Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  And now Frankie was stepping into that orbit. Willingly.

  The lobby was guarded by a uniformed doorman and a smartly suited woman in black behind a sleek U-shaped workstation. “Good evening, Mr. Kilbourn,” she greeted him with a professional smile.

  “Good evening, Alberta. This is Ms. Baranski,” he said, nodding at Frankie as he pulled her along, never slowing his pace.

  “A pleasure, Ms. Baranski,” Alberta said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Frankie answered over her shoulder as she jogged to keep up with him.

  Aiden was towing her toward the bank of elevators like a pack of hyenas were on their heels.

  They stepped inside, and Aiden pulled a key from his coat pocket.

  “Don’t even,” Frankie said, shaking her head.

  “Don’t even what?” he asked, sliding the key into the elevator control panel and pushing the P.

  “Oh, come on! The penthouse? Really? Can’t you at least pretend to be a normal guy?”

  He stared at her with amusement in those blue eyes. “You are the first person who has ever complained about the penthouse,” he observed.

  “I’m not a fan of reminiscing about the horde of ladies you brought back here for naked times, Aide.”

  “Exactly how many women do you think I’ve been with?” he asked with a laugh.

  “Enough.”

  One second he was standing in front of the button panel, and the next he had her pinned to the wall of the elevator.

  “You know what I’ve never done?”

  He planted his hands on either side of her head. He was a whisper away, as close to touching her from head to toe without actually making contact.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “I’ve never kissed anyone in this elevator.” He trailed his lips over her jaw line to her neck and back again.

  “Aren’t they watching?” she asked, nodding toward the security camera.

  “Does it matter?”

  The soft of his lips, the rough of his beard—a contrast of sensations.

  Frankie held on to the rail behind her. And when his lips closed over hers, she was glad to have the support. It wasn’t a wild, passionate kiss. It was something different, something that ran deeper and sang in her bones.

  The kiss bloomed like a rose under the heat of the sun. Opening and reaching for more.

  His tongue slid lazily against hers, stroking, exciting, and soothing all at once.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.” He said it like a confession. A dark one.

  “I’m glad to be here. I get to find a flaw in you tonight. Maybe you’re a hoarder. Maybe you have horrible taste in velvet paintings. Maybe you’ve got sixteen cats.” She brought her arms around his neck. “I’m going to find what makes you human, Kilbourn.”

  The elevator doors slid open, and Aiden led her by the hand into a spacious foyer. White on white on white.

  “Hmm, so far no cats,” she observed.

  He unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Maybe they’re all hiding inside with my yard sale collection of eighties cassette tapes.”

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “See? There’s my normal guy.”

  “Your version of normal is woefully odd.”

  She stuck her tongue out and sauntered past him inside. His foyer was the size of her entire apartment with about an acre of glossy white marble with gray veining. There was a pedestal table in the middle of the space with a vase of flowers. She touched a petal. Fresh flowers.

  There was no mail piled up, no magazines scattered about, no jumble of keys and coupons. The living room stretched out in front of her. One open space with a wall of windows. Of course he had a killer view.

  They were part of the city skyline from here.

  The furniture was dark, leather, and arranged just so. He had a bar stocked with every top shelf liquor known to man. A marble fireplace. Bookcases housed books and framed photos. Everything was neat, tidy, and maybe a little cold. There were no pillows or blankets on the couch. The white rug under the sitting area was thick as a cloud. The walls were dark—a contrast, she imagined to the white of the floor and the sunshine that would pour through that wall of windows.

  He followed her as she wandered into the kitchen. It was a long galley style. Sleek, modern, and most likely never used. The island that divided the kitchen from the dining area stretched on forever. She could have climbed up on the granite and stretched her arms over her head and still not been able to touch both ends.

  The dining table was just as long. Glass with metal legs. High-backed chairs ringed the table, ready and waiting for a party of twelve. There were more shelves in here. More photos. Some art, carefully colorful.

  She glanced down the hallway but decided to stick to the main living space. In this dress, they wouldn’t make it out of his bedroom until morning.

  It was cool, beautiful, just like him. It also felt a little empty, a little lonely. And she wondered if that too reflected the owner.

  Aiden was watching her, leaning against the island and working his tie free. He slid the silk out of his collar and coiled the tie on the counter.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “It’s very beautiful.” And it was. A showplace. She did not want to know what it was worth. Real estate in this part of the city was beyond astronomical. It would have been cheaper to build a summer home on the moon. But there was a lifelessness here, and it made her sad. The idea of Aiden coming home alone to the cool museum-quality beauty… She wondered if he felt at home here, if he ever relaxed here.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She picked up a gilt frame. It was a photo of Aiden’s father behind his desk in an office, the city skyline outside the windows behind him.

