Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER TWELVE

ROSALINDWANDEREDINTO the kitchen the next evening. She’d slept well past her usual rising time, a pleasant ache between her thighs. And had stayed in her room for the rest of the day. Not quite daring to leave, not quite knowing what she’d do if she ran into Griffith.

Her emotions were still all over the place.

You’ve brought it on yourself.

Griffith had asked her right before he’d invited her into his room if she could handle a simple affair. He’d been nothing but honest with her about what this was, where it was headed. Yet during their lovemaking, the tender way he’d touched her even as he’d worshipped her body like he could barely stand not touching her, followed by the gentle way he’d cleaned her after... He was a practiced lover doing what he did best.

She knew that. Or at least her mind did. Her heart, however, had other ideas.

“Good evening.”

Startled, she turned to see Griffith framed in the doorway. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm against her ribs as she forced what she hoped was a relaxed smile onto her face.

“Good evening.”

His eyes roamed over her, as if he was trying to discern what she was thinking. Apparently finding nothing amiss, he advanced into the kitchen. Dressed in a white V-neck shirt and navy pants, he looked ridiculously handsome for someone dressed so casually.

“I trust you’ve had a good day?”

She smirked at him, dug deep for a confidence she didn’t feel. “Very.”

His eyebrows drew together. She didn’t respond, simply watched and waited. Even if she didn’t feel casual and carefree about their time together, she would not show him the turmoil inside her. Partly pride, partly embarrassment.

Perhaps a little bit of heartbreak, too, her devious mind whispered.

She saw him hesitate and sighed.

“Griffith, I don’t want things to be awkward. Last night was fun, but I’m not trying to stalk you. I just came down for some food.”

“I didn’t think you were.” He nodded toward the refrigerator. “Join me?”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t,” he said as he moved past her and opened the fridge door. “You’re hungry. I’m hungry. Join me.”

Put like that, there wasn’t a good reason to refuse. The “dining nook,” as Griffith had called it, was bigger than the kitchen and dining room in her small apartment put together. Set in a large alcove off the kitchen, the massive windows offered soothing views of the rose garden.

“How do you not spend more time here?”

He glanced out the window. Tension tightened his face for a moment before his expression smoothed out.

“Too far away from my work.”

The lie hurt. Ridiculous, she told herself as she speared a bite of peach covered in zesty dressing. They’d had sex once. He’d made it perfectly clear that after she left the chateau, they wouldn’t have anything else to do with each other on a personal level.

Except that when he’d made love to her, there had been moments, numerous moments, when she’d sensed something more from him. A sweetness that had not only relaxed her but also enhanced the experience of sharing her body with a man. An intimacy that had gone beyond the physical and into something that had rocked her to her core.

Perhaps, she brooded as she stared down at her panzanella salad, it had all been in her head. An intimacy born from years of built-up expectations and fantasies concocted from her readings. What had seemed like true love in the dark of night had more than once turned out to be a simple case of lust.

Not that I’m in love.

That was ridiculous. Griffith might be an incredible lover. But not only had he made it clear he had no interest in any type of actual relationship, he wasn’t the kind of man she wanted to build a life with. Cold, selfish, no interest in a family of his own.

You had great sex. Let the rest go. Move on.

She turned the conversation to something she was far more comfortable with: business.

“I saw your company announced your return date next month.”

“No work talk.” Before she could apologize, he leaned forward. “Tell me more about you.”

Flustered, she swallowed, then coughed on the peach. She took a large sip of sparkling wine.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Just...not the question I was expecting.”

“Why not?”

Now she saw just why this man had been such an authoritative figure in the shipping industry. He could charm someone with that direct gaze of his. He might think his physical scars had marred his features to the point no one would want to look at him. But even with the jagged mark that cut down the left side of his face, the fading nicks and cuts on his cheek and jaw, he was still handsome. Handsome with an innate power that filled a room.

“Um...” She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I’m not that interesting.”

His eyes sharpened. “You’re an American living in London and working for one of the most prestigious firms in estate law. You somehow talked your way into the Diamond Club. You’re very interesting.”

She barely stopped herself from preening. “Oh. Thank you.”

No one had thought her interesting before. Her parents had constantly complimented her hard work and initiative. Her teachers had sided with them, encouraging her to apply for scholarships, to get out of town before she got stuck.

No one had stopped to ask what she wanted. If she was unhappy living in their village by the sea. If she wanted to stay in the community she’d grown up in. Instead, they’d heaped their own unfulfilled and forgotten dreams on her shoulders.

“How did you end up in England?”

