Chapter 33 Everything Just Changed, Didn’t It?
EVERYTHING JUST CHANGED, DIDN’T IT?
Simone
The world was dipped in gold.
The blinds were still drawn, but golden rays of early morning snuck through as I awoke in the wide expanse of Brendan’s bed, a promise of a beautiful day, though the night we’d shared together, dreams mixed with more of Brendan’s particular talents, seemed just as gorgeous.
I was sore, and not just with the obvious parts that hadn’t seen that much action in years. Or, you know, ever. Last night I’d used muscles I didn’t know I had while the moon stood guard, the only witness to Brendan’s insatiable drive.
Well, not only Brendan’s.
It was a bit alarming to have that kind of pent-up hunger after only a few weeks of knowing each other.
One more, Brendan had demanded from me again and again as he made my body respond to his hands, his mouth, his cock…
One more, I’d answered with every lift of my hips, every arch of my back.
I rolled over to reach for the man himself, ready to initiate round, what, four? Five?
But there was nothing but a rumpled pillow.
“Brendan?” I sat up and looked around the suite.
I was alone.
What do you expect, breakfast in bed and a declaration of love?
Of course not. It was supposed to be a break in the contract, not a permanent relationship. We had allowed each other one night, and now the sun was out.
There was no reason to be disappointed. None. I needed to stop it. Right now.
And yet, my imagination kept right on rolling like bloopers after a film had finished.
In another world, I’d take out a tray of sourdough cinnamon rolls from the freezer or make him French toast with this week’s bread.
We’d sip coffee and offer each other bites from our own forks.
I’d kiss a stray drop of syrup from the corner of his mouth before we washed up together, and then he would chase me back to bed for a second round of last night’s reverie.
I really needed to stop watching Nancy Meyers movies.
Silly girl, stop. That dream is not for you.
Especially when The Black Prince had told me himself that those dreams weren’t possible. Not with him.
I flopped back onto my pillow and scrubbed my hands over my face. At some point, he was going to come back in here, and I was going to have to face him. And say…what, exactly?
So, Brendan, about that mind-blowing sex last night?
Oh, we’re supposed to pretend it never happened?
Cool, cool, yeah, I can do that. Totally.
Except that I’m half in love with you already. Or at the very least, with your hips doing that thing that makes it feel like your penis is curved in exactly the right way to—
“Uggggh!” I flopped over and screamed into my pillow.
Lord, this was already a disaster.
It wasn’t like I could even turn this into a proper walk of shame. There was no quietly sneaking out of this giant mansion without one of his nosy brothers or some random staff member seeing, and the estate was miles from the nearest town. My only way out of here was literally a helicopter.
“Shower,” I ordered myself. “You’re going to wash that man right out of your hair and go back to being the girl he ordered like a mail-in bride to pretend for a few months. That’s it. The end.”
I’d just swung my feet to the ground when the door to the suite opened. I jumped, yanking the sheet up and around my naked body as Brendan stepped in, fully dressed in tailored wool pants and a knit polo that hugged the chest and arms I now knew came from hours of boxing out his frustrations.
He looked annoyingly good for someone who hadn’t slept more than a few hours. Still refined, but more casual, to the point where his hair was even messier than normal, like he wanted the whole world to know I’d spent the night with my fingers raking through it.
Damn. Now I was right back where I started.
His eyes met mine, and he bit back that shy smile I loved so much. “You’re awake. Good morning.” He held up a tray bearing coffee and pastries. “Hungry?”
And now the bed and breakfast fantasies were back with a vengeance.
I wrapped the sheet tighter around my body and joined him at a small table next to the living room window, which Brendan opened to let in the salty morning breeze and the sounds of seagulls coasting above the waves.
Brendan watched as I selected a flaky roll off the tray and nibbled. “Good?”
I took a sip of coffee and tried not to stare. Even the stubble on his jaw looked runway ready. I wanted to lick it. For the last fifteen minutes, I’d been mentally preparing myself for distance. Neglect. Maybe even a bit of cruelty.
