Chapter 6
6
Pia
B aby. Baby. Baby.
The word ping-pongs inside me like a bell struck too hard, echoing through every soft, secret part of me.
My fork hangs midair. My brain has gone blank.
There are no coherent thoughts—just a rush of heat and the low, thick sound of Ethan calling me baby with that rough gravel in his voice, like it caught on something dark and dangerous on the way out.
I finally manage to inhale, and it sounds like a gasp.
Because that’s what it is.
He doesn’t repeat it. He doesn’t even look at me—just keeps chewing, like he didn’t just drop a bomb at the dinner table and step clean over the wreckage.
But I see the tick in his jaw. The flare of heat in his eyes when he finally glances over at me.
He felt it, too. Whatever that was.
And now I can’t stop watching his hands. His mouth.
The way his fingers wrap around the glass, the way his tongue traces the corner of his lips when he eats the food I cooked for him.
The way he leans back in his chair like a man too large for the space, like he was never meant to fit anywhere neat and tidy.
That’s the problem. Ethan Sharpe is not tidy. He’s a churning vortex—barely bridled, brutal and dressed in a three-piece suit with scowl lines etched into his brow.
And I want him.
I want his hands on my thighs and his voice in my ear and his weight pressing me into the mattress and?—
“Pia?”
I blink, cheeks burning. “Sorry—what?
He raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been stirring the same bite of pasta for three minutes.”
“Oh. Right. Um… lost in thought.”
He smirks. But there’s nothing friendly about it.
It’s knowing. Predatory.
I bite my lip, and his eyes drop to my mouth like I just whispered a sin.
And stepped over a line of my own.
* * *
The rest of the week is no better.
If anything—it’s worse.
At work, he’s my boss. Stern, precise, brilliant.
But his eyes still track me. Constantly . And, heaven help me, I’ve taken to walking past his door every chance I get just to feel the electricity of his gaze buzz over my skin.
I wear my hair up so I can feel it against the slope of my neck.
He finds reasons to talk to me, I think.
Extra tasks. Quick questions.
“Need anything else?” I ask one afternoon, my voice too high, when I drop a file he requested on his desk.
His gaze skims down my blouse, not lingering, and yet I feel him right there... brushing against my nipples. “Oh, I definitely need,” he mutters under his breath. “But not things I’m allowed.”
I choke on my breath.
He dismisses me before I can reply, and that buzz ratchets up a dozen notches.
At home? That’s become a minefield of its own.
We eat dinner almost every night in his apartment. When my second attempt turns out disastrous, he takes over.
I shouldn’t be so happy he does, but dieu , watching Ethan Villiers chop vegetables and handle a saucepan is fast becoming one of my many favorite things about him.
And when we sit down to eat, every meal is a study in restraint.
His thigh brushes mine beneath the table. My knee knocks his under the counter.
One night I drop a spoon and when I duck to retrieve it, he’s already there—his face inches from mine under the table.
It’s stupidly cliché, but I swear I stop breathing when his hand cups my cheek and his thumb strokes just below my bottom lip like he’s memorizing it.
But then he pulls back.
Every. Time.
By Friday night, I’m raw with wanting.
Strung out on tension and every smoldering look he shoots my way. My skin aches with it. My thoughts are filthy with him.
And when I go downstairs to bed after dinner, I lie in the dark and replay every near-kiss, every touch, every second of his breath on my neck like it’s some kind of exquisite torture.
He called me baby.
And now I can’t help but wonder…
When is he going to finally break? And when he does…
Will I be ready for what’s coming?
* * *
Ethan
I’m losing my goddamn mind.
One week. That’s all it’s taken. One week of her soft laugh, her dimpled smiles, the way she eats lunch like it’s a romantic act and not a sandwich.
One week of tracking her movements through the office like some executive-grade creep, waiting for her to glance up at me from the printer, from Maggie’s desk—where she seems to spend a lot of time with my PA—across the conference room, the elevator—anywhere.
I try to hide it but I don’t think I’m doing a good job from Maggie’s mildly exasperated expression.
I’ve ordered Pia to eat her lunch with me the past two days. Overruled partners who tried to reassign her. Told Maggie to lighten her schedule just so she’d have the energy to keep up with my demands.
Now it’s the weekend.
She only needed to say the words need some essentials before I was volunteering. Again she’d looked surprised.
Then I watched, my breath held and my heart hopeful, as she dimpled up at me. And I melted like the schmuck I was.
So here we are, in the middle of a goddamn shopping trip.
Because I want to see her try on things and come over all flustered when I say they looked good.
