Quarantined with the Billionaire

by Jade C. Jamison

  For some reason, the way he said those words cut me to my soul. I ached to hold him close, to comfort him the way he had me. But I knew that wouldn’t go over well at all. He’d want my comfort about as much as he’d want sympathy for his childhood. I could see now that the armor he wore was to protect himself as much as it was me.

  But he was so wrong. He could never hurt me—and I had to somehow convince him of that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Meals had been glorious affairs it the Steel house up to this point, but tonight’s dinner was subdued. Maddox made cheeseburgers.

  Yes, cheeseburgers. And fries.

  While we sat at the dining room table, I asked, “Seriously, Maddox, how can you stay in shape when you eat crap like you did today?”

  “I stay in shape because of that. Sunday is my cheat day. I have no Simon here on the weekend to feed me foods that are better for me, and I go all out.”

  “Yeah, but what about the chicken parmigiana and tiramisu?”

  “That was a special occasion.”

  “Was it?” I took a sip of the beer he’d poured into a frosted mug for me.

  “It was. Simon wanted to spoil you a little. He really does have superior skills in the kitchen.”

  “So do you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.” He took a big bite out of his burger but he was looking at my full plate. My appetite had yet to return. “Why aren’t you eating much?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Ha. I could see that didn’t set well with him—nor did I want it to.

  “Would I be able to request the pleasure of your company later?”

  “Doing what?”

  “After we’ve had time for our food to settle, we can work some of it off. Either swimming or dancing.”

  My mouth ran ahead of my brain again. “Yeah, because seeing you in next to nothing would do wonders for my psyche.”

  He arched an eyebrow, squinting in that way he often did—and it made my pussy clench. Why? Why was I torturing myself—and, worse yet, letting him torture me?

  “Dancing it is.”

  Crap. That hadn’t even phased him.

  “You were wrong about something, Maddox.”

  “Was I?”

  “Yeah. We’re not so alike.”

  Wiping his mouth with the linen napkin which seemed to contradict the food on our plates, he picked up his mug and peered through my soul. “Then why don’t you tell me why.”

  “I don’t think I want to tell you any of it.”

  “Suit yourself. But that will be the only way to convince me otherwise.”

  “Oh, no. You did far too good a job convincing me that I can’t trust you.”

  Lowering his head for a moment, he gently shook it from side to side before his eyes locked onto mine. “You can trust me with your words, Bailey. In that regard, I promise you I will never betray you. I suppose a better way to word it would be to tell you that I cannot be trusted. My behavior. The way I treat you. But I will never share your words with another soul, Bailey. I can promise you that.”

  I wanted to tell him. I really wanted to—but I didn’t know why. And I didn’t know that it would do any good at all. Except maybe it would explain to him why I was the way I was.

  And the nightmares.

  I picked up the mug of beer and downed what was left, immediately regretting it as gas built up in my chest, making me uncomfortable. But I wasn’t about to belch in front of this man. Especially considering what I was about to tell him.

  “My mom never finished high school. So she’s spent her entire life drifting from one crappy job to another. The first job I remember her having was at McDonald’s. Her manager pissed her off somehow and she quit. Without notice. She did that with a lot of jobs. She’d get angry for whatever reason and just quit. I’m pretty sure she got TANF and food stamps because of that, because I remember being at the Social Services building one day when I wasn’t in school. It was so crowded there and I remember playing with some kids in a lobby where there were toys in a corner—and my mom calling me back to her, telling me not to play with those dirty kids.”

  Maddox raised a brow, but his eyes told me that nothing I’d said so far was shocking. Not that I had expected it to be.

  “Anyway, that was my entire childhood. She’d miss parent-teacher conferences. And every once in a while, she’d call my dad and scream at him. But there were so many times she couldn’t make rent. Or I’d have to sleep on the kitchen floor with the gas oven on low to keep me warm, because the electricity had been turned off. And we were constantly moving.

  “Until the place on Stout Street. I was thirteen, I think. The landlord there was more than happy to have us live there forever—so long as mom would sleep with him whenever he came calling. More than once, I’d come home from school and leave right after. It’s disturbing hearing the sounds of your mom pretending to enjoy sex.” I dropped my head, not wanting to look him in the eyes. I hadn’t talked about this stuff since I’d decided therapy wasn’t helping. Apparently, those wounds still hadn’t completely scarred over.

  Especially the part I didn’t intend to talk about.

  But when Maddox sat in the chair beside me, touching the bottom of my chin, he wiped away a tear and held me for the longest time—long after my tears stopped. After I took a sip of water, I began talking again—but I couldn’t look him in the eye for now.

  “It was uncomfortable, but I managed. I’d skateboard around the block a few times or hang out on the steps, but there were some weird people who lived in the same building. I was better off skateboarding, as long as I stayed away from the drug deals. One day I came home from school, and mom was nowhere to be found. I think she was working as a CNA at the time. The landlord was there, asking me when mom was planning to pay the rent. I can’t remember exactly how it went down, but he got his payment out of me.”

