Chapter 23 Penthouse Shmenthouse
PENTHOUSE SHMENTHOUSE
Simone
Ihad never lived with a man before. My only experience with roommates had been in that glorified apartment I’d shared briefly with Selena after first moving to Boston.
Now I was about to cohabitate not only with someone who was kind of, sort of my employer, but who was also hiring me to act like I was in love with him and who had just shown me another side of his personality that had made it exponentially harder to “just pretend.”
So, yeah, I was overwhelmed as Brendan helped me out of the car and took my suitcase from Anthony. My stomach had been churning for about twenty minutes like it was making butter.
And maybe it made sense that the first thing out of my mouth when I stared up at the familiar high-rise that was a trademark part of the Boston skyline was also the most awkwardly obvious observation ever:
“You live in a hotel?”
The Martin was one of the poshest buildings in Boston, a foundation of old onto which the new had been added steadily over the last hundred years.
It looked traditional enough for the first five stories, with a brick facade that matched other nineteenth-century architecture of downtown Boston.
But above that, it soared into the sky like a glass sword to spear the heavens.
It was the kind of place that hosted heads of state and, well, billionaires like my pseudo-date.
Not humble bakers and hospital volunteer aides.
“Sort of. About twenty-five percent of the Martin is private residences.” Brendan looked up with me, as if seeing his building for the first time. “Mine is at the top. Come on, I’ll show you.”
As the Aston pulled away, Brendan picked up my bag, took my hand, and towed me toward one of the two awning-covered doors. One led to the hotel and a few posh restaurants that cost a small fortune to enjoy. We took the other, where a doorman greeted Brendan with a tip of his cap.
“Mr. Black. Welcome home.”
“John, this is Simone Bishop, my fiancée. She’s moving in tonight.”
John nodded at me with a friendly smile. “Of course. Welcome, Ms. Bishop. Your things have already arrived.”
“They have?” I turned to Brendan.
“Ruth brought over your clothes.” His eyes met mine. “Nothing was wrong with them at all.”
He didn’t wait for a response as he led me to the far end of the lobby, then punched a code into the call box for a private elevator.
“Two, four, seven, three,” I whispered, trying to commit the number to memory. I looked up with a grin. “B-I-R-D?”
I was rewarded with another of those bashful smiles that made it hard not to jump into his arms. “Don’t tell anyone I’m so easy to figure out.”
The doors opened, and he released my hand as we stepped inside.
“I bet the girls go crazy for this place,” I said as the elevator began its trek up to the fifty-ninth floor.
Once we were above the bricked part of the building, Boston spread out below us like a glittering blanket in the night, visible through the glass.
Brendan didn’t seem to notice the view. “I’ve never brought anyone here before.”
“Why not? You’d probably get lucky right here in the elevator if you wanted. The view alone would make them fall in love with you.”
Why was I even saying these kinds of things? I sounded like my sister when she was fishing for compliments by comparing herself to others. It was pathetic and totally driven by the anxiety that wouldn’t quite calm down.
Not just because I was about to see the place where I was going to live with Brendan Black. I also feared that he would take one look at me surrounded by this grandeur and realize I didn’t fit here at all.
And there was a part of me now that really, really wanted to.
“Would it work for you?”
That intense green gaze pinned me to the glass for the last moments of the ride.
Was he asking if I was into elevator sex? Or was he asking if the view would make me fall in love?
Or both?
The doors opened with a quiet chime, but neither of us moved. All our friendly jokes seemed to have deserted us as he tipped his head, awaiting my response.
“I—well, no,” I managed, though now I had the image of the two of us doing something right here in this elevator, in view of all of Boston. “I mean—I don’t think so.”
Maybe I was turning into a liar after all. There was a growing part of me that wouldn’t care where Brendan Black kissed me, touched me, or did other unspeakable things to me—as long as he did them at all.
Bad, bad girl.
Brendan studied me for a long moment before he pushed off the glass wall. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want to share you like that either.”
Before I could ask what that meant, he picked up my case and exited the elevator, leaving me to follow him inside.
I walked into the largest abode—house or otherwise—I’d ever seen.
In a building that was the size of a full city block, I realized just how much space two entire floors of the Martin actually occupied.
