by Audra North
Probably not, though. She didn’t seem Californian. It was hard to explain, but there was something a bit more edgy about her. Probably East Coast. Which meant she may as well be living in Santiago. He actually visited here more than he did the other side of the United States.
He scoffed at the empty room. What was he doing, anyway, making up a fictional relationship with her? They were together for a few hours, nothing more. And he was going to behave himself.
He shoved his legs into his sweats—thick, fleece-lined, and baggy, nothing like those ones that Lily had been wearing—and pulled on a T-shirt before sliding his laptop from his bag and logging on to the hotel Wi-Fi.
Once online, he immediately typed “Lily Stanton” into the Google search box. Maybe it was an invasion of her privacy, but he figured if it was on the Internet, it wasn’t private, anyway.
The first search result was for Four Tethers Consulting. When he clicked on it, a full-length picture of her in a conservative skirt suit, shaking the hand of the president of a major IT service corporation, popped up. Holy damn. She was very successful, based on the client list on her website. She was the president and employed thirty consultants in her firm, apparently.
No wonder she hadn’t batted an eyelash at the nearly thousand-dollar price tag on this suite for the night.
And it explained her small suitcase. Every consultant he had ever met was able to pack two weeks’ worth of life into a suitcase smaller than his laptop bag. Considering that Lily had been toting a rollerboard, she had probably managed to stuff everything she needed for a ski trip into it and still left room for souvenirs to bring back home.
Even on vacation, she packed like she was going on a work trip.
Consultants were a weird breed.
He had been momentarily shocked when she had computed what had to have been thirty calculations in her head, down in the lobby. And each dollar amount that she had assigned to something that either of them would need to use during their stay was logically justified.
It had floored him, turned him on, and turned him inside out with the force of attraction he’d felt, not just to her body, but to her clever mind.
He poked around a bit more on the firm’s website. It was based out of Manhattan and listed a satellite office in North Carolina, but apart from that there wasn’t any specific information about its president.
He clicked back to the search results page and saw her name attached to several consulting projects at big technology firms. Interesting. She seemed to know the clean tech fields well, was an investor through an angel group, and served on the board of directors of a nonprofit company focused on bringing technology to public schools along the Eastern seaboard.
After a few more minutes, he hadn’t found anything more interesting, so he closed the page and started checking his e-mail.
Lily had been in the shower for nearly twenty minutes when he finally heard the water shut off, and he had to reread the e-mail he had opened several times to push past the image of her emerging from the shower, naked, streaming water, with peaked nipples from the sudden cold after so long in the wet warmth.
He groaned and fought for control by forcing the words from one of his e-mails into his brain. Sales projections. Market share. Growth potential. The dry terms brought him back to reality. He heard shuffling in the other room and the door swung open. Lily emerged, dressed in flannel pajamas, her long hair wrapped in a towel.
She looked amazing.
She gave him an embarrassed smile. “I didn’t have anything but dirty clothes and these pajamas.”
He pushed back from the desk. “You look great. Besides, it’s not like we’re heading to a fashion show.” He grinned and gestured to his worn sweats with the big Stanford logo on them.
She looked at him in surprise. “Did you go there for college?”
“Business school. I was at Berkeley for undergrad.”
“Oh.” Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Do you still live in California, then?”
He nodded, trying to ignore how disappointed she looked. She must feel it, too, he thought. This connection between them.
He wasn’t just thinking of their attraction then, though that was certainly a big connection, too.
They stared at each other for a moment too long, and he searched for something to say.
“Oh, I connected to the hotel network, if you want to use my laptop.” He gestured to the desk.
And almost keeled over when Lily gave him The Smile. The one he had seen earlier, and she hadn’t revealed since. But she did now, and the way it lit up her face was enchanting.
And sexy as hell.
“Thank you so much,” she breathed. “I haven’t had a chance to call my sister since the craziness at the airport.”
She was still firing that megawatt smile at him.
He looked away, shifting uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, go for it.” He got up and spun the chair around for her, then went to his bag to dig out his e-reader.
She settled into the chair he had just vacated and began clicking swiftly. Bruno headed toward the bedroom so that she could have some privacy during the call, but she waved her hand at him, not bothering to look up.
“You don’t need to go. This will be quick.”
He shrugged and turned, settling instead into a large, upholstered wingback chair across the room.
A few more clicks, and within seconds he heard the ringing of a phone coming from his computer. Soon, another voice came through the speakers.
“Lily!” it squealed, and Bruno smiled. Her sister sounded young and very excited to be getting the call. “I thought you were supposed to be on a plane, but I was reading the weather reports from Santiago and they said most flights were grounded. Are you okay? I figured you were okay, since you’re you and super-capable, of course, but I was still a little worried. Did you find a place to stay? I found a couple of online posts that said most of the hotels are completely booked because of all the stranded tourists. But you have Internet, so I’m guessing—”
“Slow down!” Lily broke into the monologue, laughing. “I think you’re way more worked up than I am,” she teased. “And I’m fine. I’m at the Ritz.”
