by Cynthia Dane
***
“I’ll be right up,” Monroe said with a kiss to Alice’s forehead. “The way to my chambers should be simple to follow.” Just in case, he pointed to the hallway at the top of the nearest spiral staircase.
Alice was reluctant to let go of his hand, but he had some final matters of the evening to tend to. It was late, anyway. Almost eleven. It feels so much later. Alice slowly ascended the staircase. Her muscles were tired, but her spirits soared to witness the connection between her and the man disappearing into an office on the ground floor. Ms. Sarah Clayborn followed him in there, tablet at the ready.
Mr. Nigel Clayborn, on the other hand, stood at the top of the stairs.
“Oh, hi.” Alice did not see the second assistant often. In fact, her only real memory of this guy was when he yanked her over to be berated by Russell Monroe. So… she was not a huge fan. Didn’t help he had a weasel face. His sister wasn’t the hottest to look at either, but at least she didn’t have the aura of someone suffering from toxic masculinity. “Good night.”
He muttered a greeting back to her as he pulled out his phone and typed something into it. Alice paid him no further mind. She confidently walked down the hall and to the double doors at the end. Monroe had told her that was his room, and she was free to come and go as she pleased.
Silly Alice. Assuming he had a room.
Monroe kept calling them his chambers for a reason. Because that’s what they were. Chambers. A separate apartment in an even bigger apartment. Alice may have been able to see a large California king bed in the distance, but a separate room divided the main entrance from the most intimate room Damon Monroe claimed.
More rooms existed beyond that. From where she stood in front of the double doors, Alice surveyed at least four rooms connected in a pseudo open floor plan that could easily be closed off with sliding doors and partitions. The room she stood in was a simple receiving area with antique furniture upholstered in gold and black. To the left was a proper living room, with leather seating, a large, curved television and… was that a PlayStation? Huh.
To the right was a study, lined with bookshelves and decorated with a simple desktop computer. The bathroom must be somewhere. Might be a good idea to find it.
Alice walked into the bedroom. This is it, huh? Seemed strange to be in such requited love with a man and only now see his bedroom. The yacht master suite didn’t count. A Chicago apartment didn’t count. This was her lover’s abode. This was where he was his most vulnerable when he thought no one else was there.
She thought about looking for the bathroom. Or undressing for Monroe when he finally made an appearance for the night. Should she take off the trench coat and let him see her in her lingerie? I know I can get him hard again. It had been an hour and a half since they had sex at the club. More than enough time to get his blood flowing once more.
Maybe I’ll dress down in his clothes. Matt may have been a good for nothing cheating bastard, but the one thing that Alice always missed was getting to wear his soft and baggy clothes. Did Monroe even own T-shirts? Alice went to the nearest bureau.
She encountered an old photograph in a simple black picture frame.
It was a little boy with black hair and a woman with curly red hair. The burn scars were gone, but Alice instantly recognized a younger version of Julia. The boy must have been Monroe.
Cool obsidian instantly warmed beneath her fingertips the moment she picked up the picture. Alice studied the smiles on both mother and son’s faces. A happy little boy without a care in the world. A woman living in the moment and not thinking of what tomorrow might bring.
He has a picture of his mother in his room. Was it the only one he had? Had he ever found Julia’s box in his suitcase?
“Well, well.” An ominous voice made her jump in her flats. “Look who it is.”
Alice turned, picture still in hand. Fuck. Russell Monroe stood in a simple dress shirt and trousers. Coupled with his silver hair, he almost looked attractive. Almost. “Good evening, Mr. Monroe.” Wow. It sure didn’t hold the same power as when she said that to her boyfriend.
“I’m certain we both did have good evenings, Ms. Culver.” Russell stood in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed. Even if Alice wanted to leave, she was trapped. “You must have quite a good time with my son to keep coming back even after our… talks.”
“You mean your threats?”