  “Tell me about your family,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “So, I know what I’m getting myself into with this gala thing this week.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Aiden wasn’t one to count on luck. Luck, as far as he was concerned, was a fickle bitch. Timing, preparation, and aggression usually worked more in his favor. But for some reason, that fickle bitch was smiling on him today. Frankie was in his home, making plans to step into his world.

  All in.

  “This is your first time in my place, and you want to talk about my family?” Aiden teased, stripping out of his jacket. He saw the hungry look in her eyes and reveled in it. Wanting, being wanted, with that intensity was new. And humbling.

  “Would you like a drink?” he offered.

  “Do you want one?” she countered.

  “How about water for us both?”

  She followed him into the kitchen and snooped through his refrigerator and pantry.

  “Well, there’s some actual food in here,” she said, sounding surprised.

  “What did you expect? Bags of blood?”

  “Ha, vampire diet. No, I mean, I wasn’t sure if you actually lived here.”

  He eyed her as he filled two tumblers with ice.

  “Of course, I live here.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt you sleep here. But do you put your feet up on the coffee table? Do you make eggs at midnight on this fifty-burner stove? Do you pay bills and swear at the TV when the Giants are playing?”

  Her definition of living fascinated him.

  “I sleep here. I work here. Occasionally I eat here. I can’t recall ever putting my feet on the coffee table, but that might be because the designer referred to it as ‘priceless and one-of-a-kind,’ so that kind of billing most likely kept my feet on the floor.”

  “Do you lounge around in suits all the time, sitting up straight and counting gold coins?”

  He laughed and handed her a glass of water. “Your mind is a fascination.”

  She wandered back into the living room and flopped down on the sofa. She wriggled onto the cushion and then pulled her feet under her.

  “This isn’t the most comfortable piece,” she complained.

 
; “Your couch tries to swallow its victims whole,” he pointed out.

  She studied him over the rim of her glass and sighed. “You’re just so perfect I want to mess you up and see what happens.”

  “What’s wrong with me as I am?” Aiden asked, amused.

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  He sat next to her and tugged her feet into his lap.

  “I’m trying to wrap my brain around how we can fit together. Because if you think I’m going to prance around in sexy dresses and four-inch heels with my hair and nails done when we’re home alone, you’re going to be seriously disappointed.”

  He shook his head. When he envisioned her here, it wasn’t in designer apparel and flawless makeup. He pictured her in sweats and bare feet, eating takeout off the coffee table. Or laying her head in his lap while they read or watched TV. Or naked and sighing in his bed.

  “Are you trying to ask what my expectations of you are?”

  She nodded, looking apprehensive.

  “Franchesca,” he reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I want you to be you. I enjoy spending time with you. Not some carbon copy of every other celebutante in the borough.”

  “I can’t believe you know that word,” she joked. But she was rubbing her cheek against his palm, and he saw the nerves in her beautiful face.

  “Tonight was fun. And not just the limo. I enjoyed taking you out, showing you off, and spending time with people who are important to us both.”

  She nodded, looking wary.

  “But I also love being with you in Brooklyn. Exploring those hole-in-the-wall restaurants, sleeping in your drafty fire trap. Hanging out with your brothers. I like all that, too.”

  “You’ll still do those things even though I’ve crossed the river?”

  “Sweetheart, did you think I’d stop giving just because you started?”

  He didn’t know who was more surprised when her eyes clouded with tears. “Hey, what is it?” he asked, pulling her into his lap.

  She shook her head, curls shivering from the movement.

  “I feel awful. I want to say that I was only trying to protect myself, but I think part of me wanted to make you eat your words about all this being temporary. I wanted to prove to you that I’d be important to you.”

  “Well, mission accomplished. Franchesca, you’re very important to me. Don’t doubt that.”

  “I feel like I Aidened you.”

  He laughed softly. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means I know that you get off on the chase, and I made you work hard. I think I manipulated you whether I consciously meant to or not.”

  “And you think now that the chase is over I won’t be interested,” he guessed.

  “I don’t know. I just, it’s not like me to hurt someone on purpose. And I’m sorry, Aiden. I truly am. The more I get to know you, the more clear it is that you’re… great.”

  “Great?”

  She nodded, blinking back the tears. “Really great.”

  “This doesn’t have to be complicated, Franchesca.”

  She stiffened in his arms.

  “Hang on. Before you get all fired up. I mean, all in doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t want to give up your life just to be with me, and I want you to know I wouldn’t ask you to.”

  “I don’t know if I’m going to fit in on your side of the tracks.”

  “If I tell you a secret, do you promise it goes no further than this apartment?”

  “Don’t you dare call this sublime chunk of Manhattan real estate an apartment. And yes, I promise.”

  “I don’t exactly fit in either.”

  “I call bullshit. Your family basically built this side of the tracks.”

