk to the main guest suite. I had Gloria make sure it was absolutely spotless and switch out the bed coverings for pieces similar to what Cate has at home—but the finest versions money can buy—so it’ll feel familiar and comfortable.
Her eyes go wide at the size of the room, the king-size bed, the carefully placed throw pillows. But the tour is postponed. She goes directly to the bed and stretches out atop it, falling asleep right away.
Cate rests for three days, and I cancel all my appointments to wait on her hand and foot.
Well, me and the rest of my staff. Laurence makes all her favorite things—pancakes, tacos, strawberries with cream—and we watch every movie she hasn’t had time to see since she’s been working at Basiqué.
We spend time talking.
“Where did you grow up?” she asks me, nestled into the crook of my arm. A perfect fit.
“Outside the city.”
“Not here in this building?”
“No,” I laugh, picturing my parents’ two-story house in New Jersey. “My parents had money, but not nearly this much.”
“What did they do?”
A wave of sadness bubbles in my chest, followed by a spike of anger.
We’re here. We’re at this point. It’s time for me to loosen my stranglehold on personal information…at least with Cate.
“My mother was a teacher until she became a housewife. And my dad…” I clench my jaw involuntarily. It takes work to release it. Cate presses against me a little harder. “My dad was a stockbroker. And in his later life he ran a Ponzi scheme that got his ass parked in jail for fifteen years.”
Cate’s mouth opens in surprise.
“What about…what did your mom do about that?”
“They got a divorce. But she’s…she’s not well. She has Alzheimer’s. She’s in one of the best senior care facilities in the city, but there are a lot of bad days.”
She leans her head against my chest and commiserates in silence.
I ask her about where she grew up.
“Where did you come from, Catherine Schaffer?”
A smile spreads across her face as she pictures home. “Winthrop Harbor is a town off of a postcard. The whole thing is on a lakeshore, and it’s about the cutest shit you’ll ever see in one place. It was pretty idyllic to grow up there. I have no complaints.”
“Why did you leave?”
She sighs a little.
“My sister Bee was always a go-getter,” she says, pursing her lips. “In one way I wanted to outdo her—go farther, get a better job. But I also loved fashion, and this is the place to do it. I came here to get ahead, but I stayed because…” She trails off. There’s something she’s hesitant about telling me, something deeper than the surface level that we’re carefully treading on.
There’ll be time for that later.
Her body in the curve-hugging outfits she wears is irresistible, but I don’t push it.
Until the fourth day.
I’m coming back from a session with my trainer, expecting to find her still asleep in her bed…but she’s not there. The bed is neatly made, even though Gloria will be in to do that later.
I find her in the walk-in closet. I had most of her clothes brought here while she was still in the hospital so she’d have them if she needed them, but she hasn’t changed to another outfit for relaxation.
She’s dressed for work.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I keep my tone light and joking, and though she smiles at me when she turns to face me, her eyes are serious.
“Going back to work.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do.” She turns back to the full-length mirror, putting in her other earring.
“Cate, you need to take it easy. You shouldn’t be back to work for at least another week. Maybe two. I made it clear to Ms. Sarzó—”
“You did what?” There’s anger in her voice.
I could do any number of things, but instead I step forward and cover her mouth with mine, tasting her sweetness.
Instantly, she melts against me, and I fold her into my arms.
When she comes up for air, I bend my head to her ear. “Stay in bed with me today.”
She doesn’t resist when I lead her by the hand to the bed, strip off all of her carefully arranged clothing, and proceed to take her so slowly, so gently, it brings tears to her eyes.
26
Cate
Words don’t begin to describe how sweet things are with Jax.
Or how intense.
He didn’t want me to go to work yesterday, and it was all too easy to give into him. I know his dominating nature is still there, waiting for the right opportunity to reappear, but my stay in the hospital seems to have calmed him.
It’s only temporary, I know.
I can’t say I mind seeing this softer side of him. The way he’s cared for me over the past week is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
In the middle of our second day of full-time lounging in his enormous living room, I was completely overwhelmed by the desire for movie theater popcorn.
“Do you like going to the movies?”
I was curled up against his chest, tucked under his arm, and he twisted to look down at my face.
“I don’t mind the movies,” he said. “There are definitely a few theaters I’d choose over others. Why? Do you want to go out? I don’t know if—”
A look of worry crossed his face, and my heart warmed up to see him so concerned that a trip across town to the movies might be too much for me. It wouldn’t have been, but I rubbed his arm and laughed a little. “No, no. I love movie theater popcorn. I’d watch three hours of previews with a bucket of that popcorn and be so thrilled.”
By the time I was finished talking he was pulling his phone from his pocket.
“Who are you—?” I laughed, still half disbelieving that this was real life.
“Michelle? Are you occupied at the moment?”
I couldn’t hear her reply.