“Hmph.” Russell sighed. “I don’t want to be a sore in your backside, like I don’t want you to be one in mine, Ms. Culver. I’m sure you’re taken with my son. He certainly seems taken with you. I have to admit, I’ve never seen him like this before.”
Alice managed to stand her ground, even though her body trembled in… fuck, it was fear. “We do not embellish when we claim to be in love.”
“That’s unfortunate. A father does not want to see his son’s heart broken.”
The picture frame lowered to the bureau. You didn’t mind breaking a few things before. “You still want me gone?”
“I wanted you gone a month ago.”
Alice braced herself.
“If it’s money you’re intent on having, Ms. Culver, I am prepared to make you an offer even I consider audacious. Twenty million dollars are yours if you’ll leave this city for good and have no further contact with my son. Did you hear that? Twenty million.”
“I’m sure that’s chump change to you.”
“Don’t play a hand you don’t have.” Easy to tell where Damon got his manner of speaking from. “That’s more than a generous offer.”
“Unfortunately, I have no interest in money.”
“I don’t think you understand, Ms. Culver.” His voice was ice freezing her bones. “This is your final chance to leave peacefully. I do not wish to forcefully…”
“Father.”
Both Alice and Russell slammed their lips tight. Monroe shut the double doors to his chambers behind him and advanced on his father. He spared Alice one look of concern.
“Don’t mind me. We were having a chat.” Russell ambled toward the entrance, fangs dragging against his bottom lip. “Ms. Culver was insistent that she’s fond of you, son.”
“As it turns out, I’m fond of her as well. You should be happy for us. You always say it’s about time I marry.”
The unimpressed demeanor hurled in their direction could cut the emerald on Alice’s hand. He didn’t have to say what was on his mind. I’m not the type of girl he was hoping his son would marry.
“Anyway, can I help you with something? You’re in my chambers for a reason.”
“Yes.” Russell looked away from Alice as if she truly were nothing more than a fleck of lint. “I wanted to check in with you about the meeting with the Murphys. I didn’t know you would be bringing home a… friend.”
“My girlfriend,” Monroe reminded him. “You can expect to see her around more often.”
“We’ll see.” Russell saw himself out. “Goodnight, lovebirds. Enjoy the night while it lasts.” Mr. Nigel Clayborn was waiting on the other side of the double doors for him.
Monroe caught a glimpse of Alice shivering in her trench coat. “What is it?”
“Some chills.” So many chills.
He caressed her hairline, thumb touching her ear when he spoke. “I have the biggest bathtub in New England. Might be nice to have someone with me for once.”
Alice managed a weak smile. She could never say no to this man. Nor could she say no to a bubble bath with him naked and wrapped around her.
Chapter 14
The next week was unreal. A fervent, tantalizing blur, full of one extravagant gift after another and late night flirting on the phone.
The first day, Alice returned home from some much needed grocery shopping to find her apartment so bright and clean that she wondered if some gnomes had snuck in to do her neglected chores for her. Candice sure as hell didn’t do this level of cleaning. A five second rule could be reestablished in the kitchen for the first time in months.
On the second day, Alice opened her mail to discover that her entire credit card debt had been paid off “by a generous benefactor.” Before she could have a heart attack, Candice opened the other piece of mail that announced Alice’s federal student loans were obliterated as well. Alice celebrated by cutting the worst credit card offender in half above the garbage can.
Nothing prepared her for the excited call she received from her mother on the third day.
“Alice!” The daughter had no idea what to expect, but she thought that was happiness in her mother’s voice. They usually only spoke about once a month. Not because they didn’t get along, but because there was never anything to talk about aside from her brother’s health problems and how her parents overworked themselves to death to pay for Terrence’s expenses. “You won’t believe it, sweetheart! An anonymous donor at the hospital paid off all of Terrence’s bills… for the next five years!”
