by Amelia Wilde
He groaned, running a hand over his face, the muscles of his arms working under his bare skin. “Don’t go.”
“I’m already gone.” I leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss against his cheek. “Go back to sleep.”
He’d turned over then, pulling the blanket back up over his shoulders, and by the time I made it to the door his breath was soft and even.
“Things are looking up, then?” Helen smiles. I gave her a few of the details after Henry’s accident, and she gave me a few extra days off to be with my parents in the hospital. My stomach still knots up when I think about those first awful days. Nobody was sure whether Henry would be all right. They weren’t even sure if he was going to wake up, and seeing my older brother covered in all those tubes, his broken body propped in that antiseptic white room, is burned onto my mind.
“They really are.”
“Those were gorgeous flowers, last Friday.” Her little grin tells me she’s fishing. “I don’t want to pry, but—”
“You so want to pry. But there’s not much to tell, really…”
“Oh, isn’t there?” Helen laughs, the sound musical and bright. “Are there lots of men around the city who send you outrageously expensive bouquets?”
“There would be more if I wasn’t constantly buried under these manuscripts.” I wipe at my forehead like it’s all too much.
Helen laughs again. If only she knew the whole story. I didn’t flaunt my family’s wealth around when times were good, but it’s also true that my social life has been…curtailed. Not much of a choice. If I’m going to survive this in one piece, I can’t spend my salary on going to galas and museum openings. The invitations haven’t dropped off yet, but they will. “He must really like you, whoever he is.”
I give her a coy shrug. “We’ll see.”
“You temptress.” She shakes her head, then goes down the hall. I hear her greet someone at the far end, and then the quiet settles back over my office.
I open the manuscript. The hero reminds me of Levi—cocky, a little arrogant, rich, but not so snobby that he misses the appeal of the space-age maid he comes across in the street. It doesn’t take long for me to get lost in the story. The images play out in my mind as I read. The prince is always Levi.
Helen’s visit did derail some of my focus, because after a few chapters, I’m not thinking about the sweet prince anymore. I’m thinking of the way Levi’s eyes held mine in his dominating gaze while I came. I’m thinking of the pressure of his hand against my jaw, firm enough to let me know that he was in control. I’m thinking of the way he felt inside me, filling me completely, stretching me to capacity, like we were made for each other.
The prince in the story falls in love.
Wait.
I flip back a few pages and skim over the text again. Daydreams. Affecting my job. I snort in the silence of my office, and the sound is so hideous and hilarious that I laugh.
I catch up to where the prince falls in love. There’s a light, giddy feeling in his chest when he looks at the maid disguised as a princess, a curious lifting of the weight of his life. My breath catches at the phrase. This book—wow. This book will be in the top five contenders for the contest. I don’t even have to finish it. The celebrity judge is going to have to finish it. Plus, we’ll be running it by a full committee at Drawstring that will ultimately choose those final five. I’ll be pulling for it every step of the way.
Done. I close the cover and put it at the corner of my desk, the edges lined up, and sigh, the lightness in my chest mirroring the gentle sunlight streaming in through the windows. Today is a good day.
Three emails later, the happiness hasn’t subsided. If anything, it’s more intense—so intense that I stand up from my desk and stretch my arms over my head. Cleansing breaths so I’m not jumping around in my office like an idiot.
The manuscript catches my eye. A curious lifting of the weight of his life...
The next thought to enter my mind drops me back into my chair like a puppet whose strings have abruptly been cut.
That’s how I feel about Levi Blake.
I gasp, my hand flying to my chest like I’m about to clutch my non-existent pearls.
Helen pops her head in the door. “You okay?”
What is she doing? Lurking outside the door in case I do something embarrassing?
I laugh it off, only this time I’m not sure it’s convincing. “Yes. Yep. Completely fine. Do you ever think you see a spider out of the corner of your eye?”
She shakes her head, backing off. “I’m not a spider person. Don’t ask me to kill it.”
“It wasn’t a spider. It was a shadow.” I wave her away. “Carry on!”
But this feeling in my chest…it’s more than a reaction to the manuscript. It’s how I really feel.
In love with Levi Blake.
Oh, shit.
28
Levi
Ruby doesn’t text much.
That’s one of the first things I learn about her in the aftermath of the hottest night spent in my penthouse in years. Not that there haven’t been other women—there have. But none of them tantalized me quite like Ruby. We moved seamlessly between the kind of domination that makes her wet and the kind of sexual battles, her pinning my arms above my head, that I would never have expected from her if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.
And feel it.
She left on Saturday morning. The sun was up, and that’s all I know about it. When I woke up again it was already midmorning and scorching, a June day fully determined to belong to August. I remember asking her not to go. I remember her saying she was already gone. I remember the kiss, and then nothing else.
Sunday went by without a word between us, but it didn’t make me nervous. I settled into my usual routine—a workout at the gym, a breakfast at the smaller table by the window in my dining room, a physical copy of the newspaper.
