by Sierra Rose
“Who let you in here?!” he demanded, catching her like a football and tucking her safely under his arm as he descended the remaining stairs. “Don’t we have security? Max, you silly old goat, it’s time you earn your paycheck and get this little monster out of here. Throw her out on the streets.”
A peal of breathless laughter followed his tirade as the child squirmed and wriggled under his arm, pounding her fists against his kneecaps. “You won’t do that,” she shrieked between giggles. “You won’t throw me out on the streets!”
“I won’t?” With a spin that made Nick laugh and Abby clutch her heart in terror, James flipped her around and knelt down in a single motion, only to catch her gently upon his knee. “Try me, you beast. I’ll have you dragged through London in chains!”
“Not in chains!” Her hands flew to her mouth to cover a theatrical gasp, in a well-rehearsed game I sensed the two had played many times before. “I want to stay!”
“To stay?” He lifted one eyebrow appraisingly, looking her up and down. “Well, I suppose I could be persuaded.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him promptly on the cheek, soliciting a beaming smile that he was quick to hide. My heart melted on the spot, and even the stoic Ferdie dabbed a handkerchief to his eyes. Nick and Abby merely shook their heads and grinned.
“Are you persuaded now?” she squeaked, still on her toes. “Can I stay?”
“May I,” he corrected.
“May I stay?”
He scrutinized her before lowering his fingertips to the floor and displaying a dangerous little smile. “Actually, perhaps you should. As it turns out, I’m a little hungry.”
She shrieked again as he sprang forward to tackle her. He caught her shirt in his teeth and shook it back and forth with a predatory growl. It was, without a doubt, the cutest thing I’d ever seen, and the little girl was so beside herself that I thought she might actually pass out just from laughing so hard. James shook her like a lion would, growling, kissing, tickling, and biting all the while, until her screams for mercy finally enticed him to gently lower her to the floor.
“I missed you, kid.” He kissed her on the cheek as she swayed dizzily, her cherub face still red from being upside down. “I’ve thought about you every day.”
“I missed you too.” She wrapped her arms around his neck for a giant hug, then spied me standing over his shoulder. “I met your special friend.”
“My special...” He glanced around, then laughed when he spotted me. “Yeah, my special friend. What do you think of her? She’s pretty, right?”
Arabella nodded swiftly but kept a territorial arm around his neck the entire time, staring at me with a hint of dislike. “Is she your girlfriend, Uncle James?”
Abby laughed softly as I turned a million shades of red.
“My girlfriend?!” James feigned shock as he tossed a secret wink above her golden curls. “You know you’re the only girl in my life.”
It’s official. I’m never going to get an answer to that question.
Arabella beamed with pride and flashed a rather friendly smile before taking his hand and tugging him back to his feet. “Then will you sit by me at dinner?”
“Where else would I sit?”
The two shared a conspiratorial grin before Abby stepped forward and clapped her hands briskly. “On that note,” she said, “why don’t you give your Uncle James a second to catch his breath and clean up before we sit down to eat?”
In a blur of golden hair, the girl sprinted up the stairs to one of the guest bathrooms. I was sure she had her own stash of things at every grand estate in London, but halfway there, she suddenly paused and looked back down through the slats in the bannister.
“Uncle James?”
He glanced up and froze, his hand on its way to hold mine. “Yeah, honey?”
A strangely solemn look flickered across her face as she stared down into the parlor. “I’m sorry Grandpa Ben died.”
There was a sudden silence as every adult in the room bowed our heads. James remained frozen and was momentarily speechless, so I slipped my hand comfortingly into his.
“Yeah, sweetie, me too,” he finally mustered.
Chapter 6
CONSIDERING THE CIRCUMSTANCES that had brought us all together, dinner that night was a rather lighthearted affair. The shock soon gave way to acceptance, and in that acceptance, those who knew Benjamin Cross were able to find at least a little relief. It was difficult to see such a great man trapped in an ailing, incapable body, and at least now, that pain was gone. The struggle was over, and Ben and his loved ones were finally free.
Hilarious stories were swapped, tales and fond remembrances of Ben at his finest, anecdotes that any reporter in the world would have killed to get their microphones on. Most revolved around James and Nick getting into some sort of outrageous situation and Ben flying halfway across the world to bail them out. Whether it was a disciplinary hearing at boarding school for stealing the dean’s car, being stranded in a remote African desert without passports, or finding themselves incarcerated in a Bolivian prison for “conduct unbefitting a gentleman,” Ben always came through as their knight in shining armor.
“What will happen now?” Arabella asked as she sat on a stack of phone books, elbow-deep in spaghetti. “What about Grandpa’s big company, if he isn’t there to run it?”
I snorted into my wine glass, but Nick just folded his hands innocently upon the table.
“That’s a very good question, James. What is going to happen now?” Nick asked with a smirk.
The two shared an indecipherable look before James cleared his throat and turned to Arabella with a pleasant smile. “I’m not sure, honey. It isn’t exactly mine.”
Ferdie then parroted the, “Ahem,” sharply in the background but tried to pretend he didn’t when James swiveled around to give him a dark look.