“An international internship program. In my second year of law school, we had to secure an internship. One of my professors recommended me for Nettleton Thompson.”

He tilted his head to one side. “You didn’t want it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She took another sip of wine. She’d never told anyone how she’d really felt as her career had progressed at lightning speed.

Who better to tell than a man you’ll never see again?

“I was excited about the internship. About living and working in London for a summer. But it was just supposed to be one summer.” She smiled slightly. “My mother flew over for a long weekend the summer I had my internship. She was so excited for me.” Her smile faltered for a moment. “Probably more excited than I was,” she admitted softly, not wanting to meet his eyes. To admit he’d been right. With a quick inhale, she continued. “We crammed so much into those three days. Tower of London, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace. We were supposed to go on the Eye, but it was closed for a private event.”

Silence descended.

“What happened to her?”

“An infection. The February after my internship, she caught pneumonia. We thought everything was okay. But four months later she had a lung infection.” She swallowed hard. “She didn’t make it.”

A hand settled over hers. Startled, her head snapped up. Griffith gazed at her with something akin to compassion in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Rosalind.”

He squeezed her hand before releasing her. She took a moment to work past the lump in her throat before she spoke. “I had gotten a job offer from Nettleton Thompson the month before she passed. Everyone in my town was so excited for me, including my mom. I think because I enjoyed the internship everyone just assumed I would be equally excited about the job offer.”

“But you weren’t.”

“I just never imagined myself working somewhere like that. Or with clients who could afford a place like Nettleton Thompson.”

“But you didn’t want to let your parents down.”

“No.” She pushed a tomato around her bowl with her fork. “Especially after my mom died, doing something else felt like a betrayal. My parents worked hard to save up for me to go to college.”

“What would they have said if you had told them you wanted something else?”

Surprised by the question, she set the fork down and leaned back in her chair. She stared out over the garden, over the silver light of the moon casting a glow over the roses, the shimmer added to the water splashing down from the fountainhead into the pool.

“I don’t know. They would have encouraged me to go after my dreams. But,” she added as she looked at him, “they would have been disappointed. It sounds so simple. Do what you want, accept your parents might be sad or not fully accept your choice.”

“It’s not simple.”

Griffith’s voice whipped out, harsh and guttural. She didn’t take it personally. She had a pretty good idea of where his pain lay, of the reason behind his hurt.

“No. It’s not simple at all.”

“So all work and no play for Miss Sutton?”

“Hard to advance in your career if you’re off playing.”

“Is that why you are...were,” he corrected as one corner of his mouth lifted, “a virgin?”

“Pretty much.” She sighed. “I dated. But never long enough for me to feel comfortable with things going to the next level. And then I just decided to wait until...”

Her voice trailed off. She’d been about to say she had decided to wait until she found a man she thought she might spend the rest of her life with. That wouldn’t have gone over well.

“Until what?”

“Until I found someone I was very attracted to.”

The look on his face told her he saw right through her lie. But given that he had lied to her about his reasons for not spending more time at the chateau, she shoved her guilt away.

“I don’t regret waiting. But I do wish I had... I don’t know, lived a little more. Had more adventures.”

“Having fun isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

The darkness in his tone caught her, stopped her from saying the joke that had risen to her lips.

He trailed two fingers up and down the stem of his wineglass, his gaze turning distant as he retreated into the past. “Indulging for the sake of indulgence. Buying things because they’re expensive. Attending parties because of who will be in attendance and not because you want to go.” His fingers tightened on the wineglass. He tilted it up, drained the contents, then set it back down with a precision that belied the seething grief and fury she saw in his eyes. “Living in a constant state of working hard and playing just as hard to avoid dealing with something hard.”

He leaned back, angled his body so that even though he was looking at her, he physically shut himself off from her. She felt the loss as acutely as if he’d stood up and walked away.

“So perhaps you did yourself a favor. Working hard and staying focused.”

The last words dripped with bitterness and self-loathing.

“I doubt someone who increased the value of his family’s business as much as you did didn’t work hard,” she said gently.

“I did work hard. I just played harder. Bought new properties, spent only one night in each of them, sold them the next day. Went to auctions at Christie’s or Sotheby’s and bought the entire lot because I could. Slept with women whose names I didn’t know because they wanted me. Wanted a piece of the millionaire shipping heir, and I wanted sex.” His head snapped around, his eyes hard as rock. “Fun is fun until it leads to death. Destruction.”

Her heart shuddered, cracked. She wanted to reach out, soothe the anguish from his face and offer him comfort.

A comfort she knew he wasn’t ready to receive.