It was a castle for The Black Prince. A glass-walled, open-air castle, complete with a delicately carved staircase spiraling up the center, ensconced in glass like a vase of tree branches.
I barely registered when Brendan took my coat and put it into a closet as the elevator doors closed behind us.
The scuffed soles of my shoes barely made a sound as I walked through the atrium, under the stairwell, and found the floor-to-ceiling windows that curved around multiple living rooms and the wealth of luxury within them.
Football-field-sized rugs. A concert grand piano.
A couch that could comfortably seat twelve in front of an enormous gas fireplace wreathed by a marble facade.
Boston provided a view better than the screen, its lights hugged by the black expanse of the Harbor and the winding snake of the Charles River.
I turned. “I don’t think they should call you The Black Prince anymore.”
Brendan was standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding his suit jacket over one arm as he loosened his tie. “Oh?”
“You should be called The Raptor. Or maybe The Hawk. You have your very own aerie, all the way up in the sky.”
He seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded with the shy smile that was quickly becoming my favorite. “I’d accept it. The Black Prince is plain unoriginal, especially since there are three other ‘heirs’ besides me.”
I ran a finger over the edge of a white sideboard in the foyer. Not a speck of dust came up. “Are you sure you want me to live here? It’s so pristine. I come with a cloud of flour in my wake.”
“It’s nothing.”
He said that a lot when it came to his money or anything related to it. Funny—wasn’t this whole scheme designed for him to get more of it?
“So much space for one person.” I slipped off my shoes and wandered into one of the living rooms, an interior wall reaching at least twenty feet was nearly covered by a modern art painting comprised of slashes of green, blue, and black.
Probably priceless and commissioned specifically for the space.
But something about it felt incredibly impersonal. Just like the rest of the apartment. There was no intimacy here. Not a single photo of a family member or a handmade gift from a niece or nephew. No rumpled throw blankets or dog-eared books or any remnants of actual human habitation.
This was a beautiful place for sure. But it wasn’t a home.
For the first time, I felt genuinely sorry for Brendan Black, living up here in his glass palace, all alone.
As if he sensed my pity, Brendan broke the silence with a gruff order. “Come with me.”
He captured my hand again and pulled me through the living room, past an empty dining table that could seat twenty, through a third living room scattered with more art and untouched furniture, and through one more door.
“This is for you.”
Weakened knees was a standard cliché in any romance novel. I’d always assumed it was lazy writing. What person actually lost their ability to stand because of a kiss or sweet gesture?
And yet, that is exactly what happened when I saw Brendan Black’s kitchen.
Three sub-zero refrigerators. A wall of custom pantry cupboards.
Two six-burner stoves, three industrial farmhouse sinks, two standard ovens, a central island the size of a house covered in a waterfall of marble, plus the pièce de résistance, an industrial-sized bread oven built directly into one of the walls.
It was easily the largest private kitchen I’d ever seen. Twice the size of the one my father had built for my mom when she was making bread and cheese for all of Woodstock. Four times what I had set up for myself in JP.
It also smelled like fresh paint.
I turned to Brendan. “This can’t have been your actual kitchen before now.”
“Definitely not. I can barely boil water.” His voice was practically monotone, but the tips of his ears turned pink. “I had some changes made over the last few weeks.”
“‘Some changes?’”
He shrugged. “It needed some expansion.”
“Something like that should take months, not days.”
Another shrug. “It’s nothing.”
There was that word again.
Brendan’s eyes met mine, and he sighed. “I know you didn’t want to give up your job. Or your position at the hospital. I didn’t want you to have to give up your passion, too.”
I honestly didn’t know what to say.
“Ruth will help you hire an assistant who can pick up whatever you make and deliver your orders wherever they need to go,” he continued. “Manage your pop-up. Whatever you need. But I think it’s the baking part that’s really important to you, yes?”
I swept my fingers over the cool marble counters, blinking away the tears that threatened.
“Shit. Are you—angel, what did I do? You don’t need to use it if you don’t want, really. I have a cook. It’s nothing.”
Again, that stupid word.
“It’s not—oh, Brendan, it’s not nothing.” I cleared my throat and forced myself to face him and smile through the pending waterworks. “This is unbelievably thoughtful. I—thank you.”