On the other side of the table, Abby picked up a napkin and dabbed politely at her mouth, barely muffling, “Sure looks like your name on the side of the building.”
“Thanks.” James set down a basket of rolls with a bit more force than necessary, rattling the silverware as he glared at his friends. “Thanks for that.”
Clearly, they’d had that discussion many times before, to no avail, and just as clearly, everyone in James’s life was in absolute agreement as to what he should do—everyone except James himself.
“Well, if it isn’t really yours, can’t you just buy it?” Arabella asked with the wide eyes of a child whose billionaire father had lived his life by that very philosophy. “If you don’t have enough money, I’m sure Daddy can give you some.”
James shot her an indulgent look but was quick to shut that line of questioning down. “The company’s not for sale...and I have far more money than your daddy.”
She twirled a fork in her noodles, creating a cyclone that took up her entire plate. “One of you is fibbing. Daddy said he has way more money than you.”
“Does he now?” James and Nick shared a hysterical look before each turned deliberately away. “Well, dear, that’s a point of great contention between me and your father.” James pointed at her plate and picked up his wine. “Eat your salad.”
Aside from the little rocky bit in the middle, I could honestly say it was one of the best dinners I’d ever enjoyed. James held my hand under the table the whole time, and Nick and Abby bickered and teased. Arabella threw so many noodles against the pristine windows that I thought Ferdie might actually have a miniature stroke. I didn’t exactly come from a home that boasted many family dinners, but that was exactly what it was, even if we weren’t technically blood related and even if a swarm of media was laying siege outside and there was a bodyguard posted by the elevator door. And even if the meal itself was catered by an upscale London restaurant. All of that aside, it was a family dinner, and what was more, I was somehow a part of it.
By the time the plates were cleared and Arabella was finally banished to bed, I had even gotten her official
stamp of approval.
“Uncle James?” She tugged on his sleeve, leaving a smear of chocolaty fingerprints in her wake.
He leaned down immediately. “Yes, love?”
“I like Della,” she whispered in his ear. “She is special, like you said.”
A tender smile softened his face as the two of them stared secretly up at me.
“Thank you. I like her too.”
She hesitated for a long moment, then decided to take a child’s approximation of the moral high road. “If you want her to be your girlfriend, that’s all right too, as long as you save me a seat beside you for dinner...and as long as I’m still your favorite.”
James laughed softly, then kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll always be my favorite.”
With a little grin on her face, she scampered off to bed, with Max trailing behind her. The man might have sworn a blood oath to jump in front of a bullet for Nick and Abby, but his level of devotion to their child was on a whole other level, and I couldn’t blame him in the slightest. Arabella tended to have that effect on people.
James watched her disappear up the stairs, then placed a hand over his heart and dropped his head back against the chair. “Just give her to me already! I’m tired of asking!”
“Not a chance.” Abby laughed. “And she’s not for sale, no matter which one of you has more money!”
“Are you sure?” James lifted his head with a sarcastic grin. “If it’s a matter of price, Nick can apparently loan me some.”
Nick threw back his head with a burst of laughter. “What did you expect me to do when she asked? Lie to my own daughter?”
“Lie?!”
Abby threw her napkin between them like a white flag. “As someone who’s heard that riveting discussion at least a million times, let me be the first to say shut up.” The four of us laughed before she rested her eyes curiously upon James. “I would, however, be interested in an answer to her other question, the same one I’ve been asking myself for a long time.”
The table abruptly quieted as all eyes fell on James. I felt his hand stiffen in mine, and he dropped his gaze quickly to the table, shifting uncomfortably under the sudden spotlight.
“The board, James?” she prompted. “You actually stormed in there and submitted your candidacy in front of the board?”
I felt his pulse racing in his wrist as the walls around us seemed to close in.
“I just... It just came out, okay? I didn’t mean...” His eyes hardened as his mind flashed back to the scene in the conference room. “You would have done the same if you saw how Rob was playing those old fools. After everything he’s done, on the same day that...”
The room quieted once more, before Nick eased the conversation along. “All right,” he said consolingly, “so you spoke without thinking. It was hardly the first time.” A faint smile ghosted his face as he stared fondly at his friend. “Now that the challenge has been made, though, can you really see yourself doing it? Can you actually see yourself running the company?”
Please say yes.
Every nerve ending in my body came alive as I perched on the edge of my chair, waiting breathlessly for an answer. It was almost too much to hope for, that James would decide to step up and take command. It was too much, yet I found myself hoping against hope all the same.
James held Nick’s gaze for only a moment before his eyes flickered out the darkened window, reflecting the city lights once again as he gazed toward the horizon. A look of profound indecision settled over him, tightening his jaw and freezing all his handsome features in place.
Oddly enough, it was the exact same expression he wore when I asked him to define what was happening between us. The second that whimsical spontaneity lifted and he was asked to make any sort of commitment, the man just froze.
Nick and Abby were just as tense as I was, and even Ferdie poked his head discreetly out of the kitchen, awaiting his response. Ultimately, no matter what any of us thought, it was a decision James had to make on his own, but no matter how much he wanted to, he just couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“I-I don’t know.”
