“No, no.” I laughed at his reference to the self-help phenomenon that encouraged people to think a better life into existence. “Like you said, it isn’t that easy. But also, it kind of is.”
It was his turn to study me. I loved that he’d always looked at me like that, like he genuinely cared about my thoughts and opinions.
It gave me room to openly explore the idea that was only just forming in my mind. I didn’t put much credence into unproven science, but there were significant studies that showed attitude made a difference in a person’s commitment to achieve. Was it my attitude that had been in the way all this time?
“All my life, I’ve expected mediocre,” I said, “except when I got into Georgetown. Then, I expected that I would and that I’d get a full ride, and I did. But other than that, I expect all the men I fall for to be unavailable emotionally. I expect Kendra to never see my value, and she doesn’t. I expect my father to choose his other life over me, and he has. Time and time again, I expect to be let down. I set myself up for failure. I set myself up to lose.”
Scott let go of my hand and leaned against the wooden bridge’s railing. “Did you set yourself up to lose with me too?”
It was a hard question to hear asked. A pointed one, because it forced me to look at myself and analyze my behavior in a way that made me feel naked and raw.
But I sensed the vulnerability he felt as well, only because I recognized it from the many times I’d bared myself to other men by stepping out into talk-of-our-relationship territory. His asking meant my feelings were as much of an unknown for him as his were for me.
If he could be that brave, I could too. “From the minute I met you, I knew that you were…” I paused, not wanting to offend him, but also wanting to be honest. Honesty won. “You were the guy who fingerbanged women on rooftops and then dismissed them. I knew who you were, Scott. I knew you were the guy who would take me home for a night. I knew you were the guy who would give good sex because of how many women you’d had in your bed.”
He cringed, but it didn’t stop me from going on. “I knew you were the guy who’d lose interest, most likely before I did.”
He nodded, his jaw working, accepting the truth of what I’d said. “Well. Stop knowing that. Know something different.”
My heart tripped over itself as it picked up its beat. Excitement? Trepidation? I couldn’t be sure what I was feeling until I was sure what he was saying. “What should I know instead?”
“You tell me, Tessa. What do you want to get from me? What do you want me to be to you? That’s what you should expect. That’s what you’ll get.”
The door was wide open, and as much as I wanted him to tell me what we were and what he wanted, there was a thrilling freedom in being given the charge. No one had done that before. No one had said, do you want me to be with you? Then I’ll be with you. Why had I never tried to figure out what I wanted? Because no one had ever made me feel like what I wanted mattered, and now here he was telling me the only thing that mattered was what I wanted.
My response was easy. I wanted him to love me. Like I always wanted the boy to love me. But with the invitation to say that, I hesitated. Because I wanted him to love me because he loved me, not because I asked him to.
Though didn’t the very fact that he was offering that mean that he already did?
I didn’t have time to process that before the conservatory employee who had let us in approached us. “Mr. Sebastian said to tell you that he’s feeling tired, and he’s gone home for the evening. He also said not to rush, and enjoy your meal. Once I let the caterers out, I’ll be out of your hair as well. If you need anything, you can find me in the front offices.”
Scott thanked her for the information, slipping her a bill that looked like a hundred from where I stood. When she left, he turned back to me with a knowing look. “Told you. You know what that means?”
“What?”
He put his arm around me and leaned in as if to tell me a secret. “As soon as our dinner is served, we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”
“Plus the birds.”
“And the butterflies.”
So many butterflies. Both those in the sky and the ones in my stomach, fluttering like it was a warm spring day.
Scott wrapped his other arm around my waist. “Dance with me?”
“There’s no music.”
“Really? It feels like there is.” We were already moving together to a silent song. Swaying back and forth as we spun slowly.
I leaned my head on his chest. This close, I could smell his woody scent, even with all the flowers around us. A gorgeous butterfly landed on his shoulder, the color of its wings rivaling the blue of Scott’s eyes. I memorized the moment—the warmth of his body next to mine, the call of the birds, the beat of his heart against my ear.
I want this. I expect this. I should get this, forever and ever.
Could it really be that easy?
I clutched onto him tighter. “Hey, Scott, do you expect to get lucky tonight?”
“I actually do.”
“What do you know? Your grandfather must know his stuff because I’m pretty sure you’re right.”
He nuzzled his face in my hair. “The question is do you expect you’ll be fucked the minute we get back to the house or that you’ll be fucked here in the butterfly pavilion?”
I leaned back so I could give him my most shocked expression. “Are you serious? Of course, I’m expecting both.”
Twelve
Scott
“Hot damn! That one was fast.” Grandpa swiveled to face Elias, his personal assistant. “Did you get a clock on that?”
Elias looked at the screen of his speed gun. “One-eighty-seven.”
Grandpa made a face that managed to look both impressed and pissed off all at once. “That’s going to be hard to beat. We should have bet on that one.”
I chuckled, then took a swig of my beer—the only beverage allowed when watching boat races, according to Grandpa. We’d been out on the water all day now, having parked early to get a premium viewing spot. Now that the competition had actually started, I couldn’t decide what was more entertaining, the high speed racing or my grandfather’s reactions as he watched.
