by Ali Parker
“Wow,” she breathed, her dark eyes reflecting the shimmering glass light above. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“My father built it.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I nodded. “Another gift to my mother. Because apparently, the house itself wasn’t enough.”
“Your parents sound like they were an epic love story.”
“Things are never what they seem, Piper James.”
She licked her lips but didn’t say anything.
I moved to the base of the stairs. “I’ll bring your bags up for you in a moment. Come, I want to show you your room for the month.” She followed along behind me as I took the stairs two at a time. “You’ll have your own bathroom too, of course. The shower has settings for a steam room, too. And there is an infrared therapy room off the bathroom as well that you’re more than welcome to use.”
“Infrared therapy?” Piper asked curiously.
I took a right at the top of the stairs. “Yeah, you know, red-light therapy?”
“Never heard of it.”
I arched an eyebrow as I looked over my shoulder at her. “Really? Well, it’s not as intense as it sounds. It’s using red light to treat chronic pain and skin conditions. It’s really good for relieving inflammation.”
“Do you use it?”
“Yep, after every workout. You’ll have to give it a try while you’re here and see what you think.” I stopped in front of the door at the end of the hall and turned the handle. “Welcome to your not so humble abode. If there’s something you need that you don’t see in there, you let me know, and I’ll make it happen for you. Deal?”
Piper wrung her hands and stepped forward, slipping past me and into the room. “Deal.”
I hung back in the hallway as she moved deeper into the bedroom.
When I found out she was coming, I’d done my best to make this room a safe haven for her. I wanted it to feel like home. It had taken some calls—a lot of calls, to be honest—and some digging, but I’d discovered she liked simplicity and order. And books. Lots and lots of books.
So I’d hired professionals to come in and change my pretty bland guest room into a refreshing landing place for her to retreat to if she was ever feeling overwhelmed. I imagined in her shoes, dating twelve men in a year, she might have those feelings often. While she was with me, I wanted her to feel at ease. And that meant she needed a place where she could go, close her door, and have peace and quiet.
“This is perfect, Christian.”
“You like it?” I asked, trying to hide the eagerness in my voice.
Piper nodded as she turned in a full circle in the middle of the room, soaking in the sight of the four-poster king-sized bed done up in pale blue floral-patterned bedding. A soft white throw was draped over the end of the bed, and a breakfast tray sat on top of it, equipped with matches, a vanilla chai scented candle—Piper’s favorite according to the receptionist back at the Casanova Club—and a vase of white daisies.
In the far corner, I’d installed a crisp white bookcase and filled it with a wide selection of books. Beside the bookcase was a window, under which was a reading chaise and a standing lamp for her to get comfortable and read whenever she saw fit.
“A little birdie told me you were a bit of a bookworm,” I said.
Piper’s smile was radiant. “I am. This is too much, Christian. I don’t want to leave this room.”
I laughed. “Then don’t. Spend as much time in here as you want. I wanted you to have a safe place to land. A little paradise, of sorts. I can only imagine how rough your year has been so far. and I just wanted to do what I could to help.”
Piper ran her fingers over the plush white throw on the edge of the bed. “You’re pulling out all the stops, aren’t you?”
Chuckling, I turned back to the door and caught myself on the frame, spinning back to face her. “I have thirty days to figure out if you’re the woman I’m supposed to marry. I’m not going to waste any time. But hey, if I come on too strong, you just tell me to pump the brakes. Sound good?”
Piper nodded.
“Good. Take your time up here. I’ll bring your bags up, and you can get settled. Dinner is out on the patio at eight o’clock. Are you more of a Malbec or a shiraz girl?”
“Malbec,” Piper said, a smile pulling at the corners of her wondrous lips.
I wanted to kiss those lips. I wanted to know what she tasted like.
She’d be sweet. I would bet money on it.
“Malbec it is. Eight o’clock. Don’t be late.”
After lighting the two candles on the patio table, I stood back to admire my setup.
Yes. This would do.
I didn’t want to pile on the moves too high tonight. It was Piper’s first night. I wanted to ease her into her month with me, and I wanted her to be comfortable first and foremost. With that in mind, I’d decided to serve dinner on my outdoor sofa set, where we could sit with blankets over our laps in our socked feet, sipping wine and indulging in my mother’s old, trusty Thai curry soup recipe served over rice.
The outdoor fireplace burned low, crackled softly, and added the perfect amber ambiance the evening called for.
I went into the kitchen shortly before eight to give the soup one last stir and check the rice. As I removed the lids and pulled down the bowls from the cupboard, Piper emerged in the doorway.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking her up and down.
She was wearing a pair of skin-tight black leggings that hugged her legs like body paint. She had muscular thighs and calves, signs of a woman who wasn’t afraid of some manual labor or physical activity. I liked that. She was wearing a loose and somewhat oversized sweater in an emerald-green color, and it complemented her fair skin. Her dark brown hair was swept up in a messy bun, with loose curls framing her face, and small gold hoops winked in her ears.