  “Very true. My great-grandfather blackmailed and swindled his way into a bank presidency, and the Kilbourn story began there. His son, my grandfather, added to the family fortune by leaving his wife and two children for a very wealthy heiress whose father needed someone to step in and run his business. My father continued the great Kilbourn legacy by cheating his way to a business degree at Yale and then bribing admissions with a very hefty donation to accept his son with less than stellar grades and a few scrapes with his private school disciplinary committee.”

  “You? A bad boy? We’re going to need to circle back to this.”

  He smiled at her, shifting her in his lap. “I wouldn’t call the Kilbourns sociopaths. But I would say we prioritize business over all else. But in our case, family is inextricably tied to business. For my father, it was the amassing of trophies and successes. For me, it’s the hunt, the chase, the kill. Then there’s everyone else. I have friends, Chip included, who don’t actually work. Their money is managed for them, and they just live. They marry beautiful women and have beautiful families and extend the family line.”

  “But you all have money,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, but my point is, I feel like I don’t fit in. I don’t want to make small talk with someone over their new race horse or the Van Gogh they got at auction. I don’t want to compare portfolios or fuck a stable full of women. I don’t want to party like I’m a 20-year-old with my father’s black American Express card. I want to win.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t know how to do anything else.”

  Kilbourn Holdings announces heir to the throne is dating Brooklyn student

  Five things you need to know about Aiden Kilbourn’s Brooklyn girlfriend

  Meet the Parents: Aiden Kilbourn introduces family to new girlfriend

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “This is way too Pretty Woman,” Frankie complained inside Aiden’s closet.

  “Are you calling yourself a prostitute?” he asked from the bedroom.

  Frankie pulled the dress on and studied herself in the full-length mirror. She hadn’t had time to go shopping for a gala-worthy dress… or to even find out what gala-worthy dress code was. So, it had fallen on Aiden to find her the right dress.

  It was midnight blue with elbow length lace sleeves and yards of skirt. And, of course, her size. “Am I going to freeze my ass off there tonight?” she asked.

  Aiden poked his head in the doorway and stared appreciatively at her in the mirror. “Freeze your ass off?” he repeated.

  “Yeah, like you know how some restaurants are drafty, so you dress warmer if you’re going there? Or certain offices have the heat blasting, so you make sure you can strip down and not sweat to death?”

  He laughed. “Your practicality is refreshing. I once escorted a woman who chose a dress she couldn’t actually sit in. The ride to the event was quite memorable.” He leaned back against the shelving, keeping his body ramrod straight imitating the woman’s position.

  “She did not!”

  “I swear she did. Then she smiled for the cameras for twenty minutes and complained the entire rest of the evening and refused to eat.”

  “Ugh. What’s the point of wearing something if you can’t sit down or, worse, eat in it?”

  “I promise to always pick clothes for you that allow for both.”

  “My hero. So, what do you think?” Frankie asked turning from side to side.

  Aiden came up behind her and zipped her up in the back.

  “Oh, that’s better.”

  Her waist was slimmer, her breasts were supported and the full skirt floated around her. “Damn good job, Kilbourn.”

  “Can I pick ‘em, or can I pick ‘em?”

  “Mmm, the way you’re looking at me I’m wondering if you’re not just talking about the dress.”

  He leaned in and dropped a kiss to her shoulder.

  “Isn’t this the part where you shower me with a quarter-million dollars’-worth of jewelry?” she joked.

  “As a matter of fact,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewelry case.

  “Get the fuck out. Don’t come near me with whatever that is. I’ll lose it or get robbed or break out in a rash. This skin
isn’t used to platinum.”

  She backed into the corner of the closet warding him off with her hands.

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “You have expensive jewelry in that case, and it’s my right to refuse it. I’ll be a nervous wreck with something sparkly you rented for the evening.”

  He opened the case.

  “Oh,” she breathed, reaching out. “If you shut the case on my fingers, I’m going to punch you in your very sexy nose.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Do you like them?”

  It was a pair of chandelier earrings. They weren’t dripping in diamonds but rather a rainbow of glittering gemstones.”

  “Aide, they’re beautiful.”

  He handed them over one at a time, and she slipped them into her ear lobes.

  “They’re not rented. I saw them and thought of you. Colorful. Interesting. Warm.”

  “Oh, sweet baby Jesus, Aide! Exactly how much of your money am I wearing right now?” she asked, admiring the glitter in the mirror.

  “Are we going to do this every time I buy you something?”

  “Yes. Unless it’s a candy bar or a slice of pizza or any other item under ten dollars.”

  “Then I guess we’d both better get used to this conversation. Also, those were some specific food references. Do I need to feed you before we leave?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I’ll have something sent up.” He paused in the doorway. “Or I can make you a grilled cheese.”

  She perked up. “A grilled cheese?”

  He nodded.

  “That would be perfect.”

  He turned to leave again, but she called him back.

  “Hey, Aide? Thank you.”

  He gave her that warm smile that crinkled his eyes, the one that she was starting to think he reserved just for her.