Chapter 15
Penelope
The next morning, I woke up with a splitting headache.
That kiss knocked me off my axis and champagne was the only thing that quieted all the discordant confusion in my mind. Because
that spark I often felt around him—the one that didn’t even seem to register to Xander—had always felt like it was one-sided.
But the kiss made me question everything. Was it all for show? Did he feel like electricity passed through him like I did?
Or was it the humiliating reality that my intuition was wrong and I was the only one worked up about it?
From my seat on the couch, I heard the double doors that led out to the terrace open.
I vaguely remembered trying to get out of my dress and failing. So I gave up, fell asleep, and woke up in it. After thirty
minutes trying to get out of it again this morning, I gave up and settled on the couch with a coffee and banana muffin, in
a wrinkled silk Chanel dress.
“Soaking up the champagne from last night?” Xander’s voice asked from behind me.
“Yes and I never realized you liked banana muffins, too,” I stated quietly, mildly amused, trying not to replay the sound of his groan when it rumbled up his chest. Or the way his fingers pressed into my skin.
I turned and bent an arm over the back of the couch, determined to act casual. If he could do it, so could I.
And then, I lost my train of thought.
Xander walked, shirtless, from the terrace doors to the kitchen island. The morning light poured over him, leaving devious
shadows in the divots between his muscles along his arms and sculpted chest.
“You... you were at the beach?” I stammered when every thought in my mind turned to what lay below the swim trunks.
“Decided to swim some laps in the pool. Had my coffee out there after,” he explained and cocked his head in the direction
of the French doors that led out to the pool overlooking the ocean. He walked over to the kitchen counter and threw on a shirt.
“Still in the dress, huh?”
“Yes. I had some trouble with it this morning.” I felt my cheeks heat as he walked down the hallway to the laundry room, his
thumbs slipped under the sides of his trunks on the way. Moments later he came back with a pair of gray joggers on.
If the swim trunks were distracting, those were—I swallowed hard—something else.
“I did try to help last night, but you said, and I quote”—he playfully threw an arm around my shoulders as he collapsed onto
the couch next to me—”?‘Only an imbecile cannot remove an item of clothing, Xander.’?”
His impression of me was terrible. “Your British accent needs work.”
I tried to distract myself from the fact that his muscular chest was right up against my side. His teasing chuckle temporarily
halted the banging in my head.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink that much.”
“Yes...” I turned to him. Emerald eyes sparkled in the morning light. They followed me when I tried to look away. “Well, we were...”
His voice lowered. “Celebrating?”
“Well, the world...” My mind became transfixed with the feel of his thumb slowly moving up and down my shoulder. Each stroke
sent a warm buzz down my arms. “Thinks...”
“Thinks?” he repeated in a whisper.
That we were married. Because we were.
Suddenly everything felt topsy-turvy again. And despite itself, my mind filled with the memory of that kiss.
I gave him an opening and he took it. He made it more intense and I spent hours wondering if it was just for show because
it felt like something else. One kiss had my entire body on pins and needles, which was dizzying since my mind was like that at baseline.
“I should probably make a list of all the things I need to get from the boxes in my house.” I blinked away the daze, and with
a deep inhale I pushed myself back from him. “If they’re being moved, I may need something.”
His gaze dropped; the muscles along his jaw flexed. “The boxes you haven’t opened in years?”
“Well, I might need something,” I reasoned and stood up from the couch. “And I should probably work on getting a property
in Singapore.” I began to pace, the length of the dress occasionally getting caught between my legs. A familiar feeling, a
quaking restlessness, began to overcome my muscles with a slight tremor.
“Come on.” Xander stood from the couch and took my hand.
“What?”
“Come on,” he repeated, leading me away from the living area toward the hallway that led to the foyer.
“Selena told us to either go on a trip to look like a honeymoon or keep a low profile,” I reminded him even though I followed
him without much resistance.
“Come on,” he repeated more softly this time, turning to me.
The look in his eyes felt heavy. Smothering everything else around me until it was just him.
His fingers laced into mine.
“I can’t.” I snapped my hand back and tried to think of a reason not to go when my entire body wanted to follow him. My brain
wouldn’t let me. “The dress.”
“Oh.” His eyes wandered up the dress. “Right.”
Before I could say anything, he closed the space between us, put his hands on my waist, and turned me around. The sudden,
commanding shift made my stomach dip.
His fingers ran across the back of my neck to the tiny buttons that fastened the collar. “These buttons are the only things
keeping this dress on?”
The warm caress of his breath floated along the crook of my neck, leaving chills in its wake.
“Yes,” I whispered, unable to find my voice.