“I’ll cover the fee if you go to the theater on Broadway between 83rd and 84th right now and return with two buckets of popcorn. Fifty as a bonus if it’s here while it’s still warm.”
Anything.
He’d get me anything.
All my life, I never aspired to wealth like Jax’s. It seemed like such an impossible goal and such a burden at the same time, and I do see that—how he takes his responsibilities so seriously.
In the middle of the movie we’re watching—The Devil Wears Prada, in a twist of irony—he puts his hand on mine. “If you could be doing anything for a job, what would it be?”
“Wow. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
I’m silent for a few minutes while I turn the question over in my mind.
“I didn’t start out loving fashion,” I say finally.
“No?”
“No. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. But I didn’t think it would pay the bills, so in college I double-majored in marketing and creative writing. When I moved to NYC I got a job at Basiqué in editorial, and I probably would have stayed there if my boss hadn’t recommended me to Sandra as a potential assistant.”
“So you’d be a writer?”
“Maybe one day. But I always thought—this is so stupid, because the Internet exists now—that it would be fun to own my own publishing company. Now it would be more complicated, having to come out with digital books and all that, and probably nothing like what I’m imagining it was in the old days, but…that’s what I’d do.”
“Read for a living.”
“Yes. Read for a living.”
That same evening, the salt from the popcorn still on my tongue, Jax’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Hello?”
He hesitated, not wanting to move away from me, but after a minute it was clear that wh
atever it was would take more of his attention.
“No,” he said as he padded out of the room, leaving me to watch the fifth movie of the day solo. “No, absolutely not. Have all five of them conference in. Three minutes.”
And yesterday in bed…
He took off my clothing with such infinite care that by the end I was trembling with anticipation. I threw my naked body at him, biting his lower lip, tasting his tongue, rubbing up against his cock straining against his pants.
“You’re so hot for me,” he murmured into my ear.
“Yes,” I gasped.
He made a tsking sound with his tongue. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you self-control?”
The past year has taught me self-control more than most other experiences in my life.
But this is a game that I so want to play with Jax…and I have a feeling he’s going to take it to a new level.
“No,” I whispered into his ear as he slid a hand between my legs, pushing them apart and running a finger through the wetness there.
“No?” he repeated, a hint of a warning in his voice.
We weren’t in the office, but I caught on instantly. “No, Mr. Hunter.” I rested my head against his shoulder while he stroked me, sending pulsations of heat through my body.
“On the bed, on your back,” he commanded, his voice quiet, and I fell back onto the brand new comforter. The mattress bowed a few moments later as, clothes discarded on the floor next to the bed, Jax climbed into bed next to me.
He planted hot kisses from my shoulder to my wrist on each arm, then he raised my arms above my head, pinning my hands against the headboard.
“Keep them here.” His soft voice was laced with steel.
I kept my hands planted firmly against the headboard as he licked and nibbled at my neck, dragged his tongue into the dip of my collarbone, took each of my nipples in turn into his mouth, then brought his head down between my legs until I thought I would die from the intensity of the pleasure. Measured. So slow it nearly drove me insane. So when he climbed up and centered himself between my legs and pressed his cock into me inch by inch my nerves were on fire and I felt every curve of him, every vein of his thickness against my walls, filling me, fucking me, getting me closer and closer to the edge until I careen over in a burst of light and heat…
I’m still thinking about his passionate lovemaking this morning, even while I’m about to disobey him.
The fact of the matter is, though, that no matter what we do in the bedroom, I’m an independent woman. I can’t deny that I needed someone to take care of me the past few days, and Jax has been incredible.
But it’s time to go back to work.
My muscles still feel fatigued, so I don’t even entertain the notion of working out with Carl. I get up early, when I know Jax is with his trainer—I wonder who’s meeting him at this hour of the morning—dress as meticulously as always, and head out the door.
At the office Sandra barely acknowledges that I was gone, although a frazzled redhead named Allison from the editorial department sees me as her personal savior when I arrive and send her back to her regular job.
It’s not until 5:00 that I realize sneaking out so early without telling Jax is going to come with a price.
It’s on my calendar, so I show up for our daily meeting without a second thought—that’s how thoroughly I slip back into work mode, even if I move a little slower at the moment.
The moment I see his eyes, I see the depth of his fury.
Three steps into the office, and I stop dead, his face a mask of anger. He’s by me in a flash, locking the doors behind us, and then he takes my arm in his hand and walks me roughly over to the desk.
“Bend over.”
A flush of heat runs through me all the way to my fingertips, and the energy that spikes through my core is molten lust.
“Yes, Mr. Hunter,” I say and bend over, exactly how he showed me during our second meeting.
He shoves my skirt up and yanks down my panties, his hand hard against the small of my back, and that’s when I do it: I spread my legs wider.
