by Fawkes, Sara
knew his condition was frustrating for him, and hated that Georgia would bring it up. Granted, she’d
been by his side helping him heal through the rough days, something nobody had expected of her. It
still grated, however, to give the abominable woman any excuse for her behavior.
“So, how is work?” I asked, sipping my water and trying to ignore the woman across from me.
“Busy.”
Jeremiah’s curt answer made me frown. I knew there was something on his mind and was about to
ask, but Georgia was already talking again. “I brought in a decorator for the mansion. Deborah has
some lovely ideas on how to spruce up the place, make it much more modern and not as drab as it is
now. We’d have to get rid of the old furniture, of course. I always thought it was too dark in there
anyway.”
“That house belongs to Jeremiah.” I couldn’t keep the sharp, annoyed note out of my voice.
The infuriating smile on Georgia’s lips widened into one of almost clownish proportions. “Why,”
she cooed, “he didn’t tell you? We signed the papers yesterday afternoon transferring ownership to
me.”
My jaw dropped and I looked at Jeremiah, who had the good grace to look abashed. “I was going to
tell you tonight,” he murmured, but I still wouldn’t look at him.
I tried unsuccessfully to hide my hurt, playing with the napkin in my lap. Georgia, the epitome of
condescending grace, laid her hand on my arm. “I’m sure he had his reasons to keep this a secret from
you, my dear. Then again, they are his responsibilities, not yours. Perhaps you overstepped the bounds
of your relationship and he needed to...”
“Enough!”
The harsh, grating note in Jeremiah’s voice cut off Georgia’s gloat. Her lips tightened into a thin
line, but Jeremiah continued before she could speak. “I’ve given you full ownership of the house
Rufus left to me,” he said in a low, angry voice. “Keep it, sell it, I don’t care. Father treated you badly
in his will, leaving you nothing. That is now fixed.”
“Darling...”
“If I ever hear you bad-mouth Lucy in my presence again, I will make it clear to the world that any
friends of yours are not friends of mine. I will cut you off, mother, as surely as Rufus ever did.”
I blinked at Jeremiah. He had never defended me quite so brutally before; usually, he had a
resigned tolerance for his mother’s actions. Even Georgia seemed startled by his outburst, although
she tried to gloss over his words. “I’m only looking out for your well-being,” she said after a terse
silence, rearranging the napkin in her lap. Her eyes darted around, as if to see who was watching.
“Must you raise your voice to me in public?”
“This lunch was meant to be just for Lucy and I,” Jeremiah continued. “I do not remember inviting
you. I’ll make certain to tell the host as much when I make reservations from now on.”
Georgia went stiff, and then she threw her napkin onto the table. “I can tell when my presence is
not wanted,” she said in a voice like ice.
Yeah, right. I snorted but didn’t say anything. Georgia leveled a glare at me, and then rested a cool
expression on her son. “You choose this, this girl over your own family?”
“Good day, Mother.”
Georgia’s chin lifted high in the air. “Ungrateful little...” She trailed off, giving me one last glance
that spoke daggers, and walked out of the restaurant.
I watched her until she disappeared, then reached over and covered Jeremiah’s hand with mine.
“Thank you for speaking up for me.”
He squeezed my fingers. “I should have done it much sooner,” he said, and then sighed. “I also
should have told you that myself.”
I bit my tongue on what I wanted to say. Despite everything we’d been through, I had no real say
in what he did with his finances. It wasn’t the fact that he gave the Hamptons house to his mother that
galled, but the fact he didn’t tell me about it beforehand. “We need to work on our communication.”
Jeremiah sighed, and then nodded. The waiter arrived with our plates, setting down what was a tiny
triangle of steak slices. I frowned, poking it with my fork. “Mind if we pick up something else on the
way home?” I half-joked, and smiled a bit at Jeremiah’s chuckle.
The steak was really good, if not altogether filling. I ordered dessert, which arrived quickly, a thin
slice of deliciously rich cheesecake. “Now this is what I’m talking about,” I moaned, offering a
forkful to Jeremiah.
“I almost forgot, how was your meeting with you friend from Borneo?”
“Really good. She’s up for just a week, so I’m hoping we can see each other again.” I chewed
another mouthful of sinful cheesecake. “She thinks I made a mistake in quitting the charity.”
“Well, why don’t you start your own?”
My mouth stopped moving. I stared at him, wide-eyed, as he sipped his wine glass. “I can’t do
that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not...” I stuttered into silence, and then tried again. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“You did pretty well before,” he said, and then finally took pity at my stunned expression. “Start it
under my name if you’d prefer. You must still have contacts from your last job, I know they were sad
to see you leave.”
The group I’d been working with for several months had indeed been reluctant to let me go. I
hadn’t realized until it was too late just how much I would miss the job and the people in that office. It
wasn’t until I heard Cherise talk about Borneo that I realized what a mistake I’d made. “You’d let me
use your name? But what if I screwed everything up?”