His fingers traced along the lining all the way down my back to where it ended just below my hips.
“How attached are you to it?” He leaned in closer, a hand spreading across the base of my throat.
My breath caught.
“Not very, but it’s custom Chanel.” My nipples hardened against the silky fabric.
I found a spot on the wall and tried to focus on something, anything other than the fact that I reveled in the feel of his
hands touching me. His fingers ran along the delicate fabric and gripped the collar on each side.
“It’s worth—”
A low grunt was immediately followed by the sound of fabric tearing. A frisson of excitement shot down my body and settled
deep in my naval.
I gasped. The fabric cascaded down my neck; my arms immediately held it up against my chest.
With one touch, one quick motion, he managed to awaken a heat inside me that I couldn’t achieve with lovers, vibrators, or
any combination of the two.
I turned around, eyes wide. My jaw hung open.
“You said you weren’t attached to it.” He put his hands in the air.
“I’m not, but CeCe may murder you,” I snapped, a little frustrated. Not so much at the dress—although it was the perfect excuse.
It was at him for being so casual when I felt like I’d pass out at any moment—none of this even fazed him. I turned and examined the back of the dress. From the looks of it, the only damage was to the collar. “It’s
a crime against fashion.”
“Oops,” he mumbled. I looked back over to him as his gaze lingered on the back of my dress. “Come on, get changed. Let’s go.”
I held the silk more deliberately against my chest, recognizing the only thing under this dress was the lace thong I wore
because it didn’t leave panty lines. “What?”
“Get changed. We’re going out.”
“We’re supposed to keep a low—”
The door to his bedroom closed behind him.
***
After a quiet twenty-minute ride up the coast, one where Xander refused to tell me where we were going, we arrived at a trail
that led up to a lighthouse that stood proudly on a cliff a few hundred feet away.
“Pink noise,” he explained, opening his car door as I reached for mine.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
He smiled. “Come on.”
He was being frustratingly mysterious. I hated how it sent an electric wisp along every neuron.
“Is this one of your games?” I was a few steps behind him and he walked the path as if he’d memorized it.
“No.” He turned around and walked backward a short distance, a teasing smile playing along his mouth. “I already know that
I’m not allowed to play with you. But your aversion to fun is noted.”
I heaved a breath at the idea of him playing with me. “Your games are not fun.”
They were. I hated to admit it, but what I initially thought was juvenile when I first met him years ago was actually a way
to keep strong relationships thriving. And Xander, when he chose to be close to someone, he didn’t lose them. Those bonds
were seemingly unbreakable.
“And what’s your idea of fun?” he asked. Taking my hand, he began to lead me up the stony walk toward the lighthouse. “Don’t
say making a spreadsheet.”
“Spreadsheets are fun.”
They were orderly, calming. Life was the opposite.
He walked up to the door, stopped a moment to think, then walked a few feet to a window that opened with little effort.
“Your idea of fun is breaking into private property?” I mused.
“It’s not breaking in.” He gripped the stony ledge above the window, his biceps flexed against his short sleeves as he pulled
himself up. “I have a key.”
“Of course, you do.” I tried to sound disinterested even though I found myself fixated on watching him. He pulled himself
up and through the window with ease. “Most people who have permission to enter a building prefer shimmying through a window.”
“I forgot it,” he called; the echo of his voice rang through the tower.
Moments later, the door opened.
“I thought Xander Sutton didn’t forget anything.” I pressed a finger into his shoulder a couple of times and swept past him to the base of the stairwell.
“I got a little distracted.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Surprise wedding and all.”
I knew I should probably ask a few follow-up questions. But, staring up at the spiral stairs that lined the gray stone walls,
I didn’t want to talk myself out of doing whatever he had planned.
It was an adventure, and my life was so hermetically sealed for so long, that I never had those.
“Ten stories,” he told me, pointing to the steps, motioning for me to go first. “I’ll walk behind you.”
I raised a brow. “Very gentlemanly of you.”
He grinned. “Something like that.”
The warm salty air passed through the large open archways at the top of the structure, whistling down the tower. We began
walking up the steps, stopping every story or two to look out a window.
“Why are we here?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder for a moment.
“This lighthouse is the furthest point in the Hamptons. No land directly ahead until the Azores,” he explained. “So technically,
for now, you’re living on the edge.”
I stopped.
My heart skipped too many beats to be safe. Maybe from the mortification that he remembered the fuck-it list—as he called
it—and was bringing it up. Or that he was trying to help me with it, the less salacious side anyway.
“And.” His hand gently pushed against the small of my back, encouraging me to keep going. We were only a few more stories
to the top. “I thought you might like this.”
