Valerie
“Hey, Carlyle?” Alone in the car, I couldn’t help but wonder what thefuck was wrong with me! “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t think before everything spiraled out of control. I didn’t expect you to think that’s what I was gonna say . . . about you being so successful.”
“It’s fine, Valerie. I can’t imagine the stress you’re under with your mom, not having a job, and no phone, until right now. It’s a lot of time to kill.” Guilt clawed at my throat despite his assurance, and Carlyle reached across the center console to grab my hand. “I apologize, too, for grabbing you like that. I jumped the gun, and we wouldn’t have argued if I let you keep talking.”
“Do people really treat you that way?” He nodded firmly, seemingly unabashed, and my heart dropped as I weaved my fingers around his. “That’s awful.”
“I’ve dealt with it my entire life. For the record, that’s also why I don’t date much. I’m pretty much a walking dollar sign. I got disillusioned with it when I realized the number scale is a thing for a reason.” My brows rose in alarm, and his cheek twitched as he cast me a somewhat playful glance, but not enough to make me think he wasn’t entirely serious. “You break the scale, so you don’t have to worry.”
“You rate a girl’s looks and put a cap on spending? Really?” Today— well, the past three and a half hours— were just so eye-opening, and Carlyle actually chuckled a little condescendingly. “What happened when they ran out of money?”
“It’s not like they didn’t know it was coming. I was a little shit in high school and hadn’t figured out the finesse of a good business transaction. I told her straight up what number I thought she was, and I wasn’t going to spend a single penny more than that number. If I thought she was a six, she’d get six hundred dollars. And personality did count, but it was high school for rich people, so . . . ”
“That’s nuts for too many reasons. What’s the most you ever spent on a girl?” That sounded so wrong without context, and Carlyle flicked on his blinker as we came up on a pretty nice hotel he’d looked up. My own phone sat in its box, in a bag by my feet, and he untangled our fingers to grip the wheel.
“Ah . . . four was the highest. Like I said, I was an asshole in high school. Even if the girls were very good looking, I took personality into account because I knew they didn’t have one. I didn’t do it often. My dad was riding my ass because I was going to start at one of his management companies the summer I turned sixteen. I got promoted once a year, and now here I am.” Turning into the hotel parking lot, Carlyle cast me a cheeky smirk, and my abdomen twisted at how handsome he was. “I bet you thought I was going to say something stupid like eight.”
“Not really. That’s a lot of money for me, though— like, it’s a third of my rent right now. I can’t imagine it was a lot for girls like that.” Parking at the valet as I thought on it some more, Carlyle hummed in acknowledgment, and I gnawed on my inner cheek. “Why a four? What’d she expect to be?”
“A four because she was hot but had the second nastiest personality of anyone I’ve ever met, and also she really sucked in bed. She never told me what she expected to be, but by the way she slapped me, it wasn’t even close.” Puffing out my lips in surprise, my brows furrowed at that, and Carlyle shut the car off to lean back in the seat. Tilting to meet my eye, he reached to caress my jaw, and flames crept up my neck at the sincerity blazing from his gaze. “If I had to put a number on you on a scale of one to ten, it’s been thirty-two.”
I couldn’t help but laugh as flames licked my cheeks, and he smirked broadly before unbuckling. Following suit, I wondered where else this conversation would go, but I didn’t push it on the way into the hotel. He passed off the keys and got a ticket, and I gazed up at the glass and steel building stretching into the sky. Lights spilled out of the glass doors lining one side of one corner of the place, but it wasn’t long before I was passing through them and into the lobby.
Most hotels looked the same as the ones on TV, and this was no different. Carlyle spoke to the receptionist, got his keycard, and everything was a blur of normalcy. The urge to actually ask him about all the hints he’d been dropping, and why he dropped them, clawed at the back of my throat. After all, he knew I was avoiding telling him what was really bothering me, and I got sucked into it all in those moments between moments.
“Today was a huge mess. Can we start over in the morning?” Thebeepof the door release broke my daze, and I turned to Carlyle as he grabbed my hand to tug me through the threshold. “I don’t know how to fix this . . . contention.”
“I’d like that, yeah.” He didn’t bother flicking on a light or anything, but the room seemed to be just that— a bedroom with a little closet and kitchenette in the corner, judging by the silhouettes. Pausing when my knees touched the foot of the bed, I unlaced my leather pants to slide them down my legs. The ruffling of Carlyle’s clothes being shed was almost a relief, not excitement, and goosebumps rose on my skin when he pulled off my tank top.
I hadn’t worn a bra, and my chest warmed as Carlyle wrapped me up in a bear hug and cupped the back of my head. In the dark, all I could do was feel his rigid, toned body, his heart steadily beating against my cheek, and his heat seeping into me. My eyelids fluttered closed, my body deflating in a heavy sigh, and he rested his cheek against my crown as I branded this feeling deep into my brain.
“Do you know what I thought when I first saw you at the pizza place, Valerie?” Carlyle’s gruff tone accompanied his arms tightening around me like he was afraid I’d run away before he even got to say what he wanted to say. “I thought you were perfect. I don’t feel a lot of self-doubts, but I can honestly say I worried I wasn’t good enough for you. I haveneverthought about giving up my role in my own life, but I would, in a heartbeat, for you, and that prospect is terrifying because I don’t know who I am if I’m not the boss.”
“I don’t know whether you surpassed your own standards or just magically heightened mine to match, then.” There was absolutely not a single iota of humor to be found anywhere, and I slid my palms up his bareback as I nuzzled his chest hair. “It’s a good thing my life’s such a mess that I don’t have anything more to give up. I can just fit right into yours. I told my sister there’s just gotta be something devastatingly deal-break-ery about you, Carlyle, but there’s not.”
“Your closet is thirty-five percent pencil skirts. You’ll fit in beautifully.” Ours could’ve been a funny moment if it wasn’t so deeply laden in such serious undertones and silent words. As if Carlyle and I understood each other on such a fundamental level that we didn’t even need to speak. Maybe, I was fooling myself, and he just had a crap sense of humor about the ultimate power of powering the global economy.
Though, I had the sneaking suspicion that he didn’t.
So sweetly, Carlyle tugged the ends of my hair, and I lifted myself onto my toes. His kiss said all the things he didn’t, and I opened my mouth to tangle my tongue around his. The chapped roughness of his lips seared mine, and he reached down to hook his arm under my butt to hoist me up. Even as my thighs clung to him, I only felt the faintest flicker of desire, and his muscles played against my nakedness as he set me on the bed.
Hovering above me on his knees and elbows, Carlyle deepened the kiss, and my tongue throbbed with the overwhelming taste of him. Cupping his face, I wrapped my legs around him proper, and he nestled between them to pin me to the mattress.
“Valerie . . . ” He breathed my name like I was his Eden, and Carlyle rolled onto his side to gather me to his broad chest. His arms were security, and I cuddled against him with the full knowledge that I’d never get any better than him.
