by Amelia Wilde
“Ruby—” His voice isn’t teasing any more. “Forgive me.”
I force myself to look back into his eyes, patting mine with the napkin like it was all just an error on the part of my tear ducts. “You know, it’s nothing. You’re right—I didn’t want to sell anything.”
He considers me, narrowing his eyes. “Then why call me this early in the morning? If you don’t want to sell, why are we sitting here having this conversation?”
I square my shoulders and swallow my pride. “Because I’m out of options. I screwed up the estate sale. I can’t afford to screw it up a second time.” Then I say the words I’d hoped to avoid—for a lifetime, if possible. “I need you.”
Chapter 8
Levi
This is not how solid deals are made. Not at all. Not in the slightest. In my experience, the best profits are made when you can follow through on a lowball offer and find something truly spectacular in the bargain. That’s what I was trying to do with the Ashworth estate.
And then Ruby entered the picture.
It was one thing to fantasize about stripping off those demure, preppy clothes and showing her the kind of hard, hot sex that makes even the most frigid upper-class women melt, but hearing her say I need you in that voice—the soft, low voice that sends tendrils of want into my ears and down my spine—it’s too damn much. It’s just too much.
I’m getting what I deserved. I’m the one who threw that one in her face when I left. Karma is a bitch.
Because now what am I supposed to do? She needs me. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours wishing she was mine, and now she’s practically asking for me to rescue her.
Not that she really does need rescuing. I can’t decide if the vulnerability is a front or not, but I know that beneath all of it she has a steel backbone. She turned me down once.
Which means that if she’s here right now, she must think she needs me to get through this, even if...even if she could muscle her way through on her own.
I straighten up, pretending that her words had little effect. I’m not in the business of being a therapist. I’m in the business of collecting priceless items and selling them to people who want them even more than I do.
“You’ve said the magic words.”
Her big blue eyes are on mine, so focused that I wonder if she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she looks away. “The magic words for...” Her voice goes softer at the end, and she bites her lip.
“I’ll help you.”
She raises her chin an inch. “I didn’t ask for help.”
“You said you needed me.”
“I do need you, but—” Another blush rises to her cheeks. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me. I just need—” She shakes her head. “This is a disaster.”
“It’s really not. Are you asking if I’ll reconsider the offer that I made?”
That seems to put her back on solid ground, and her eyes brighten with determination. “Yes. I wanted to know if that offer was still on the table.”
I take a long moment, like I’m deciding right now. Then I give her a firm nod. “It is.”
“Okay. I’m going to reject that offer.”
I can’t help it—I burst out laughing. A smile raises the corner of Ruby’s mouth. “You woke me up and agreed to meet me here so you could reject my offer a second time?”
“I wanted to reject it and offer a counter proposal.”
I fold my hands on the table.
Just then, the waiter appears at my elbow. “Can I offer you something to drink?”
“Coffee. Black. And we’ll both have the pancakes.”
He nods at me and turns on his heel, gone as quickly as he came.
“Where were we?” I look back into those blue eyes and try to ignore the blood rushing to my cock.
“You ordered for me?”
“I didn’t want to derail what’s quickly becoming a delicious conversation. Also, the pancakes here are wonderful.”
She leans back a little, crossing her arms over her chest, but she’s still smiling. “Don’t you want to hear my counter offer?”
“No.” Her mouth drops open a little. “First, before we get any further into this, I want to know what brought you back to the table.”
“I thought I might get a man to order pancakes for me.”
I laugh again. Ruby isn’t all innocence and vulnerability, then. She’s also got a wit that makes me want to hang around her all day, just in case I get to hear another one of those gems, dry delivery and all, slip from between her lips. “Your dream came true. But you did seem pretty determined not to deal with me earlier.”
She glances down at her cup of coffee. “To be honest, I thought more would sell during the day.”
“And when it didn’t?”
She sighs. “When it didn’t, I realized it was all my fault. After you left, I might have...given some poor direction to the man whose company was running the sale.”
“What kind of direction?”
“Not to negotiate.”
I don’t laugh this time, because her expression is already hot with shame. “That probably didn’t help.”
“Not at all.”
“And no part of you was relieved? There must be another option for some of those things.”
Ruby bites her lip. “That’s the problem.” She swallows. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard…” She forces her gaze back to mine. “My family is in pretty dire financial straits. They need every penny to dig themselves out of a hole with my brother’s medical bills. And my parents need a place to live. They’re going to have to sell their home—that home—just to get out of trouble with the mortgage.”
“What about you?”
Her face goes scarlet. “I have a job. Once my father’s business collapsed, I stopped getting payments from the trust he’d set up for my brother and me, so I’ve had to...I’ve had to downsize a little. But I can make ends meet.”
Okay, so she does have a backbone.
The pancakes arrive. They’re plated as delicately as any dinner entree, and each one is so perfect it seems like a shame to cut into it with a fork. Ruby takes a deep inhale. “Holy god, these smell amazing.”