He lifted my hand to his lips. “I believe in you,” he said, squeezing my fingers. “I’ve seen you do
remarkable things, Lucy, and I don’t see why this would be any different.”
A wide grin split my face. Grabbing his head, I pulled him in for a kiss, not caring if the public
saw my exuberance. “Have I told you today that I loved you?” I murmured against his lips.
“Yes, but I can always stand to hear it again.”
The cellphone on the table began vibrating.
I saw the change in his face immediately. My fingers tightened on his cheeks involuntarily. “Don’t
get it?” I asked softly, almost pleading.
He paused, body tense, as the phone vibrated several times, then went silent. I started to relax
when it began to vibrate again, and Jeremiah sighed. “I need to get this.”
I let him go, turning around in my seat as he picked up the phone, then stood and walked off
toward the exit. Staring at the delicate orchid place setting in the center of the table, I woodenly
placed my napkin on the table and stood up to follow him outside.
Chapter Three
My apartment had always been tiny, but having grown used to Jeremiah’s penthouse, it looked
practically miniscule now.
I wasn’t sure why I kept it at this point. Nearly all my nights were spent in Manhattan nowadays,
falling asleep locked in Jeremiah’s arms. There wasn’t any place I’d rather be, so my insistence on
keeping the tiny studio baffled both Jeremiah and myself. I’d barely even decorated, as if knowing my
time here would be short, yet I couldn’t quite give it up.
Sitting down on the large papasan chair, I picked up the photo closest t
o me. My parents had been
married by my age; their smiling faces stared up at me, recognizable to me despite their youth. They’d
been gone nearly four years now, and I was only just now finally moving past their deaths. Still,
sometimes I would have given anything to see them again, or ask their advice on questions I needed
answered.
I sighed and set the picture back on the small table, leaning back in the wide chair. If I was being
perfectly honest with myself, I knew why I kept this apartment. Too often in the last few years I’d
been set adrift, forced suddenly to make my own way in a harsh world. My parents’ deaths had been
the first blow; losing my family’s home had sent me into yet another tailspin. Combine that with the
rollercoaster ride that was my dealings with the Hamilton family...
There was a home waiting for me in northern New York, a gift I had never expected to get. Except
for one trip after Jeremiah came back into my life, however, I hadn’t gone to see it. Instead of giving
me any joy, looking through the old house, which had been neglected by the previous tenants, had
filled me with an aching sadness. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but without my family there, it
was only a structure. There were memories in every nook and cranny, but seeing it only brought back
the pain of their loss all over again.
Someone knocked on the door, startling me out of my reverie. Levering myself up from the chair, I
padded across the studio and looked through the peephole, and then opened the door.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I spread my arms wide. “Here I am.”
Jeremiah stepped inside, and then surveyed the small apartment. His eyes fell on the round
papasan chair, and he quirked an eyebrow. “A new acquisition?”
“It’s comfortable.” The papasan chair was big, with more than enough room for me to curl up into
a ball or lay spread eagle across it. I'd already napped in it, and had grown to appreciate the unwieldy
piece of furniture. To prove my words, I sat down in the wide cushion, spreading my arms across the
top. “See?”
Jeremiah didn’t take his eyes off me, but something in his gaze made me swallow. I squirmed as
he walked over to me and, placing his arms on the wicker sides, leaned above me. “I can see some of
its more entertaining uses,” he murmured, and my body tensed with anticipation.
Not taking his eyes off mine, Jeremiah undid the clasp to my pants. In one fluid motion, he sank to
his knees and lifted my legs, pulling the pants and underwear off and laying them beside the chair. The
cool air hit my skin, but it wasn’t the sudden chill that made me shiver as he spread my legs. “One
taste of you is never enough.”
My hands tangled in his hair as he set his mouth to me, my head falling back against the chair pad.
Jeremiah licked and sucked, pulling the cries out from deep inside me. Fingers tightening around his
hair, I tilted my hips up toward him, desperate for release.
“God, you’re hot. All I can think about is you, how you taste when you come, how you feel around
my cock.”
He inserted one finger inside of me, then two, and I writhed at the stretching sensation. I arched
my back as the pressure built, moving quickly to the surface. Moans blended with every panting
breath, my body tightening with the rising orgasm.
“Come for me.”
As if my body had been waiting for permission, the orgasm shook me at his words. I let out a
strangled groan as Jeremiah’s hands squeezed my thighs. He gave my clit one last lick before lifting
his head away from me. “You’re so fucking sexy,” he rumbled, and I heard the clink of his belt as he
undid his own pants. “I want to feel every inch of your...”
The muffling ring of Jeremiah’s phone filled the small space.