“You did?”
He didn’t say anything else as we ascended the last few spirals. Once we reached the top, I understood.
The wide, arched windows, the ocean spread out before me like a canvas painted with ever-changing shades of blue. To the east, the morning sun cast a golden sheen on the water’s surface. To the west, the coastline stretched out, disappearing into the horizon, dotted with picturesque seaside cottages and sandy beaches.
“Pink noise.” He leaned against the stone frame of the window opposite me. “Sounds of nature, thunderstorms, waves, rainfall,
tend to help people relax.”
I took a deep inhale of the salty air. He was right.
This far up you couldn’t feel the mist from the waves, but the crashing was so present, it felt like you were next to them.
The vast expanse of the ocean ahead. My problems seemed rather small.
“This does put things into perspective, doesn’t it?”
He nodded.
“It’s even nicer at night,” he stated, watching the tide push and pull below. “I used to come up here in the summer when things
got to be a lot.”
“Coping mechanisms,” I noted, wanting to know more. “It reeks of a beautiful childhood.”
I said it as though mine was terrible when it only sort of was. Growing up, my half sister and I were close. But as we got
older, my half brother often drove a wedge between us. Silas would give her one expectation that she’d feel forced to follow
and when I balked at it, I was punished or ridiculed. Eventually, I fell in line to keep the peace, to maybe be accepted—loved.
It never helped.
“Guilty.” He chuckled. “But I went through a lot of shitty coping mechanisms before I found this one.”
I smiled and leaned against the window’s stone frame, looking out at the horizon. He did the same, the sounds of the ocean
filling the space between us. I wondered when he’d come here in the past. I never really heard Sloan mention it and they’d
been coming to the Hamptons together since she was sixteen.
“Did you come here alone?” I asked.
He said he came here at night, it was probably very romantic.
This little trip, the attempt to lighten my mental load, fulfilling an innocent item on the list. All reminded me that at
his core, he was a good and loyal friend—up until yesterday, that felt like an indisputable fact in my mind.
But now everything felt scrambled.
Because of that kiss. How he kissed, how he deepened it, and how I let him.
I thought knowing, empirically, that his heart was unavailable or simply taken might help my head reel in my body because—after
that kiss—it wanted more.
He raised a brow, but the stillness along his features gave me no indication of what he was thinking.
I could feel the self-imposed pressure to somehow explain my way out of prying. “I only ask because it’s nice. Romantic.”
I took a few steps forward, glancing around the domed ceiling. When he didn’t say anything, I felt the persistent need to
bolster an argument I wasn’t even sure I was making. “I’m sure a date would like it.”
The thunderous silence continued. I looked over to him; he blinked a couple of times. Confusion ran lines across his forehead.
“Not me . Someone else,” I asserted, feeling the embarrassment warm my face. The overwhelming fear that he’d somehow know I was having
conflicting feelings began to spin up a tornado in my head. It forced some reasonable explanation to why I was prying. “Like
Madison.”
Oh my God, stop talking.
“Madison?” He pushed himself off the wall, the calm timbre was giving way to something thornier.
“You two seemed happy, is all.” I took a deep, steadying breath and shook off the nerves. I tried to imagine I was at work; I was a differ ent Penelope there. Strong, confident, self-assured. I took a few steps toward the spiral staircase. Without any real indication of how long he planned to stay here, I began walking down. “Happy and in love.”
“Falling in love is overrated.” He followed behind me.
The sentiment from him wasn’t surprising given all of his relationships ended as if on a timer. Except for the one with a
woman I dubbed She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named in my head because the one time I heard her name—Reina—the entire room went silent.
It was at brunch and CeCe let it slip; everyone looked at each other, then at Xander, and then picked up like it never happened.
I knew better than to ask about it.
“A man who thinks love is overrated,” I drawled lightly, mimicking casual as closely as I could. “How original.”
I sometimes wondered if Madison was why he never brought up that night and the next morning before I left for London, with the poppies. If her light dimmed that memory for him. Or maybe,
it was really just me who felt it and it was simply a regular day for Xander.
Do something nice. Be charming. Rinse. Repeat.
He laughed quietly and I took a few more steps down.
We reached the landing and he walked past a few steps to open the large wooden door.
The poppies I’d given to Maya to care for while I was in London stayed with her. I never asked for them back. I didn’t need
the reminder.
I tried to trust myself and enter into this arrangement because my autonomy was worth it. But now, this choice was becoming
similar to my decision to stay in Manhattan instead of going home. Riddled with complications, making me second-guess a path
when I was already so far down it.
The arrangement was supposed to be simple, but this was quickly becoming the opposite.