Not this…kindness.
But apparently, I wasn’t the only one struggling with a bit of uneasiness.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “After the, ah, last time we…I went for a run on the beach and showered in the gym.”
I balked. When I’d caught the numbers on the bedside clock just before falling asleep, it had been nearly 4:00 a.m. Brendan had been up all night.
“When did you wake up?” he asked.
“Not long ago. What do you mean, you went for a run right after we…” Good Lord, I couldn’t actually bring myself to say it out loud.
Brendan apparently didn’t blush, but he did offer that bashful smile again. “Stress relief, remember?”
“You were stressed?” I had been a noodle.
He stretched his long legs out under the table and stared at his shoes. “You weren’t?”
“I was asleep.” I didn’t mention my spiral after waking.
“I know.” There was a pause. Then: “You’re very beautiful when you sleep, in case you were wondering.”
Something like hope fluttered in my stomach. A very dangerous thing. “So why did you leave?”
His gaze found mine, suddenly as green as the lawn surrounding the house, and quite direct. “I woke up with the taste of you still on my tongue, and it was everything I could do not to go back for seconds. Or in our case, fifths.”
I couldn’t help squeezing my thighs together. Good Lord.
He turned toward the window like we were discussing the weather. “I tried to think about something else—the stock market, my macroeconomics thesis, the black-bellied whistling duck. But it didn’t work. I needed—”
“You thought about a duck?” I grinned.
“It’s a very rare bird in Rhode Island. I’ve been trying to spot one for years.
” He bit his lip. “Anyway, none of it worked. All I could think about was the fact that you taste like clover honey and your pussy feels like a welcome, and it seemed pretty rude to wake you up when you’d been working so, um, hard all night. So I left you in peace.”
By the time he was finished, my cheeks felt like they were on fire. And the rest of me… Well, frankly, I wanted to lay myself on the table and tell him that he was welcome to have me for breakfast if his cravings were that bad.
Instead, I took a really big bite of my croissant.
Brendan stood quickly so that the plates clattered on the table and started pacing around the room like he couldn’t bear to sit still anymore. Or maybe he just couldn’t sit next to me.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself. “Fucking fuck.”
That was when I realized things were well and truly ruined. Because while I’d been worried about falling in love with The Black Prince, he’d been freaking out about the mistake we’d made and how in God’s name he was going to deal with it when he returned.
I put the croissant down as my appetite vanished.
He strode to the bureau, then whirled around. “Simone, I can’t fake this relationship with you anymore.”
And there it was.
I stared at my shaking hands. I couldn’t actually look at him because I knew I’d cry, and that certainly wouldn’t help things with a man who said from the start he had little to no emotional depth. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
Numbly, I nodded. “Of course. We…I…we took it too far. Breached the contract or whatever. I get it.”
There was a long silence. Long enough that eventually, it became louder than anything that had already been said, stretching across the room and carving out a nasty void between us.
I kept my eyes pinned on the soft Egyptian cotton worried between my fingers. I would not look at him. I would not beg him to reconsider. I absolutely would not cry in front of Brendan Black.
A hand covered mine. “Simone, please.”
Finally, I did look up to find that he had returned to his seat at the table. I blinked furiously, though tears already pricked. “Please what?”
“Please listen.” He squeezed my hand. “Angel, I said I can’t fake this relationship because…goddamn it, I want it to be real.”
At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him correctly.
My stomach did at least five somersaults as I waited for him to go on.
“I wake up wanting you,” he said. “I go to sleep wanting you. Do you know what time I used to come home from work most nights before you moved in?”
I shook my head.
“Nine if I was lucky. Usually closer to ten or eleven. Now I’m out the door by six because I know you’re waiting for me.” His hand lifted from mine, but only to reach over the pastries to cup my face. “I want you. Maybe more than I’ve ever wanted anything. And that is really saying something.”
I flexed my hand, and we both glanced down at where the enormous diamond on my ring finger caught the morning sun again.
