by Alice Bello
I was the only idiot that didn’t—that wouldn’t see it.
So now what?
So now I needed to decide how I felt about her.
And I had to decide before I saw her again.
Just then I heard Marjory’s footsteps as she entered the kitchen.
I blinked as I realized she’d come in the front entrance, and not from her rooms.
And she was wearing a coat.
“You went out?” She hadn’t left the penthouse in a few years.
She came in and took off her coat, settling it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
“Your sister is living in the house in Westchester,” she said, and then went over and poured herself a cup of hot water and retrieved one of her packets of peppermint tea. She looked at me and asked, “Want some?”
“No, thank you.” My hands tightened their hold on each other. “Who told you?”
She set her hand on my shoulder and gave it a little squeeze, something I can remember her doing from my first memories.
“I have my ways.”
As she always knew when I was having trouble at school, or when Tessa was hiding something.
“Always a mystery, aren’t you?”
She set her steaming cup of tea on the table and took the seat next to me. Even if she’d already eaten, she always sat with me when I ate breakfast. Sometimes we’d talk, sometimes she’d wait my silence out until I couldn’t take it any longer and told her everything.
Since my parents’ death, she’d been my rock.
“I didn’t know how Tessa was doing. So I didn’t want you going out there to an unknown situation.”
Tessa was disturbed. She’d been riddled with anxiety to the point she was schooled by private tutors and rarely left the house in Westchester. But after… after our parents were murdered—and she’d witnessed it… well, her mental health changed so drastically and so often she evaded a meaningful diagnosis.
Marjory took a drink of her tea. “I know everything I’ll ever have to know about your sister. You should have told me.”
I know. “I’m sorry.”
She patted my hand and said, “She’s doing well, though.”
“She is?” This was news.
Marjory nodded. “The Whitmore boy told me a bunch of mumbo jumbo and three dollar words, but I could tell just looking at her.”
Of course she could. “You can read minds, can’t you?”
She smiled. “Stop that.”
“Really, you have magic powers—that would explain so much.”
“She really likes that guard you fired.”
Oh, that. “I paid him to perform a job for me, and he not only failed to do that, but started sleeping with my mentally ill sister.” I felt every muscle in my body tighten. “He’s lucky I didn’t press charges.”
“They didn’t have sex.”
“What?” I could feel my face heat up. No matter what I did in my own sex life, I could never talk about my sister’s…
Oh hell!
“They were discovered sleeping together, yes…” Marjory went on to my utter mortification. “But they have not had sex… yet.”
I rounded on her. “They’re still seeing each other?”
Marjory smiled. “You didn’t bother having the secret entrance guarded. He’s been sneaking in all this time, right under your nose.”
That wasn’t the only thing that was right under my nose.
“He’s studying to be an actuary.”
I blinked at that. “Kind of a soulless profession.”
“One could say the same about all businessmen.”
I pushed down the anger I was feeling, took in a big breath and tried to think about what Tessa would want.
Not what she needed, but what she would want.
“I need to stay out of their way, don’t I?”
“I’ve met him and they get along better than anyone I’ve ever seen her with. So, yes… keep your overprotective nose out of their business.”
I laughed—Marjory could always make me laugh, then I rubbed hands over my face.
Jesus…
“You have your hands full with your own love life now, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “I handle my sex life well enough.”
“So crass… but I wasn’t talking about sex. I’m talking about that Lucy you have working for you.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. I was suddenly really nervous too.
“You read the article?”
“No,” she said and gave me a hard look, “I went down to your office and met her—finally—and she set up the car for me to go see your sister.” She took another sip of her tea. “She’s a real catch, if you ask me… and she’s head over heels for you.”
I had to laugh. “Even you can see it, and you just met her.”
“Don’t feel bad,” she said, shrugging her dainty shoulders. “We seldom see what’s right in front of us. Makes us human.”
I ran my fingers over the grain of the table. I knew it like the back of my hand. “I don’t know what to do.”
Marjory scoffed and gave my arm a gentle bat of her hand. “You… not knowing what to do?” She leaned in and skewered me with her gaze. “Of course you do. The only question is where is your Lucy, and how fast can you get to her?”
Chapter 10
Home Again…
Lucy
I grew up in Aurora, Illinois, about an hour’s drive from downtown Chicago.
The moment I passed the city limits I started to feel less like a nerve-wracked personal assistant trying to get away from her problems and more like the girl who grew up wanting to rule the world.
Or at least the one who knew what she wanted.
For the last two years I’d been in denial about what I wanted. Now I needed to re-think my life.
I climbed out of my car and walked up to the house I’d grown up in, walking in the front door and heading straight back to the kitchen—I could smell snickerdoodle cookies baking.
Mom always knew when I was going to show up.
It was one of her super powers.