“It smells really good down here,” she said, padding over to the pot on the stove. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. I resisted leaning in to count each and every one of her long black lashes. “My mouth has been watering for the last hour.”
“Well, lucky for you, dinner is ready.” I handed her a bowl and fetched a ladle from the drawer beside the oven. She held her bowl, and I scooped rice in before the soup. “Cutlery is outside on the table. The wine is out there, too. Do you need anything else? A glass of water?”
“I’m all right,” she said with a tight-lipped smile.
“I’ll meet you out there.”
Piper shuffled across the kitchen and stepped outside onto the patio. I hoped she liked what she saw. I hoped she didn’t think I was overdoing it.
There was no way to know how far to push this on day one. I knew the men before me had likely pulled out all the stops to woo her, and I also knew they had probably done much more enchanting things than having dinner outside on a patio.
But this was intimate. It was personal. And it was my lifestyle. I liked having quiet nights at home with a home-cooked meal. And since I was taking this seriously and really wanted to know if Piper could be my future wife, I wanted to show her the man I really was.
And this was it.
I joined Piper outside and found her already bundled under one of the blankets. She hadn’t touched her food. She had manners. She was waiting for me to join her. I took my seat and popped the bottle of wine before pouring a small sip in the bottom of our glasses to taste.
She lifted it to her lips. I liked the way her full bottom lip pressed to the glass as she took a sip. She closed her eyes for a moment. “It’s delicious.”
I filled her glass the rest of the way and then took care of mine. “Here’s to an October neither of us will forget.”
She clinked her wine glass against mine.
Then we dug into our meal. Piper made an appreciative sound in the back of her throat that set me a little on edge. She had no idea how sexy she was. And truth be told, all this waiting over the course of the year had left me
a little… hungry.
I wanted her. Badly. I wanted her heart and soul and body. When the time was right, I would have her.
“It’s delicious,” Piper said, pointing at her bowl with her spoon. “Seriously. The best curry I’ve ever tasted. And that’s saying something. My father is a cook.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Yes. My family owns a restaurant. And he makes the best yellow curry ever. Well, second best. Not that I would ever tell him that.”
“There’d be no sense in it.”
She smiled. “No. None at all.”
We ate quietly. Then my curiosity got the better of me. “Tell me about your year so far.”
Her eyes swept up to meet mine. They were the darkest shade of brown I’d ever seen, almost black, and I wondered about all the secrets they held.
I broke our stare first. “Sorry. You don’t have to. My curiosity is piqued, is all. I don’t need to know the personal things. Just the good stuff. What was your favorite place? What’s your favorite thing you’ve done so far?”
Piper licked her lips and stirred her curry before leaning back against the sofa and bringing the bowl with her. She crossed one leg over the other and rested her bowl on her knee. “Well, those are hard questions to answer. Every month has been so different, I don’t really know if I can pick out favorites. But there was something charming about Texas I didn’t expect.”
“Really? I didn’t expect you to like the ranch life.”
She smiled. There was something there, something in the curl of her mouth, that made me realize her feelings were already tied up in other men.
And if I was a guessing man, in Wyatt.
“What did you like about it?” I pressed.
She shrugged one shoulder. “All of it. The way the air always smelled like hay and grass and honey. The sunsets. The simplicity of it all. I never thought a life in the country would appeal to me, but it was a refreshing change of pace from New York.”
“And cowboys are a nice perk, I imagine.”
She blushed.
I chuckled. “Take it easy, Piper. I don’t have blinders on. I know how this process goes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being real with each other. Do you?”
She hesitated. Then she shook her head. “No. No, I suppose not.”
“So Wyatt?”
Her cheeks burned more fiercely. “Wyatt.”
“You like him?”
“I—” she broke off and shook her head again.
Poor girl. I was making her flustered.
“I like everyone I spent time with,” she said.
I chuckled. “Uh huh. But some more than others, I imagine.”
“Naturally.”
“So Wyatt,” I said again, stressing his name. “Who else made your knees weak?”
Piper eyed me suspiciously. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Like I said, I don’t want to waste time. Thirty days isn’t very long to figure out how you feel about a person, and I want to know what I’m up against. I knew Wyatt would be a contender the first time I talked to him. The guy is straight out of a classic Western movie. And I know how ladies feel about cowboys. Hell, the guy made my loins tingle.”
Piper snorted in surprise and descended into laughter.
I flashed her a smile. “You have a nice laugh.”
She tried to hide her reddening face from me.
Leaning back in my seat, I soaked in the sound of her laughter and the sight of her all flustered. It was more than endearing. Wyatt be damned. I was going to do everything I could to replace his spot in her heart.
I swirled my wine around in my glass. “You and I are going to have a good month together. I can feel it in my bones.”
Piper lifted her chin. “Was that an archaeology joke?”
I laughed.
Chapter 5
Piper
It was more than a little intimidating sitting in the back row of Christian’s Harvard lecture hall. Every single chair was occupied, and I was shoulder to shoulder with two young men who were fervently typing away on their sleek laptops as Christian discussed theories around the still undiscovered tomb of Ramses VIII.
