“You feel everything so deeply. The slightest thing can affect you. Was it always that way?”
“I guess.” She shifted in her seat, staring out at where the sun had recently left the horizon. The oranges and pinks of the sunset quickly turning to blues and purples. He reached his spoon across the table, stealing a bite.
“I don’t think of things the way you do. I do what feels right instead of what looks right on paper.” She shoved a spoonful into her mouth to keep from saying too much.
She studied his face as his features changed from interested to completely unreadable. Anyone else would have thought he couldn’t care less. But Robyn had been learning him for months, and the blank expression meant one of two things. Either he was bored, or he was worried.
She stared harder in the silence, wondering why he would worry, and then it hit her. He didn’t believe she was in love with him, but if he realized she was always honest, he had to also realize she told the truth about her feelings. She took an accomplished bite of the ice cream, letting it melt slowly over her tongue.
He cleared his throat. “In business, and in social circles, it is important to be able to play a kind of game, telling people what they want to hear. Can you do that?” He snatched the carton from her hand, digging in.
“No. But I don’t think you need to. Life runs a lot smoother when you are straight with people and not always having to decipher what they mean from what they say.”
“I don’t think it would work.” He raised his spoon to silence her when she began to protest. “But I’m willing to give it a shot. I think you should be the project manager on the Sapphire Isle venture.”
Her mouth opened in surprise. Jumping up and kissing him for his faith in her and the opportunity came to her mind first, but the possibility of sinister motives behind his action kept her seated.
“Why me?” She tugged the nearly empty carton back from him.
“You’ve done the work. Your reports are complete, your ideas solid. And you said you wanted to keep working. You could manage this project, then find another for yourself after that. Or work in party planning like you wanted to before coming to work for me.”
“So it’s not working you’re against, just working with you all the time.” She took a huge bite, letting the coldness chill her ire.
“You’re no longer in a position to be my assistant, Robyn. Why can’t you see that?” He took back the carton and scraped his spoon against the bottom to finish it.
“I can. I just thought we would talk about it, instead of you steamrolling over me.”
“You act like I force you into things. That’s not fair.”
She met his gaze, knowing they each had a point. “You’re right, you don’t force me, but you assume I want what you want without asking.”
“Do you want to manage the Sapphire Isle project?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we arguing, exactly?” He lifted a brow in a flirtatious challenge.
“Because you finished the ice cream.”
“There’s more, but really, I think there are better things we could be doing.” He stood from the table, plucking the spoon from her hand.
“I’m still not having sex with you.” Her stomach tightened. If he pushed, she’d relent. Sex was the only way he was willing to connect with her, and she didn’t want to lose that. But more so, she didn’t want to lose herself.
“You agreed to try on the life. Sharing my bed is part of that.” Grabbing her hand, he tugged her up against him.
“I think it’s time you try on the life, Curtis. We won’t make love constantly.”
“Why not?” He had the nerve to grin.
“Because people get sick, and tired, and a whole host of other reasons. I’ll share a bed with you, but only to sleep.”
“Can you do that?”
…
Curtis clutched the book in his hand, staring down at the ridiculous silk boxers Robyn had given him from her pink suitcase when he’d told her he slept in the nude. That bridal shower had gotten them both in trouble. Robyn had a case full of lingerie that made her uncomfortable, and he was stuck with boxers that simply were uncomfortable. Boxer shorts don’t even have a purpose.
He knocked softly on the semi-closed door, then pushed it open to find Robyn sitting up against the pillows in the bronze bed, her long brown hair draped over her shoulders, almost hiding the lacy pink nightgown she wore. The lamp on her bedside table gave a soft glow, the light blocked in by the curtains hanging from the bed crown, illuminated as if only the bed existed in the entire room.
She smiled at him, closing the book she’d been reading. He stepped into the room, more nervous than he’d been in a decade. Even in the church he hadn’t been anxious, until she ran.
“Great Expectations?”
“Not exactly.” It took him a moment to realize she meant the book. He held it up. “The Mayor of Casterbridge.”
Her grin widened, her eyes sparkling. She held up her book. “Return of the Native.”
He shook his head, making his way to the side of the bed. “I’m surprised. I had you pegged for happy endings.”
“It’s a happy ending for Tomasin.”
“Just barely.”
She shrugged her shoulders and pulled back the coverlet next to her, not letting an inch of her nightgown show. That had to be difficult in the queen bed. “What did you think I’d be reading?”
“Bronte. Austen. Eliot. There isn’t anything from this century or the last in the library.” He sat next to her, still keeping his feet on the floor.
“Any of those and I would have stayed up all night reading. Hardy has better chapter breaks. Why Mayor of Casterbridge? Are you worried your past is going to come back to haunt you?”
It already had. “I couldn’t find Great Expectations.”
She grinned, turning to take a book from her bedside table and handing it to him. “I wasn’t sure if you’d go through with this experiment, and if you did, I thought you might need something to distract yourself.”
