“Yes.” I look out of my window, embarrassed for Robert to see the tears that are rolling down my cheeks in cold streaks.
He pulls slowly away from the curb so we don’t block the traffic. “I don’t want to take you home and leave you on your own like this. Would you come back to my place for a bit? I can make you a hot drink and something to eat and take you back when you’re feeling less shaky?”
I’m not the kind of woman who goes back to stranger’s apartments, but the circumstances aren’t usual. If I go home, I know I’ll cry too much and think too much about all the things that could have been different. I’ll find a way to convince myself that I could have spotted the signs, that I’ve taken my eye off the ball and that I’m to blame. If Robert’s happy to keep me company and hold me together then I want to be happy to accept his offer.
“Okay,” I say quietly, and that’s where we head.
I guess I’m in a bit of a daze because I don’t take in the journey at all, but when we arrive at Robert’s apartment I register the neighborhood and realize that my companion must be very wealthy.
His car is pretty swanky and must have cost quite a bit, but the building we pull up in front of is something else. The parking garage opens automatically, and he slides his sports car into a designated bay. Robert is a gentleman, rounding the car to open my door. I’m grateful as it’s not the easiest door to open from the inside.
We trudge slowly inside as I struggle to hold down my tears.
I’m a strong person but every once in a while I get this deep-seated need for someone to hold me tight and tell me that everything is going to be okay.
Today it feels almost overwhelming.
“I think you might need a medicinal brandy,” Robert says as we ride the elevator to the top floor.
I shake my head, remembering how easily my father slipped into drinking after my accident. “Maybe a warm drink.”
He nods and we make our way to the door to his apartment. I’ve seen similar interiors in lifestyle magazines and on shows following the realtors that specialize in homes for the rich and famous. Uber modern, with glass and chrome in spades.
At first glance, it’s an archetypal bachelor pad.
Then, as I look harder, I start to see things about it that surprise me. Robert has a lot of cooking equipment in his open plan kitchen and not all of it is new-fangled gadgets. Copper-bottomed pans hang from the ceiling and an assortment of wooden chopping boards are lined up on the counter in size order. He has a really big pestle and mortar too; one of those marble looking ones where the mortar is the size of a small club.
I didn’t see him as a cooking enthusiast. I guess I assumed he’d eat out a lot in restaurants that you need to book months in advance, or maybe he’d be served by his own personal chef. I’d imagined him eating crazy amounts of seafood and drinking from ridiculously large bottles of champagne.
Robert walks in front of me heading straight for the fridge, pulling out a carton of almond milk. He turns and smiles; not a big grinning one but an expression that feels like an attempt to reassure. “Hot chocolate?” he asks and I nod, resting my bag on the floor by the bar stools. As he warms the milk on the stove in a small copper milk pan, I gaze a little more around his home.
I don’t know Robert. Meeting someone for the first time, you learn so little about who they really are. You make assumptions from the few sentences you exchange, but people only show the side of them they want you to see. That’s one of the things I learned during my years of training as a therapist.
It’s something you realize about yourself too.
The night of the Benefit I showed Robert my sassy side. I felt brave in my new dress and maybe more confident than usual because of the mask. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my scars but it’s nice to be noticed for my positive attributes first, rather than my flaw.
Robert showed me his cheeky and carefree side until he was faced with presenting the awards, and then he changed. Now, in his own space, I get a different feeling about Robert than I’d picked up before. He seems centered in his home. I can see that he’s made it his sanctuary. It isn’t that there are loads of personal photos on display or evidence of a lot of hobbies either. It’s more in the way he’s arranged his things.
The den area has a great couch but I can see that Robert has chosen himself a very comfortable chair complete with pillow pile and a small bookshelf by the window where I can suddenly imagine him sitting for hours with a good book. I wasn’t expecting that. Robert has the physique of a man who spends a lot of time in the gym or pounding the sidewalk, weather permitting. It might sound weird to say that I realize I like Robert, even more, when I see his home. Not for the things that most people would be impressed by. It isn’t the lavishness that I appreciate. It’s the lack of flamboyance and showiness and the fact I feel right at home despite the strange circumstances and my desperately sad state.
I pull out a stool and sit at the counter, placing my purse on the floor by my feet. Robert’s stirring the hot chocolate that’s already scenting the kitchen with a delicious, warm homely smell. He opens a large drawer under the counter and pulls out a bag of marshmallows. He turns and grins.
“We’re not kids you know.”
“You can never be too old for marshmallows. Hot chocolate without them is like cheese without wine.”
“Or caviar without the champagne.”
He shakes his head and grimaces. “I never could get to grips with fish eggs.”
“Me either.”
“Anyway, I’ll have you know Dr. Taylor, marshmallows are very low in fat, and these are the low sugar variety too, so in my humble hot-chocolate-making-opinion, I think we should have twice as many as usual.”
I smile because I really appreciate Robert’s attempts to take my mind off what’s happened. I watch him tip the hot chocolate into beautiful mugs that are decorated with intricate blue patterns. He tops it with the pink and white candy that begins to melt almost immediately and puts a spoon into each drink for stirring and eating. He rounds the counter and places the drinks down and takes a seat next to me.