I want to watch her touch little lace things with innocent fingers and not realize I’m picturing peeling them off her skin.
We do all of that.
I stand in a place whose name I can’t remember and watch her smear a trail of lipstick, first across the skin between her thumb and forefinger, then once she’d turned it back and forth under the store’s harsh lighting, up to her beautiful mouth.
I capture her hand and growl at her not to even think about it. “Do you know how many people have used that? It’s full of fucking germs, Pia. You want to try it, I’ll buy it for you.”
She blinks adorably. “Oh, but I don’t know that it’ll suit my color.”
“Everything will suit you,” I all but snap.
And then I buy her the whole damn shelf.
Hell, I would’ve bought her the whole store if she hadn’t gasped and sputtered in French.
Then I’m hard as stone and we need to leave the fucking store before the cops were called and I’m arrested for indecent exposure.
I don’t fare any better in the next store. Or the one after.
But would I have called time if my life depended on it?
Fuck no.
Her sheer delight in the little things makes my chest fill with a warmth I’ve never experienced.
Growing up there was no such thing as warmth in my house. There was survival. By any means necessary. Period.
My father scrimped and hustled until he dropped dead in the middle of winter on a construction job.
My mom and I went from a shitty bedsit in South Philly to a shittier trailer park. And, incredibly, things went further downhill from there.
Mom drowned her sorrows in drink and drugs and for a full year rock bottom had been my home before I was saved by a neighborhood outreach program offering free tutoring to disadvantaged kids.
Somehow I managed to avoid drugs, gang warfare and the voices whispering in my head that I was nothing. That I would stay nothing.
I scraped together a scholarship by the skin of my teeth, worked three part-time jobs and excelled enough to move from community college into Penn in two years.
My silent vow to dig us out of the dirt and rescue my mom like some kind of caped hero disintegrated when she died of an overdose a week before I graduated.
I stood over her grave vowing never to fall that low, get that desperate ever again.
And I didn’t. These days I have minions who pick my clothes, take care of my dry cleaning, book my private jets and ensure my fridge is stocked to the brim.
So yeah, following my sexy young intern dressed in leggings and a midriff-baring top, threatening to beast-out at any guy who looks at her one second too long while lugging half a dozen shopping bags is new for me.
And I’m not even relieved when she finally turns and smiles up at me.
“I’m done, I think.”
“You sure?”
Her head bobs. “Besides, I think you’re getting a little grumpy, non ?”
“ Non, ” I reply, then narrow my eyes. “If you need more stuff, get them. I’d rather do it in one go than repeat this…”
“This, what? Torture?” she mock pouts.
I can’t drag my eyes from her mouth. Even when someone bumps me from behind and I turn to find yet another asshole staring at Pia like he’s caught in a fucking trance.
“Fine. If you’re done for today, let’s go. Anything else you need, we’ll get online.”
I hustle her into the town car idling on the curb, relief pouring through me, not because we’re done shopping but because I’m a little terrified I’ll deck the next guy who ogles her.
I’ve never been more relieved to return home.
Except she stepped off on her floor to take her things to her place… ten minutes and thirty seconds ago.
Nothing wrong with that, except she tossed another of those cinq minutes at me when she stepped off the elevator.
She’s one floor below, not coming upstairs like she should. Not coming to me. One floor down and she feels too far away.
So either that thing she said about the Bavarian nuns was a load of bullshit or…
Stop overreacting. She’s not yours.
Bullshit. Well. She’s mine. For the next two months and three weeks, she’s mine.
So I wait another minute.
Three.
I last four and a half before I’m out the door, bare feet on cold stone, moving fast. Stabbing at elevator buttons. Wondering if it’s quicker if I take the stairs.
The elevator doors open. I jump in. Stab.
It opens one floor down. And there she is.
Laughing. Talking. With… WTF?
Marty Motherfucking Oswald from 3B. Which is six floors below. Is he even allowed up here?
I fucking hate Marty Oswald, and not just because he just said something that made Pia’s dimple pop again.
Dimples and smiles which belong to me, dammit .
Blood roars in my ears as I charge down the hallway.
Mid-thirties, handsome in a preppy way and smug with it, always shirtless like he thinks his abs grant him diplomatic immunity.
He’s leaning close. Too close. One arm propped on the doorframe to thin out the pudge he hasn’t been able to get rid of no matter how many times he uses the gym in the basement, on account of loving greasy food and booze a little too much.
Pia still has her shopping bags, which means she didn’t even make it inside before being accosted.
As I draw closer, I see that while she’s smiling, it’s a little uncertain.
She’s holding her shopping bags like she might use them as a shield any second.
