by C. C. Piper
“The newest of which is The Oleander in Las Vegas,” I guessed.
“Correct.”
“So you’ve got it all,” I said, not unkindly. “A fortune and a dream come true.”
“That was one of my dreams, yes.” His face darkened for a moment, but it was gone as fast as it’d appeared. “What about you? What’s your dream?”
“Oh, God.” I laughed as I took another sip of wine. “I don’t think I have one.”
“But you’re an entrepreneur yourself. Don’t you like what you do?”
“I do,” I answered. “Sketching and drawing have always been my life. I sort of fell into freelance work once I finished my degree in graphic design.”
“Do you ever wish you could draw your own stuff for a living?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes. I wouldn’t mind becoming a children’s book illustrator. There’s something about putting pen or colored pencils to paper for the sake of a story.”
“What’s stopping you?”
It didn’t sound like a challenge. It sounded like a legitimate question. Regardless, my reply came out a bit tactlessly. “Some of us have bills to pay.”
He dropped it after that, thank God. We reverted back to easier topics—hobbies, movies, Las Vegas hot spots. All the awkwardness I typically experienced around him fell away, and we eventually found ourselves sitting on the couch, each nursing two fingers of a prized Irish whiskey. The flavor was smoky and delicious and smooth as all hell.
Everything felt almost domestic. Sitting on a man’s couch, him wearing sweatpants and me wearing faded blue jeans, drinking liquor, jazz still playing. Under different circumstances, it would’ve been downright cozy.
Something more than the alcohol warmed my belly as I watched the muscles of James’ throat work as he swallowed, and I did my best to remain wary.
“Got to love a woman who can handle her liquor,” he said, nodding toward my glass.
I rolled my eyes. “You know for a fact I cannot handle substantial amounts of liquor in any way, shape or form. But then again, neither can you.”
He hesitated at my words, then burst out laughing. “Touché.”
I decided not to stop to notice that I’d just made a joke about the mess we’d put ourselves in which felt anything but humorous up until now. Ironic much?
“So, I’ve been thinking…” He said after a few minutes of relaxed silence.
“Nothing good has ever followed that sentence,” I said, taking a sip of whiskey.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But what if I told you I wanted to make a slight modification to our current arrangement?”
Ice flowed through my veins. I should’ve known he couldn’t be so unceasingly patient and chivalrous forever. “No,” I said, forcefully. My hand curled so tightly around my tumbler that my knuckles went white. “I told you. I’m not going to do that.”
“What?” He seemed utterly bewildered for a beat before somehow managing the impossible feat of both flushing and turning a shade paler at the same time. “No, no. I know that. That’s not what I’m talking about. Sex is still off the table.”
“Oh.” I finished my whiskey in one gulp and set the glass down on the coffee table. “What is it, then?”
“I think you should move in here for a while. A month, let’s say,” he amended. “You’re obviously more at home here than you are when we go to expensive restaurants.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. He had a point. Tonight had been more pleasant than on all our previous “dates” combined. But… “I do have to work and keep tabs on my brother, you know.”
“I know. But you can do both from here. I’ll set up an office space for you in the house. It’ll have a fast internet connection and no distractions. Maybe you’ll even be inspired to do some illustration work.”
“Why?”
“Same reason as before. I want to get to know you. We had a good time this evening, right?”
I was loath to admit it, but I had to give credit where credit was due. “I guess.”
“If you agree to stay for a solid month, thirty days, I’ll free you of your obligation.”
I did a double take at that. “You mean…?”
“We’ll call it even. One month in the same house will equal five months worth of dates.”
“Thirty days, no more?” I asked again, wanting to make sure.
“Thirty days,” he confirmed. “And then we’ll draft and sign the annulment papers, and you can forget all about me.”
“What do I tell my brother?”
James shrugged. “Tell him you have to spend a month in-house at a client’s office for a project, and you’ll be staying in an apartment closer to the city to wipe out the commute.”
“Wow,” I breathed out in a gust. “That’s actually… a really good lie. You’re scarily good at this.”
“Better than you, for sure, Emma Morris.”
“Gloating seems unnecessary, James Carter,” I fired back at him while pouring more whiskey for myself.
He laughed again. I felt it reverberating in my chest as well as some unmentionable points south. Why it had such an effect on me, I had no idea.
“So, do we have a new deal?” He held out a hand to me, and I shook it.
“We have a new deal.”
9
James
Recruiting Kevin and Charlie to be Emma’s moving crew seemed like a no-brainer. I couldn’t be there myself to pitch in due to a business meeting, but the men agreed to do my bidding without complaint. With an amount of alacrity I hadn’t anticipated, they rented a truck, loaded her belongings, and arrived back at the villa.
It appeared there was nothing the Wish Maker and her blub couldn’t accomplish in short order.
As I climbed aboard my private jet to meet with another drink vendor, though, I found myself constantly checking my security camera app. At first, I told myself this was simply a way to monitor the progress of the move. But after watching the footage of Emma unpacking in one of my guest rooms, I felt a twinge of something unidentifiable slither up my spine.