“Besides you.” He’d had the same thought, which was why he’d stopped in the library for a book.
“Exactly.”
“Aren’t we a little young to be reading in bed when there are so many more stimulating things to do?” Her skin took on a honeyed hue in the lamplight. Why had he ever thought Robyn Tindall was the easy way out? She was full of surprises, and rules, and temptation. He’d never seen it coming.
“Reading seems to be something we actually have in common. When did you start reading the classics?”
“I don’t know if they’re classics or just old books. But my mother taught English literature at a private school—she had the house stocked with books by dead people.”
“Camille was a teacher? I thought she was a designer.”
He shook his head, opening the book and leaning back against the pillows piled against the headboard. “Not Camille. The Fryes have a library at their estate, too. I kept reading once I got there.”
Warm fingers rested on his arm, and he didn’t really want them there. He didn’t want to shake her off, but he didn’t want her pity, either. So a reckless driver killed his mother, so his world spun out of control when his father couldn’t handle the loss. It didn’t matter. He was lucky to have been taken in by a family who gave him every opportunity to succeed.
The weight of her stare pulled at him to turn his head, but he wasn’t going down that road again. She didn’t need a tour of his damaged psyche to make her decision, just a night in a bed where he kept his hands off her. Easily done in this mood.
He sat stiffly once her attention was back on her book, his mind running too fast to slow down and make sense of the pages in front of him. Sitting in bed with her was too intimate, almost more personal than making love with her. That had a purpose, a beginning and an end. This was as ridiculous as the silk boxer shorts sliding against him.
With a clap, she closed her book and set it on the n
ightstand beside her. “Could you turn your lamp on if you want to keep reading? I’m going to go to sleep.”
“Sleep sounds good.” Once she was asleep, he could sneak out of here, take off the damned shorts, and get some rest. He closed his book, watching as she fluffed her pillows, then switched off the light.
In a few moments, his eyes had adjusted to the moonlight illuminating the edges of objects in the room. Robyn lay on her side, facing him, her hair spilling over the pillow. He wanted to both run from the intimacy of the moment and drown in it. He didn’t have much experience in connecting with other people. Even before the accident, his father had been distant. And the Fryes were big on expectation, low on comfort.
Robyn was comfort incarnate. Big eyes that warmed you from the inside out, a smile so wide it forced you to smile back, and there was something about her that made everyone fall in love with her instantly.
His chest tightened, his heart pounding wildly against his ribs. He couldn’t possibly.
“You’re staring at me,” she said without opening her eyes.
“I can’t do this.” He sat up, but her hand on his arm stalled his escape.
“This is important to me, Curtis. Please.”
“I wouldn’t do this.”
She propped up on an elbow. “Do what? Sleep? Even you must sleep.”
“Fall asleep without touching you.”
“I need you to. If you can’t, then this is just about sex, and we’re really in trouble. You have to be the rational one. You have to do this.”
“You want me to try on the life. I wouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t wear this, I wouldn’t sit in bed and read when we could be doing something else, I wouldn’t be able to roll over and fall asleep like you’re not there.”
“You want me to be waiting to warm your bed when you get home in the middle of the night?”
“I’d leave the office earlier if I had a reason to.”
“Oh, you would not.” Robyn laughed, batting him on the arm. “We need to be honest about what is going on here. I have some crazy notion we can be together, and you are stringing me along because you want out of the spotlight, and we happen to be good together in bed.”
“We’ve never been in a bed.”
“Is that the problem?” Sarcasm laced her voice.
“No, I doubt I could sleep beside you in the kitchen, either.” The incredulity at the idea made him chuckle.
“How can we get along so well all day, then at night we can’t even sleep together?”
“We were working all day. Now there’s just you in bed with me. I can’t concentrate.” He ran his hands through his hair, surely standing it on end. He smashed it back against his scalp.
“You’re really freaking out.” Robyn got up on her knees, facing him.
“Yeah. Know a church I can run away from?”
She swatted his arm. “It’s the island. I’m literally the only woman here. Back in town you’ll be fine.”
Only if she agreed to stay with him before they made it back to real life. If not, he’d live in this purgatory. “I still wouldn’t be able to do this. I can’t lie here and not touch you.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, I can’t.” There was something a little too easy about talking in bed, a little too intimate. Sex and intimacy were very different, and he was much more comfortable with the former.
“People don’t have sex every single day.”
“Why not?” Her lips tilted in a grin that matched his own. Well, at least they agreed on that.
“What would you do then?”
He stood and shucked off the tormenting silk. “Those are beyond ridiculous.” He sat back on the bed, lifting his leg up and under the comforter and pulling it up to his waist. “Much better.”
“Except now you’re naked.” She climbed back beneath the sheets, very careful not to lift them.
“That is how I sleep. You should try it.”
“That is not how I sleep.” She pressed her arms down on either side of her, like a boundary wall. An adorable, easily crumbled wall.