“They taste even better. Don’t forget the—” I’m about to remind her that the syrup is also top-notch, but she’s already cutting into the side of one of the pancakes with her fork and lifting it to her lips. Once it’s on her tongue, she tips her head back, eyes closed.
She swallows.
It’s all I can do not to leap across the table and kiss her, explore her mouth with my tongue, taste that sweetness for myself.
Then she opens her eyes. “The best pancakes don’t need syrup. And those are the best I’ve ever had.”
“I’m glad.” I’m also so hard that it’s killing me. Killing me. “I have a proposal.”
Her eyes twinkle as she goes back in for another bite. “What is it? That you—that you take over the estate, and we negotiate on a better offer?”
“That as soon as we’re done eating, we go up to your family’s house and you let me see what’s on offer. Then we deal.”
She looks right into my eyes, hers filled with hope and what I think might be nerves. She’s probably going to say no.
I brace for the disappointment.
Chapter 9
Ruby
Levi’s town car cruises down I-87, gliding through the traffic, and I try not to act like I’m about to lose my mind.
I couldn’t say no to him. I had been hoping to flesh out a deal right then, but under the spell of his eyes, I couldn’t say no. So I didn’t. I told him that he had to be the one to drive.
And now…
Eating pancakes at a diner with him is one thing. Being in the back of his town car, this close, with his scent filling the air, is on another level. I don’t know what kind of soap he uses, but mixed with his bare skin, it’s making every breath a kind of paradise. And a kind of hell, because I want to press my face against the side of hi
s neck. Then my lips. Then my tongue.
Yes. I want to lick his bare skin, and the thought has my cheeks on fire.
Levi mistakes it for nervousness about the house. “You don’t have to feel embarrassed about what your parents have to sell.”
“I don’t.” I say it too quickly, which is highly convincing. I look into his gray eyes. “I really don’t. I’m only nervous that—” I swallow hard. That I might leap across the seat and straddle you right now, and that might be awkward for both of us. “That there might not be anything there that’s valuable enough for you to...be interested in.”
He grins, a half-smile that’s half teasing, too. “I did make you an offer. Just yesterday morning.”
“Yes, but that was the kind of offer I bet you’d give if you were...gambling.”
“Gambling?”
I don’t want to accuse him of any shady behavior, but it’s already out there. “That seemed like the kind of offer you would make if you weren’t a hundred percent sure that there would be some really great pieces in the house.” I bite my lip.
Levi laughs out loud. “You’re right.”
“Then I was also right to be insulted. We have a lot of priceless things.”
“We? I thought this estate was your parents’.”
“Well...family pieces.” Saying the words makes my throat go tight. Don’t ask. Don’t ask...
He asks.
“Is that why you took it so personally, what I said?”
“Which thing that you said? It’s not like you’ve been walking on eggshells.” I force a smile.
“I was referring to my initial offer.” He narrows his eyes, thinking. “Although it could also apply to one of the more...insensitive comments I made at breakfast.”
I take a deep breath. “Yes. In a way. I’m—” I search for the right words. “I’m glad to be able to do this for my parents, but it’s not easy. It’s much harder than I thought it would be. Most of those things—”
“They were supposed to be yours.”
“Yes.” I swallow the ache that pulses in my throat. “They were supposed to be mine.”
Levi looks at me for a long moment, his hand rising from his lap. But he doesn’t reach over. He picks up his phone instead, but doesn’t make any move to look at the screen.
“You mentioned you had a job. Where do you work?”
The tightness in my chest loosens a little, and the insane, bright desire building between my legs is front and center in an instant. “I work for a publishing house called Drawstring Press that my dad invested in back in the beginning of his career. He’s not involved now, so don’t think—” I look across at Levi, and he’s grinning. “Don’t think I got my job just because of my dad.”
“I don’t know why that would be a problem. I got mine because of my father.”
“Your father was an antiques dealer?”
“Not quite. Before he died, he was a billionaire. He made his money in banking.”
Oh, shit. “I’m sorry to hear that—that he’s passed away.”
“It’s alright. He’s been gone about ten years now. Cancer.” Levi says it matter-of-factly, not looking away from me for even a single moment. “It’s a bitch.”
“It is. My mom—she had a brush with breast cancer when I was in high school. That was scary enough.”
He nods, and we’re silent together for a moment. “So you...love to read?”
“Yes. And it’s a good thing, because I’m in acquisitions, so I’m always reading.” I leave out the fact that living in a one-bedroom apartment roughly the size of the closet I had growing up is becoming a problem. I bring home far too many manuscripts for the space, and they’re piling up everywhere.
A flutter of panic rises in my chest. I don’t want to admit it—not even to Levi—but the job at Drawstring was only a hobby until everything came crashing down a few months ago. If something doesn’t change, it’s not going to be sustainable for me to live in the city. I don’t want to leave New York. So if the estate sale goes well—this time, at least—and I can dig us out of this hole, if we can get things back together...
