Compromising Positions (Invested in Love)

by Bayley-Burke, Jenna

  He raised his hands. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Exactly how did you mean it, then? It sounded pretty straightforward to me.” Her blood flowed so hot it was easy to slide her fingers into her gloves now. “I realize I may not have a lot of experience, but I don’t need you to critique me at every turn. It’s insulting.” Her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of it. She knew she was overreacting. She looked to him for a response. At this point, she would take any sign of life.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked incredulously.

  “I’m in between classes.” She picked up her backpack but couldn’t leave the kitchen with him taking up the entire hallway. “David?”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said, walking to the door.

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Sophie, it’s cold. I’ll drive you.”

  “Would you please stop telling me what to do? I’m tired of you making decisions for me.”

  “Me? Making decisions for you?” He blocked the doorway. “I don’t do that.”

  Arching an eyebrow, she wondered if any of the moves she had learned in self-defense class would get him out of her way. “And exactly what would you call what you’re doing right now?”

  He rolled his eyes and stepped aside. She brushed past him and plodded down the stairs. Between her footsteps she heard him whisper, “Always lock your door when you leave.”

  She turned on the step. Was he really giving her more advice? “You did not just say that.”

  Meeting her stare, he slowly replied, “I sure did,” and slammed the door afterward for effect.

  She stomped down the stairs, marching down the street as fast as her short strides could take her. She was still close enough to hear the squeal of tires as he pulled out of the driveway moments later.

  …

  What was that about? It was as if she’d become an entirely different person. Funny, teasing, straightforward Sophie had been inhabited by one angry woman. David didn’t deal well with a woman scorned. He didn’t do complicated, never stayed around long enough to have a mess to clean up.

  She had no right to be mad. He was the one who had been stuck in her apartment for half the morning. He slammed his car door shut, enabled the alarm, and made his way up the stairs to his condo. He should be angry, not her.

  He didn’t have time for this. He needed a fast shower and a change of clothes so he could get to the office. He’d already called and checked in, and there were no raging fires that needed to be put out, but he still wanted to get there quickly. He wanted to get to a place where he was in control.

  Opening the door, he saw books and papers strewn about his living room floor. Kelly. She often used his empty home as a study spot, especially when she needed quiet and a lot of space. He usually liked the company, but he didn’t need her questions right now. Making a beeline for his bedroom, David hoped he could sneak in and out without her even knowing he’d come home.

  “There you are,” he heard her say from the kitchen. Reluctantly, he turned around. “Where were you last night? I brought Pad Thai. There’s still a ton in the fridge, but I ate all the peanut sauce.”

  Luckily, he’d found half a dozen blackberry corn muffins at Sophie’s. “I’m going to shower and change so I can head back to work.”

  “An all-nighter? David, if you’re too swamped with Dad retiring, I’m sure he’d agree to stay on longer.”

  He winced. Lance hadn’t told her the real reason for his retirement. So be it. He wished he didn’t know. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. Time for a shower.”

  “Your pimp called.”

  He whipped around. “Excuse me?”

  “I guess technically she would be your madam, right?”

  “I don’t have a madam. I don’t have to pay for sex.”

  “Maybe not a direct transaction. How much does one of those nights cost you?”

  What was she talking about? “I’m not following you, Kel.”

  “That stewardess. The one who whores out her friends in exchange for shopping and dinners and clubs and bottle service. I bet you spend more on one of those nights than you spend on anything else all year long.”

  He swallowed hard and met her gaze. He wasn’t discussing this with his baby sister.

  “Call it whatever you want, it’s still disgusting. She said to tell you she has some prospects for you.”

  “Knock it off, Kelly. You know it’s not like that.” He shrugged. He took two steps toward his bedroom and stopped. He wasn’t going to call. He always called. He should, he really should, because he could use the distraction. Sophie wasn’t the only one undergoing a major personality overhaul.

  “Please use protection,” Kelly’s voice rang down the hall.

  David stomped back into the living room. “Not that it is any business of yours, but I’m not even going to call her. I have way too much going on right now.”

  Kelly’s smile stretched across her face. “With Sophie?”

  “Sophie is a piece of work,” he said, crossing into the kitchen. If he was going to talk, he needed coffee. Thankfully, Kelly’s study sessions required a fresh pot every few hours. He poured a cup and helped himself to some of the girlie flavored creamer she put in it. He downed half the mug before Kelly started in again.

  “What is that supposed to mean? Did you two have a fight?”

  “We had her snapping at me about telling her what to do for absolutely no reason. So if that’s a fight, yeah.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I left.”

  “No, not that.” Kelly waved her hand. “To make her mad.”

  Who knew? “I bought her a car.”

  Kelly plopped into a chair at the kitchen table and sucked in a sharp breath. “You what?”

  “What is it with women? Why is that a bad thing? She helped me out with some work stuff, something that would have been very expensive, if not damn near impossible, and I wanted to say thank you.”

  “Did you ever think of flowers?”

  He shook his head. “She needs a car.” He didn’t know how she would interpret flowers. “I did send her some oranges.” He shrugged. “She liked that. But it was a big favor, huge.”

