by Ali Parker
When he was done, I kissed his cheeks and his lips, and neither of us wanted to break apart. Eventually, we did, and he lay on his side, wrapped an arm around me, and pulled me into his chest.
I closed my eyes and listened to the steady beat of his heart under my cheek.
There were dozens of things I wanted to say. Things I thought he needed to know.
But speaking them aloud would make things too hard on both of us.
I simply curled into him and tried to savor every fleeting second as he rested his chin upon my head.
CHAPTER 23
LEVI
One Week Later
* * *
I glanced at the watch on my wrist and promptly shrugged it under the sleeve of my shirt as I waited at the front door for Piper.
She’d been upstairs getting ready for what felt like ages. In reality, we’d only been apart for about an hour.
An hour was an eternity, especially with time slipping through our fingers so quickly as we closed in on the end of the month.
I had three days left with her. Three days left to savor every moment, every smile, every kiss, every touch. And I planned on doing just that.
It was easier since I hadn’t had a lick of alcohol since being admitted to the hospital. I wasn’t feeling my best self, which was in part because I was having mild withdrawals, and in part because I knew I was going to lose the girl I was in love with at the end of the month. But I would take the night sweats and the sudden bursts of nausea from the lack of alcohol to keep a clear mind in these closing days with her.
She was worth it all.
Tonight, we had plans to go out into the city for a romantic date night. She had no idea what the plan was, and I’d had a hell of a time keeping it under wraps. She pried and pried for answers over the last few days, but I held them close to my vest, assuring her it was a simple evening that she would enjoy. No bells and whistles. Just uninterrupted us time.
I tapped my foot on the marble floor of the foyer and considered yelling up the stairs at her to hurry the hell up. But just as I took a step toward the base of the staircase, I heard her bedroom door open upstairs.
She appeared at the top of the stairs, and my voice hitched in my throat.
God damn.
She was dressed in a tight-fitting deep-purple dress. Even from down below, I could tell her lips were glossy, and the sparkly earrings she wore dazzled under the light of the chandelier above as she made her descent.
Her hair was half pinned back, while the rest of it tumbled in loose curls down her back. Her shoes were silver, strappy, and sexy as hell, and her toes were practically the same shade as her dress.
When she hit the marble, her heels clicked across the floor as she approached me.
“Wow,” I said. “You look beautiful, Piper.”
She gave me a flirty smile. “You look pretty handsome yourself.”
I held out my elbow for her, and she threaded her arm through it. “Shall we go?”
Piper’s smile was contagious, and the two of us struck out for the evening, making our way to the limo parked in the drive. Piper had a pep in her step, and I opened the door for her. When she slid into the back seat, I noticed how her eyes flicked to the bar.
I’d called and arranged for there to be no alcohol present. There was, however, club soda, pop, and the same sparkling apple juice she’d served when she cooked me dinner last week.
Piper reached for it with a knowing smile. “Nice touch.”
“I try.” I took it from her, popped it open, and poured her a fizzy glass.
I loved the way she pursed her lips on the edge of the glass and sipped at it. There was a perfect imprint of gloss left on the rim when she set it down and ran her hands down her thighs. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going yet?”
“It’s a short drive. You’ll see soon enough.”
* * *
The limo pulled up in front of an elegant steakhouse for high-society patrons called Simmer. The exterior was modern, edgy, and entirely tinted glass. A red carpet led to the entrance, and for once, there were no fans crowded at the edges, hoping to steal a glance of Levi Morgan. Keeping this appointment under wraps had preserved the secrecy required for me to pull off a completely private evening.
Piper and I got out of the limo. She looked up at the restaurant and then back at me as I closed the door and adjusted my suit jacket. “There aren’t going to be a bunch of people in there wanting autographs, are there?”
I chuckled and placed a hand in the small of her back to start leading her down the carpet to the door. “No. Not that I’m aware. Like I said, tonight is just for me and you.”
Her smile suggested she didn’t quite believe me, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “All right. Let’s see what you have in store, Mr. Morgan.”
I pulled open the door for her.
Piper stepped in ahead of me and stopped in her tracks.
The entire restaurant was empty.
On a normal Tuesday evening, the place would be jam-packed with high-status customers in their ten-thousand-dollar designer outfits. But tonight, all the tables had been cleared away. They weren’t tucked up against the windows but simply gone, leaving the entire floor of the restaurant open.
Save for the one table for two, right smack in the middle of the shiny black obsidian floor.
Piper turned to me over her shoulder. “You did all this for us?”
“For you.”
Her eyes glistened, and her bottom lip trembled. I smiled and pushed at the small of her back, encouraging her to go forward.
The table was fully set and hanging above was a single chandelier that sent radiant light refracting across the black floor all around the table. I pulled out her chair for her, and she sat. Her eyes were on me when I took the seat across from her, and she looked, for lack of a better word, wonderstruck.