“Would you really bet against your own team?” I asked him after a beat.
He shrugged. “If the boat I sponsor isn’t going to win, I might as well make money somewhere.”
This time, I full-out laughed. “Like you need more money.”
He opened his mouth, and I could already guess what was going to follow. A quip about how you can’t keep money with that attitude or something to that effect. But then he shut his trap and just smiled. “Not gonna lie,” he said after a swig of his own beer. “I like money.”
“At least you know yourself.”
“At ninety-five, I sure hope so.”
The next boat prepared to run the course, and we fell into an easy silence. It was a nice day for lounging. A cool breeze swept across the harbor, alleviating the otherwise oppressive eighty-nine-degree day. Hot for October but welcome after the cold front that had landed in New York before we’d left.
Still, as pleasant as the afternoon was on the yacht, I had other things on my mind. Not the least of which was the email I’d woken up to.
“Clean,” Tess had said proudly when she’d opened up her own health report. She’d waved it in my face to prove it, so I’d waved mine back.
“Clean.”
We were minutes from celebrating in the only appropriate way—my cock bare in her pussy—when Elias had knocked on our bedroom door to inform us that the boat was leaving in ten minutes.
Celebrating would have to wait until we returned. Which was probably best since I didn’t want to rush the experience. I wanted to take my time. I planned to enjoy every single second of the experience, planned to make her enjoy it as well. I’d been suffering with a semi all day just thinking about it.
My gaze drifted to the lower deck where
Tess lay in the sun, reading a book she’d found on one of the many bookshelves in Grandpa’s house. She’d removed her cover-up at some point and was now just in her tiny, black bikini. Fuck, that swimsuit was killing me. I was already anticipating what I’d do to her when I finally got to pull those tempting little strings and watch that flimsy piece of cloth fall off.
Subtly, I adjusted myself and pulled my attention back to Grandpa, only to find he was staring in the same direction, an appreciative expression on his face that I imagined rivaled my own. “Hey, now! Watch where you put your eyes, old man.”
He gave me a guilty smile. “I’m old; I’m not blind. No reason I can’t look.”
“Not at my girlfriend. Look all you want at other women. Keep that leer away from her.”
“Girlfriend,” he repeated, conveniently steering the topic in another direction. “Is that what she’s going to stay?”
I shuddered at the thought of losing Tess. “I’m not planning on ending things, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“No, no. Quite the opposite. Wondered if you were going to make her permanent.”
Oh. That’s what he was getting at.
I relaxed, which was strange because this was the kind of subject that I would have expected to make me nervous. Instead, I felt oddly excited. “We haven’t been dating that long, Grandpa. I shouldn’t be thinking in those terms yet.”
“But…”
“But, yeah. A permanent arrangement...I could see that happening.” Saying it out loud was a relief. Thoughts of a future with Tess had certainly entered my mind, but this was the first time I’d formulated those thoughts into anything concrete. The idea had been knocking, though, wanting out. Last night, when I’d pressed her to name what she wanted from me, I’d really been asking for permission to say what I wanted from her. To say I wanted all of her, for always.
Now that I’d allowed myself to say it, it was like a floodgate had been opened. I could see it all: her finger wearing the ring I’d pick for her, her eyes as I lifted the veil from her face, her belly swollen with my child. A whole, perfect, wonderful lifetime ahead of me with her at my side.
“That’s what I guessed from the way you look at her. Just wondering how you plan to do that when you’re engaged to someone else.”
My head snapped in his direction. “Dad told you.” I didn’t know why I was surprised. My father boasted whenever he could, and he thought my engagement to a woman with Kendra’s social status made him look good.
It was all about him. It was always about him.
Grandpa looked at me sternly. “I’d hoped you’d tell me.”
“I’m not marrying Kendra,” I assured him.
“Good. I hoped that was the mix-up.” He nodded toward Tess. “She doesn’t deserve to be a sidepiece.”
I cringed at the idea that any woman deserved to be a sidepiece, but there was a good chance Grandpa Irving had affairs of his own, and I didn’t want to get into that fight. “I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“I didn’t think that you would. Though, if you’re technically engaged right now—”
“I’m working on not being engaged. It’s not…” I sighed. “It’s not as easy as I wish it was.”
He considered. I could feel him restraining himself, and I couldn’t decide if I was grateful that he wasn’t letting me have it or if I was disappointed. Eventually, he asked, “Does she know?”
“Tess? Yes. She’s fully aware of the situation.” That was a lie. “Okay, not fully.” I thought about saying more. If I explained it to him, would he have a solution? Would I feel that sense of relief I’d felt admitting that I wanted a life with Tess?
I probably would have told him no problem if it hadn’t been what she’d said to him at the conservatory. Up until that point, I’d been comfortable with the very likely chance that the DRF would lose their sponsorship. I’d known it was an important organization to Tess, but I hadn’t realized quite how important it was until she’d told Grandpa it was the most important thing to her.
