by Bay, Louise
“Is he here?” someone whispered.
“Alexander, this is my annoying sister, Scarlett.” Violet held the door open and Scarlett walked through.
Scarlett was slightly taller than Violet but they both had similar long, dark hair.
“I’m so happy to meet you,” she said and we shook hands.
“How do you do? I’m Alex.”
“Want to go downstairs? It’s almost one,” Violet said, hurrying us out. “Apparently we have drinks in the library before lunch.”
I nodded and followed the girls out.
Violet glanced over her shoulder at me as I walked behind them down the stairs. She smiled, but it wasn’t the same unforced grin I’d seen from her earlier.
“This must be Alexander,” a British man said as we entered the library. “I’m Ryder. How do you do?”
I took his hand. “Please call me Alex.”
“Gosh, all these introductions. I hope it isn’t too overwhelming,” Darcy said, handing me a glass of champagne. “Ryder is my brother and Scarlett’s husband. That,” she said, pointing at a man crouching to negotiate with a toddler, “is Max, Violet and Scarlett’s brother—”
“And I’m Harper,” a woman with brown hair interrupted. “I’m Violet’s sister-in-law and the chief interrogator for the day.”
“Don’t mind my wife,” Max said, joining the group. “I’m the protective older brother. I hear you’re a barrister.”
I glanced over at Violet, who was glaring at her brother.
“That’s right. And you’re on Wall Street?” I asked. I much preferred to learn about others than answer questions. Most of the time, people were happy to oblige me.
“And you work in the same office as Violet?” he asked.
“Indeed.”
“I’m a big fan of office romances,” Harper said, patting her husband’s chest. “It’s how Max and I met. And here we are—married with three kids.”
“And you’re married?” Max asked me, his eyes narrowing.
I couldn’t blame him questioning me about my marriage. I was dating his sister, but it felt a little misplaced—Violet and I weren’t about to have three kids. Our relationship was different. It was constrained by my job and my capacity to make time for a woman. “Gabby and I split up three years ago.”
“Don’t start, Max,” Violet urged. “Can’t we just have a nice time rather than reenact the Spanish Inquisition?”
Luckily, we were interrupted by someone coming in to announce lunch and we all wandered into the dining room. Violet and I trailed behind, and I picked up her hand and pressed my lips to her fingers. “I can handle anything they dish out. Don’t worry.”
She sighed. “But they’re making such a big deal out of it.” She shook her head.
“You’re the little sister, but it doesn’t matter. You and I know who we are together and that’s all that matters.”
Violet stopped and turned to me, her free hand on her chest. She searched my face with her gaze. “You’re right. We do. We’re living in the moment, just enjoying each other’s company.”
“Exactly. Stop worrying.” I kissed her forehead and we headed into lunch, taking our seats as indicated by the name cards. It was just adults around the table, and I’d been placed between Violet and Scarlett. Food was passed around and the chatter and laughter seemed to relax Violet.
“Thanks for coming,” Scarlett said as she handed me a plate of broccoli.
“It was very nice to be invited. I’ve never had a Thanksgiving before.”
“I don’t suppose you have. Something else that you and Violet don’t have in common,” Scarlett said.
“Sorry?” Was there subtext behind her statement?
“You and Violet seem to be quite different.”
“You know what they say about opposites,” I replied. “And we have plenty in common—neither of us suffer fools gladly, and she’s not afraid of speaking her mind. We complement each other in lots of ways,” I said, passing the plate to Violet, who was busy talking to Darcy.
“Complement each other?” Scarlett asked, handing me another bowl of something. “Candied yams,” she explained as I spooned out a small amount onto my plate.
I nodded. “Yes. Violet doesn’t like to plan and I’m so busy—it works quite well for us. And . . .” Our picnic lunch replayed in my mind. She knew I was busy. But she also knew I could extricate myself from my work for an hour. “You know, she challenges me—shows me how life can be different.”
My world had been broadened with Violet in it—not least because I spent time with her but also because she had me trying new restaurants, taking picnics in November, and going to museums in my lunchtimes.
“She’s helped me to seize the day a little more.” Unexpectedly, Violet had made small changes in my life, cracked open my narrow view on the world, which meant I was enjoying each day more and more.
Scarlett smiled. “Spontaneity really is Violet’s best quality.”
“One of many,” I replied.
My responses seemed to placate Scarlett, and we fell into casual conversation about her business and her life spent between Connecticut and England.
“I hear you’ve given up waitressing,” Ryder said to Violet. “How’s office life?”
“Different,” Violet replied. “I like it though. I enjoy solving problems and sorting out issues.”
“She’s very good at it,” I interjected. “Too good really. Way overqualified.”
“What do you think you’ll end up doing when you come back to New York?” Ryder asked.
Violet laughed. “You know me, Ryder, I don’t think past the end of the week. I have no idea.”
“You still thinking about Columbia?” Scarlett asked Violet, while spooning potatoes onto her plate.
I turned my head to see Violet’s reaction. Columbia University?
She shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe. I’ve filled out the application. They might not take me.”
