Chapter 14 Nova
NOVA
“Honey? I’m home.”
He knew I couldn’t stand it when he did that, which was, of course, the reason he kept doing it. He called out that way when he got home from work as if we were a couple on an old sitcom. This wasn’t a fun situation—no studio audience would laugh at what I was going through.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad all the time. I could’ve done a lot worse than a mansion like the one Vaughn owned, where I could sit on the back patio and stare out over Red Rock Canyon, enjoying the breeze when it decided to stir the air.
The cook and housekeeper were nice, efficient, the kind of people who didn’t ask questions as my short stay turned into several days, then a week, now going on ten days by the time Vaughn sauntered into the kitchen while I threw together a big salad for dinner.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I warned before he could say a word, glancing up from the chicken I was slicing.
My husband. I could’ve done worse and wound up stuck with somebody who didn’t make my heart skip a beat at the sight of him.
He had stopped halfway through the large, gleaming room, wearing the wicked grin that first drew me to him.
That grin was evil, capable of doing all sorts of things.
For instance, making me wish he would not stop removing his suit jacket, which he left slung over a stool, before pulling a bottle of wine from the wine refrigerator under the counter. It must have been one of those days.
“Ideas about what?” he asked, using the automatic bottle opener to uncork.
“Having me make dinner for you every night. I’m nobody’s housewife.” As he chuckled, I added, “I happen to be hungry, and I figured maybe you would be too.”
“The horse is dead, Nova. You can stop beating it.” Pulling two glasses from the cabinet, he added, “And don’t act like you don’t spend all day looking forward to questioning every choice I make in my business.”
His snarky comment gave me pause. “I don’t do that.”
“No?” Setting a wine glass in front of one of the two plates I had already left out, he drank from his own.
I gripped the knife a little tighter and wished he wouldn’t stand so close, even as I inched nearer to him in hopes of picking up more of his scent.
He always smelled so good—spicy, musky, addictive.
“So I guess you’re not at all interested in the interminable quarterly meeting I sat through this afternoon.
You know, the one you reminded me of this morning before I left for the office? ”
“Forgive me for being bored out of my mind around here.” I finished putting the salad together, then set a pair of salad tongs on top. “Dig in.”
“You have every piece of media ever created at your fingertips.” He actually sounded like that was supposed to be enough while filling his plate. “Every book instantly downloaded. Every streaming service known to man. Music. The pool in the back.”
Yes, I was beyond comfortable here. This little routine we’d fallen into was nice, no matter how I grumbled.
That was why I grumbled so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea.
I knew he was working with the lawyer, pushing for the annulment.
It was the right thing to do. I couldn’t trick myself into getting more attached to him and his lifestyle than I already had.
“I miss working. At least when I was in school, I was putting my brain to use. Come on, what can it hurt? Talk business with me,” I teased, grinning at how he rolled his eyes and sighed.
That meant I was getting through. “Just think, once we’re annulled, you’ll lose out on all this knowledge.
” I tapped my temple, making a joke of something that stirred real discomfort in my chest.
“Right. That.” A wall went up between us, and I hated it, which meant the wall needed to be there. I already cared too much, liked him too much, wanted him too much.
“Things are good, but they could be better.” He sat down with a heaping plate and dove in with the same energy with which he attacked everything, including my body.
Part of me was a little disappointed that hadn’t happened in a while, but it was mostly my fault.
I was the one always trying to maintain boundaries.
He was saving my life, but that didn’t mean I was his concubine or whatever, even if we shared his bed, thanks to my incessant nightmares, which he insisted on comforting me over and making me like him even more.
Right now, I was kicking myself for those stupid boundaries.
The sight of him inserting a forkful of salad into his mouth was the hottest thing I had seen in forever, made only worse when his tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth to catch a drop of dressing lingering there.
Holy shit. I deliberately turned my gaze to my plate.
Boundaries. Who the hell ever came up with that idea?