JAMES AND I WENT TO bed together that night, as usual, except that when I rolled over a few hours later, he was no longer there. I sat up for a moment and looked around in confusion before I heard it, a faint splash of water coming from above.
As quietly as I could, I slipped into a bathrobe and tiptoed down the stairs. The door to the balcony pulled open without a sound, and I stepped outside, ignoring the billion-dollar view as I crept up the stairwell and onto the roof.
Sure enough, James was in the pool, his body cutting graceful lines across the water as he swam under the moon.
I watched him for a moment before venturing carefully forward. I didn’t want to crowd him, but I wanted to be sure he knew I was there for him, to support him always. “Hey,” I said softly.
He came to an immediate stop and pushed his wet hair off his forehead. His eyes met mine in the dark, and they lingered there for a moment, bright with some uncertain emotion, before he made his way slowly to the edge of the pool. I sat down on the tile, and he stood in front of me in the water, with little clouds of steam rising off the muscular contours of his arms.
“Hey yourself.” He flashed a quick smile, stroking his fingers along the arches of my feet as I dangled them in the water. “Did I wake you?”
“Not at all,” I replied quickly, parting my knees for him to step casually between them. His dark hair glowed silver in the light of the moon, and I combed my fingers through it, pulling him closer to me with a soft smile on my face. “I just wanted to see how you’re holding up. I had to make sure you aren’t planning some crazy stunt to impress your much younger girlfriend.”
He laughed quietly and wrapped his hands around the backs of my knees. “Yeah, I guess I should have told you. You and I can only go so far, because my heart’s already been claimed by someone else.”
“I completely understand,” I said, fighting to keep a straight face. “After all, she’s got a hell of a lot of money.”
This time, he laughed for real, staring up at me with the same enchanting smile that had made me fall for him in the first place. The water sparkled around him as he took a step closer and slid his daring hands beneath the robe to touch my thighs. “Della, I don’t...” He stopped suddenly, staring at me as if I was the one casting a spell over him. “I don’t have any idea what I did before you got here nor any idea what I’d do if you were to...”
The words caught me by complete surprise, stealing my breath and skipping my heart right along with it, but no sooner had he said them than he followed them up with something even better.
“I don’t ever want to find out,” he blurted, unable to stop himself, with a plea in his voice that I was sure was not intended. I heard that wary defensiveness that did nothing to hide the vulnerability just beneath, the fearful desire to keep from being hurt.
My eyes met his, as I stroked a gentle hand down the side of his face. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It was as if those words unlocked something inside him. At once, the frozen indecision vanished into pure motion. He pulled me closer, opened the base of my robe, and pressed his lips against the inside of my high.
A surge of heat rocketed through my body, but even though I literally ached for him to keep going, I found myself pulling away. “James, I don’t... I don’t think this is the right time.”
His hands slid up my bare back, and he wrapped his fingers around my sides, till they lightly grazed my breasts. “It’s the perfect time.”
“I’m serious. Wait a second.”
He paused and took a step back as I struggled to find the words.
“Your father just died, and you just made a possibly life-changing decision. I understand that you’re upset, confused, and overwhelmed. Trust me, James. You don’t want to do this right now. You’re just—”
“This is all I want to do right now.”
I
pulled reluctantly away again, but this time, he held me firm.
“Della, I don’t want to feel any of those things right now. I don’t want to think about them. I just want to close my eyes and not worry about what’s coming tomorrow.”
Tiny droplets clung to his eyelashes as he bowed his head and let go of a quiet sigh. “Just for tonight, I want to be...” He trailed off as his eyes met mine, reflecting the light of a million stars. “You make things better, Della. Can’t things just be better, for just this one night?”
I took his face between my hands, forever immortalizing the moment in my mind, then leaned forward to kiss him. “For as many nights as you want.”
Splash!
Without another word, he pulled me into the water.
Chapter 7
ONCE WAS NEVER ENOUGH for James. After the pool came the shower. After the shower came the couch. After the couch came the upstairs linen closet, until Ferdie wandered into the hall, claiming he heard a noise. We helped him investigate for a while before finally turning in, and in bed, we quickly resumed our antics again.
By the next morning, I had come to an understanding of being fucked senseless; I understood that phrase in a very profound way, in fact. My arms were stiff, my legs locked, and if I had to guess, I would have said I lost at least ten pounds in a single evening, just from laughing alone. Sex with James was playful. As a matter of fact, everything about the young Mr. Cross was, but all that work and too much play had left Della a sore girl.
I rolled onto my stomach and let out a little groan, pressing my face into the pillow as my hand blindly groped the bed beside me. “James, call Dr. Levinson. Tell him to bring some pills and a stretcher. I’m gonna be out for a while.” I groped around a little more but came up blank. Then, with the utmost effort, I lifted my head. “James?”
How is he possibly out of bed already? We just crawled in about two hours ago.
I waited to hear the telltale splash that would inform me that the little maniac was already bounding around the pool in some freakish display of limitless energy, but I was only greeted with silence. I listened for a second longer, stilling with concentration upon the sheets before a sudden vibration on the nightstand about gave me a heart attack.