I was halfway through the proceedings with the vendor—I’d discovered the one I’d been using had been charging me three times what this vendor would—when my phone vibrated in my pocket again. I glanced at my screen to see that it was a notification from my security app.
I crushed my impulse to interrupt the meeting.
Normally, I didn’t monitor such activity myself. A security firm in town kept tabs on my home, only alerting me if something unusual popped up. Yet I’d felt compelled to turn on my notifications today to watch for myself. It took over an hour to straighten out all the minute details with the vendor. By the time a fresh contract had been signed, I was chomping at the bit.
I needed to scrutinize exactly what Emma might be doing.
Only once I started to play the videos on my screen did it occur to me what that twinge I’d been feeling all day might be.
Trepidation.
I watched as this woman in a tank top and jeans, her left arm covered in tattoos, set up residence in my home and wondered what had possessed me to ask her to stay. I mean, yes, we’d made a deal. And, yes, our last dinner had—finally—gone well. But giving her unhindered access to my personal abode and valuables?
What the hell was I thinking?
As anxious as I’d been for Emma’s company and as much as I wanted to trust her, right then I couldn’t do anything but fear that I’d just made a massive mistake. The question was what action should I take? I sat there within the luxurious confines of my jet, my phone in my hand while I peered out unseeingly at the reddish-brown expanse of land stretching beneath me.
I took several deep breaths and closed my eyes, not sure why I’d chosen this particular moment to lose my ever-loving shit. If I asked her to leave after working so hard to convince her to stay, she’d probably react… well, poorly. I might not know Emma all that well, but I could say that she most definitely had a temper. She might keep her fury b
anked most of the time, but I’d seen the fire in her eyes flash at me more than once.
It’s part of what I found so attractive about her.
I stroked my chin and took a metaphorical step back. Nothing about dealing with this woman had been ideal, and the more cynical part of my brain had just thrown me a worst-case scenario. What if she had ulterior motives for agreeing to move in with me?
But then, I made myself stop borrowing trouble. I’d only perused the first couple of videos, so I decided not to do anything until I’d reviewed them all. So, I did. I watched Emma unpack a series of boxes and garment bags. There were relatively few to my mind.
Once she’d finished, she studied the design elements inside her room. When I’d first taken up residence at the villa, I’d asked Amy, my interior designer, to make the place comfortable and cozy. She’d suggested a sequence of loosely connected themes for the various parts of the house, each one providing its own level of serenity.
So, my kitchen and all the living space on the first level were all about modern minimalism. The kitchen, while tricked out with every possible appliance I might ever need, was a study of clean lines and stainless steel. The long obsidian island, while holding a large double sink, garbage disposal, and lots of storage space, offered me plenty of uncluttered surface area to work with. The black tile backsplash and industrial fixtures completed the look.
The living room featured an atrium with a skylight overhead and open walkways with only enough black leather furniture to entertain with. The walls had been painted slate gray with a two-sided white brick fireplace built into the wall separating the living room from the sunroom.
One level up, there was a gym, a couple of bathrooms, and three guest rooms, all crafted with the turquoise and white accents reminiscent of the beach. The nautical motif flowed throughout the floor, each room ranging in color scheme from blues to greens to whites.
Then, on the top level, the hues went from cool to warm with soft tans, yellows, and browns. This final floor paid homage to the southwest influence prevalent in that quadrant of Nevada. My own bedroom and office spread across much of this space and showcased a brown leather headboard and more of a pueblo, rustic design. I loved living there.
But ever since that morning when I’d awakened to find myself the victim of a con job, the villa had felt just a little less warm and welcoming. It’d been the place where I’d been shaken down and played for a fool. And even though I believe Emma had legitimate reasons for doing what she did, I didn’t like that my own sense of wellbeing and safety had been breached.
Emma had broken my faith, but this was her chance to repair that break. She could prove herself to be trustworthy if she so chose. If she did, I felt like my home would feel like a haven again, rather than a shrine to my naivete.
I was taking a risk and putting myself out there for her again, but I hoped that by being willing to do so, she’d respond in kind. Then, maybe both of us could loosen up and feel better in spite of everything that had happened between us.
At a certain point in the footage, Emma left her room with its attached en suite bathroom and began to explore the rest of my villa. She wandered around the second floor, ducking into the small office area I’d told Kevin and Charlie to set up for her.
Then, she took in the abstract paintings of waves and seascapes along the hallway to ease herself downstairs. Maybe I was being a little jaded, but I kept waiting for her to do something I didn’t like, something that might even tempt me to toss her out.
Would she sneak into the wet bar between the kitchen and dining room and make off with an exorbitantly priced bottle of wine, Scotch whiskey or bourbon?
Would she go upstairs to my office—especially since she’d been there before—and go for the safe again? Or maybe search through my dresser drawers on the hunt for something else valuable she could conveniently hawk?