“I think going back to school would be an amazing thing for you,” Scarlett said. “You have this big brain that you haven’t used in so long.”
Back to school?
I racked my mind, trying to think back about whether Violet had ever mentioned anything about getting another qualification. That was a huge piece of news. Why hadn’t Violet said anything? Clearly, she was thinking about her future more than she’d ever disclosed to me. And she saw her future in New York at Columbia University. That was a positive step. I would hate to see her talent wasted doing any more waitressing or frankly any more administration. She should be doing something else with her ability. I was happy for her.
But hearing it stung slightly. More than it should have. More than I would have ever thought it would. Because Columbia University was three thousand miles away and her applying there was evidence that none of her plans for the future involved me.
I thought about my future all the time, but only ever in terms of my career. I carefully considered the work I aspired to do and how it would impact my desire to take silk early. I spoke to Craig and Lance about my career path and what I could do to step things up. I was constantly looking toward the horizon.
But when I saw myself in the future—the man with a career to rival my father’s—the best at the bar, was all I saw. I didn’t see a home or a wife or children. I never thought about the places I’d visited or the experiences I had—it was all about work. If I looked even two months ahead, Violet’s contract would be up, and then what? Would my expanded world suddenly shrink? Would it become smaller in her absence? Less interesting. Almost certainly. But of course Violet had to consider her future, and I should be happy about that. But would I be sad if she disappeared from my life? If she wasn’t in my future?
I realized I would, but there was nothing I could do.
Violet
“Who’d have thought you could be so charming?” I asked Alexander as I lay sprawled across the bed as he undid his tie.
“Who’d have tho
ught you could be so sexy?” he replied as he came toward me. “This dress should be illegal.” He smoothed his fingers over my cleavage and starting on my buttons.
“You bought it for me.”
“Because I knew you’d look incredible.”
My dress open, he abandoned me and began to undo his own shirt.
“Why do you have everyone call you Alex?” I’d never noticed it before, but whenever people called him Alexander, he asked them to call him Alex.
He smirked as he discarded his shirt and began to take off his pants. “That’s my name.”
“Very funny. I call you Alexander and you’ve never asked me to call you Alex.”
“I know. I’ve never liked it. It was always the name I associated with my father.”
“But you don’t mind me calling you it?”
He shook his head as he stood completely naked in front of me. I squeezed my thighs together at the sight of him—his strong thighs and perfect cock. I knew what happened next, knew how he’d feel inside me. I shivered as an ache for him grew in my stomach.
“I like it when it comes from your mouth.” He crawled over me and began to peel off my dress. “What I don’t like is you keeping things from me.” He lay beside me.
I frowned, unsure of what he meant. Before I had a chance to ask him, he’d moved my underwear to one side and shoved two fingers inside me.
I gasped at the unexpected action.
“I don’t like being caught off guard like that.” His thumb slid over my clit and he began to pump his fingers in and out of me. “So you don’t get my cock. Not for this first orgasm.”
He was denying me his dick because I hadn’t told him about . . . what, exactly?
I grabbed at his wrist, trying to stop his relentless, driving rhythm. “What did I keep from you?” I asked, trying to beat back the waves of pleasure that were travelling up my body.
“Columbia, going back to university.”
I let out a groan as my orgasm began to build.
“You see how easily I turn you on?”
I closed my eyes, unable to speak, reveling in his hard, rough fingers between my legs as pulses of pleasure scattered under my skin.
“You want to come so quickly.”
My whole body was throbbing within seconds of him touching me.
Without warning he removed his hand and moved away from me. My eyes flew open.
I’d been a second away from my climax. What was he doing? “Alexander. What . . .”
“You don’t keep things from me.” His face was dark and serious.
I’d had no idea he’d want to know. Why did he care what I did when I left London?
“I’m sorry,” I said, smoothing my palm down his cheek.
He skirted his hand down my belly and across my pussy, pressing his fingers inside me more gently this time.
“That was the brochure you were reading when I met you at the museum,” he said. “I asked you what it was.”
I arched my back as his fingers resumed their pumping and circling. “You have so much to think about. It wasn’t important.” My voice was breathless as my body inched toward climax.
He read my body as though he’d been studying me for years. I didn’t know how, but he understood exactly the rhythm I needed, the perfect amount of pressure, when to hold back and when to let go.
His fingers changed direction at exactly the right time, and I was lost as pleasure burst out of my every cell.
Before I’d caught my breath, Alexander crawled on top of me and his condom-covered dick nudged at my entrance.
“You tell me this stuff, you hear me?” he whispered in my ear, his hair brushing against my cheek, setting me on fire as he pushed inside. “I want to know.”
Right then I would have told him everything. I wanted to say how thankful I was to have met him. How I’d never had sex that had me sated and yet craving for more at the same time as I did with him. How no man before him had ever made me feel as sexy and wanton, yet so respected at the same time. How his passion to succeed and build a legacy seemed to have burrowed into my DNA. Alexander had changed me, altered my view of the world.
The drag of his dick inside me brought me back to physical need. I watched as his forehead became sheened in sweat born of the effort to make me feel good, to make him feel good, to make us feel good.