“Pia.” My voice is sharp enough to crack glass.
They both turn.
Marty lifts his chin. “Hey, man. I heard we had a new neighbor. Came to say hello and fuck me, I had no idea she was this hot.”
I step forward. Not smiling. Not offering a damn handshake.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” I grind out. “And you’ve said hello, so you can fuck off.”
Pia blinks. “Ethan?—”
“Upstairs. Now.”
She glances down at the bags. “But… my stuff.”
“I’ll take them in for you. Keycard?” I click my fingers.
She swallows, digs around in her purse, and hands it over.
I plant myself in front of Marty as she heads to the elevator in case he has any bright ideas about joining her.
One look at my face and he remains where he is.
Once the elevator doors shut, I step up to him.
His hands immediately jump up, palms open wide. “Hey man, I had no idea I was stepping on any toes. I only came to say hello, honest. If you’re tapping that?—”
“I could’ve sworn I just warned you to watch your fucking mouth. Also, who let you up here without an invitation? Aren’t you breaking HOA rules?”
His face sours. “You’re taking this a little far, don’t you think? I came up here with Chris down the hall. I just saw your girl and thought I’d say hey. No need to get your panties in a bunch, friend.”
“That’s just the problem, Oswald. You and I are not friends. In fact, I suggest the next time you see Pia, you pretend like she’s invisible. You don’t talk to her. You don’t look at her. You carry on walking, ideally in the other direction.”
His face is growing red. Redder. “Or what?”
My blood roars louder in my ears. “Or I’ll whisper in a few ears about that deal you have cooking.”
He pales a little. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And you don’t handle my investments anymore. You make any moves and I’ll sue your ass into next century.”
I bare my teeth, and I see the moment he clocks how deadly serious I am about this. About Pia. “Sure, go ahead. But have you forgotten why my firm doesn’t represent you anymore? Shall I refresh your memory?”
He’s a cross between pissed and terrified.
“Cat got your tongue? Let me help you. It’s because you conveniently forgot to mention a little detail about using child slave labor for your products and urging me to lie about it to the authorities when they came sniffing around. Wasn’t it, Oswald? Maybe I need to make a few calls, get a few FCC guys interested?”
He takes several steps back. “Fuck this. I’m not listening to this bullshit?—”
“I still haven’t heard you say the words I want to hear, Marty.”
“Fine. I’ll stay away from her. I won’t look. Or talk. Or do anything.”
“Good boy. Run along now.”
He sprints to the elevator, and it opens immediately, which makes me think Pia sent it back for me. Clever girl.
Unfortunately, my mood is still black when I stash her bags in her bedroom—barely avoiding the urge to pick up the nightshirt tossed carelessly on her lilac-sheeted bed to sniff it like some deranged addict—and take the stairs three at a time back up to my floor.
She’s standing in the middle of the living room when I walk in, her eyes wide as they track my approach. “Everything okay?”
“What the fuck do you think?” I snarl, then rein myself in.
It’s not her fault she’s so damned lovely. But still…
It’s been fucking nonstop today. And I’m at my wits’ end. I clench my teeth so hard they ache. Every inch of me straining not to take. Not to ruin.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” I ask, voice low, rough. “Pia, you’re dangerous. You think I don’t see you watching me in the office? Smiling at me. Chewing your pen like that? Like you want me to?—”
“Want you to what?” she whispers.
I close the gap between us, stare down into her fucking perfect face.
Philip would bury me alive. HR would skin me.
But none of that stops me from cupping her jaw with a hand I should keep to myself. And Jesus, her skin is so soft. So smooth. So fucking addictive .
“You don’t belong here,” I growl. “Not in this condo. Not with me. And definitely not in my bed.” That last part comes out hoarse, like I’m saying it to myself. Like I don’t want her to hear it and decide I’m right.
Because, what? I don’t want to be?
I shake my head. Force myself to step back.
Because she’s smiling. Like she knows what she’s doing to me.
Like she knows I’m coming undone and that she likes it.
“I’m not asking to be in your bed,” she whispers, eyes locked on mine. “I just want you to teach me one or two things. We can do it right here in the kitchen. Or the living room?” she blurts hopefully.
God help me. “You’re not talking about capital investment, are you?”
She opens her mouth, but I shake my head before she can speak. I’m terrified of what will come out of her mouth.
Terrified it’s exactly what I want to hear.
“Come on, dinner’s ready.”
She looks like she wants to protest, but I don’t stick around for it.
We eat at the kitchen counter, her favorite place according to her, and I keep the subject neutral, even throwing in a few references about Philip to keep us, and me especially, grounded.