“How are you feeling?”
I reach for my hot chocolate. I need the warmth and the distraction. “Really sad,” I admit. “I just can’t help thinking that I could have done something more. I should have seen the signs. I should have been able to help her.”
“Maybe you did,” he says and I frown at him, confused.
“Therapy isn’t supposed to lead you to take your own life, Robert.”
“No, but it is supposed to give you a level of peace. To help you understand why you might be feeling the way you are and come to terms with it.”
My heart clenches. “You think I helped her come to terms with killing herself.”
“No,” he says gently. “But maybe she realized that she wasn’t going to feel any differently about what had happened to her.”
Robert spoons out a soggy marshmallow and pops it in his mouth, looking straight ahead into his kitchen. The fact that he isn’t looking at me gives me some time to process what he’s said. As a therapist, you hope to assist your patients in coming to terms with whatever difficulty they might be experiencing and be able to move forward into a happier healthier existence. To think that Summer’s happier existence might have been death was really uncomfortable for me to take on board. But what kind of person would I be if I didn’t respect her choice? If life had been unbearable for her, surely I should be able to accept that it’d up to her to decide what she wants.
I know he’s trying to help but all his different perspective does is make me question my own values and opinions rather than making me feel better. What happened is too raw, still.
“Why did you find the awards ceremony so difficult?” I ask him, needing to understand why he might hold the view he does.
Robert turns to me and is silent for a while, as though he’s trying to decide what to say next. I don’t think it’s because he’s worried about my feelings, m
ore that he’s contemplating what he’s comfortable dredging up.
“Do you ever switch off from your day job, Analie?” he says eventually with a kind of tired resignation in his voice.
“I’m not asking as a therapist.”
“Why do you want to crack me open like a nut? Don’t you understand that sometimes people hold things deep inside themselves for a reason? Unearthing my past wouldn’t be cathartic for me. That might be hard for you to understand, but in my opinion some things are better pushed down.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Some nuts look good on the outside but inside they’re rotten, Analie. And there’s no changing it…certainly not with talking.”
I’m stunned. “You think you’re rotten inside?” I wonder if he realizes how much he’s revealing to me, even as he’s protesting about revealing anything at all.
“I think that sometimes things happen to people that are so terrible it changes them for good, and there isn’t ever a way to go back. Maybe that’s how Summer felt; like she just couldn’t deal with how much her life would be different. Maybe she couldn’t accept the loss of what she had before the accident.”
I find myself touching my scar with the tips of my fingers. It’s raised in places and has a dull sensation to it where the nerve endings have been damaged. In my experience, things happen, and they might not be what you would choose – life isn’t like that – but to let your past dictate your future seems like such a catastrophic waste to me.
I might not have been able to help Summer, but Robert is still here and I can’t help but want to try.
Maybe fate brought us together for a reason. Maybe getting Robert to face his skeletons is what I’m supposed to do.
I rest my hand in the middle of his back gently. I have that feeling again – the same one I had at the masked ball – the sense that Robert is in need of comfort. This time though, his reaction isn’t what I expect. He turns on his stool, twisting so that my hand is dislodged and falls back to my side. His eyes are so fierce that I feel a moment of panic, a heart-skip sensation where I wonder what he’s going to do. Maybe he sees the uncertainty in my eyes because, instead of shouting at me as I’m expecting, his shoulders slump.
My heart aches for him.
I feel as though we’re engaging in some kind of strange tug-of-war but our ropes are hooked around our emotions. I haven’t experienced anything like this before and I’m not sure I like it at all. It’s as though both of us has the ability to poke at just the right spot to elicit a passionate reaction in the other. Our wounds seem to be too visible to each other, and rather than avoiding them, we keep hitting head on.
Robert rubs his face in a way that screams frustration. When he emerges from behind his palms he looks weary. “How do you do it?” he asks. “How do you make me feel so raw?”
“I don’t mean to,” I reply softly. “I just…it’s like I can feel all this stuff from you. I can’t explain.”
I rest my hands in my lap, feeling absolutely worn out with emotion. It isn’t unusual for me to be affected by other people’s troubles. Just because therapists deal with issues every day, doesn’t make us stone inside. But I’m usually better at keeping myself further removed. I can’t seem to disconnect from Robert, though.
“Analie,” he says, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. His thumb grazes my scar and I flinch. His eyes flick over my face, uncertain. The connection between us is there like the narrowest filament but it seems capable of carrying such powerful volts of emotion. I’m aware in that moment that something big is going to happen. I’m drawn to him so viscerally that I almost can’t breathe. That awareness gives me a strange sense of calm as I wait for Robert’s frayed emotions to either come together or break further apart. Maybe he’ll tell me something more about the thing that seems to be burning under his skin, or maybe he’ll tell me it’s time to go.
Seconds tick past, and just as I am about to speak, he takes my face in both his hands, cupping my scar so gently I feel tears spring to my eyes.
Then he kisses me.
I lose my breath with the first press of his lips. The tears I’ve been pushing down since the phone call on the sidewalk, slide from my eyes in cool streams. I take hold of his soft sweater and grip it with all my strength, needing this connection. Needing the reassurance that comes from the touch of another human being.