Brendan’s hand dropped, and he cleared his throat. “To be clear, I’m not talking about being engaged for real.”
My stomach flipped again. “Okay…”
“It’s too soon, right? Of course it’s too soon. We’ve only known each other a few months like people are saying, and even if I don’t give a fuck about their gossip, it would fuckin’ be ridiculous to commit the rest of our lives to each other when we still barely know each other. Right?”
The more he spoke, the more the South Boston emerged in his voice like a rising tide. Was he trying to convince himself that or convince me?
I didn’t point out that my parents had done just that and by all accounts, had been sinfully happy until my mom’s death. Then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted a love like that. The kind of love that would ruin you if something ever happened. Just look at my dad.
“Of course,” I agreed, ignoring the crack that seemed to have formed through the center of my chest.
“But after last night…” Brendan shoved a hand through his hair, demonstrating how it had stayed so messy through the morning.
“It took me ten miles to figure out exactly what I should say to you. I’m not good at this sort of thing, angel.
Feelings or whatever the fuck this is. I just want you to know that I feel something.
And I’d like to pursue this. I’d like to see where it goes. ”
I nodded, even more confused. He was simply ruling out forever, right?
Making it clear that all he wanted was a chance at a half-normal relationship, despite the fact that it was still anything but, and what we had done together last night had also been so far from normal, it was in a separate galaxy.
He was being pragmatic. Reasonable.
So why did I feel so disappointed?
“Well? Can we do that?”
“Do what?” I blinked. “I’m sorry, I’m a little thrown.”
He swore softly. “I’m not being clear, am I?”
“I’m just not sure…”
“You don’t have to decide now. I know I’m springing all this on you, and it’s not what you signed up for, but don’t worry. I’m not trying to back out of our deal. You’ll still get all the money, regardless of what happens between us privately.”
His mention of payment was just another blow. If we were going to be—what, dating? Sleeping together?—wouldn’t that make me some version of the prostitute I was trying not to be?
I sat there, half numbed by the question, until Brendan swore again, then stood and pulled me up with him.
“Angel.” He took my hands and shook them lightly like he was trying to shake away my doubts. “Simone. Look at me.”
Like a fool, I did. And saw in those green eyes all the hope and want and confusion that I knew must have been swirling right back at him.
“Can’t we just be whatever we want in private while continuing our arrangement where to the rest of the world, we’re engaged?” he asked.
He gathered my hands and held them against his chest, his thumb playing over the ridges of the diamond on my ring finger.
The feel of his broad, warm fingers closed over mine soothed my nerves and my thoughts, as though his body could calm me in a way his words hadn’t quite figured out yet.
And his expression was so earnest, so hopeful, so different from his typically stern demeanor, that I couldn’t help but smile.
Maybe these words weren’t the ones my overactive brain wanted now. But that didn’t mean they might not come one day.
Brendan was only asking me to live in the moment.
I could do that.
“Okay.” My voice was small.
One dark brow arched. “Okay?”
He was being perfectly reasonable. Brendan Black, a gorgeous billionaire, wanted to date me. For real. I should have been jumping for joy.
Instead, I settled for giving him a quick peck. “Yes, okay. We can try.”
Brendan frowned. “I think we can do better than that.”
“Huh?”
His lips found mine again, full of the kind of unbridled enthusiasm I’d just been hoping for from his words.
What Brendan Black couldn’t put into words, he apparently put into action.
“Brendan!” I shouted as he bent low and tossed me over his shoulder just long enough to carry me back into the bedroom, our breakfast forgotten.
All doubts fled, replaced instead with that fire he’d set alight last night. It had never been extinguished, I realized. Just left to embers until we wanted to blow its flames alive again.
As I found myself pressed back into the bed again with more kisses that made me forget my name, I had a feeling it would always be like that with him.
Which meant there was no world in which I’d ever walk away from Brendan Black, even if the ending he offered couldn’t be happy in the end.