My brain was swimming with new information.
For starters, I knew little to nothing about ancient Egypt. The extent of my knowledge was what I’d learned in a brief segment from my ninth-grade history class. Basically, I knew the pyramids were in Giza, and I knew they weren’t remotely close to the Nile as the movies made them seem, and I knew Cleopatra was a badass.
That was about it.
For the past hour of Christian’s lecture, he had yet to mention the pyramids, Giza, or Cleopatra, and I couldn’t help but feel extremely out of place.
I was surrounded by scholars, rich kids with richer parents who were as brilliant as they were wealthy. The thought of ever sitting in a classroom like this had never even occurred to me because of how out of reach it was.
Harvard. I was at Harvard. And even though not traditionally, I was technically getting a lecture.
At Harvard.
I’d had a pretty wild year, but this moment was ranking pretty high on my cool meter. I wished I could snap a picture and send it to my father, who would think this was just as mind-blowing as I did.
But that wasn’t an option right now.
Christian posed a question to his class, and at least a hundred hands shot into the air, including those of the young men on either side of me. I flinched and drew my shoulders inward, wanting to disappear as Christian’s eyes scanned the room. He smirked at me before calling on the young man on my right-hand side.
“Let’s hear it,” Christian said.
The student beside me proceeded to explain his theory on where, if given the opportunity, he would bring a dig team to search out the missing tomb of Ramses VIII. None of the words coming out of his mouth made a lick of sense to me, but the whole lecture hall was twisted around in their seats, listening and watching him, so I nodded along like I was one of them.
I was sure they all saw right through me.
“So, in conclusion,” the young man finished beside me, “I would go there. To site D3.”
Christian turned toward the projected image behind him. He had a pointing wand in his right hand, and he raised it to slap the point against the screen. “Here?”
The student nodded.
Christian paced to the other side of the screen, collapsed the pointer, and tucked it under his arm as he stroked his chin. “I can see the logic you’ve applied. And it’s not bad. But…” He paused and turned back to face the students, all of whom were leaning forward, hanging on his every word.
I was suddenly reminded of the original Indiana Jones movies. Christian was Harrison Ford with his rugged good looks and his little suede vest. His quick mind and his level of expertise added to the illusion, and I wondered if any of the students had made the same comparison in their heads before.
Probably not. These are Harvard kids, not community college kids.
I shrank lower in my seat.
“Site D3 sits pretty high up on the ridge,” Christian said. The room was dead silent. He pulled his pointer wand out from under his arm and expanded it again. He put his back to all of us, cocked his head to the side, and lifted the pointer back to the little label on the image of rock and sand. On top of the page, it read “The Valley of the Kings”.
It didn’t look like much of anything to me. There was what appeared to be a road cut through the ridges and dunes, and small paths snaked through the terrain leading up from the road. If I squinted, I could make out what appeared to be temporary buildings—signs of a current dig team in the area at the time this photo was taken perhaps.
But all in all, to me, it looked like nothing. Just a hell of a lot of sand.
Christian shook his head. “No. Sorry. I think you’ll have to re-evaluate your theory. There might very well be something at D3, but it won’t be of the scope we’
re looking for. Ramses VIII’s tomb requires depth. Space. This limestone ridge is high, and the soil and sand are probably shallow. There’d be nowhere for this area to go.”
The student beside me deflated like a popped balloon.
“Anyone else care to speculate?” Christian asked the room.
It was silent.
I didn’t blame them. Being wrong in front of this many people sounded horrifying, especially when they were all as passionate about history as Christian was. Then again, someone had to show some courage. This was their future career, after all.
When nobody spoke up, Christian set his pointer down and squared his shoulders. “All right. Very well. We’re done for the day. I hope your papers I received in my inbox at noon are more compelling than your silent arguments. Off you go.”
Papers rustled and laptops slapped closed as the students collected their things. I made myself as small as possible in my seat so people could walk past me, and I didn’t stand up until the hall was empty except for me and Christian, who had slid into his desk and was clicking away on his computer.
I went down the stairs to join him on the ground level. “That was intense.”
He looked up at me over the top of his screen. “Was it?”
I nodded and clasped my hands in front of me. “I never knew any of these things. Your lecture was very informative. And inspiring.”
He gave me a warm smile. “I’m glad you think so. Sometimes, it feels like I’m talking to a room full of soulless creatures.”
“Really? That surprises me. I thought they were all engaged. I think they’re just intimidated. You’re very educated, not to mention experienced. I had no idea you’ve been to Egypt so many times. And I mean, this is Egypt we’re talking about. You’re like…” I trailed off, afraid to say it out loud.
Christian arched a dark eyebrow and ran his thumb along his jaw. “Yes?”
I giggled as my cheeks started to burn. “Indiana Jones.”
His laugh rolled through the lecture hall as he rocked back in his chair. “I haven’t heard that one before.”
“Really? It’s all I could think about. The vest. The—” I swallowed. Ridiculous good looks and classic charm. “It’s all very Lost Ark.”