I opened my legs wider, wanting him deeper and more connected to me.
He groaned and thrust harder, pressing his smooth fingers into mine, covering my hands and keeping us joined, as if our hands clasped together meant we’d share everything from now on—our hopes and fears, our feelings and emotions. I shouldn’t, but I enjoyed him wanting to know about Columbia, about my plans—that he seemed to feel like he had some kind of stake in my future. I felt the same. I wanted him to do well, be happy, laugh more.
I’d never felt so close to anyone.
These feelings weren’t meant to develop. I wasn’t supposed to care for someone. What was happening to me? I’d promised myself I’d never open up to a man again. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted Alexander, liked him, trusted him. I’d not just opened up a little. He owned me.
Before I could figure out what to do with all these overwhelming realizations, Alexander shifted back onto his knees with me on his lap, my legs either side him.
His fingers dug into my ass as he pulled me toward him, driving his hips at the same time, my breasts thrust up with the movement. Alexander’s eyes dropped, taking in my chest. He groaned, pushing deeper and harder.
I gripped his shoulders as our hips pushed against each other, our bodies desperate and wanting, scrambling toward climax.
I glanced down and saw him gazing up at me, his perfectly blue eyes taking me in as if to memorize me.
The fucking felt different this time, as if we needed something more from each other, needed to prove something, break down some kind of barrier. As though we’d moved to a different level of our relationship.
“Alexander,” I moaned.
“No hiding,” he grunted, his movements becoming sharper and less controlled.
I wasn’t sure if it was his demanding tone or his need for more of me that triggered my orgasm, but my entire body began to shudder at his stipulation.
He thrust into me three more times, his face contorted by his orgasm.
I wanted to give him everything he demanded of me.
What was happening to me? I’d promised myself that I’d never care about a man again, and yet here I was, wrapped in a man’s arms, hoping that he’d never let me go.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alexander
When I reached Violet’s place, I lifted the brass knocker with my elbow, then released it, almost dropping the armfuls of black boxes I was carrying.
Violet swung the door open. The box at the top of the pile tumbled off, and she caught it.
“Alexander. What are you doing?”
“I’m taking you to dinner,” I said.
Her eyes lit up. “You are?” She glanced at the clock on the mantel as I followed her into the sitting room. “You’ve finished work? It’s barely seven.”
Since we’d spent Thanksgiving together, I’d stayed at her place every night. Although I was normally back a lot later than this. Something had passed between us that weekend, and we were more connected than ever. I found myself aiming to leave chambers as soon as I could, which had never happened to me before. I never clock watched—I just worked my way through whatever it was I had to do and I stopped when I knew I needed to sleep. Spending time with Violet had become a reason to finish early.
“Yes, and it’s a Saturday. I’m giving myself the evening off while I can.” I put the three remaining boxes on the console table.
“I’m excited. Want me to find us a table somewhere?”
“I’ve booked the fancy Chinese,” I said as I slumped onto the sofa.
Her smile faltered, but she nodded. “Okay.”
“You’d prefer not t
o go there?”
She shrugged and put the package she was holding on top of the others. “It’s just fancy doesn’t really suit me. I always think fancy is Scarlett and Max’s thing.”
“This place has good food and we should be celebrating. I don’t often take evenings off.” It was Saturday night. No normal person would work on Saturday night as a matter of course. I really needed to look at my life.
She slipped onto my lap and slid her hand around my neck. “Okay. I’ll be the girl that goes to a fancy restaurant tonight.”
“And I thought you might want to wear something in that lot.” I lifted my chin at the packages. At Woolton I only saw her in clothes I’d gifted to her. And it gave me an unfamiliar sense of satisfaction. I liked buying her gifts, and I liked that she dressed in what I’d bought her, as though we were interconnected in the smallest of ways.
“Alexander, you have to stop buying me things.”
I circled my arms around her waist. “I like it, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, but you don’t need to spend your money on me.” She pressed her lips to my jaw, and my muscles began to unlock from a stressful day.
“But I want to.” Whenever I’d bought gifts for Gabby, it had been out of guilt. I’d have missed dinner or worked all weekend. It had proved effective for a while—she was satisfied and I worked harder. But buying her nice things quickly became a sort of fine or penalty, and I began to resent it. The gifts I gave Violet were never given with an apology. She would simply admonish me for my extravagance and then look stunning in whatever it was I’d bought. “Scarlett told me your size, so there are shoes in that box,” I said, pointing at the second box down.
Violet rolled her eyes. “She needs a time-out from her interfering.” She loosened my tie. “You sure you want to go to dinner? We could stay in?” She smoothed her hand down my chest.
“We can stay in later. But I want to take you out. Talk. Table’s booked for half past seven.” We had things to discuss. Even though I knew she was thinking about pursuing her masters at Columbia, we still hadn’t discussed it in any detail. I wanted to understand what she was planning to do next year. Would she start at Columbia straight away or stay in England a bit longer? I was sure Craig would extend her contract again or she could get a similar job at another chambers. For the first time in a long time I was thinking about something other than work in my future.