His chair legs grated on the floor as he stood. He collected their plates and carried them into the kitchen. She stayed at the table, turned his confession over in her mind as she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

“Did you always indulge like that?”

A plate clattered in the sink. He stood with his back to her, the muscles in his back tense and pressing against his skin.

“Most of my adult life, yes.”

“When did it start?”

“Does it matter?”

He turned then, leaned back against the sink and crossed one leg over the other as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his pants. His broad shoulders, bare to her gaze, slowly dropped, as if he was forcing himself to relax, to appear cavalier.

“I think it does.”

He shrugged. “I don’t. It was a way of life for me. Now it’s not.”

“But it still seems to bother you. Like you were living that way of life but not really enjoying it. Like you were doing it for another reason and now regret it.”

He pushed off the sink and stalked toward her.

“Maybe I was.” He grabbed her hands and hauled her to her feet. “Maybe I wasn’t.” He looped an arm around her waist, yanked her against his body. “But I can tell you I don’t regret last night.”

“Griffith—”

“We only have a few days. Let’s make the most of it.”

The words cut her heart. She knew why he’d said them. To remind her this was nothing more than sex, a short affair that would begin and end at the Chateau du Bellerose.

Terms you accepted. Terms that were worth both the pain and the pleasure.

He cut off her next words with a searing kiss that reawakened her desire. She hesitated, then pushed her wavering aside. She’d asked for this. Demanded it. If she only had days to experience this level of need, then she was going to take them and enjoy every single, passion-filled second.

Armed with her newfound confidence, she rose up on her toes, met him this time as an equal as she nipped at his lower lip, drew back a fraction when he tried to deepen the kiss. Glorified in the growl that sounded like it had been ripped from his throat before he took her mouth again.

As his hands slid beneath her bottom, pulled her hips against him, discomfort flickered through her. Was he using sex to distract her? To keep her attention on the pleasure coursing through her body and off him?

I can’t offer you anything but sex.

He’d been clear. Laid down the rules. No matter how curious she was, how much she yearned to know him on a deeper level, she had no right to ask more.

With that, she let go of her questions and surrendered to the passion he offered. Let go of thoughts of tomorrow, a week from now, a month. Indulged in the intoxicating sensation of enjoying the now.

Seized by a brazen boldness she’d never experienced, she broke the kiss, slid down his body and dropped to her knees. Satisfaction wound through her as his eyes widened.

Her fingers gripped his waistband and pulled down. When she wrapped her fingers around his length, he shuddered. She stroked him, watched the fire in his eyes burn even hotter as she lowered her head. She took him in her mouth, moaned at the intimacy, at feeling him pulse against her tongue.

She experimented, moving slow and steady, then fast. He hardened, thighs tensing beneath her hands as his head dropped back and he groaned.

“Enough.”

He barked the command as he reached down and grabbed her arms, hauled her to her feet.

“I want to be inside you when I come.”

Thrilled by his words, by the fever descending over her skin, made all the more potent by their previous intimacy, she didn’t protest. Simply gave herself up to his passionate kiss. His hands slid down to her legs, lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moaned into his mouth as his shaft pressed against her still-sensitive flesh through the thin material of her robe.

He whirled around, set her down on the kitchen island. The coldness of the marble served as a sharp contrast to the fever ravaging her body. He kicked his legs free of the pants, pulled the robe up over her hips, and pushed inside her.

“Oh, my God!”

The exclamation burst from her lips as he filled her. He stopped, dropped his head to her shoulder.

She dug her nails into his back. “Don’t you dare stop.”

He pulled back, thrust deeper as she kissed his neck, his jaw, the scars on the left side of his face. His rhythm slowed.

“Griffith.” She clutched his face in her hands, nearly broke at the pain in his gaze. “I want you. All of you.”

His fingers dug into her hips. He plunged deeper. She hung on, met his thrusts and arched into him, pressed her lips to his mouth as delicious pressure built, pushed her higher until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Griffith!”

She came apart on a scream, thrashed as he gathered her in his arms, held her close as he followed her moments later. They soared into oblivion, bound by mutual hunger and a need for pleasure, for connection.

They drifted back down. His breath fell hot and heavy on the tender spot at the base of her neck.

Somewhere deep inside, her resolve weakened, cracked. She couldn’t imagine finding a physical connection like this again. But with every tender touch, every time he prodded her for her true wants and desires, saw past the mask she’d worn for everyone else in her life, the more she wondered if she would ever find a man who saw her as intimately and completely as Griffith did.

Not falling for him was becoming harder with every passing hour.