by Naima Simone
If she could perceive the desire and need shredding his gut into ribbons, she’d shut the fuck up and run.
“I didn’t come over here for this,” Gwendolyn grumbled. She lifted a hand, but stopped just short of thrusting her fingers through her hair. Lowering her arm, she aimed another black scowl at him as if it were his fault she couldn’t grab the bright strands. “I need to talk to you.”
“That’s what we’re doing.”
“In private.”
He surveyed the crowded ballroom in a long, exaggerated sweep before settling back on her. “Now is not a good time.”
Damn, he enjoyed needling her. She had always stirred that reaction in him. Even when she’d been engaged to his brother Josh, she’d been the little sister he’d kidded and affectionately teased.
Well, maybe “little sister” was a bit of an embellishment… After all, wondering what your sibling looked like naked was not only illegal, but sick.
And for years, he’d wondered.
“It will have to be a good time, Xavier. You’ve put me off for months now and I only have two weeks left.”
Her accusation jolted him from thoughts of soft, smooth skin, tangled limbs and writhing bodies. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She sighed. “I’ve called your office at least a dozen times in the last few months. I’ve dropped by only to wait for hours while you were on a ‘conference call’.” She air-quoted with her fingers, a sure sign her annoyance had ratcheted to royally pissed off. “Did it ever occur to you I might not have been dropping by to shoot the breeze but because I needed you?”
Needed him? Him? Shit. She’d located and pressed his Easy button.
“Fine,” he growled and hated himself for being interested…for being susceptible to this woman. Gripping her upper arm and ignoring how her bare skin branded the flesh of his palm, he towed her in the direction of the small study off the ballroom. She stumbled behind him but righted herself and kept up with his quick stride. Remorse assailed him and the attack of guilt served as a reminder why he had to get rid of Gwendolyn Sinclair.
Over the past year, he’d struggled with his father’s death, his fiancée’s—ex-fiancée’s, damn it—betrayal, ostracism by his peers and a disfigurement that sent kids screaming for their mothers. At some point in the tragic clusterfuck, he’d grown numb. His heart had atrophied to a withered lump in his chest where nothing or no one could hurt him.
Now Gwendolyn had shown up and gifted him with glimpses of a happier past and ghosts of emotions he’d become accustomed to existing without.
Yeah, he would listen to her for old time’s sake, as well as Josh’s. But after that, she had to go.
And never come back.
Chapter Two
“My name is not ‘My Lord’,” replied the monster, “but Beast…do not imagine I am to be moved by any of your flattering speeches. But you say you have got daughters. I will forgive you, on condition that one of them come willingly and suffer for you.”—Beauty and the Beast
“Blackmail is such an ugly word. Effective…but still very ugly.”—Xavier St. James
“You have five minutes. Starting now.”
Xavier shoved his hands in his pants pockets and the motion drew his jacket away from his chest. Damn, it was wide. Gwedolyn dragged her gaze over his flat stomach, slim hips and down to… Whew, boy. She glanced away from the impressive bulge even the most artful cut couldn’t hide.
Jesus, what was wrong with her? One glance at his crotch and she was hot with anticipation.
“Time’s a-wasting.” The taunt jerked her attention to his face. Focus, dammit. Focus. His hooded scrutiny and the grim line of his mouth were inscrutable. Oh sweet baby Jesus, did he know where her eyes had been trained? Or worse, what thoughts had flirted through her mind? She groaned silently. God wouldn’t be so cruel. At least she prayed He wouldn’t be…
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you—”
“Been over that.”
“To ask for your help,” she gritted and bulldozed ahead despite his rude interruption. “The community center is in need of a grant.”
“The community center? A grant?” His eyebrows slammed into a dark vee and incredulity smothered his voice. “You need me because of money?” He tipped his head back on his shoulders and emitted a sharp bark of laughter she would have been an idiot to label humorous. “Isn’t that just fucking perfect?”
“I don’t need your money…or rather your family’s foundation money,” she corrected. “The community center does. If we don’t receive funding, we’ll have to close our doors.”
“Same difference.” He tilted his head forward and his emerald stare studied her as if she were splayed on a glass petri dish under a microscope. “The foundation has a committee to determine who receives the money. It’s not my decision. Go through the application process like everyone else.”
“It is your decision. You have your finger on everything that bears the St. James name.” She stole closer. “It’s the community center, Xavier. Where you, Josh and I met. You learned how to play basketball there. It’s just as important to the neighborhood now as it was then. If not for the center, so many kids would be in gangs instead of on teams. Or receiving a destructive education on the streets instead of the tutoring needed to help them graduate high school. We need that grant, Xavier.”
Her voice wavered with the passion burning in her chest. But the huge, old building settled smack in the middle of Roxbury was her passion. As chief administrator and program director, Gwendolyn spent much of her time at the center. Just like she’d passed most of her afternoons and evenings there as a child—her single-parent mother too preoccupied with chasing the youth she’d accused her daughter of robbing.