“Lucy! What a surprise.” Mom was just pulling the tray of fresh baked cookies out of the oven. She settled them on a cooling rack on the kitchen table and then came over and hugged me.
“Hi, mom… snickerdoodles, huh?”
She kissed my cheek. “I just suddenly had such a craving.” She held me out at arm’s length and gave me a scrutinizing stare. “This isn’t the weekend. Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
I shrugged and pretended to be mesmerized by the cookies. “I took some time off.”
“Hmmm…” Mom set a copy of Commons Magazine down right beside the cooling cookies, Dante staring up at me as sexy as all get out. “I can well see why.”
I looked up at her and just burst into tears.
“Come here, baby girl.” She held her arms out and I went right into them, letting her hold me while hot tears fell from my eyes.
After some embarrassing sobbing, and a stream of consciousness mumble-fest where I had no idea what I was saying, I finally said, “I don’t know what to do.”
“I know… I know…” Mom stroked my hair and then handed me a paper towel. “Here, blow.”
I always snot up when I cry, as if water works weren’t embarrassing enough, then my noise would get in on the action.
I blew my nose a few non-too-dainty times.
I threw away the paper towel and then snagged a cookie.
Don’t judge, I stress eat.
Mom walked over and took hold of my chin, looking me in the eye.
“Ready for the mom talk?”
I swallowed the cookie I’d been chewing. “If it’s like the sex talk of 2013… probably not.” I’d never been so traumatized in my life than when mom had given me the talk… with a banana condom application prop, a comprehensive birth control display—including a dental dam—and a slide show about various sexually transmitted diseases.
&
nbsp; Mom shook her head and then nodded to the magazine. “No. That’s my only prop.”
I sighed. “Thank god.”
“I’m just wondering, Lucy-bean,”—Uhg! Not my childhood nickname—“What took you so long?”
I blinked. “What?”
She gave me her no-nonsense single-mom look. “I’ve seen you two together five times since you took that job, and I’ve known you were going to end up together from the beginning.”
I stared at her, my forehead starting to cramp from scowling. “You can’t have known that!” I threw my hands in the air. “I mean… it was that obvious?”
She gave me another hug and kissed my forehead. “If I hadn’t seen it in person, I would’ve known by how much you two text when you’re here to visit. It’s kind of obnoxious.”
“Mom…”
“But I have to admit, you must be doing something right if he’s calling out your name during sex with another woman.”
Oh my god…
“Mom!” I couldn’t believe she’d just said that.
“Now you just have to get him to do that when he’s actually having sex with you.”
I fell over onto the kitchen table, covering my face with my hands.
I just couldn’t deal with my mom talking about my sex life.
Well, my complete and utter lack of a sex life.
“This probably isn’t the best moment to ask this…” Mom said.
Why not? You’ve brought up every other mortifying thing in my life.
“You’re still a virgin, right?”
Oh.
My.
God.
“I’m not talking about this!” I stood up and headed for the front of the house, and the stairs leading up to my old bedroom.
“I’m just saying you need to tell him before you two… you know, do it!”
I took the stairs two at a time, ran down the hall and into my old room, slamming the door behind me.
Breathe… just breathe…
This day was just…
And yes, I’m still a freaking virgin.
It’s not like I’d planned on holding onto it so long.
It’s just I hadn’t found a man that wasn’t just an overgrown child—sorry men of the world, but it’s true.
And then I’d met and started working for Dante right out of college and well…
Not that he’s not juvenile in his social—damn it! He’s a kid in a candy shop when it comes to his sex life. No matter how grown up he is in his daily life, and his business.
He’s not ready for a relationship.
I don’t even know if he’s ever been in love.
Yeah, but you’ve been in love with him for over two years.
You know, it’s not all that fair for my inner voice to throw things in my face when I’m on the edge.
But my inner voice was right. I have been in love with the man, even with his man-whore billionaire bachelor ways, since the moment I laid eyes on him.
I fell on my bed and stared at the ceiling. This was hopeless. I could never expect—even if he felt the same toward me (and that’s a big-big-BIG if)—that he would or even could change.
Because I’d never be able to share him.
I just wouldn’t be able to.
I’d need all of him or nothing at all.
I turned my head and gasped. There, beside my teddy bear night light was a box of condoms—a variety-pack in magnum size.
I grabbed my pillow and held it over my face as I screamed.
Chapter 11
Search Party
Dante
Lucy wasn’t at her usual haunts.
She wasn’t at the little Italian bistro where she ate when she needed comfort food.
She wasn’t at the un-trendy coffee bar she frequented when she needed to be recharged and caffeinated.
She wasn’t at her apartment… yes, I have a key to her apartment.
It’s not weird.
I have it so I can send people to take care of her when she’s sick, which happened last year when she had the stomach flu from hell.
So there was just one place left.
She was at her mom’s house in Aurora.