She was so full of confidence when she left. I was half-awake, and it was still obvious, radiating from her like sunlight. I’m already gone. If I think about those words too much, they send a chill down my spine.
On Monday I throw myself into work, micromanaging displays so intensely that Clarissa gets annoyed with me.
“You have bigger fish to fry,” she says with a frown after ninety minutes arranging and re-arranging a display of Limoges china.
“Tsk. This is my life’s work, Clarissa.”
She rolls her eyes. “It is not, and we both know it.”
“Your words are a knife through my heart.”
Clarissa turns away from the display, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look, I know you like to get your hands dirty with some of the new pieces, but this is extreme even for you, Mr. Blake. Is something on your mind?”
“I have lots of things on my mind. It’s the burden I bear.”
“Maybe you could bear it while you go out and have some lunch.”
I look at the display, and another idea leaps into my brain. It’s going to involve moving everything around one more time, but—
Clarissa is right.
I go to lunch. I even do Clarissa one better and text Jasper on the way, telling him to meet me. He’ll be a few minutes late.
But after two full days and half of Monday, I can’t resist any longer. I send Ruby a message.
Where have you been?
She takes ten minutes to respond, and I suck down two glasses of iced tea while I wait for the salad course.
Let’s see—in your bed, then running errands, and then at work. Where have you been?”
Wishing I was with you.
I’m not the type to send sappy messages like this. Not at all. But I want her to know—somehow—that every minute without her has felt like a year.
Wednesday isn’t soon enough?
Wednesdays. Fridays. Those are the days when we go to her parents’ house, if the last week has been any indication. Something turns over in my gut. After what we had last Friday night, is she honestly saying that th
ose few hours are enough?
They’re not enough for me.
It’s soon enough this week…but after that...
After that, what? :)
It dawns on me that Ruby is still trying her best to navigate the line between the professional agreement that I made with her and the desire that makes it almost impossible to keep that distance. I got so caught up in the way it felt to be with her, to take her, that I forgot about the rest of it. I forgot that we’re still on a tightrope, one false move away from a hard fall.
I sit up straight at the table. When the salad comes, I push it to the side of the table, my thumbs hovering over the screen of my phone.
“Looks like an intense conversation.” Jasper slides into the seat across from me.
“I’m deciding whether or not to reveal my next plans,” I say.
“To Ruby Ashworth?”
“How did you guess?”
“By the way you’re clutching your phone like some kind of madman. Seriously. People are starting to look.”
I put the phone down on the table and glare at Jasper. “Why did I even invite you?”
He laughs, shaking his head. “I have no idea, but I’m starving. Stop ignoring your salad.”
I move the plate back in front of me. It’s a good thing that Jasper arrived when he did. Saying something to Ruby right now would have been a mistake.
Because I have a far better idea.
The tension between us on Wednesday, as we tackle more of the second floor of the estate, is thick enough to drown in, but Ruby is a tease. She insists on going straight home. It’s like she wants to feel the heat verging on an inferno.
On Friday, she glides gracefully out of the front doors of her building in a sleeveless top and a pair of slacks that hug her ass in the most delicious way. This time, I can’t help but stare at her from behind the tinted windows. My heart beats hard in my chest. It’s a risk, changing plans on her at the last minute like this, but if we’re ever going to move past this strange dividing line, it has to be today.
Phillip is already waiting outside the car and as she approaches he pulls open the door.
She gets in, drops her purse to the floor, and waits only as long as it takes for the door to shut before she’s speaking.
“I had a manuscript come in the other day. I’ve been meaning to tell you about it.”
I grin at her, trying to search out the meaning behind her smile. Is she nervous? Is she excited? Is this something about the house?
“First stop, Phillip.”
He gives me a nod in the rearview mirror. Ruby’s eyes are still locked on mine. “It was about—wait, first stop? Is there something you need to do before we go to the property?”
I slide across the seat toward her, breathing in her scent, and take her hand in mine. “More than one thing, in fact. I was hoping you would come along for the ride.”
Ruby raises her eyebrows, and in spite of myself I tense, waiting for her to pull her hand away. This is outside the regular script, and I will myself not to be surprised if she rejects it out of hand. Of course, she is the same woman who submitted to me early Friday evening and rode me with total abandon by the time midnight rolled around, so anything is possible.
She doesn’t move away.
Her blue eyes sparkle with anticipation. “Do I really have a choice?” The coy, teasing tone in her voice makes me hard.
I pull her in to kiss her temple. “Not this time.”
29
Ruby
“This is incredible.”
I pick up the wine glass from the table and take another look out the massive windows. Central Park is beautiful from the ground, but from here—from this exquisite restaurant overlooking the park—everything has a kind of magical quality in the evening sunlight.
I wish it didn’t make my chest ache like this.
“I’m glad you like it.”