  Maddox’s arm around my shoulders felt warm. Loving. Protective. After a while, he spoke. It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t. “He raped you.”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t tell my mom about it, but she wondered why he wasn’t asking about the rent. I just went straight to bed that night before she even got home. I was a virgin, and he ripped me apart. Mom didn’t even notice that I didn’t go to school the next day, either. By the time I could walk without a limp, she’d forgotten all about it.

  “I started carrying a knife with me. He never tried again but that didn’t matter. I slept with that stupid knife under my pillow and my dresser pushed against my door.”

  “That’s why you have the nightmares.”

  I nodded, resting my head against his chest.

  “You were right, Bailey. I don’t have anything like that in my past. I’m…sorry.”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “I know, but—I know this. A lot of men in positions of power use those positions to take advantage of women. Both you and your mother were taken advantage of by that guy. Do you happen to remember his name?”

  “No. And I don’t plan to spend my life seeking revenge. But I’ve had a hard time throughout my life forgiving my mother.”

  “I never would have guessed that. You sounded like a dutiful daughter on the phone.”

  “It’s easier over the phone. But it’s going to take a long time for me to be able to let it all go. Maybe I’ll never be able to.”

  “The last thing you need right now is preaching—but I can tell you letting go is the hardest thing to do. If you can, though, you free your own soul.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “It’s easier said than done.” He squeezed my shoulder, holding me close, but my tears had dried up. I refused to give that monster in my past any more of my energy.

  Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and turned my head to look Maddox in the eye. “So…swimming is out of the question. I’m not much of a dancer, but I’m willing to give it a shot. Where in this place do you dance?”

&nbs
p; “In the gym, of course. It’s got those beautiful floors and lots of space. There’s a little space to move by the piano upstairs. It has the perfect ambience but not as much room.”

  “A guy like you should have a ballroom.”

  “Yeah. Maybe in my next home.”

  If anyone could afford it, it would be Maddox.

  “I’d been thinking about dancing to work off all that food, but I think we need something different. I like the idea of dancing upstairs.”

  “Should I wear my workout clothes?”

  “No. I like the idea you gave me. Ballroom dancing.”

  I laughed then, my body saturating itself in endorphins, perfect after my crying jag. “I definitely don’t have anything appropriate.”

  “But I do. Follow me.”

  “The dishes—”

  “I’ll take care of them later.” He led me by the hand upstairs until we entered one of the smaller bedrooms. I hadn’t really explored those spaces, hadn’t thought to. In fact, the one space upstairs that continued to intrigue me was the one place I wasn’t allowed to go.

  He walked over to a small closet, unlike the walk-in versions in the master bedrooms. Opening the door, he motioned for me to join him. “Kate never took all of her clothes. All of her formal gowns she left here. Having them around probably would have been a reminder of me.”

  I pulled one out, a pretty black gown that was completely backless, doubting I could pull the look off.

  “There are shoes down there. Some of them have never been worn.”

  “I don’t know, Maddox. Don’t you think it’s strange having me wear your ex-wife’s clothes?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just wanted us to do something together tonight.”

  I got ready to protest, feeling a little creeped out, but the look on his face was so sincere, so warm.

  The Maddox I was starting to feel more for than I should.

  “Okay. When are we doing this?”

  “In an hour?”

  Nodding my head, I watched him leave the room and started looking through the dresses. There was a beautiful red gown covered in a plastic bag from a dry cleaner’s. I pulled it out from between a satiny emerald dress and a black velvet one before holding it up against my body while looking in the full-length mirror beside the closet. It was more gorgeous than anything I’d ever worn. The outer layer was lace over a short, silky skirt. The dress was sleeveless with a plunging neckline.

  Starting to put it back, I changed my mind at the last second. Maddox wanted to put the genie back in the bottle. We could definitely do that—but I wanted him to see what he’d be missing.

  Every little bit of it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  An hour gave me plenty of time to get the redness out of my face and my eyes, to put on darker makeup, and to make sure the dress fit. Oh, it fit. A little too snuggly. My breasts were on display like cornucopia at Thanksgiving, and I gave up on panties, because they dug into me whenever I got the dress into place.

  The shoes, too, were just a bit snug, making me think that Kate was a little smaller than I.

  And I wasn’t that great with updos, either, but I managed a messy bun, something I could pull off. I didn’t have wispies; I had flyaways all over, but it worked for me. I also didn’t have much jewelry, but I wore a pretty pair of sparkly earrings and called it good.

  The red lipstick, though, that was the capper. I’d brought it with me from my apartment, just because it was in my makeup drawer, but I didn’t wear it very often. Tonight, it was perfect, though. Any other color on my lips would have literally paled in comparison.

  I waited until the exact minute and then opened my bedroom door. At first, I didn’t see Maddox until, as I walked farther into the space, I spied him sitting at the piano. He wasn’t poised to play or any such thing, but he’d been staring at the keys. Soft music piped through speakers I couldn’t even see.

  There was no reading his expression when he looked up, but it was almost like he didn’t recognize me. When he stood, I wouldn’t have suspected it, though, because he offered me a hand. He wore a classic black-and-white tux, but it couldn’t quite cover up the musculature underneath. Perhaps that was because I knew what the layers of fabric were hiding.