“Levi, this is perfect.”
“I’m glad you like it. As I said, uninterrupted you and me time. The only other people here are the cooks and our server.”
As if on cue, a swinging saloon-style door creaked on its hinges, and a server dressed in all white strode toward us. He was young, confident, and slim, with a head of copper-colored hair and a smile made for customer service.
“Sir, miss.” He nodded at both of us. “Welcome to Simmer. We are pleased to serve you this evening. Can I get you something from the bar before I tell you what you’ll be enjoying for dinner this evening?”
Piper’s eyes swung to me.
“A club soda for me, thanks,” I said.
Her sharp stare softened, and she melted into her chair. “Lemon water, please.”
Our server clasped his hands together. “Very well. I’ll be back shortly with your orders.” He bustled off, and the saloon door swung closed behind him.
“Soda water,” Piper said approvingly. “I’m impressed.”
“Here’s to better decisions going forward.”
Her smile was more radiant than ever. “I’m proud of you, Levi.”
Her words were simple, but they meant more to me than she could ever understand. It had been a long time since someone said something along those lines to me, and even longer since they came from someone whose opinion I valued as strongly as Piper’s.
I hoped they would be enough to keep me clean when she left LA and moved forward with the other bachelors.
I grimaced at the thought.
“Levi, are you all right?” Piper asked.
She was too perceptive for her own good and had been since she set foot in my mansion on the first of August. “Yes, I’m just having a hard time. Every time I think of you leaving, I get… upset.”
She licked her lips. She was about to say something when our server returned with our drinks and gave us a long-winded explanation about the dinner we would be served: three rounds of appetizers, all small and in a complementary pallet, then the main course, bacon-wrapped pesto pork tenderloin. Piper’s eyes l
it up as she listened to the recipes headed our way. When he was done, he told us he would return with our first appetizer in roughly ten minutes.
Piper watched him go and hesitated to turn back to me. When she spoke, she picked her words carefully. “I don’t want to leave, Levi. I want to stay. But this thing… I can’t walk away from it. I’ve made commitments. Signed contracts. Made promises.”
“I understand.”
She nodded and ran her finger through the moisture sweating off her lemon water. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We couldn’t have seen how this would all unfold. Least of all me. I never expected this.”
“Expected what?” she breathed.
I hadn’t planned on clearing my conscience and telling her everything that was on my mind this early on in the date, but it was coming up organically, and it would feel good to get it all off my chest.
Unless she shot me down, of course.
It was a risk worth taking at this stage of the game.
“Of falling in love with you,” I said evenly.
Piper sucked a sharp breath through her teeth.
I held up a hand. “I know you can’t say it back. And I’m not telling you this to hear what I want to hear. I’m telling you the truth because I’d hate myself if I let you go without making sure you knew how I felt about you. About us.”
“Levi…”
“Wait. Please. I also know there are other men in this. Other men you feel just as fondly for, if not more so. And I want you to know that I understand. However this ends, whoever you choose, I’ll be all right. I promise.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and she looked away, wiping at her eyes with her thumbs.
I hadn’t meant to make her cry.
I went to her and knelt beside her chair. She refused to meet my eyes until I took her chin with two fingers and turned her toward me. “Piper. It’s all right. I just needed you to know. I needed to say it out loud so that it was real. So that I had something to hold on to when you were gone to see me through the next steps I have to take.”
Her brow furrowed. “And what are those?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek. “All that matters is tonight. And the time we have left. Yes?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I stole a wet, salty kiss. Then I pressed my forehead to hers and closed my eyes. “Now man up, Piper James, because I have no intention of spending the rest of our evening crying like babies, you hear me?”
Her eyes were closed, and tears still flowed freely down her cheeks, but she laughed, and the sound chased away the grief that was eating away at the edges of my heart.
It wasn’t the end yet, and I refused to treat it as such until our final minutes together.
CHAPTER 24
PIPER
“How is it already this time?” I asked, my voice trembling in my throat as I smoothed my hands across Levi’s chest. His gray T-shirt was thin enough for me to pretend I was touching his bare skin one last time.
He closed his hands over mine, stilling my anxious smoothing of his shirt that was already wrinkle-free. He lifted my fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “I’ve been wondering the same thing since I woke up this morning.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“Then we won’t.”
“Won’t say goodbye?” I asked, my brow furrowing. I couldn’t very well get into the limo behind me without saying goodbye to this man. Because for all his flaws, I loved him.
I knew I did. I’d known for weeks.
And when he told me the other night at Simmer how he felt, it had taken every ounce of will I had not to echo the words back at him. Not to beg him to take me to one of the houses he owned somewhere far away that we could hide out in until the Casanova Club ended, and until I forgot about the other men who still held pieces of my heart in their hands.
How could I love more than one person?
And so fiercely?
It made no sense to me. But there was no sense dwelling on those thoughts right now. These last moments were Levi’s, not the other men’s. I’d said my farewells to them.