I drove myself. I hadn’t driven in a couple years, but it was like riding a bike.
That was until I passed the Aurora town limits. That’s when the GPS decided to keep telling me to turn around.
Maybe it was a fluke, or just the universe’s way of fucking with me for being pretty much blind to not only what was going on around me, but that I…
That I needed Lucy like I needed air.
The thought of not having her with me, not seeing her—not touching her (and why the hell hadn’t I kissed her yet?) was excruciating.
So I stopped, turned the GPS off, googled the address I had and was turning onto her street not five minutes later.
I parked my Jaguar right behind Lucy’s Prius.
Lucy grew up in a two story craftsman house on a street that looked as wholesome as a greeting card commercial. As I got out of the car, snow had just started to drift from the heavens, but it wasn’t cold enough to stick, melting the moment it hit the ground.
I walked to the porch and went to knock on the front door.
But I stopped.
Was I ready for this?
I swear to god a freaking montage of every memory I ever had of Lucy flashed through my head. It was beautiful, it was really sexy… and it made me a little dizzy.
I laughed and shook my head.
Yeah, I was ready for this.
I raised my hand and knocked on the door.
About thirty seconds later the door opened and Lucy’s mom, Maggie, was standing there giving me a very mom-like stare.
We stood there for a few beats, like two gunslingers waiting for the tick of the town square clock for their duel to begin.
I shot first. “I need to talk to Lucy.”
She scowled at me, her eyes turning into slits.
I suddenly felt way too tall, and like I was a seventeen year old on my first date.
Nervous…
I couldn’t remember the last time I was nervous about anything.
Her frown morphed slowly into a wizened grin. “Took you long enough... she’s upstairs, second door on the left.”
She turned and started walking back toward the kitchen, leaving me standing in her open doorway.
I came in, shut the door and took off my coat. The house smelled of cookies, and everything about it was warm and inviting.
Lucy’s mom was back holding out a paper towel with two snickerdoodle cookies on it.
“You can both have one cookie… dinner is in twenty minutes.”
I took the still warm cookies, and started up the stairs.
“Oh, and Dante?”
I turned back to look at her.
“No defiling my daughter in her childhood bedroom. I own a gun—a Browning Buck Mark—and I target practice regularly.”
With that she cheerfully turned and walked back into the kitchen humming The Little Drummer Boy.
I had to laugh. Lucy’s mom just threatened me with a fire arm.
And the thought of getting Lucy naked in her room was suddenly goddamn intoxicating.
Chapter 12
Pillow Talk
Lucy
I heard steps in the hall.
I wasn’t ready to talk.
I was holding the pillow to my chest.
There was a knock at my bedroom door.
I took a breath to tell mom to go away…
“Lucy,” Dante said through the door, “we need to talk.”
Oh shit!
I sat up like a catapult, heart thundering in my chest, my stomach tightening.
And then I saw the box of condoms on my bedside table.
Gaaa!!!
I dropped my pillow on the floor as I lurched for the box of condoms, opened the drawer to my bedside table and dropped the condoms inside.
“Lucy?”
/> The damn door wouldn’t shut. The box was too big!
My mind was racing—he’d see it if I shoved it under my bed, I didn’t have time to run across the room to shove it into another drawer or in my closet.
My eyes locked on the clothes hamper in the corner behind the door.
On instinct I launched the box through the air and it…
It missed the hamper and fell on the floor just as Dante opened the door.
So much for four years of high school basketball practice…
You were on the bench most of that, remember?
Yes, thank you.
Even in the darkness of my room Dante was luminous and the handsomest man I’d ever seen.
He closed the door behind him and leaned back against the door, simply staring at me and not saying a word.
I had a huge lump in my throat, my palms were sweating and my mouth felt like I’d eaten a whole pack of microwave popcorn.
I bit my lip.
Dante sighed, his beautiful face turning from seemingly nervous—Dante didn’t get nervous—to heated.
Oh lord, help me… he was looking at me like I was…
A meal?
Dessert?
A woman he wanted…
No…
Charlotte Rampling was right.
Oh my fucking god, Charlotte Rampling was right!
No, no nonononono…
But as he stepped toward me my heart was thumping yes, yes yesyesyes!
“You’ve been keeping a secret from me.” He stepped over my fallen pillow and sat down on my bed right beside me, close enough our arms were touching.
I gulped. This was the moment to deny everything. If I denied everything then we could just go back to the way things were.
Like nothing had ever happened.
“I’m in love with you.” I sat there and realized that I’d said that. It had just popped out.
I took a breath and jumped off the cliff.
“I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you two years ago, when Sally from human resources sent me up to replace your last personal assistant.”
He nodded.
But he didn’t say anything.
I sat there, waiting for him to say something.
But the sexy son of a bitch didn’t say a goddamn word.
Bastard…
