25. Nora
CHAPTER 25
NORA
West leans against a dark red car parked on the gravel of the Fairhaven courtyard. Dark pants, white shirt, top two buttons undone. He looks lazily elegant, a bit bored, tall and masculine.
But when I walk down the stairs, his focus sharpens. His eyes drop down over my body in a slow, devouring look. There’s raw appreciation in his gaze that makes heat spread through me.
He’s just pretending again, I remind myself. We’re practicing.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hey.” His eyes are still on my body, not on me. Like he can’t tear them away. It’s so blatant that it has to be another test.
“If you’re quite done,” I say.
“That’s my girl,” he says with a smile. “Tell a man off if you don’t like what he’s doing.”
“Is everything a lesson with you these days?”
“That’s what you wanted from me,” he says. “Did you like the flowers?”
I hesitate only a moment before replying. “Yes. I did.”
“I have something else for you.” He holds out a velvet case and opens the lid. There’s a gold necklace inside. A single gold coin pendant hangs from the thin chain. It’s got several small jewels inlaid. An emerald, two sapphires. What looks like diamonds.
“West…” I murmur.
“Turn around.” His voice is a command, and I do what he’s asked. Lift my hair up for him. A second later, the necklace comes to rest around my neck, the gold cold against my skin.
It’s beautiful.
“This is too much,” I say. “It’s gorgeous. Thank you. But I can’t ask you to spend money on me just to help?—”
“You didn’t ask.” His voice is a bit rough, and his fingers linger at my nape. “This is what it would feel like. If you were in a relationship. If you let a man treat you right.”
I stroke a finger over the necklace. “Did you pick it out yourself?”
It shouldn’t matter, and I shouldn’t have asked. Of course he didn’t. He’s a busy man, and he’s been traveling, and it doesn’t?—
“Yes,” he says.
Oh. I smile down at the pendant. “Thank you.”
His fingers disappear from my skin. “You’re very welcome.”
He opens the door for me, and the scent of his cologne wafts toward me. Subtle and woodsy. It feels like him, like the rooms of this house and the deep, dark wood and the constant view of the deep blue ocean.
He drives down the tree-lined driveway and to the wrought-iron gates with the intricate C . “How does it feel?” he asks.
“How does what feel?”
“Leaving home again.” West glances up at the mirror, at the car that follows us. Miguel, Sam and Madison are with us tonight. “He might watch us tonight.”
“Yes. That’s the point, right? For him to see us together.”
“Yes. But I asked how it made you feel.”
I look out the window, at the dark roads of King’s Point. Fairhaven lies at the shoreline farthest out on Great Neck, and from here, it’s all hedges and hidden houses. We won’t see lights and shops for at least another ten minutes. “It is what it is,” I say.
The photos that were delivered last week were terrifying. I stayed composed in front of West, but I broke down afterward in the safety of my bedroom. The stalker had watched me.
Anyone can deliver flowers. Even someone halfway around the world.
But taking pictures of me out fabric shopping with my guards…
He was here.
“You can use more descriptive words.” West’s voice is dry. “I won’t hold it against you.”
“It sucks. But I won’t let it stop me from living my life.” My chest feels tight, and I force a smile. “I brought the card game you sent me.”
He glances at me, like he knows all too well I’m changing the subject, and not so subtly. But he doesn’t protest. “Well done,” he says.
The compliment feels like a shot of warmth. Maybe that’s all I need. West Calloway telling me how good I’m doing. I’ve come to crave it. “Where are we going tonight?”
“It’s a surprise,” he says.
“No. You’ll tell me. Won’t you?” I ask him. I make my voice low, mirror the flirtation I’ve seen others do. I’ve never had a chance to engage in it myself. I’ve always been on the back foot, two steps behind what the guy wants. “I don’t like surprises, Calloway.”
His lip curves. “You only use my last name when you’re annoyed with me.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Since you only do it when you’re annoyed at me, whether I like it or not shouldn’t matter.”
That makes me chuckle. “Sometimes I think you want me to turn into a jerk.”
“A jerk is honest,” he says, “and not particularly concerned with likability.”
“You sound like you have some experience with the subject.”
He smiles wide, and it transforms his face. Makes it come to life. “I do, yes. Some might say I majored in it.”
“Straight A’s?”
“Always.”
“Where are we having dinner, Calloway?”
His smile stays in place. “We’re having dinner at the yacht club.”
“The yacht club? Where you used to sail?”
“Yes.” He glances over at me and then back at the road. “I didn’t think you’d get that excited about it.”
I fiddle with the clasp on my bag. It’s a piece of him, and it’s far better than a fine restaurant in the city. But I can’t tell him that. “I’ve never sailed before,” I say instead.
Like that makes any kind of sense.
“Well,” he says, “we’ll change that at some point.”
It sounds like a promise. I look down at the pendant resting against my skin and struggle against the weight of a crush I thought I’d left behind years ago. He still turned me down at that Christmas party five years ago. He still said those things to Alex four years ago.
And yet.
Here he is, making me feel things again.
West pulls into the marina and parks behind a large white building by the ocean. The adjoining restaurant is decorated in nautical themes, and there’s not a single white tablecloth in sight. A cheery teenager escorts us to a table right by the seafront windows.
West suggests we both get sirloins, and he does it in front of the waiter. I cut him off and tell him I want the ravioli instead. He nods at me afterward. “Good. You’re learning.”
“I know that everything is a challenge with you now.”
“Just because I know you can rise to them. You’re more than people think you are.”
I look down at my glass of wine. What he used to think I was, he means. Pretty enough, but boring.
“Proving people wrong is fun,” I say.
His eyes stay on mine. There’s amusement there, and something else, something that warms me to my core. “Give me the card game.”
“Can you say the magic word?”
His lips curve. “Please, trouble, can you put me out of my misery and let me ask you questions about sex?”
A hot flush surges up my neck. I dig through my bag for the purple card game. Naughty Conversations for Couples. And beneath, in smaller font. Learn more about each other’s fantasies, desires and wants.
He runs a finger over the cover. “You opened it.”
“I read some questions. Where did you even find it?”
“You can find anything online.” He pulls out the deck. “Why do you think I suggested this?”
“You’re going to make me say it?”
“Yeah.”
I sigh. “Because of the party. Paradise Lost. Because of what we saw.”
“Yeah. When you looked at the couple having sex and said you didn’t think she could be enjoying herself. That her pleasure was performative.” He raises his eyebrow. “And when you didn’t want to say the word. The one that starts with an M .”
“You’re gonna make me say it?” Now my cheeks are burning.
“I’m not going to make you do anything. Your terms, trouble. Always. But if your end goal is to date more and to get into a relationship, learning to talk about these things is important. You’ve never really learned to ask for what you want. Have you?”
“It’s not easy.”
“I didn’t say it was.” He flips through the cards, shuffles them like we’re about to play a game.
I rub a hand over the back of my neck. It’s hard to think around the length of his fingers as he expertly flips through cards filled with absolute filth. “I’m not a prude.”
“Didn’t say you were. I saw you watching the other couples that night.”
“And you weren’t?” I ask him.
“I had more… pressing things to focus on.” He finishes his shuffle and extends the deck to me. The cards look small in his large palm. “Ladies first.”
I reach for the top one.
“Do you have any kinks?” I read. It’s a pretty broad question, and I glance up to see him looking at me. “You go first.”
“Some,” he says.
“What are they?”
His entire focus is on me, and I feel myself expand beneath it, a piece of paper folded out and smoothed. “I like praising the women I’m with,” he says. “You might have noticed that.”