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
The words exploded unbidden from me, an expression of my frustration over the past month. I
clapped a hand over my mouth, horrified by my outburst. Jeremiah laid his forehead against my belly,
unmoving for a long moment. “I have to take this call.”
“Don’t go.” I hated that I was begging for his time, hated it with every fiber of my being. My
fingers ran through his soft hair, and it took everything I had not to grab on and not let go. There were
things I wanted to say, but the words were too jumbled at that moment to escape my lips.
I felt the butterfly-soft touch of his eyelashes against my belly, and then he pulled back and stood
up. “I’ll be right back,” he said, not really looking at me as he turned around and headed for the door.
My body went slack with disbelief, and then anger overcame me when he closed the door between
us. I jumped to my feet, grabbing my pants and slinging them on quickly. Rushing to the door, I jerked
it open to see Jeremiah standing in the hallway, talking in hushed tones on his phone.
He must have seen something in my face because he said, “I’ll call you back later.” Hanging up
and pocketing the phone, he faced me directly, hands behind his back and body straight as if I was a
drill sergeant. “I need to go sign some paperwork.”
He was bracing himself for anger. It was painfully obvious to me, and only added to my
disappointment. Despite us dating, I had no hold over him. I’d always been careful not to impose
myself on his life, make any decisions or grabs for his time that he might need elsewhere.
Perhaps I’d been too careful.
“I miss you.” The words tumbled out as I finally spoke my mind for once. “All you ever do lately
is work. Phone calls, interrupted dinners, interruptions with...” I trailed off, and then waved inside my
apartment. “That.” I raised my eyes up to his stoic face. “I miss you.”
Whatever fight he’d been prepared for, I could see this wasn’t it. Truthfully, I did want to rail at
him, demand his attention, force him to finish what he started back there. I wanted to throw that
blasted cellphone from the highest building in New York City. But I couldn’t say that, because the real
thing I wanted was him.
Jeremiah’s hands clenched and relaxed, and he had the decency to look away. “I have one more
thing to do with work, and then I’m all yours.”
“Do you even know what today is?”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes, savoring the touch of his lips against
my skin. “I’ll be back here to pick you up tonight.”
Deflated, I watched him walk away, toward the stairs. He hadn’t even disappeared yet when his
cellphone was back at his ear.
I pulled my own phone out of my pocket and dialed. “Cherise?” I said when a chipper voice
answered, only further accentuating the glum note in my own. “Can you come pick me up?”
Chapter Four
“He really just left after you said that?”
I laid my head against the car window, watching the darkness of the city go past. “He had his
phone out almost immediately too. I swear, that thing is practically grafted to his head.”
“Well, he is CEO for a powerful corporation.” She rubbed her hand over my arm. “I’m sorry hon.”
“It isn’t like I can demand his time,” I continued dejectedly. “He’s his own person, deserves his
space...”
“Says who?”
I looked at Cherise, who was frowning at the dark road ahead. “It’s not like we�
�re married. We’re
just dating.”
“You think marriage makes it easier?” She snorted. “Sometimes I have to corner David and
practically tie him to the bed just to get his attention.”
I blinked owlishly at Cherise. “Seriously?”
“Well, maybe not quite so take-charge,” she said, laughing, and then looked askance at me. “I
always thought you were more like that too, gung-ho and ‘ Rawr, I am woman hear me roar’! ”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Remember the charity gala last year? You were on fire, approaching any and everyone asking for
donations.”
“That was different, it was for you guys.”
“Well? Pretend you’re a charity case then. Or, something.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You had it
right before, you guys just need to learn to communicate.”
“But what if this is how it is forever? Or worse, what if everything goes to pot?”
“Then you come down to Borneo and help us cure orphans and the sick.”
Yes, there was always that. The more I thought about it, however, the more my mind rebelled. I
had been through so much with Jeremiah, and even now the idea of leaving made me want to cry. As
desperately as I wanted to help change the world, I couldn’t give everything up so easily.
My pocket began to vibrate. Reaching in, I pulled out my phone and stared at Jeremiah’s face on
the front screen. Cherise glanced over to see what I was looking at. “He sure is handsome,” she
offered, and I smiled.
“He is.”
I loved him. The not-so-stunning revelation almost made me laugh. Here I was, contemplating
moving to Borneo just because he was working too hard at a job I knew he hated. It was the height of
selfishness to think of escaping when he really had no such choice himself.
Hamilton Industries was his family’s business, but it had never been what he wanted. His father,
upon his death, had foisted it on Jeremiah as punishment for daring to rebel. Ever the hero, Jeremiah
had stepped into a role he hated, just to save the many thousands of people whose jobs would have
been eradicated. He was good at it too, but the position was a gilded cage; he didn’t have the choice to
run.
What reason did I have to leave him like that?
“Are you going to answer your phone?”