“Do you think you have the funding to renovate?” I asked, very slowly and deliberately cutting a slice of chicken into smaller bits, like a surgeon.
If I focused on this, I couldn’t focus on Vaughn’s big, powerful hand resting on the countertop.
Goose bumps pebbled my arms when I recalled what he could do with that hand, not to mention the rest of him.
“Oh, that’s no problem. The issue is convincing the fucking Board.
” He said it with a snarl, his shoulders rising when I glanced his way.
He stabbed at the greens like he had something against them.
“A bunch of old, whiny assholes. Don’t get me wrong.
I appreciate taking a measured approach, but nobody ever told these people you need to spend money to make money, even if renovating the hotel would justify raising prices. ”
“Put together a few case studies,” I suggested. “What’s the name of that one guy you said you know? We were talking about him a few days ago. Clay something?”
“Manning.”
“Right. Manning-Rinaldi Hospitality. You said he did some renovating and rebranding on the older properties he acquired.” Vaughn nodded, listening without smirking for once.
“Ask him to send you a few earnings reports from before his acquisition and after. You could use them as case studies to convince the Board to release the funds.”
Pointing at him with my fork, I added, “You have to tailor your approach based on the people you’re dealing with. Some people listen to reason, others need things spelled out for them.”
When he was silent for what felt like too long, I looked up from my plate.
He chewed slowly, studying me, one eye slightly squinted while the other brow lifted.
“Something on my face?” I asked, swiping at my mouth with a napkin while I tried like hell not to drown in those sparkling green eyes.
Dear God. All of this needed to come to an end soon because I didn’t know how much longer I could be around him like this without forgetting all of my so-called boundaries.
His tongue moistened his lips, thus moistening my pussy, before he offered a slight smile.
“Maybe you know a thing or two, but I’m still not giving you access to the network while I’m in the office just so you can keep yourself occupied,” he warned.
“Hell, maybe I’ll have you throw those case studies together if you’re dying for something to do. ”
“Would you? I would love to.” I almost sighed. When he snickered, I grabbed his arm, shaking my head. “I’m serious! Give me something to do, please. I’m going out of my mind after spending so many years studying. My brain is going soft.”
“Okay, okay. Wow,” he marveled before looking down at my hand and back up at me.
He didn’t seem annoyed. No, just the opposite.
I saw the light behind his eyes and recognized it because I felt the same.
The constant pull, the chemistry. No wonder we had decided to tie the knot while we were both too drunk to know better.
It must have seemed like a no-brainer at the time.
I cleared my throat, letting go of him and picking up my fork again. “I like to work.”
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll hire you,” he offered with a smirk before clearing his plate. “I might not mind attending meetings so much if I knew you’d be there.”
There was something sweet and simple in the way he said it, which meant I had no reason to flush all over with pleasure.
This absolutely couldn’t last much longer without my boundaries crumbling.
All it took was his arm brushing against mine while taking my empty plate to make my breath catch, for Christ’s sake.
He released a long, shaky breath on his way to the sink. “Thank you for putting dinner together. We’ll have to go out to dinner some night soon. You need a change of pace.”
How pitiful was my life that the idea of dinner in a restaurant made my pulse race? “I would love it,” I told him with a smile as I took my empty glass to the sink, placing me beside him.
“Good.” He held my gaze a beat too long, and I swayed closer before pulling back again. Fucking boundaries. It mattered to me that I not give him the wrong idea, only I was starting to forget what the wrong idea was. The lines had blurred to the point of being nonexistent.
Blowing out a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his dirty blond locks. “I’m getting in the shower and might get a little work done.” The room might as well have been on fire, he left so fast. I closed my eyes, leaning against the counter. Wouldn’t it be nice to join him?
Instead, I dampened a dishcloth under the cold tap and touched it to the back of my neck. Why didn’t I just go for it? It wasn’t like he would turn me down. Some things a girl knew. My damn stubbornness was going to be the death of me.