I didn’t want to assume that I was anything near that on her priority list. Still, I felt pretty sure that she wouldn’t support me marrying Kendra for it. Or it would be a pretty tough choice for her anyway. Which was why I still hadn’t gotten around to telling her about it.
And why I was having a hard time making myself tell Grandpa.
He made the decision easier by nailing down the root of the issue. “Let me guess, that son of mine doesn’t approve.”
That was the long and short of it because it was bigger than just his threat to pull the DRF, whether I wanted to admit that or not. “You know the kind of profile Dad expects from his board members. He’d never let me advance. I’d be at a dead end.”
He made a spitting sound. “Henry’s an ass. Always has been. Was entitled and snotty even as a kid. It kills me that he’s brought that attitude into the company. Into my company. That’s not the kind of environment I built. That is not what I stood for.”
I wasn’t surprised by this outburst. For the most part, he tried to refrain from commenting on how my father ran SIC, but the few times he slipped, he’d always given a similar impression of frustration.
He muttered some more under his breath, and I caught a curse word or two before he settled himself down. “Want me to talk to him?”
“Thanks, but no.” It was a nice offer, but we both knew it would do more harm than good. My father was stubborn to a fault. Whenever he was challenged, he dug his heels in, even if the right move was to let up. Especially when it came to his father.
And Grandpa could complain all he wanted about how SIC was run, and nothing would change. He’d handed the position of leadership over to his sons decades earlier, and legally, he no longer had any say.
“Thought it was at least right to offer.”
“I appreciate it.”
The next boat had started its way through the course and was now headed our way. We quieted while it sped past us until Elias announced it had only clocked at one-seventy-three, and Grandpa lost interest in the race and turned his attention back to me. “Did I ever tell you what your grandmother did with her inheritance?”
Generally, Grandpa seemed just as sharp in his nineties as he’d ever been when I was growing up, so I didn’t question his out-of-the-blue tangent and just went with it. “Not that I remember. What did she do?”
“Well, more important is what she didn’t do. See, we were penniless when we got married. Adeline’s father had some money, but he had no interest in parting with any of it, so we lived in a little shack of a place while I tried to cultivate the relationships needed to build an empire. I was obsessed with that, with building something that would be worthy of her. She, on the other hand, would have been happy just to have a house with wall-to-wall carpet.
“We were still struggling when her daddy died. He left her a nice little sum, just enough to buy a nice place in the suburbs and put some in savings. I could stick with my bookkeeping job, and we’d have been fine. Or she would have been fine. She would have been ecstatic, actually. I would have been miserable.”
“You didn’t buy her the house she wanted?” I asked, guessing where the story was going. That didn’t seem like him. Whether or not he’d stayed faithful, he’d definitely loved Grandma. She’d been his world, and he’d doted on her constantly.
“It wasn’t mine to decide. It was her money.” Never mind that married women didn’t have any legal claim to their own assets back then. He let her make the decision anyway. This was more like the man I knew as my grandfather.
“What did she do with it then?”
“She gave it to me to invest. Told me to go build what I dreamed of building. She knew that I’d take care of her in the end. Unfortunately, I lost a good portion of that money, and we had a few rough years, but the partnership that I formed because of that investment led to our first oil strike, and things, you know, snowballed from there.” He waved his hand as though he’d gotten off tr
ack. “That’s not the point. The point is, your grandmother sacrificed something important to her so that I could have something important to me. She said she wouldn’t be happy in her perfect little home if I wasn’t happy with her. That’s love. That’s real love. I didn’t know she loved me like that before then. Sure, I’d married her. Because I was fond of her. Because I thought she’d be a good mother one day. Make a good wife. But I don’t think I really fell in love with her until then. Made all the difference in our marriage. I don’t know that we would have been what we were if it weren’t for that sacrifice.”
Huh.
It was a touching story, one I’d never heard before, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to glean from it. “What are you trying to tell me, Grandpa?”
His brow creased as though he’d lost his train of thought. “You know, I’m not quite sure, Scottie.”
All right, then. It was happening. Grandpa was finally losing a few of his marbles.
He turned so he could clap his hand on my shoulder. “If anyone can figure out what I meant by it, you can. I have faith.”
“Okay, Grandpa. I’ll work on it.”
But my gaze went back to Tess then. She’d set down her book and stretched out on her stomach, her swim top undone so her back was completely bare, and fuck if she didn’t look like a goddess, half naked, her skin glistening in the sun.
And the only thing I was working on at the moment was a plan to get us off this boat and back to our guest room as soon as fucking possible.
When we were finally back on dry land, I told Grandpa not to count on us for dinner, and then, after he gave me a knowing wink on the sly, Tess and I practically raced to our room.
I was on her heels, and as soon as we were across the threshold, I grabbed her from behind before the door was even all the way closed.
“This excuse for a swimsuit you’ve been wearing all day is driving me out of my mind.” With one hand resting on her collarbone, I slid my other hand over her bikini bottoms, stroking the folds of her pussy lips through the material as I pressed tight against her so she’d have physical proof of my misery. “All that skin bared, your gorgeous curves exposed, and still all I could think about was hidden right here.”
Man in Love Page 13