Julie gave an impressed whistle. “You’re so glamorous.”
He tried not to chuckle, given that he just been talking with Lily about how dressed down they were.
Lily smiled, but even from a distance he could see it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her face grew serious. “Actually, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get out tomorrow. I mean, the storms have stopped, I think, just based on what it looks like outside, but I don’t know how backed up the flights are.”
She was tense. He knew her well enough already to recognize the slight clenching of her jaw, the hard set of her shoulders.
There was a pause on the other end, and then Julie said softly, “Don’t beat yourself up about it if you can’t make it home. I’ll miss you, but Greg, Andrew, and Meredith will be there with Mom, and your staying safe is way more important than my graduation. We can always celebrate in a few days, just you and me.”
Lily sighed. “I should never have come on this trip and risked not making it back in time. It was a selfish thing to do.”
Bruno frowned. He didn’t like the sound of this. He felt protective of Lily already, and it sounded like she was taking on unnecessary responsibility for things that were out of her control. Julie certainly didn’t seem to think it was Lily’s fault if she couldn’t make it back for the graduation. He wondered how old Julie was. Lily had said she was young. Was this a college graduation? High school? Lily certainly wasn’t fresh out of college, based on her career success alone, but she didn’t look much older than mid-twenties.
And suddenly, he felt like a dirty old man. He hoped she was at least within a decade younger than he was.
Julie scoffed, the harshness of the sound magnified by the tinny speakers of the laptop. “I think it’s about time you were selfish. You’ve spent the
last few years catering to everyone’s needs but your own. If you don’t make it to my graduation, it doesn’t matter.”
Bruno couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lily’s face as she fought back tears. “You’re too good to me.” She managed a wobbly smile at the screen.
Julie tsked. “You’ve been through enough this week with your fun, screw-that-asshole getaway turning out to be such a disappointment.”
Lily sighed. “I should never have e-mailed you about that. It was a moment of extreme weakness—”
Julie cut off her sister. “There you go again, taking the world’s problems on your shoulders and not letting anyone share the burden. I know you still think of me as a baby, but I’m about to graduate from college. And I’m here for you, just like you’ve always been here for me.” There was a short pause, and when Julie spoke again, her voice was softer. “I’m grown up enough to at least listen to what is hurting you. And I’ll always be here for you, whether or not you make it home tomorrow.”
Bruno watched as Lily just nodded, swallowing convulsively. Uh-oh. She was about to lose it.
Not that he would mind. He could deal with a little emotion. What he couldn’t deal with was seeing this strong, smart woman driven to tears by a series of awful, unfair events. “Thanks, Julie. Listen, I gotta go,” Lily said, her eyes flicking to him for the first time during the conversation, as though she had forgotten he was there until just that moment. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear any news on my flight tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Take care of yourself.”
He heard the call end, but he stayed silent, pretending to read while Lily clicked and typed for a few more minutes on the computer. But after a while he looked up, curious to see her face, and immediately jumped out of his chair. She was crying silently, tears falling slowly down her cheeks even as she worked. She swiped at them with the sleeve of her pajamas as though they were just a minor annoyance.
He was at her side in three long strides, not even hesitating before he took hold of her hands and gently tugged her upright, then wrapped his arms around her slender body. And that’s when the dam broke. She grabbed on tight, gave one pathetic “Oh,” and then sobbed into his neck.
Chapter Four
This was so embarrassing.
After several minutes of weeping on Komarov’s T-shirt, Lily finally composed herself with several long, deep breaths and tried to pull away from his warm, solid chest. But his arms trapped her tightly, not letting her leave him when all she wanted to do was run into the bedroom and hide.
She had just lost it in front of him. She felt like the biggest loser in history.
He reached up and took the towel off her head. It had already gotten all skewed when she had pushed her nose into his collar, and her hair must look like a mess, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept making soft, shushing sounds, and after a while, she relaxed into his embrace.
Which felt really, really good. So good to be pressed against almost his entire length, front to front, breasts to chest, her legs between his as he leaned against the back of the chair and supported her weight against his body.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his shirt. “I’m so embarrassed. You must think I’m the worst sister in the world.”
He laughed softly, and she felt the vibration through his chest. “Not particularly, no. Sounds like you’ve been a pretty great one, actually. Greg, Andrew, and Meredith—are they your other siblings?”
Lily nodded against his chest, her damp hair rasping against the fabric of his T-shirt. “Greg and Andrew are my older brothers, and Meredith is Andrew’s fiancée. Julie is almost nine years younger than I am and our dad died when she was only thirteen. For many years after his death, Mom lost a lot of her spark, and I think that was hard on Julie, even though Mom tried really hard to stay positive for Julie’s sake. The rest of us were out of the house by then, and I always felt like Julie got the short end of the stick, spending her teen years without a dad, a grieving mom, and siblings who all lived far away…”
She trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling. I swear, I’m not usually such a basket case. It’s been a rough week.”
