Chapter 29 #3
“I’ve done this kind of backward,” Beau admitted sheepishly—the day my brother left.
It made me wonder if Jack had tried some bullshit big brother routine that made him feel guilty.
I suspected something was the case, since I’d come from putting Hannah to bed to both of them walking inside, Jack red-cheeked from the cold, Beau’s face stony and unreadable.
My stomach had lurched seeing that, wondering what Jack could’ve said to ruin everything, but Beau had assured me he was just pissed at him for being a “cowardly piece of shit.”
I should’ve wanted my brother and my boyfriend to get along, but I knew Beau’s anger toward my brother came from the intensity of his feelings toward me.
He loved me, I reminded myself when my nervous system piqued with his longer-than-normal silences, the way he made love to me like he was a man going to war.
“I should’ve wined and dined you then tried to seduce you,” he muttered when he proposed the date.
I grinned at him. “Well, I actually seduced you,” I corrected. “Something I would’ve done a lot earlier—one green light from you and I would’ve been all over you.”
Beau shook his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. He hadn’t smiled entirely since Jack’s departure. “Thank fuck I am not a mind reader because this would’ve happened a lot sooner.”
“Would that have been bad if it happened sooner?” I asked, questioning whether it would’ve saved me some emotional bruises. I was venturing into dangerous territory, trying to rewrite the past.
“No,” Beau said carefully, noting my reaction.
“But, as much as I regret the way I treated you, I liked you nurturing your relationship with Clara first. Her falling for you at the same time as me. I liked watching you, learning you.” His brows knitted.
“Even if I’ve got a fuck of a lot more to learn. ”
Right answer.
He cleared his throat, loudly, as if he were about to throw me on the bed there and then—I would’ve let him too—Clara was in her room listening to music. Not appropriate.
He walked into the closet instead, bringing out a garment bag.
“Calliope did all this,” he explained, setting it on the bed. He walked back to get a shoe box. Even I, not obsessed with fashion, knew the script on the shoe box and my pulse spiked.
Maybe he hadn’t rushed into this based on a single conversation with Jack, it was obviously something he’d been planning for a while.
“Well, she gave me suitable options and I picked from there,” he corrected.
“This is too much,” I breathed, looking at the box and the bag.
“You don’t even know what’s in there yet,” Beau said.
I put my hands on my hips. “I know that any item of clothing that comes with a garment bag is definitely too much,” I replied. “And that those shoes are a price that should’ve made you blush.”
“Nothing makes me blush,” Beau countered. He walked to the shoe box, taking the lid off.
He lifted the patent-leather heel—thankfully nowhere near as high as Calliope wore—a soft pink, delicate ankle boot with small, studded details.
I didn’t consider myself to be a shoe person, but those might convert me.
“I might blush seeing you in these and nothing else,” Beau murmured, observing the heel as one might a foreign artifact.
My neck flushed with the image of me in those heels. Naked.
“Those are so cute!” A small voice exclaimed from the doorway. My mind jerked itself out of sexual fantasies.
Clara ran into the room, standing beside her father to pick up the other shoe in the box, eyes flaring.
“These are yours, Hannah?” she asked, stroking the leather carefully.
I nodded, even though I wanted to protest they absolutely weren’t. It was much too expensive of a gift to accept, but I already knew how stubborn Beau was on that front.
“And this is her dress for our date tonight.” Beau tapped the garment bag. “Want to help Hannah unzip it and make sure she doesn’t argue about keeping it?” He played with his daughter’s hair. “Maybe even rip it a little so she cannot return it,” he suggested playfully.
I gave him a scowl. “Low blow, Shaw,” I muttered. Using his daughter to ensure I couldn’t refuse his gift.
He merely smiled in response. No, not a real smile. Not what I’d become used to. It was that quirk to his lips that barely passed for a smile these days.
Clara, unaware to the micro changes in her father’s behavior, was already unzipping the bag.
And Beau was right. I could not argue once Clara’s small gasp filled the room and she demanded I put on my new outfit. Thankfully, she didn’t rip anything on it. That would be a crime to fashion, even if I didn’t consider myself a fashionista.
She sat on the bed, while her father finished off a few things in his office, watching as I dressed in the outfit Calliope helped pick out.
It fit me like a glove, the fabric finer than I’d ever put on my body.