“What?” Alice had been washing dishes when this news came through. A plate clattered to the bottom of the sink. A few feet away, Pete the parrot squawked on his kitchen counter perch. He looked at Alice as if she had created that disturbance to offend him. “Thanks much, bitch!” When would Candice stop teaching him to say this dumb stuff? “Wait, what? Back up. Start from the beginning, Mom.”
Linda Culver sucked in an excited breath. “The hospital called me this morning before I went to work. I thought it was a collections call again… but they said all of our debt for Terrence’s surgeries and medications had been paid off! And! The same donor set up a fund for us to draw from for the next five years. Not only for Terrence! The whole family! That includes you, baby!”
Alice only had one thought as her mother whooped and her roommate’s parrot glared at her through beady black eyes. “Thanks much, bitch! Thanks much, bitch!” Her mother couldn’t hear that, right? “Did they give you an explanation for this?”
“Who cares? Did you hear what I said?”
“That sounds…” Like Monroe. That had Monroe’s stinking rich name all over it. I’ve barely talked about my family, let alone my brother’s troubles. Had Alice mentioned it at all? Yes. Once or twice. Flippant comments so she wouldn’t have to get worked up over the stressful cloud hanging over her family. “That’s awesome, Mom!” No sense asking questions when she knew exactly what was going on. Her boyfriend had nosed into her business again. He probably thought he was being helpful.
Okay, okay… he is being helpful. In his own stalkerish way. A month ago, Alice would have been horrified. She would have thought she was in some great debt to him. Now? She could imagine him smiling in his office, thinking “Yup. Helping the ol’ girlfriend out. I’m a good boyfriend. Wonder what she’s wearing today? Gosh, I sure do love her.”
“I’ve asked the hospital who I should write our great thanks to, but they said they can’t tell me. So I’m going to put something together and leave it there. You want to add anything, email it to me.”
“I’ll do that, Mom.” Alice turned on the faucet to fill up a pot. “How is Terrence doing?”
Her brother’s condition was the same as ever, but the way Linda told it, the sun was shining upon the Culver family in ways only God could bestow. Alice didn’t have the heart to quip that the Monroes certainly did think they were gods. Did they run any real charities? If Alice ever married the bastard, that was the first thing she was doing.
Right. She had never told her mother that she was so heavily involved with someone. All the Culvers knew about their daughter’s current dating life was that she was “seeing someone.” That’s what Alice told Linda the last time they had their monthly check-in.
That third day brought more than one surprise with it. Shortly after Alice and Candice had dinner, in which they discussed what to do about the parents because “At some point, Al, they’re gonna have to know you’re dating a fucking billionaire who wants to make you his Mrs. Billionaire,” the doorbell rang.
“Um… Alice?” Candice’s voice was met with Pete’s crooning. Great. Now the parrot was off, shaking his tail feathers to that music only he heard. Didn’t help his eyes were super vacant and his beak hanging open. “You’re needed in the living room! Not by me!”
Alice caught the second half of what Candice said the moment she walked into the living room, Pete flapping over her shoulder.
“I mean, if you want to let me have a turn tonight,” Candice began, gesturing to Monroe sitting on the nicer of two couches, “I’ll take a spin in his lap.”
“Spin in his lap! Spin in his lap!” Pete landed on Candice’s shoulder. His long, vibrant feathers usually brought the most burst of drama to a room, but tonight Monroe beat out the parrot by about five thousand degrees of intensity. Or maybe that was Alice’s fluttering heart drawing her to her magnanimous boyfriend.
“She’s trying to say she thinks you’re cute,” Alice said, brushing her thumb over Monroe’s stubble. Always the most delightful shivers! “Don’t let her fall in your lap, though. Unlike me, she actually knows what to do.”
Pete lowered his head across Candice’s ample chest. “She knows what to do!”
“Now that both you and the bird have me sounding like a total slut,” Candice said, turning around so everyone saw some parrot butt, “I’m going to my room, and taking Don Juan de Avian with me.”