“What are you thinking about?”
“Just—just what I’m going to do if all our antiques don’t pan out.” But I don’t want to keep the focus on this situation. I don’t want to spend all day today fretting about having to find another job somewhere across the country and leave all this behind. “What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
I search Levi’s eyes to see if he’s joking, but there’s a heat there now that I can’t ignore. I suck in a breath. “What—what about me?”
There’s an energy crackling in the air between us, filling up the back of the town car, and I’m ridiculously grateful for the partition that separates us from the driver.
“I was thinking about...” His voice is low and smooth and polished, and the sound of it is like having his fingertips running down the length of my spine, down and down and down until they’re between my legs. “...How you’re managing to do all this. Most people I know wouldn’t go to such great lengths to smooth out one less-than-stellar estate sale.”
“It wasn’t really great lengths. It was just...it was just one phone call.”
His grin is downright sultry. “It was one phone call to a man you’d sent packing just the day before. You didn’t stop there, either. You let me get out of bed and come to meet you. You let me buy you breakfast. And you’re still willing to deal, even though I think—and I could be wrong—I think you’d rather not sell a single thing inside that house.” Then he laughs, and it vibrates all the way to my core. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Ruby Ashworth.”
I’m running so hot that I’m concerned the entire back of the town car might combust, and he hasn’t even touched me. “Don’t tempt me, Levi.” The need in my voice surprises me. “I might just show you more.”
Chapter 10
Levi
The words aren’t out of her mouth for an instant when Ruby closes her mouth with a sharp click of her teeth, breaking my gaze.
I am rock hard. I don’t know what possessed her to take it that far, when I was just barely scratching the surface of flirting, but she did, and now her face is the picture of embarrassment.
“I mean—” She tries to walk it back, her shoulders tensing. “You might learn more about me than you bargained for today.”
I want to reach across the seat and pull her close into me, press my lips against hers, and tell Phillip to keep driving until I’ve had the chance to fuck her until she comes. My grip on my phone is so tight I’m worried it might shatter in my hand, so I put it down on the seat next to me.
“I’ll try to keep it professional.”
She takes in a big breath and lets it out slowly, which only serves to make it more obvious how hard her nipples are beneath her bra and tank top. Her hands flutter toward the zipper of the hoodie she’s wearing along with yoga pants that hug her ass so closely that it looks like they were made just for her and no other woman on the planet, but she doesn’t zip it.
“Me too. That—” I freeze, waiting for the next words out of her mouth. “That wasn’t very professional. I’m sorry,” she says.
“I’m not.”
She flicks her blue eyes toward me. “I am.” Damn, this woman is all over the place. “This is—this is too important to be distracted with…”
“You’re absolutely right.” There’s no denying that there’s something between us. There is no way she could look me in the eye right now and tell me she doesn’t feel the heat that’s making the back of the town car feel like an inferno. But I have the sense that if I press her now, she’ll go running in the opposite direction. “So, when we get there, where should I start?”
Ruby looks out the window at the traffic making its way alongside us. “I’d start downstairs. Everything is tagged from the last company I used, so it should give you an idea of...well, at least an idea of what they thought.”
/> Then she turns back to me and smiles.
That’s a good sign.
Right?
Ruby is frowning by the time we pull up in front of the house. It’s an incredible piece of architecture, one that could easily be mistaken for a palace. Still, it fits in with the neighborhood, which says more about the people who live here than anything else. If I didn’t want to live in the city, I’d fit right in.
She gets out of the car without waiting for me or Phillip to open the door and climbs the stairs in front, digging for something in her purse along the way. I catch up just in time to watch her shove the keys into the lock and twist them, hard.
I don’t ask.
“Here we are.” Her voice has gone cold, and a shiver runs down my spine. “The formal living room is to the left. There are a lot of furniture pieces there.”
This time, I see everything with new eyes. There are quite a few pieces of furniture that will need a once-over by my appraiser. The previous company did an excellent job of tagging everything, though I disagree with their assessment more than once.
I make my way through the formal living room and into what seems to be a well-appointed den. “What do you think—”
I turn to ask Ruby the question, but she’s not there any longer.
Strange.
I suppose it would be a little odd to watch someone walk through your childhood home and deciding whether the value on endless price tags were correct, so I keep going. She doesn’t need to be here for this.
When I walked into her house yesterday morning, I made my offer not realizing just how much the house contained. She was right. Negotiation is absolutely necessary.
It takes an hour just to give a cursory glance to most of the things on the first floor, and then I head up to the second. There’s less here, but only slightly. It’s clear that some of the bedrooms are guest rooms and a few were for exclusive use of the family. At the end of one hallway, I open the door, and I know instantly that I’m in what used to be Ruby’s room.