There is power in his grasp, an intensity in his kiss, and he doesn’t seem to notice my damp cheeks as he pulls me from my stool and onto my feet.
There are times when you can feel the truth behind the mask people use to conceal themselves, and I feel it in Robert now. Behind the strength of his passion is a desperate brittleness. I sense that he fears the physical passion between us as much as he craves it. He moans when I open my mouth and stroke my tongue over his. One of his hands moves to my ass, bringing me against him and the rush of longing I feel almost knocks me from my feet. Robert must feel my weakness because he holds me tighter, pushing me back against the countertop and leaning forward until I’m totally powerless to resist him. It feels so good to give in because I need him to take away all my feelings of failure. It’s okay to submit to his power and demands because underneath his force I can feel his fragile human heart.
“Analie,” he whispers when he eventually pulled away from my lips to nuzzle my neck. That single utterance of my name is so much more than a statement. I can hear the question buried beneath. Robert wants my acquiescence for whatever he’s thinking is going to happen next. Maybe it’s so he doesn’t feel guilty in the morning. I’m not sure. But I know I don’t want him to stop.
“Don’t stop,” I plead, slipping my fingers into his hair and drawing him closer to me. His nose grazes my clavicle, his breath feathers over the sensitive skin at the top of my breasts as he nuzzles at me, breathing in my scent.
The moments in between a kiss and sex can be awkward with a new partner. In addition to relishing your own feelings, you have to focus on what they are enjoying, picking up those little sounds and motions that indicate when you’re getting it right. With Robert, there is none of that. As soon as he hears my words he picks me up, holding me tight against him as I clasp his waist with my thighs, thinking for a moment that he’d lift me onto the counter, but instead, he begins to walk me across the den, still kissing me passionately. I have no idea where we were going but I assume it’s to his bedroom. Everything in me hopes it’s his bedroom. His lips are so demanding on mine, and my hands seem to have a life of their own, gripping and stroking, pressing and rubbing. His chest is so hard, arms so strong and shoulders perfectly rounded. Under my palm, I feel his heart beating rapidly and that indication of his excitement makes me feverish.
I don’t know when we reach our destination until Robert lowers me onto the edge of a huge bed. He draws back, looking down at me and the disheveled mess I must be after tears and so much passion. I wait for him to come to his senses, to realize that whatever happens next is based on too much raw emotion between us and nothing more.
His eyes seem so dark in the dimness of the room, and so intense I feel a flicker of fear.
“You want this?” he asks with a new ragged huskiness to his voice that makes my pussy clench.
I nod and he takes a step back, using one hand to grip his sweater at the back and pull. God, he’s gorgeous. My mouth goes dry at the sight of the dips and swells that make up the perfection that is his body. I can’t get over the broadness of him or the sheer masculinity. He’s hard in all the ways I’m soft, and so smooth and tan in the low light. He casts his sweater onto the end of the bed next to me and then starts to undo his belt.
“Take off your clothes, Analie.”
I jump at the sound of his voice and my hand springs to the buttons on my blouse as though it’s under his control. I’ve never been ordered to undress before and there’s something so unbelievably sexy about doing as he asks and revealing myself to him. His eyes seem to burn as I part the f
abric of my blouse and let it hang open. Beneath I’m wearing a pretty pale pink bra that’s sheer enough to see my nipples through. I stand and begin to undo the front of my slacks, watching as Robert slides his zipper down, revealing the front of his tight black boxers. My heart is pounding in my chest and my throat as I let my pants slide to the floor. I look into his eyes as I step from them, standing straight and proud as he reached out to touch the collar of my shirt.
“You’re so sexy,” he says pulling the fabric back and exposing more of what lies beneath. The sensation of his finger caressing over the skin at the top of my bra makes me shiver. Robert pushes one side of the blouse from my shoulders then moves to the other side. As it slips down over my wrists I see the exact moment that he registers the scars across my shoulder.
As much as I’m used to the marks on my body and have come to accept them, I still find myself shy about the way they look. Maybe it’s because of Robert’s initial reaction to my face, or maybe it’s because we don’t know each other enough and I hadn’t shared my story with him.
Relationships usually move in slower increments than ours, and with more conversation too. For a fraction of a second, I think he might back away. I doubt what he told me in the note attached to his flowers and believe him to be shallow. But when he leans down to kiss me all those thoughts leave my head.
The first touch of my hands onto the heated skin of Robert’s chest sends my arousal spiking. He feels so good, so big and firm and strong. I feel like a teenager again, so grabby and desperate as I stroke over his pecs and shoulders and down his arms. Robert grabs my hands and holds them against my sides, then he pushes me roughly onto the bed and spreads my legs.
I’m wearing a matching underwear set and the pink panties leave nothing to the imagination. I rest up on my elbows, watching as Robert traces the line of lace across my stomach and then down between my legs. He presses kisses on my thighs that tickle and I hear him inhale the scent of me, his eyes closing and tongue licking quickly over his bottom lip.
IGNITE : A BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE Page 4