Monroe caught Alice’s hand as she looked around the room for one of her boyfriend’s usual companions. “My bodyguard is standing outside. I figured we’d be safe enough in here.”
Alice snorted to think of someone who looked like CIA standing in a run-down apartment building hallway. Mrs. Jenkins next door would love to come home to that. “Oh? Are you staying, sir?”
His hand brushed against her ass. “All night, if you’ll let me.”
Alice had a million things to talk to him about. Namely, her parents, and what he had done for her brother. Yet words were unnecessary as Monroe brought her into his lap and bluntly told her that he had been thinking about her voice and body all day. When his hand darted up her powder blue sweater and he cursed the existence of bras, Alice knew what he had really come for.
She supposed, as he swept her off her feet and carried her to her room and comparatively small queen-sized bed, that they had made improvements in that he came to her instead of making her come to him.
Yeah. Coming. A lot of that.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Alice clung to the comforts of her bed, since Monroe was not forthcoming with the post-coital cuddling. He was already standing up with that look on his face that said he had things to do and places to go. It was still early, after all. He could squeeze in one more meeting before midnight.
His naked body looked less out of place in her bedroom than the three-piece Brioni suit had. “Yes. To find your bathroom.”
Alice sighed in relief against the cologne-covered pillow he left behind. “Hurry back. It’s been a long three days without you.”
The man had a lot to get used to when it came to existing in Alice’s world. Most guys would know to put on some damn clothes before entering shared living places. Not Monroe, of course. He was used to owning every room in his vicinity. Bad enough Alice didn’t have an en suite bathroom he could pop in and out of. She dared to have a roommate who could come and go as she pleased in the hallway.
“Holy shit!” Candice shrieked from the living room. “Holy shit, dude!”
“My pleasure,” Monroe’s deep voice replied. “Where’s the damn bathroom?”
“Thanks much! The view! Thanks much!” Pete was more excited than Candice, apparently. Uh oh. He steals hot dogs all the time. Should Alice go tell her boyfriend? Or let him find out for himself?
“Alice!” Candice shrieked again. “Wake up from your sex stupor and come co
llect your boyfriend before I jump his hot bones!”
“Unfortunately, I’m out of commission for now. So you wouldn’t get what you want.” The bedroom door flung open again. Monroe was still naked, all muscles and perfectly groomed body hair. Candice sputtered something behind him, but was too distracted by his ass to get out a coherent thought. “Hello, my love.” The door slammed shut. Pete laughed maniacally in the hallway.
Alice opened her arms to him as he crawled back into bed and covered her face in kisses. “You did that on purpose.”
She was beneath him again. A common enough place for her to be these days, but still an exhilarating experience every time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You…” Hm. To talk or to kiss? Why did there have to be a choice? Couldn’t she learn telepathy for moments like these? “…want to show off.”
He nestled between her legs. “I showed you off to my world for a whole month. It’s only fair I show myself off to yours once in a while.”
What a view I’ve got. His hands splayed on either side of her head. His face was so far away, but his body deliciously close to hers, their skin sliding together as easily as two inconsequential water droplets. “Okay, but when you meet my parents, don’t do that.”
“I do as I please.” Monroe attacked her throat with heavy lips, sucking, kissing, delighting her in every affectionately carnal way.
The next day, after Monroe had reluctantly left to go back to his fast-paced life wearing a fresh three-piece suit Mr. Nigel Clayborn brought over, Candice approached her bedraggled roommate and said, “I need more warning for when that stud comes over to fuck you six ways to Sunday. That way I can invest in some ample earplugs. Or rent some nanny cams from work so I can make some quick money off you two.”
Alice couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed that the whole house had heard her screaming in pleasure and her boyfriend grunting every time he came. Not even when Pete landed on the coffee table and mimicked Alice’s orgasmic wails. He wasn’t too far off, really. A bit pitchy, but even Alice couldn’t recreate those sounds without Monroe there to inspire them out of her. Oh, well.