Renee Sinclair had resented the child she’d birthed at seventeen years old. By the time Gwendolyn turned eight, Renee valued nightclubs and various boyfriends over her daughter. In her mother’s list of priorities, Gwendolyn ranked beneath sex, men and alcohol, but above church—and only because Renee was usually too hung over to attend a Sunday service. Survival had taught Gwendolyn to cook simple meals of omelets and hamburgers, clean their cramped, lonely apartment and get herself to and from school.
She’d met the St. James brothers at the center one hot June afternoon—twelve-year-old Xavier and ten-year-old Joshua. Their father had been heading up a construction project nearby and instead of having his sons hang around the demolition site every day, he’d sent them to the neighborhood community center. One summer had turned into years. She had become best friends with Joshua, and Xavier—as the older brother—had looked out for both of them.
Though from different backgrounds, the three of them had established a tight bond. And when Xavier, and then later she and Joshua, had gone off to college, their friendship had endured. If not for the community center, she would’ve never had the St. James brothers in her life.
Maybe she alone cherished those memories of happier days. She scanned the harsh, severe lines of Xavier’s face, the flat, shuttered eyes. She might as well have been asking a mountain to feel, to empathize. Come to think of it, a rock probably contained more emotion.
“So you want to bypass the application process and have me influence the foundation’s decision on your behalf.” He twisted his lips into a merciless caricature of a smile. “Based on what? Basketball memories and you fucking my brother?”
The cruel words punched a hole in her chest. Pain and humiliation radiated from the jagged wound. Of course the accident and the events following the crash—his father’s death, his fiancée’s abandonment, the rejection of his “friends”—had affected him. But the man staring down at her with cold, pitiless eyes didn’t resemble the Xavier St. James she’d known…and the difference had nothing to do with his scar. Warm humor, kindness and compassion had been integral aspects of his personality, but those traits had disappeared, leaving this aloof, cynical stranger who wore her childhood friend’s face.
; Gwendolyn sucked in a shallow breath. Fine. In her mind, she snatched off her earrings, dragged her hair into a ponytail and donned her sneakers—the classic “sista” move symbolizing she was ready to box.
“Far be it from me to impose on sentiment you don’t possess,” she cooed in a tone her mother would have termed nice-nasty. “But when I’m the only one playing fair in a process where the door is closed to me before I even knock then yes, I have no problem with circumventing that same process.” She bared her teeth in a feral smile. “And instead of memories, how about I base my request on discrimination and prejudice? Or disenfranchisement? Do those words work better for you?”
“Two minutes.”
The cool reminder of the elapsing time detonated her temper like a lit match tossed onto a batch of napalm.
“It must be nice to dwell in an ivory tower where you can lord over the world but not be a part of it. Pretend the dirty masses don’t exist except to keep your empire running.” The anger poured from her lips in a furious torrent of uncensored words and resentment. She should care, should put a halt to the furious tirade. Yet the diatribe, now started, could not be contained.
“But the people who enable you to live like a prince are the same ones in need of your foundation’s help. Not the Beacon Hill Beautification Society. Or the local country club women’s polo team. Real people with real issues, like finding resources that will provide a way out of poverty-stricken and crime-ridden neighborhoods. Like equipping children with a sufficient education when their schools have a shortage of textbooks and supplies.”
Gwendolyn stalked forward until mere inches separated them. Heat radiated from under his white silk shirt, but it was like banked embers under the gleam of his intent gaze. Under normal circumstances, she would have proceeded with caution. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
“What are you talking about?” he asked quietly.
An ominous shiver skated down her spine. For a heavy moment, silence descended over the room like the lull in a storm right before it struck with full force.
“Have you bothered to check and see where your community service funds have been allocated?” Her anger hadn’t dimmed, but she regarded him like prey keeping a wary eye on a stalking predator. “Your family’s foundation was established to serve the needs of the greater Boston community. That community stretches past Charles Street, Xavier. For the past four years, your foundation’s committee has awarded grants to two country clubs, a beautification society and an Ivy League polo team. I don’t know about the other applicants who don’t hail from such wealthy, gentrified origins, but I was given the runaround for weeks about the status of my application before being informed I was mistaken. I had not applied.”
She closed her eyes at the helpless fury consuming her even a week later. Throw in Xavier’s refusal to intervene in the slanted, shady practices of his family’s charity and she wanted to rail at him, cause him physical harm to siphon off some of the frustration and bitterness welling inside her.
“Gwendolyn.”
She opened her eyes and met his gaze again. The rigid lines of his face remained stoic.
“What?”
“I’ll look into it. And if what you say is true, I promise you the review and decision process will change at the foundation.”
She believed him. Xavier might be a cold bastard now, but he’d always been a man of his word and she didn’t think something so elemental could have been altered by the accident.
However, his assurance did little to alleviate her predicament. “Thank you. I’m sure your query will certainly help someone next year. As for today, it doesn’t change anything. If the community center doesn’t receive aid, it will close in two weeks.”
He regarded her for long, silent moments. Gwendolyn endured the disquieting inspection though she longed to avert her gaze to the floor, the ceiling, the damn wallpaper—anything except his distant, gorgeous face.
“What are you willing to do to save the center, Gwendolyn?”