Levi sits across from me, impeccable in a tuxedo. And me? For the first time since my family’s chaos began, I’m not the least bit underdressed. To call the piece he had waiting in the car for me a dress would be an injustice. It’s a gown, sleek and gorgeous and somehow tailored exactly to my curves. When he unzipped the garment bag outside of a private changing room tucked down the hall from the restaurant, the silver flecks in his eyes caught the light and made his hopeful expression so intimate it took my breath away.
“Is this alright?” I couldn’t believe how hesitant he sounded. It was a far cry from the man who strode into my parents’ house and offered me a hundred thousand for our family’s legacy. My heart twisted to hear it. All for me—it was all for me.
“It’s unbelievable.” I’d given him a big grin, but underneath the fluttering excitement in my gut was something cold and shameful. I shoved it away. “But I don’t have shoes.”
He’d reached into the bottom of the garment bag, pulling out a smaller, matching bag. “You think I would forget shoes?”
Not only did Levi not forget shoes, he chose a pair of Manolos that manage to be both striking and comfortable.
I take another sip of wine. It’s a moscato, smooth and sweet with no alcoholic sharpness. Levi reaches for a roll with a grin. This is the most high-end restaurant I’ve been to in at least a year, and it feels good, like slipping into sweatpants at the end of a long day. Only these sweatpants would be made of the finest material money could buy and custom-sewn for you.
I love it here.
It’s also making me feel slightly off-balance in a way that I can’t quite explain.
Maybe it’s being with Levi. I’ve been floating on a giddy cloud since I left his place last weekend, doing my best not to make any sudden moves, not to do anything that can puncture the balloon of happiness in my chest. I’ve wanted to call him every night and talk to him until dawn like he’s my first high school boyfriend and I’m so obsessed with him that going an entire night without a conversation would kill me, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to cross that line. Even if I do feel that way, at least in the privacy of my own bedroom, in the dark, when nobody can see me clutching my pillow and blushing.
I want him, right now.
The air between us hums with it, and I push away the creeping sense of vertigo, of being on the edge of something dangerous, and smile back at him. “You never said. Why the sudden change of plans?”
He taps his fingers against the roll, then reaches for his butter knife, a gleam in his eyes. “Does it really seem that sudden to you?”
A wave of heat moves down from the back of my neck to the base of my spine. “In a way.”
“But in another way, that night you spent at my penthouse…” He shakes his head, buttering the roll, glancing down at it with a little shake of his head. “I know you want to keep things separate. Business and pleasure. But after the wasteland of the weekend, I decided it was time for pleasure rather than business.”
“The wasteland?” I laugh, and he joins in. “Was it so bad to have a few days apart?”
“Yes.” Levi looks into my eyes, his gaze going earnest in a flash. “Yes, it was, even if we’re still figuring out where that pesky line is.”
“What pesky line?”
“The line between professionalism and taking you to the nearest bed.”
I blush—I can’t help it. “I’d say the line is my family’s estate.”
“You say that now, but every time we’re there…”
“I know. There’s something about you that pushes me over the edge.”
“So you do know what the weekend was like.”
I bite my lip. This is exactly what I wanted. I wanted separate time with Levi, away from the task of sorting my family’s things for sale. The more things that disappear from the house, the more I feel their absence. The more I think about storage units, about squirreling everything away until I can afford a place large enough to fit it all.
“I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“Ruin it?” He puts the roll down, all
of his attention on me. “Why would you ruin anything?”
“Because I still feel…” I can’t look at him while I say this, so I look back out over the park. “Torn.”
“Torn about me?”
“Not about you. I’m—” I almost let the words come tumbling out. I almost tell him right then that I’ve fallen in love with him. “I don’t know how to make this all…right.”
“It seemed right enough to me last Friday.” That wicked grin, his cut jaw…I’m melting in my seat.
“Trust me.” I raise both hands in the air. “I have no complaints about last Friday.” In fact, I’m wishing last Friday had continued into Saturday, and Sunday, and every day since. I want to feel that satisfied every day of my life. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
“The wrong impression as in…you’re after my money.”
He’s so blunt about it that my mouth drops open. “Yeah. I don’t know if I would have said it like that, but that’s it.”
He reaches across the table for my hand, taking it in his, looking me in the eye. “Ruby, believe me when I say that I do not think you’re with me for the money.”
“With you…” The words in a whisper.
Levi grins. “With me. I thought it might make it easier on both of us if we took the next step.”
“Tell me you’re not going to propose right now. That would be insane.”
He laughs, and a burst of pleasure moves across my chest, almost blocking out the heartache underneath. “Be my girlfriend, Ruby Ashworth.”
All the reasons to say no flash through my mind. He’s an arrogant billionaire, and I’m on the verge of tumbling back into the middle class. Hell, I’ve already fallen off the ladder of my family’s wealth, and there’s not likely to be any recovering it. Being his girlfriend won’t change any of those things, and what will I do if the differences between us rear their heads somewhere down the line? What if I can’t take it, in the end, that he’s the one orchestrating this auction, putting my family’s things in other people’s hands? What if? What if?