  Kelly narrowed her eyes. “And she didn’t want the car because?”

  “Oh, she wanted it. She just didn’t like that I couldn’t fit in it.”

  “Oh.” Kelly nodded furiously. “I get it.”

  “Well, I didn’t.” He drained his coffee cup and set it in the sink.

  “You’ll learn.” Kelly smiled. “Why were you telling her what to do?”

  “I wasn’t, really. She took it wrong.” He didn’t want to talk about last night with Sophie. There was no way he was going to discuss it with Kelly.

  “And now she’s mad, and you stormed out,” Kelly summed up.

  “Hey, she left first.” He leaned back against the counter. His counter, his turf. Why was Kelly taking Sophie’s side? He really needed to get to work.

  “She left her own apartment? She must have been all kinds of mad.” Kelly shook her head. “You need to figure out what you did and apologize.”

  “Why am I wrong? I’m not wrong here, Kelly. Trust me on this. I did the right thing for once,” David said, crossing his arms across his chest.

  “Right for whom?” Kelly looked him straight in the eye.

  “For Sophie,” he answered without blinking.

  “Aha! But she doesn’t agree and thinks you’re telling her what to do.”

  Was that it? “Or maybe she’s just a grouch in the morning,” he said defensively. He’d done the right thing.

  Kelly pulled her head back, “Oh wow, was this the first time you woke up together? I forgot you don’t do the whole stay-the-night thing. I thought you had rules about that. Didn’t you actually write them down when you were in college?”

  “Rules don’t apply to Sophie.” He heard someone say using his voice.

  “Why?”

  He shru
gged. Why indeed. Because she broke them, because she didn’t care to abide by them, because she was different. She was rich and textured and completely different from his usual diet of casual women. Women who wanted light and easy as much as he did. It was the difference between hamburger and filet mignon, instant vanilla pudding and crème brûlée. He’d gone gourmet, and fast food had suddenly lost its appeal.

  “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  “What?” His heart quickened at the ridiculous notion. He may not know what he wanted from Sophie, but he wasn’t in love with anyone. “You have the wrong idea about this whole thing. We want very different things. And besides, she may not be speaking to me ever again.”

  “You need to make it up to her.”

  “I need to get to work,” David said, pushing himself off the counter. And he needed to come up with a plan.

  …

  “Plan B. We bring the party to you,” Sophie said, settling in beside Daphne for an afternoon of soap operas and girl talk.

  “I’m not an invalid. Let’s do it at Beaches like we planned. It would only be for a few hours.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll sneak you in some of the carrot cake from Beaches, but I am not dealing with Craig if I try and take you out of the house. He is wound way too tight right now. Before he left, he actually told me to try and make you nap.”

  Daphne fell back against the pillows. “I’ve only gotten up to pee, I swear.” A slow smile crossed her lips. “Although, being this pregnant, that’s pretty often.” Daphne wrapped her hands lovingly across her stretched abdomen. “We’re going to be okay. I wish he could relax.”

  Craig’s anxiety was getting out of control. “Me, too.” Sophie looked down at the notebook in her hands. “We’ll do it in the living room and you can sit on the couch. We’ll keep it short. I made out a guest list. All the women from your prenatal yoga will come. You’re all we talk about in class.”

  “It probably makes them nervous that I’m having trouble.” Daphne said, rubbing her stomach.

  Being here was the reminder she needed that family was what really mattered. David kept telling her he wasn’t cut out for what she wanted from life. It was her own fault for not believing him.

  “Nothing you can’t handle,” Sophie said, resting her hand on top of her sister’s.

  Daphne turned to face her. “I’m sorry you have to work so much right now. All my classes plus your own and babysitting me so Craig can go into work. It doesn’t leave much room for anything else.”

  She smiled and wished she could confide in Daphne. But Daphne had her own stresses right now. She didn’t need to be burdened with her baby sister’s dating disasters. Plus, she would assume the worst about David, and as confused as Sophie felt, she didn’t want any more negativity.

  “You’ve always put your needs aside to take care of people, Sophie. You need to find someone who’ll put you first. Someone who’ll show you the world, and how to have fun.”

  “Work can be fun.” She smiled cheerfully. Twisting into compromising positions with David was the highlight of her week. Or had been, until they’d spent the night together. And after her hormone attack the next morning, who knew if he would even bother showing up for class again.

  “Do you mean Sensational Sex with David Strong?” Daphne’s eyes darkened.

  She had to acknowledge she liked the sound of that, but it was never going to happen. “You must admit, it is a fun class. But I was actually thinking about the prenatal yoga. Hannah brought her baby today. He was so small he doesn’t even have eyelashes yet.”

  She watched Daphne’s frustration melt before her eyes. Daphne didn’t want to talk about David any more than she did, so Sophie went with the change of subject. “They named him Sawyer. Do you like that?”

  Daphne nodded. “I’ve been thinking about Lennon or Kinsey.”

  Sophie grinned. “Kinsey, like the sex researcher?”