He tsked at her. “Even if you wept like a baby on a regular basis, it sounds like you have good reason to. And…not that I was listening”—she gave a weak laugh against his shirt—“but it sounded like you really are being too hard on yourself. It seems to me that you tried very hard to make sure she never felt like she had missed out.”
Lily sighed and shrugged. “I tried to go back home as often as possible. I pushed for consulting gigs in North Carolina—where I’m from—and guilted Greg and Andrew into coming for every holiday. Even Flag Day, for goodness’ sake.”
He laughed again, this time a short, barking laugh that made her smile. “It doesn’t sound like ‘worst sister’ behavior to me. In fact, if you were only in your early twenties, it was probably something that few of your contemporaries would have done for a teenaged sister.”
Her shoulders lifted in a slight shrug, as if to say that it was no big deal. “Julie went through some hard times in high school with another girl that bullied her. She did so well at her university, but even so, I think not having us around as much to protect her during those difficult high school years really affected her.” She took another deep breath and sank into him. His hand came up to caress her back, gently rubbing in long, soft strokes from her neck to her waist.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, and he paused. She could tell he disliked when she apologized for herself, but she pressed on. “You’re making a lot of solid, rational points, and ordinarily I would be listening to you with a much more open mind. This just happens to be the near-culmination of an extremely bad, bad week, and it might actually get even worse if I don’t make it to Julie’s graduation. I recognize it’s irrational, but her graduation has become some sort of symbolic thing for me. It’s just important.”
He nodded, and she felt his chin dip into her hair. “I do understand. I went through something similar about a year ago. And it doesn’t make you irrational. It makes you human.”
Lily was so overwhelmed by his kind words that she didn’t know how to respond, so she simply stayed silent, wrapped in his embrace. She didn’t know how much time passed as she stood there, letting him ease her nerves, until she finally drew back a bit, pressing against his firm chest, which caused her hips to pitch forward into his.
And the jolt of heat between them sparked all the way up his body into his eyes. The warm brown of his eyes deepened even more, becoming nearly black as he slowly pushed forward, his face only a hairsbreadth away from hers. She felt his breath on her lips, and she licked them in response as her heart threatened to explode with excitement. He slid his hand to her waist, pulled her just a fraction more against his body, where she could now feel his powerful cock pressing into her lower belly—
A loud knock sounded on the door, and she sprang away from him as though she were a teenager again, when her dad caught her kissing Will Newhouse on the front porch after their first date.
“Room service,” a cheerful, accented voice floated through the door, and Komarov bit out a growling curse.
“Coming!” he shouted, and with one last, heated look at Lily, he went to open the door.
…
A part of Bruno wanted to silently curse the hapless waiter who arrived bearing their meal, but the interruption was probably for the best. If left alone for one more minute, chances are that they would have been too wrapped up in one another to even hear the knock. Still, he had to work hard to push away the images of a panting, gasping Lily that were crowding into his mind. What was it about this woman that got him so worked up, so impatient?
He definitely did not feel this aroused out of sympathy. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel bad about the shitty week—hell, the shitty relationship—that she’d endured. It was simply that he wanted her apart from all that.
But she had been emotional, an
d he shouldn’t have taken advantage of that. Thankfully, the waiter had stopped him. If he had tried to take it further, ignoring that she might end up regretting getting involved with him while she was distressed, he would have felt like a jerk for only adding to her problems.
He conversed briefly with the waiter, tipped him some pesos, and beckoned to Lily, who was still standing by the desk, to come and eat. The waiter had covered a small table in the room with a tablecloth and pulled up two chairs on either side, pouring two glasses of wine, as well, before leaving.
He hoped the wine that she had ordered would help to relieve some of her stress, even if only temporarily. After everything that had happened to her this week, she deserved to relax.
Sex could also relax her, he suggested to himself.
But he tamped that down immediately. No, no, and no.
Besides, she looked pretty shell-shocked, and he was worried now that he had scared her with that almost-kiss. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to eat alone in her room with the door locked.
He smiled at her as she approached the table, trying to look like he didn’t want to eat her up. He held out her chair and pushed it in as she sat, then took his own seat across from her and picked up his wineglass.
“Here’s to smooth flying tomorrow.” He kept his tone light. Friendly.
She picked up her glass and licked her lips, and he tracked it with his eyes like a fox scenting a hare. “Here’s to unexpected cancellations,” she murmured, and tipped her glass forward slightly, her eyes never leaving his, even when they both took a sip of the dry Chilean red.
Bruno shifted in his seat as his erection pressed up against the fabric of his sweatpants.
Definitely hadn’t scared her.
Out of habit, he held the wine on his tongue for a while, testing the flavor with his palate. It was a good wine. He glanced over and recognized the cork and label from another family vineyard that neighbored his grandparents’ place.
He set down his glass and picked up his fork, trying to keep his hands busy so that they wouldn’t be all over her. She might have just caressed him with her eyes, but it was hardly a clear invitation for what he wanted to do.