  “I thought about salsa or tango, but you said you’re not much of a dancer. How much ballroom dancing have you done in the past?”

  I couldn’t help the smile threatening to rip my face in two. “Well, if it tells you anything, I don’t know the difference between the two dances you just named.”

  “Fair enough.” He held a hand out to me. “And you look stunning, but the way you’re moving, I suspect maybe those shoes are a little too snug.”

  Nodding, I realized the pain they were causing my toes was evident on my face. When I’d first put them on, I’d thought I could tough it out, but dancing wasn’t going to be fun with them on. “Do you care if I take them off?”

  “No, go ahead. I don’t want you torturing yourself just to dance.”

  He was quite a built taller than I, so the heels would have brought me closer to his level, but it wouldn’t have lasted long in those shoes anyway. Soon, I would have had blisters. “Thanks,” I said, sitting at the piano bench to pry the beautiful pumps off my aching feet.

  As I stood, he held out his hand and I took it. “Have you ever waltzed before?”

  I couldn’t help the giggle. “Not on purpose.” His eyes quizzed me, so I clarified. “About the only kind of dancing I’ve done in the past is slow dancing in a gym with other teenagers.”

  “So you don’t dance for pleasure.”

  “I haven’t. But I’m willing to learn.”

  He flashed me a smile to show he was pleased. “Very good. The waltz is fairly simple, especially if you let me lead.” He wrapped an arm around my waist while taking my other hand in his, and I concentrated on having my feet follow his. “See, it’s a simple one-two-three.” Counting the steps out loud, he helped me get the rhythm in my head. “If you’re familiar with rumba, you might find it funny that the waltz at one time was considered a little naughty.”

  “Really?” I did find that funny, as there didn’t seem to be anything sexual about it. Maybe that was because I was busy counting my steps.

  “It’s because people were dancing with their bodies close.” To emphasize his words, his firm hand pressed gently against my back while his body pushed into me from the front. I looked up at him, now only mouthing the numbers, but his blazing eyes had my full attention.

  “I get it now.”

  “Exactly. The dance allows for no space between the couple, should they choose to be close.”

  “Yeah, but slow dancing in school was like that, too.”

  “Yes, in our modern era. But imagine eighteenth century Europe. Aristocratic women were clothed from head to toe, often in multiple layers, in an effort to prevent any prurient thought. They were trying so hard to not think about the one damned thing they wanted to do but were forbidden unless married. No looking, no touching. Then you throw in a dance like this where it would be easy to pull your partner close.” His steps slid me around the room, my bare feet gliding across the cool floor, but he was correct. My mind was no longer on dancing.

  I was almost breathless. “I see your point.”

  He paused then, loosening his grip against me. “And I see already this was a bad move on my part.”

  “As a non-dancer, I can say I was enjoying it. But maybe you’d rather do something else, like hip hop. Or tap. We wouldn’t have to touch then.”

  “I’m afraid that wouldn’t work, Bailey. There’s something about watching you move that arrests my brain, stops it from functioning properly.”

  He further loosened his grip on my hand so that one of our limbs draped on the side of our bodies, but we each still had an arm wrapped around the torso of the other. “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “Only when you know you can’t go on.”

  Why I fe
lt so bold now, I would never know, but my lips once more got ahead of my brain. “But I’m here right now. Once this whole Coronavirus thing is over, everything will go back to normal. You’ll be here in your mansion; I’ll be in my little apartment just a few blocks from work. I’ll see you, like, maybe once or twice a year—”

  “You’re considering staying with my company?”

  Sighing, I closed my eyes, trying to regather my thoughts. “I don’t know, Maddox. If I don’t, then it’ll be all the easier for you to just go on with your life like you seem to want. All I know…” Shaking my head, I slowly lifted it, opening my eyes to look up in his. There were no blue oceans in them anymore—his eyes were nothing but dark storms roiling inside his head, hiding his every thought from me. “All I know is I have never felt as safe in my life as I do in your arms. I’ll be okay to go back to life before I came here. Being strong, surviving—it’s what I’ve always done. But why can’t I relax and enjoy the calm feeling I have when I’m around you?”

  “But your hand is shaking, Bailey. That feels like fear to me. What’s making you tremble like that?”

  “My body wakes up when it’s around you, Maddox. It’s this overwhelming onslaught of weird chemicals flowing through my body. Like the first time I had to give a speech in high school. My whole body shook so bad, I was like a jackhammer and on the verge of throwing up.”

  One side of his lips turned up. “I make you want to throw up?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “I know.” He touched his lips to my forehead. “You’re not entirely wrong, Bailey. The problem is not that you’d be gone. The problem is that I have a hell of a time letting go.”

  I wanted to ask him what he meant, but his lips crushed against mine, silencing any other words that might have come out. And I couldn’t help but respond. I felt so irrational, so stupid and flighty as I admitted to myself that I loved this man. It shouldn’t have happened—made no logical sense—and yet here I was completely buried in that strange emotion.

  It was then that I also realized I’d never loved another man before. If I thought I had at one time, I’d been sadly mistaken.