Surprise snatched the air and words from her throat. An image swam before her—a cat with emerald eyes batting its paw at a mouse, toying with the unlucky rodent that bore an uncanny resemblance to her.
Leery and more than a little suspicious, she studied him. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“Exactly what I said. What are you willing to do—to sacrifice—to save the community center?”
The better question would be what hadn’t she sacrificed to save the center? She’d agreed to a cut in salary, had extended her hours to compensate for the teachers’ shorter shifts. She opened the building at seven a.m. and locked the doors well after seven p.m. When she dragged into her small Dorchester apartment each night, her feet ached, her stomach grumbled and her head usually throbbed with worries about parents, bills and funding.
But right on the heels of those sacrifices came the rewards. The laughter of the children as they played kickball. The pride straightening the shoulders of the older teens as they walked across the stage to accept their high school diplomas. The gratefulness in a parent’s eyes as they picked up their child after work, knowing their son or daughter had been safe instead of in trouble on the streets.
“Anything,” she vowed. Yes, she was long on hours and short on pay, but the rewards couldn’t be numbered…or lost. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it open.”
A calculating gleam entered Xavier’s eyes and she almost retracted the pledge.
Oh God. So that’s what the devil looks like when he buys a soul.
“I can’t interfere with the process at this late date,” he said, drawing his hands from his pockets and crossing his arms. “Whether the committee’s actions were right or wrong, to step in now would penalize the recipient and, regardless of how the decision came to be, that’s not fair.”
Tough shit. She snorted and Xavier arched an eyebrow.
“There’s another alternative.” He paused and she resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder and measure the distance to the door. Once again she was the mouse to his cat. Except he’d surpassed the toying stage and was licking his paws in preparation for dinner—her. “I’ll personally fund the community center for a year. I’ll donate a check in the exact amount of the grant.”
Joy soared in her chest even as relief flooded her veins, washing away the stink of desperation she’d worn for months. She hadn’t expected him to—
Suspicion delivered a ringing reality slap. Wait a minute. She narrowed her eyes. The offer was generous yet the man she’d encountered this evening didn’t strike her as the magnanimous kind. Niggling doubt warned her a booby trap loomed one step after her agreement to his gift.
“That’s generous of you,” she hedged. Then paused. “What’s the catch?”
“You,” he murmured. “You spend seven days and nights with me…in my bed.” His lashes lowered and he stared at her from under a hooded gaze that promised sex and sin. The timbre of his voice had deepened, conjuring images of dark, hot nights and naughty acts she’d read about, dreamed about…touched herself to. “In other words, Gwendolyn, give me your body for the next week and your precious community center remains open.”
* * * * *
Even as he spoke—as his lips shaped the words—part of him couldn’t believe he’d vocalized the ultimatum. God, how far had he sunk? This was Gwendolyn, for fuck’s sake! He’d watched her grow from a knobby-kneed eight-year-old into a woman. Yet as her shock faded and fury tighten her face into a contemptuous mask, lust rose up beside the shame, capsizing the guilt until only need remained.
She was a bright, living flame—searing, passionate…damn, so much passion. She gave everything, held nothing back. Could he survive being on the receiving end of such fierce heat? Shit, he wanted to find out. He hungered to find out.
Since Evelyn left him, his sexual encounters had been reduced to escorts, well-compensated to pretend they found him irresistible. But he could only con himself into believing he didn’t notice t
heir flinches of revulsion or pity for so long. Fucking his fist had become more preferable…and less humiliating.
Gwendolyn didn’t ignore his disfigurement or avoid direct eye contact. No. Instead she squared off with him, challenging him. And it was hot as fuck. He skimmed down her smooth shoulders, slender arms and clenched fingers. Her wine-colored dress draped in clean folds down her full breasts, narrow waist and hips. His cock throbbed in greedy anticipation and he resisted the urge to fist his erection and squeeze to alleviate some of the ache.
More than his next breath, he wanted to lift the long sweep of material hiding her long legs, pretty thighs and sweetly curved ass. His palms itched as he conjured the silky glide of her smooth skin and the wet, creamy flesh of her pussy.
Wet for him.
Yeah, he may be a grade-A bastard for blackmailing her into fucking him, but damn if he could rummage up a conscience about it. His dick overruled principle.
“That’s not funny,” she bit out. “And your joke is in poor taste.”
“I don’t joke about half a million dollars.” He paused. “Or fucking.”
“What happened to you, Xavier?” The outrage bled from her tightened features, leaving behind the pity he detested. “Did that witch you called a fiancée hurt you so deeply you would sink to,” she waved a hand back and forth between them, “to this?”
He stiffened. Like hell they would discuss Evelyn. He didn’t want to think about her. Didn’t want to remember walking into their bedroom to discover his soon-to-be-bride—the woman he’d loved—riding another man. Didn’t want to recall her tear-filled eyes as she blamed his disfigured face for her betrayal.
“Are you involved with someone?”
“What?” Her brow crinkled as if she were puzzled at the brusque question and switch in subjects.
“Are you involved with someone?” he repeated.
Her head jerked as if an invisible fist had clipped her chin.