Jax hesitates.
Leans down.
He whispers, “You knew I didn’t want you to come to work.”
“I came anyway.”
“It’s not safe, Catherine. Your health isn’t—”
“Are you going to punish me for it?”
My breath is ragged in my throat. A pause.
“You want me to punish you?”
“I wasn’t following instructions.”
He takes in one harsh breath and then I hear the rip of his zipper, a rustle of cloth, and Jax is slamming his cock into me, he’s into the hilt, and I’m throbbing around him, already on the edge of a climax. This is what he does to me, what I want him to do, what I need him to do—
“Harder!” I cry out.
He responds with a slap on the ass, stinging, sharp. “You don’t give the orders here.” I thrust my ass back against him, urging him on, in, deeper, faster.
He doesn’t disappoint.
27
Jax
Catherine Schaffer is going to ruin me.
I don’t know what I intended when I came to the Basiqué offices knowing that she was here. A terse discussion, probably, that would alleviate some of the pressurized worry building in my chest.
I saw her fall.
It wasn’t that long ago that I came in early on some instinct, some mystical sign, I don’t know, in time to catch her before her temple crashed into the sharp, modern corner of Sarzó’s desk. Over that first weekend we spent together I saw how she needed more and more sleep to wake up every time, more and more time to recover, but she refused to acknowledge it. I watched the storm brewing on the horizon and I didn’t care at all if I got wet.
We haven’t had the discussion yet.
That’s what makes all of this so difficult.
Love is one thing. Putting words to that feeling is one thing. Commitment is another, and through all our days of talking about our goddam hometowns and childhood friends, we never got around to giving our relationship a firm title.
And that means I have no real right to feel as pissed as I felt when I discovered she left the penthouse and went to work.
At first—and I’ll admit it—I was in such a state because I thought I’d been clear the day before. It took a good thirty minutes to remind my dumbass self that there’s a line—a huge dividing line—between the games we play in the bedroom and our actual life together.
It’s easy for those lines to blur.
For her, they haven’t.
For me, the things we do are a natural extension of how I live my own life. I am in total control.
And then it hits me again like a sucker punch: I’m not in control. Because if I was, Catherine Schaffer would be long-forgotten by now, another notch in my belt, left behind like the rest of the women I’ve dated in the past.
I’m not in control because I love her too much to let her go.
Of course, she goes anyway.
On top of that, I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be able to turn off how I’ve always been, or that I even want to. It’s served me extremely well in every other aspect of life. It’s why my net worth is one of the highest in the city…not to mention the rest of the country.
I’m powerful in my own right.
When she walked in, I was ready to be clear with her on my expectations, especially when it comes to her health, because that’s how much she means to me.
But the sway in her hips, the glint in her eyes…
I had to have her.
Teaching her a lesson was only a side benefit, and then that spitfire of a woman went and turned the tables on the entire arrangement.
How could I resist her when she bent over my desk for me, ready to submit to me…but only under her own terms? I don’t think anything’s ever turned me on more in my life.
Now she’s back down the hall, doing god knows what for Sarzó.
&n
bsp; I’m about to leave when there’s a knock at my door.
“Mr. Hunter?”
It’s not Cate.
“Come in,” I call, pulling out my leather portfolio. I’ve been sitting at my desk since Cate rearranged her skirt and slipped out the door, the spring in her step not quite compensating for how worn down she still feels…even if she won’t admit it.
The door opens and a curvy woman who can’t be more than five feet tall comes in with timid steps, clutching a stack of papers.
“Mr. Hunter, my name is Lauren, from accounting.”
“Hello, Lauren.”
She takes a deep breath, obviously flustered to be in my presence, which isn’t uncommon. Last week I might have been harsher, more dismissive, but something about Cate has me looking at things differently. At Basiqué, Cate can’t be the only one who’s doing too much. She is, however, the only one who has a billionaire boyfriend to protect her from the worst effects.
Not boyfriend, I remind myself. Not yet.
Lauren’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “There’s a full report in your email, Mr. Hunter, but the department heads wanted me to personally deliver this summary to you.”
I wave her forward, and she puts the thin stack on my desk.
“Thank you, Lauren.” I nod at her, giving her a smile. “I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
“Thank—thank you, Mr. Hunter,” she says, the relief obvious in her face.
When the door closes behind her retreating back, I’m already deep into the summary details.
The numbers don’t look good.
In fact, they look dismal.
Website traffic has fallen, ad revenue is on the decline for both the print and web properties, and subscriptions are down.
Basiqué was supposed to be a powerhouse.
As it stands, it’s barely supporting itself.
I sigh, resigning myself to keeping it alive with influxes of cash…for the space of three heartbeats.
No.
I cannot let Cate cloud my judgment.
This is exactly the kind of bullshit that I’ve been trying to avoid for years.