by Kira Barker
After waiting another five minutes and not hearing a sound, I decided to go look for him. The least he deserved was a good old blow job if he had to be on the phone.
Only that the main room of the suite was also dark and deserted, and so was the bathroom. I checked the door next, but it was still locked from the inside, so he couldn’t have gone down into the lobby to place his calls from there. His laptop was still on the side table, but only the charger remained next to it where he’d had his phone plugged in earlier.
Looking around, my gaze finally fell on the door to the terrace. Sneaking closer—and feeling rather stupid about my attempt at stealth—I found the door closed but not shut, with Darren pacing up and down outside, stark naked.
I wondered briefly if he’d gone outside not to wake me, but the sheer size of the suite made that maneuver unnecessary. It had been cool earlier, but now it must be freezing, and judging from how taut his muscles looked as he moved that was definitely the case. He also didn’t look relaxed, or at least mildly annoyed as I’d observed him on various other occasions when he had had to take a call even when he’d preferred to fuck me instead.
No, he looked upset, his face twisted into a grimace, his hand repeatedly yanking through his hair until it stood on end, his motions erratic. I’d never seen him like this before—except for that morning in the shower.
I momentarily felt stupid about completely forgetting about that incident, but now it was again at the front of my mind. I normally didn’t snoop—being discreet came with the job, and three days out didn’t automatically turn me incapable of holding my curiosity in check. But as I watched him pace by the door again, his lips moving silently thanks to the industrial strength glass, I just couldn’t let this rest.
I waited until he was almost at the point in his course where he pivoted, then pushed gently against the glass door, making it ease open just a little. Cold air rushed in, making me shiver, but I forced my muscles to lock down. Half hidden by the drapes, I was sure that even if he had glanced right at where I was crouching, he wouldn’t have seen me. But he didn’t look. He seemed completely lost in his call.
“This isn’t easy for me,” he said as he passed by the door, followed by a longer pause. “How can you even think that I wanted this? But it happened. It was inevitable once I was sure…”
I missed the next bit because he was too far away, but after he’d turned, I was able to pick up his words again.
“I loved you, Juliette. I truly did. You were the one who cast me aside. You were the one who destroyed us.”
That name again, and now in a sentence that pretty much confirmed my deepest fears. So she was someone dear to him—or had been, rather, judging from how his voice suddenly picked up in both strength and anger.
“I wanted to give you the world, but all you did was use me, from the very first second! Don’t deny it now. You know that I’m telling the truth!”
A longer pause followed, presumably as Juliette defended herself, but nothing she said seemed to change Darren’s mind, or the anger plain on his face.
“You have absolutely no right,” he ground out, then switched gears again so quickly that it was as if someone else had taken his place. “Goodbye, Juliette. You knew this day was coming for a long, long time. I love her, and we’re getting married. She deserves to be happy, and I will do anything to make sure that she is.”
Maybe those words should have made me feel warm and cozy, but the entire situation was so out of this world that I had a hard time hanging on, let alone processing the side of the conversation I was listening in to.
“Penelope is a better woman than you could ever have been,” he went on, then stopped at the place where he’d bent me over the balustrade hours ago, his hand lightly caressing the stone. “She never disappoints me, not how you constantly did. She tries so hard to change, to finally acknowledge who she is. Meeting her was a revelation, an uncut gem hidden in the rubble. After you I almost gave up hope, but she made me realize that it’s not impossible to find someone who loves me just as much as I love her.”
Another pause followed, then a last, “Goodbye,” and he lowered the hand holding his phone, but remained standing staring out over the city.
This had clearly been a private moment I had no right to intrude on, so I did the only thing I could—I left before he caught me snooping after him.
Shivering from the cold, I buried deep into the blankets and drew them up to my nose, but that didn’t help much. My thoughts kept returning to the conversation I’d just overheard. I still didn’t know if Juliette had been the fiancée I had read about, but things pointed to it more and more. It made perfect sense—she’d broken his heart, and for the next years all he’d been doing was look for sex without intimacy, and, even more important, emotional attachment. Until he’d met me.
I still couldn’t see what about me had changed his mind, but then I also didn’t understand why he among all my clients was the only one I’d ever developed feelings for. Not that there was a need to explain love, of course, but somehow I still felt like I was missing something vital here. Over ten years was a long time to hold a grudge, and even if, why call his ex-fiancée now of all times, only hours after he’d proposed to me? Or had she called him?
For just a second, a weird scenario of her being the ultimate stalker who kept returning and destroying his every attempt at building new relationships formed in my mind, but I disbanded the idea as soon as it had taken hold. To me, Darren had never been one to gloat, but who knew how much exactly he’d changed over the years?
The sane thing would likely have been to just ask about her, but I was reluctant to do that. Not just because I didn’t really want to know—because I kind of did if I was honest—but because I could already picture that slightly disapproving look in his eyes. He’d likely tell me that it didn’t matter, and I should stop obsessing over things like an insecure little girl. He’d never asked about my past, which was something I was insanely glad about. So why invite trouble now over something that was clearly long gone and would likely never return to haunt us?