“I’ll see you again, Piper,” Levi said, grazing my cheek with his knuckles. “I’m sure of it. There’s one more party before this shit show ends, and I plan on seeking you out and stealing you away for as long as I can. If that’s all right by you, of course.”
I nodded desperately. “Please.”
The thought of being in one room with all the other men one more time was a terrifying one. I would need Levi there to ground me. To hold my hand and tell me it would all be okay.
To remind me that he loved me, despite the anguish those three little words would cause.
“I promise,” he whispered.
The limo driver honked his horn behind me and stuck his head out the window to call to us that if I wanted to catch my flight, I had to leave in two minutes.
I shook my head.
Levi cupped my cheeks in his hands and tilted my head back. “You’ve got this, Piper. Come on. Where’s the tough as nails chick who marched into my house and made me a better man?”
Gone. She was gone. She was a lie.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?” he said, searching my eyes for something I doubted he’d find.
“Okay.”
Levi wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into him. I threw my arms around his waist and clung to him. I breathed in the fresh scent of his T-shirt and the lingering citrus of his cologne and closed my eyes. He kissed my forehead, and neither of us broke apart for the entire two minutes the limo driver told us we had.
When we did part, it was Levi who stepped back. His eyes were glassy, but there were no tears, and he swallowed a few times as he nodded at the limo door behind me. “You should go.”
Please. Don’t let me.
I clasped my hands together in front of my chest.
I love you.
He nodded and offered me a smile that I knew took all of his will power to do. “Go,” he whispered.
With a sob, I turned my back on him and got in the limo. I pulled the door closed and tried not to look out the window at him as the driver pulled away, but I couldn’t help myself. I rolled my window down, damn the tears streaming down my cheeks, and blew him a kiss. It was sappy, weak, and silly, but it made him smile as he slid his hands in his pockets.
And that was worth it.
I twisted around in my seat to watch him as the driver began pulling out of the drive. Levi held his ground, and I craned my neck as he disappeared from view when the limo completed the corner. Then I faced forward and tried to come to terms with the hollowness in my chest.
I doubted it was going anywhere anytime soon.
“Miss, would you like some music?” the driver asked.
Finding the words that tried to escape my throat in a sob instead of a sentence was difficult, and it took me a moment to reply. “No thank you. I just need some privacy.”
“As you wish,” he said, sympathy coloring his tone as he rolled up the divider between his cab and the back. As soon as the window sealed, I leaned forward, buried my face in my hands, and let the pain and the sadness out.
* * *
The flight home was a nightmare.
My flight was delayed three hours, which left me sitting in the terminal with red puffy eyes and used tissues spilling out of my purse. People gave me wary looks and a wide berth as they went past, and I ignored them, concluding that the only thing they should feel was grateful that they didn’t feel as lost and broken as I did.
I loved Levi. And he loved me. And he didn’t deserve what I was going to do to him when this ended.
I let him fall for me when I knew full well we weren’t going to end up together. My prize was still going to be the money. It had to be. It might be the only thing that solidified getting my parents’ forgiveness.
As I sat and waited for my flight, I made an oath to myself. It was a simple one and one I
should have made months earlier. Maybe even at the beginning of this thing. Before Joshua. Before Wyatt.
Before Levi.
You will not let another man fall for you. Keep them at arm’s length. Don’t let them in. This is the last time you’ll feel this pain.
I had a good cry one last time in the bathroom stall of the terminal before my flight left. Luckily, I kept it together while in the air and even managed to steal a few hours of sleep. When I landed, I was tired physically and emotionally, and I was grateful for the message on my phone from Janie, telling me she was still going to be there to pick me up despite my flight delay.
I retrieved my luggage.
Then I made my way out into the pickup area and found Janie sitting on a bench with her phone in her lap. She was texting someone, with a smile pulling at her lips.
When she looked up and saw me, she crammed the phone into her jeans pocket, sprang to her feet, and rushed forward to throw her arms around me. “Piper! Fucking finally!” She pulled back, holding me by the upper arms, and stared into my eyes. She frowned. “Oh no. Did something happen? What’s wrong?”
“I need to go home,” I whispered.
“Okay,” she said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and taking one of my suitcases in her free hand. “Talk to me, Pipes. What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Janie. Please. This month has been really hard, and I just need to go home and sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
She held me tighter. “Okay, I’ll stop. Do you need food first?”
“No,” I said, my voice thick.
Janie led me through the airport to her car. She loaded my luggage into her trunk, and we both climbed into the front seat. Her music was on, but she dialed the volume down as we pulled out of the parking garage and hit the freeway to head into the city.
I could feel her shooting nervous looks in my direction.
It wasn’t fair for me to string her along until morning. I knew that. But I also knew if I told her how I was feeling that I would fall apart again. The last thing I wanted to do was cry more.