My eyes followed everything she did and every place she meandered through, my trepidation reaching an all-time peak.
But then, it faded away. Because Emma didn’t do anything eyebrow-raising at all.
She simply drifted from room to room as if curious. As if she’d been admitted to a museum full of artifacts she couldn’t touch. She steered clear of the top floor—and my safe—as if under a restraining order, a fact I found fascinating. Emma had no way of knowing she was under surveillance. All the cameras installed throughout the villa were minuscule and undetectable.
Therefore, I took her being on her best behavior as a positive omen.
Maybe she wouldn’t continue to act like a parolee fearful of going back to jail, but for the moment, she wasn’t doing anything improper.
It took several long minutes of watching her to realize that she was padding around barefoot. For some reason, that tiny detail caused the knot of dread and apprehension in my gut to slacken.
One, because having bare feet meant she probably wasn’t planning to grab a bunch of crap and make a run for it. And two, it meant she must feel relaxed enough to take off her shoes. Being barefooted made her vulnerable, and the fact that she was willing to let herself do that in my house brought me a colossal sense of relief.
When she stepped into the sunroom and her hand outlined the canvas hammock along one side, I felt some peculiar emotion swallow me. I often laid in that hammock when I needed to think, and her being there now felt almost intimate to me.
Her fingers playing with the soft tassels hanging off each end, she turned her gaze to look out over the terrace outside. The cement of the patio floor expanded out toward my kidney bean-shaped pool, and I wondered if now that she was unpacked, she might take a dip.
The idea of seeing such a spectacle as Emma Morris in a swimsuit—or without one—sent a frisson of lust through me.
Despite what she’d done to me, I couldn’t deny that I was still attracted to this woman. Her long sun-kissed hair waved down her back like it refused to be tamed—much like Emma herself—and I’d found her features exquisitely beautiful from the second I’d laid eyes on them. And that enticing body of hers, too. Damn. Especially since I’d felt that body up against me.
Even if it was fully clothed.
I wondered how it would feel if she were to be bare instead?
I blinked and shook myself from my reverie. My pants had tightened dramatically at the thought of all of Emma’s tattooed skin being available and on display, but I couldn’t go there. Despite the marriage license we’d so flippantly signed, we weren’t married in the truest sense of the word. I yearned to learn more about her.
We weren’t a couple. We weren’t in love and likely never would be. So I would need to make use of this time I had with her in my home. For now, I had a companion, as hesitant as she might be.
Maybe over the course of our month together we could become friends along the way? Dating hadn’t turned out all that well for us, but maybe we could develop some sort of relationship that would benefit both of us.
Though I knew I might be walking into a trap, there was something so entrancing about this woman, something I couldn’t seem to ignore. I needed to travel further down the road with her.
Even if I wound up not liking where that road would end.
10
Emma
Although I’d been to James’ spacious villa twice before, I’d never been here with the express understanding that I would be staying for a determined length of time. That first crazy night I’d raced from here as if shot out of a cannon. And the second time, while feeling less like a hit and run, was still only for a few brief hours.
Now, I’d be here for the duration of a month. I didn’t know how to cope with the tumble of sensations that engendered within me.
While James had told me that he wanted my company—a companion—I still couldn’t quite make that compute. James Carter could have any woman he wanted with nothing more than a flare of his smile. I knew he must be hiding some other set of intentions for our time together, but I didn’t know what they were.
/> He must have an agenda.
So it was with a healthy heap of wariness that I roamed through his home looking for clues. I didn’t know what I thought I’d discover. A BDSM playroom full of whips and sex toys? Proof of some other tackiness like animal heads on a wall or life-sized pictures of naked women? Maybe a room stuffed to the brim with junk like a Hoarders episode.
But nothing even close to any of that materialized. Instead, I found a gorgeously and surprisingly modestly appointed home.
Every object of his decor gave off an air of understated wealth and classiness. The carpets and oriental rugs were thick and lush, the furnishings contemporary but not cold. His kitchen was the most tricked out room by far, evidence of his love of food and being a chef. Yet nothing seemed over the top or impractical. It didn’t feel like your typical bachelor pad, either.
He didn’t have a flat-screen that took up nearly one whole wall or a collection of beer bottles lined up on his shelves. Instead, the residence could’ve been featured in a homey magazine spread. This was not the domain of some spoiled rotten frat boy, but a grown-ass man, successful and intelligent.
It only turned my guilt for what I’d done to him into a spasm of regret.
I kept telling myself I’d had to do it for Evan, that my brother must always come first. That was still a given, but what wasn’t a given was that I felt okay about screwing over James. Yes, my hand had been forced, but it sucked that the dude taking the hit for it came across as such a nice person.
Ugh!
Yet, I couldn’t quite accept that James could be as nice as he seemed. No man was a saint and I didn’t believe in fairy tales with their Prince Charmings. Not to mention that this whole shortening of my sentence from five months to one felt way too good to be true.