I’d almost convinced myself of that by the time Darren returned, his skin surprisingly warm. Then the scent of water hit my nose and I realized that he must have taken a shower to warm up. Unbidden, that dreaded mental image of him jerking off and murmuring her name rose again, but this time I squashed it for good. His arm came around me and he pulled me against his chest, where I snuggled closer still, smiling contently.
He was mine now, and damn whatever ghosts lurked in his past.
Chapter 22
We stayed in Paris until the beginning of next week, when Darren had to admit that he could no longer hide from his responsibilities, even if he wanted to. I was tempted to remain a little longer and do some shopping, maybe hop into a museum or two, but the opportunity to talk about that somehow never came up, and suddenly I found myself back on the plane on the way home.
That was not the only thing that Darren blindsided me with, although that seemed to become our thing. He brought me home first before driving on to work, and just after we’d kissed goodbye at my door, he posed the question that almost scared me as much as the question.
“Will you move in with me?”
It must have been pure coincidence that Agent Smith and her posse chose that exact moment to spill out of the elevator and make their suit- and frown-wearing, armed way to the apartment next door. I knew that this woman would have gone a long way to make me uncomfortable, but this was already amounting to the realm of “fated.” Most of the other agents were looking at something other than us, some pointedly so, but Agent Smith’s eyes were locked on Darren. From the way she glared at him, you could have expected him to get out his dick right there and make me suck him off in full view of everyone assembled. Darren held her gaze evenly and without seeming the least bit perturbed, but I would have loved to just pull him inside and close the door behind us. Not that that would have changed anything—on the contrary.
“You’re really not pulling any punches,” I replied when finally the door to Adam’s apartment had closed behind them.
Darren’s face split into a grin.
“I haven’t quite worked myself up to ask you to build a new house with me, now, have I?” I must have stared at him cross-eyed then because he toned down his mirth a little before he leaned in and kissed me gently. “I know you like your apartment, but you have to admit, it comes with a few drawbacks. My house is huge, way too big for just one person to be living there, and you could do whatever you want without anyone frowning at you constantly.”
“Except for your butler, who’s still my number one fan.”
He laughed at that.
“I’ve told you before, you’re reading too much into his stoic looks. And he’s like that with everyone.”
“Remind me why you keep him?”
For a moment I even considered asking if he’d just up and fire the man, but except for his hostility, James really was the perfect butler. And I had to admit, if I thought back to the clients I’d “met” in Darren’s office, I couldn’t hold it against him that he kept someone at hand who looked more than just proficient with any weapon that he could get his hands on.
“He’s been with me for years,” Darren replied. “And he has come in quite handy with helping me handle certain things that I don’t really want anyone else to get wind of.”
Which pretty much confirmed my guess. That didn’t exactly endear dear James to me, but my reluctance in regard to him dwindled a little.
“I know this is likely not the time and place for this,” I started, then pointedly glared at the space next door to let him know what I was referring to, “but do you have another reason to want me closer to you?”
“You mean except for the convenience of having you available to me every time I come home until I have to leave for work again?” he offered, his smile turning roguish.
“Well, there’s that,” I admitted, unable to hide my own smile. “Let me rephrase that. You have a reason for keeping James on staff. Are you concerned that said reason might follow you here or track down my address otherwise and maybe use that as leverage against you?”
I didn’t want to ask outright if I should worry about getting kidnapped or killed, but convenience just wasn’t that good a reason for a decision of that immensity. So far we’d managed brilliantly with me not even keeping many clothes or supplies at his house.
Darren looked away for a moment, his face completely blank, but when his eyes caught mine again, I could see something bordering on relief in them.
“And there’s that,” he admitted, his voice gruff with reluctance. “I didn’t want to say anything outright because I didn’t want to scare you, but you know who I work for. Then again, I’m not surprised that I can’t hide anything from you.”
I couldn’t help but beam with pride, even though the underlying concern was nothing to smile about.
“Don’t you think that the presence of the nice people next door would deter certain elements from making a grab for me?”
He shrugged as if he tried hard not to belittle my argument but was obviously not convinced.
“How often are they here? This is actually the first time I’ve run into the peanut gallery, and I’ve been over here how often?”
“A couple of times,” I admitted.
“See? And while you may make fun of the black SUV waiting outside and the unmarked car you told me about another time, it’s very easy for a professional to make them out and wait until they’re not surveilling the building. Or do they still hang around when Sorrento is gone?”
I hadn’t realized that Darren knew Adam’s surname—I religiously referred to him by his given name—but then remembered their little stand-off in the hall the other day. It didn’t sound like Adam, but maybe he’d introduced himself. Then again, I also didn’t hold it beyond Darren to look into my neighbor’s background, even though I’d never taken Adam up on his joke and asked Darren for that.