Soft pink cashmere, with a neckline that dipped off the shoulder.
Clara was full of compliments, sitting in the bathroom as I did my hair and makeup.
It sent me hurtling forward into a future where I might be sitting, helping her with her makeup before her first date.
On her twenty-first birthday, if her father had something to do with it.
The very real prospect that I’d be here to see that, that Clara “helping” curl my hair before a date with her father made my heart soar. It was a life I didn’t dare dream of for myself.
Then when she heard the door open and close, she kissed me on the cheek, running out to meet her grandfather.
By the time I finished getting ready, Clara and her grandfather were gone, the house was quieter than usual.
I’d expected Beau to come and find me, but he didn’t.
That was unusual, in it of itself. But he had mentioned work that had been piling up and wanting to finish it before our date.
I didn’t let it trigger any fear his demeanor had awakened.
Work. He had a job. He ran a freaking restaurant. There was more to his world than me.
We would eventually—hopefully—have to settle into an everyday rhythm where we’d have to get things done outside of our family unit.
When I began my final year, I’d be spending most of my time on placements, working in hospital settings. Beau, the restaurant, maybe even the cookbook that I told him he should do. He was almost on board, except when I told him he’d sell more copies shirtless on the cover.
Life would have to be normal … whatever that looked like now that we were together. A normal life with Clara and Beau was more than I could’ve dreamed of in a hundred years. That’s what I reminded myself was possible—not just possible but most likely—as I walked to Beau’s office.
I lingered in the doorway for a moment, marveling at the broad shoulders, his mussed dark hair, the soft scratch of pen against paper. Beau only used a computer when forced. He hated technology.
The scratch didn’t last for long, though. He was Beau, which meant he sensed my presence. Or more likely, I was less graceful than I liked to think and my heel had clicked against the wood of the door.
He turned immediately, his body stilling in the chair when his eyes caught me.
“Holy fuck,” Beau said after he’d stared for almost long enough for me to shift uncomfortably in my brand-new shoes.
My body quivered at the two words, the tone they were uttered in and the way he looked at me.
I smoothed the dress down my hips, hyperaware of how wide my hips were and how the fabric did not hide an inch of that.
“It’s not … I don’t know, too much?” I bit my lip.
The dress itself wasn’t overly complicated. It was a buttery cashmere that was so soft I was afraid of how I’d ever clean it. The soft pink was the perfect shade for my coloring. The neckline exposed my shoulders, and my collarbones.
It finished almost at my ankles, just brushing the leather of my boots. How Calliope could’ve known it was the perfect length for that combination was anyone’s guess.
She’d texted to say:
Hair up, pink lipstick, gold earrings.
That was it. I’d obeyed her commands because anyone with a survival instinct would obey Calliope Derrick.
And she was right, with my hair up in a high pony, dark pink lipstick, and my cheap gold earrings, I looked great.
Still like me, but the version of me I might be if I could routinely afford cashmere dresses and designer boots.
“Too much?” Beau repeated, still sitting in his chair, gaping. His silence had me uneasy, I couldn’t trust what was going on in his head since my brother’s visit.
“No. What’s going to be too much is me being arrested at a fancy restaurant because I can’t handle men’s eyes on you,” he muttered gruffly.
I rolled my eyes even as my bottom lip quivered at his words. He was still attracted to me. That much was clear. “You’d never.”
He raised his brow in challenge. “Try me.”
I shook my head with a smile. “We’re going to be late if you keep looking at me like that.” I wasn’t overly worried about being late as excited as I was about a real-life date with Beau.
Sure, I was excited about being two adults, eating good food, drinking a glass of wine. But I doubted the food would be better than what Beau cooked for me here, and I could take or leave wine.
My mind wandered toward the fantasy I’d entertained when I’d been standing in here talking about Halloween costumes. Now I didn’t have to have fantasies when it came to Beau. He was my reality. We were a reality. Especially with the hungry look that was currently setting my panties on fire.
I stepped forward, intending on telling him to forget dinner, instead to utter my desires, make them come to life.
But Beau stood in his chair, clearing his throat, tearing through the thick sexual tension of the moment. He was already dressed in a black collared shirt, black pants. His beard was shiny with oil, his hair mussed but tamed.
He looked good. Very good.