  Chapter Ten

  Two long days. And two even longer nights. David hadn’t called. Not that Sophie had expected him to, exactly. But as often as he stormed through her mind, it would have been nice to know he’d given her a second thought.

  Obviously not.

  He tended to arrive early for class, ostensibly to review the positions, but Sophie hoped it was to see her, too. Two minutes until class started, and he’d yet to cross the threshold. She loaded the slides depicting the positions, just in case.

  She should focus more on stretching and strengthening anyway. It would be a better take away for the students. Much more practical than watching her grope David for an hour. Twisting her mouth into a smile, she took one last look at the room and the raised platform that always made her feel so small. She let out the breath choking her lungs. When David was here, he seemed to fill all the extra space around her.

  Scratching her nails through her hair, she shook her head. She wasn’t going to do this. There was absolutely no balance of power in their relationship. Just her throwing herself at him, him saying no, and her not taking no for an answer. But now she would. He was right. Daphne was right. The stranger in the steam room was right. She could not handle a casual relationship with David.

  She didn’t have it in her to do casual. She’d confused her fantasy of him with the reality, twisting everything until it turned out exactly as she wanted. She’d even deluded herself into thinking she knew what would make him happy.

  Sophie took a deep breath all the way to her belly. She could teach the class alone. That would be easy. It was answering the student’s questions about David that would sting.

  …

  Twenty minutes late, and David still had no idea what he was going to say to her. Hell, he wasn’t even dressed for class. He was still in the same jeans he’d put on this morning. The same clothes he’d thought he’d only wear until lunch, when he’d meant to head into the office. But nothing about this day had turned out the way he’d designed.

  He was a master at planning. He could organize real estate transactions, monitor financial markets on four continents, and manage a billion-dollar fitness empire. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out exactly what he wanted from Sophie. Or what he was going to do about it, for that matter.

  She infuriated him to no end. What really bothered him was that she seemed to understand him in ways even he didn’t get. She expected him to be a better man than he usually was. He had a reputation, a history around town. No one ever expected him to be interested in anything but sex. No one except Sophie.

  He had an innate distrust of people, brought on by all the transient figures in his life. Nannies, tutors, stepmothers, friends. They all promised to stay but never did.

  Never give someone more than you’re willing to lose. He’d learned that over and over. Yet he trusted her in an almost instinctive way. It still struck him as odd that he’d let her sit in his chair and play with the SGI financials like they were a video game. She understood them better than he did. She could’ve done a little creative accounting of her own, and it hadn’t even crossed his mind she would.

  Then there was Craig. Craig was family. Not by blood, but by time and friendship. And Craig trusted him with Daphne’s sister. Trusted him not to take advantage of her. Which he was finding harder and harder not to do.

  Finally arriving at Working It Out, he had to circle the block searching for a parking spot. Of course, even that took longer today. After his third trip around, he slid in next to the curb. Jumping out, he remembered to beep the alarm on as he bounded up the sidewalk and into the club.

  He inched open the door to the classroom. Slipping inside, he made his way to the back of the room as slowly and as quietly as possible. He didn’t want to interrupt, but he didn’t want to wait outside, either. He didn’t want her thinking he had blown off the class for a minute more.

  Sophie had the students up in pushup positions, raising one leg up at a time. As he walked past Ramon and Cindy, a couple who always stayed in the back of the r
oom, he watched Ramon’s body shake in fatigue.

  Ramon collapsed onto the floor and rolled to his back. “Thank God you’re here. Whatever you did to piss her off, I beg you, apologize now, before she kills us all.”

  …

  Sophie wanted to kill him. Making her think he wasn’t coming and then showing up dressed like that when class was half over. Even from across the room, she could tell his jeans were old, so worn they would feel thin and soft. His black sweater stretched teasingly across his chest, the sleeves hugging his biceps. He looked sexier now than he ever had, and he was providing quite the distraction to her and the other women in the class.

  You’re not going to do this anymore, she reminded herself as the class rallied around him for support. The positions tonight were challenging. She’d been running the students through some basic Pilates moves to make them aware of the muscles they would be using. They’d be thanking her later, though now, they were begging David to make her stop.

  She quieted them down, assuring them, and herself, that David had done nothing to influence the course of the class. Taking advantage of the break, she had the students join their partners on a mat to begin the positions. David’s long, confident stride brought him to the platform in seconds.

  “What did you have them doing?”

  “Ab work. Sitting postures can be very challenging on the lower back muscles. You should do it to warm up.”

  “I’m sure my abs are as strong as yours.”

  “I doubt that.” She taught two Pilates classes a day, six days a week. Plus, he was twice her size. “We could find out, though. Would you rather try sit-ups or see who can hold the plank position the longest?”

  He shook his head with a smile. “Sophie, I hold more on my chest than you weigh when I do sit ups. It’s not a fair match. Let’s just get to the demonstration.”

  One of the men taunted, “No way, buddy. You don’t put in the work, you don’t get the fun. No foreplay, no play.”

  She tried to ignore both the comment and David’s smile.

  “Aren’t you going to defend me?” he asked loud enough for the entire room to hear. She knew they all assumed she and David were together. She’d never done anything to make them think otherwise.