“You sleep in one of these?” He turned, propping himself on an elbow, facing her as he ran his finger against the rough lacy strap of her nightgown. The whole thing was a stretch peek-a-boo lace that hid nothing. She really should be naked. It would be much more comfortable and convenient.
“I sleep in pajamas, but no one bought me pajamas. They all thought you’d appreciate this more.”
He wrinkled his nose, trying to decide. He’d want her comfortable. “They’re wrong.”
“I thought so, too, but since we never discussed sleeping arrangements, I thought it best to humor them.”
“Sleeping arrangements are up to you. Even now, it seems. Though I won’t be able to sleep with you unless I can touch you, and restricting sleep is one of the most effective forms of torture.”
“You really never give up when you want something.”
“We want the same thing.” He traced the edge of her jaw with his finger.
“That’s what scares me. There is something behind what I feel for you, and you’re only reacting physically. What happens when we get back to San Francisco? When there are thousands of women ready to stand in my shoes?”
“The ones you threw away?” She wanted him to be serious, but he couldn’t be. Leaving the damn shoes had been over the top.
“Don’t make me hit you again.”
“Where are they, anyway? Since I have to search the kingdom to win your hand.”
She sighed. “On the boat.”
“Yacht.”
“Pretentious freak.” Her laugh was better than her smile.
He ran a finger down the length of her nose. “Flakey peach.”
Her entire body shook with laughter. “You would not say peach. Ever.”
“No, but you would. And do. It’s hard not to crack up when I hear…” He cleared his throat and pitched his voice a couple octaves higher. “Peanut butter and jelly, that son of a biscuit.”
“When you say it, it sounds ridiculous.” She pursed her lips, which only made him want to kiss her.
“Babe, I promise it is just as ridiculous the other way around. Why do you do that, anyway? In some situations, ‘fuck you’ is the perfect thing to say. And do.”
“It all comes back to that. You know every reverse psychology trick in the book.”
“Majored in it in college.”
“Not business?”
“That, too, and literature.”
“Wow. That couldn’t have left much time for a social life.”
“I wasn’t there to party. I was there for the best education money could buy, and to get into the best business school I could.”
“No drunken frat parties for you?”
“Too worried I’d get in trouble and Camille would make me move home. Her empty nest syndrome was out of control. What about you?”
“The parties I went to rarely had alcohol. I was a total nerd. I earned my glasses. I planned the events for my sorority, so I was in charge of setup and tear down. But I liked it when everyone was having fun.” She tried to sound nonchalant but didn’t quite succeed.
“You should do that, plan parties. I don’t expect you to be sitting home waiting for me. I want you to have your own life, your own successes. You could go into business for yourself if you want.”
“Maybe.” She yawned.
“No matter what you decide, Robyn. You set aside that dream for me, and I want to give it back to you. No matter what happens with us, I’ll support you in that.”
“I know.” She reached for his cheek, and he stiffened, unsure. “If we’re going to be together, you have to let me touch you,” she said.
He reached out, resting his hand on her lace-covered hip beneath the warmth of the blankets. “Says the woman with the no-sex-in-a-bed rule.”
“You don’t have a middle ground between friends and lovers.”
“There isn’t one.” As if it had a m
ind of its own, his hand drifted around, cupping her ass.
“There is, Curtis. That’s what marriage is. That middle ground that joins them both. I want to be able to hold your hand and not have you take it as an invitation.”
He removed his hand and rolled onto his back.
“Or a rejection.”
“Then you need to say what you mean.”
“What did you think this would be like? How did you see us together?”
“However you wanted.”
“That is a non-answer. When you thought up this scheme, how did you see it playing out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you planning on seducing me? Did you assume separate bedrooms? Jolly holly sticks, Curtis. Our first kiss was going to be in front of dozens of people, and you didn’t even blink an eye.”
The deep breath he pulled in was filled with the apples-and-cinnamon scent of her. Not helping.
“I don’t believe you. You see every strategic move five steps ahead in your mind. What did you see?”
“I didn’t.” She was right, he always did, and being with her had been a strategic move, hadn’t it?
“You put me in a separate bedroom at your house.”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “Did you see my bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“I hate it. All black. Yours is better.”
A smile played over her lips. “Mine is pink.”
“Better than black.”
“So you planned on sharing my bedroom?”
“Maybe.” Okay. Her falling asleep and shutting up would be great right now. He should have gone with that. He didn’t like thinking about why he’d chosen her, why he’d gone so far with the plan. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew, and he didn’t like what that meant.
“Why?”
“What do you want me to say here, Robyn? You’re backing me into a trap. If I say I planned on sleeping with you, you’ll think I’m treating you like a whore. If I say I didn’t, you’ll be offended. The truth is, I didn’t think of it beyond making you comfortable to make your own decision. You’re my friend, if you wanted it to be more, that was your choice.”
“So if I choose to sleep in the same bed without sex, that’s what will happen.”
He groaned. “Woman, you are the master of manipulation.”
The Billionaire's Runaway Fiancé (Invested in Love) Page 15