“Not as far as I know,” I replied, already seeing where this was going. “And he’s gone several weeks at a time, sometimes.”
“So you’ll move in with me? I’m very open to redecorating suggestions if my bachelor pad doesn’t live up to your expectations,” he offered.
“You live in a fucking mansion!”
That made him laugh, and he swooped me up in his arms, kissing me deeply.
“No, ‘we’ live in a fucking mansion. And damn, I really like how that sounds.”
I was still laughing when he put me down again and left, making me promise that I’d come over to spend the night with him even if it was just for sleeping.
My good humor lasted all through the day, even though I had laundry to do and was in dire need of cleaning out the fridge after a few things had spoiled due to the unexpected nature of my recent travels. Of course I had to run into Agent Smith again just as I was taking out the trash, and yet again when I returned with groceries. I had barely time enough to put away everything before the doorbell rang, and I half expected it to be her, finally turning her passive-aggressive stalking into full-frontal action.
Instead, I found a party of men with a huge stack of foldable boxes outside, who informed me that they were “the movers Mr. Hunter ordered.”
For just a moment I was sorely tempted to simply lock my door, grab my phone, and tear Darren a new one. Constantly keeping me on my toes by turning my world upside down was one thing; giving me exactly four hours to start ruing my decision whether to merge our homes or not was another.
It wasn’t even that I was overly fond of my apartment. Sure, it was my place and had been for the past years, but I’d never been very sentimental about living spaces. It was lavishly large for just one person, it had been situated in the perfect neighborhood for my job—close enough to the city to be everywhere within minutes, but outside of where leases were impossible to be paid—but I’d never expected to grow old here.
In many ways, moving in with Darren was the logical next step, even if it came a little fast—but now I felt cornered, and not in a fun way.
A loud knock at the door reminded me that this was an issue I had to take care of right now. Sure, I could have tried to avoid this, but I could clearly picture the condescension in Darren’s gaze when I tried to explain why I hadn’t let the movers in. It was a nice gesture, but also a damn pushy one.
With a last sigh at my phone, I opened the door again and glared at the guy I’d been talking to before. He looked completely unperturbed, and I wondered how often they had to deal with recalcitrant people who left them standing outside their door for minutes at a time.
“Is there a chance that we can reschedule? As you probably have guessed, this comes a bit as a surprise for me.”
The guy held my gaze evenly as he shook his head.
“The job’s already been paid for, today and tomorrow. We are to bring your personal stuff and clothes to this address, and the rest to this.”
He held out a sheaf of paper to me. One of the lines spelled our Darren’s address, the other I didn’t know. I was just hoping it was some kind of storage facility and he’d only been joking about the house.
“Well,” I started, then made the mistake of moving aside when he stepped over the threshold. His crew followed immediately, leaving me blinking stupidly after them.
Tearing myself out of my funk, I followed them, watching with a sick kind of fascination how they began packing the contents of my bookshelf into boxes.
“Do you need me for this?” I asked, not even trying to make my voice sound any less annoyed than I was.
“Only to sort out the personal stuff,” he repeated, not stopping for a moment.
Sighing, I shook my head, then went into the bedroom. I was not exactly happy about this, but there was not much sense to making their day hell. Instead, I started gathering a few things into the box I kept under my bed where my few keepsakes rested that I’d taken with me from h
ome. The valuable stuff was safely tucked away in a strongbox in a bank vault downtown, but I doubted anyone would want to steal my yearbook. Opening my safe, I added the two now shut-off phones and half of the cash I still had in there, then taped the box shut.
On a hunch, I picked up the phone and texted Adam, asking whether his entourage was likely to stay much longer. His reply took an endless ten minutes, but he let me know that they’d just left.
Informing the movers to be extra careful with my dresses and shoes, I took the box and walked over to Adam’s. After our last talk, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing him again, but for whatever reason I felt loath to take the box with me.
He opened his door slowly, a look of apprehension on his face that turned to surprise when he saw the box. He knew what was in it—one of the few people who did—and it only took one of the guys lugging the first packed box out into the hallway for him to make the connection.
“You’re moving out?”
I hadn’t expected the deep sense of sadness that came with the words, but considering that he was still glaring at me with that “I told you so!” look on his face, I chose to ignore it.
“Can you keep this for me? Just for a few weeks.”
He looked from me to the box again but made no attempt to take it.
“You’re moving in with him already? Are you going to continue whoring right out of his bedroom?”
My stomach sank at his hard tone, but it was his words that really cut through my defenses. Why, I didn’t quite understand, but now I was doubly glad about my decision last week.
“Just so you know, I quit. And what I do is still none of your business.”
“Yeah, I see that,” he grunted, but finally accepted the burden from me. “Are you sure that’s a wise decision? Because why would you give your most valued things to me when that should be the first thing you bring into someone’s house when you want to move in with them?”
