She squeaks as I kiss her, kiss her hard, kiss her as though I could press my frustration into her.Or maybe some sense.This woman is going to be both the bane and the joy of my entire life, I can tell. The agony and the ecstasy. The person who drives me crazy, as well as driving me to be a better man. But so long as she wants and needs me like she does right now—her hands hooked under my suit jacket, one fisting my shirt at my back—I reckon I’m okay with that.
As I pull back, her eyes are a little hazy, her fingers finding her lips as though to contain the power of our kiss.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘I do, and I’m sorry,’ she begins, hazy turning to threatening tears. ‘I was wrong, but try to see it from my position—’
I shake my head because that’s not what I meant at all. I have thought. I have tried to see it from her side—the evidence and the weight of her experience balanced against a man she thinks she barely knows. But I’ve been honest with her.Mostly. What you see is what you get.Mostly there, too.
I take her hand in both of mine, looping the ring holding her keys around my fingers only to deposit them in Paisley’s hand, all without letting go of her hand. It looks so small and slender in mine, her fingers widening as I draw one of my own the length of her palm.
‘What are you doing. Why are you giving her my keys?’
When she called from the office, Paisley was in a bit of a state—all broken sentences and emotion as she’d dashed out to her own car to follow. Because Chastity, on learning the truth behind the video, had shot out of the carpark in her little car like a bat escaping hell.
‘Because you’re coming home with me. It’s time to let someone else look after you.’
Her gaze softens and she exhales a soft breath, the tension dropping out of her. For at least a beat, before her eyes widen then flit to the bike parked in front of her car, the wrong way in the road.
‘On the donor cycle?’ she sort of yelps. ‘No. No way. People die on those things!’
‘Do you trust me,’ I repeat, not just talking about our mode of transport. And though I can tell she has a million things to say, provisos and addendums and fuck knows what else, she bites her bottom lip to stem the flow and nods her head.
‘I do trust you. I trust you not to break me. But I’m not sure,’ she says, her gaze sliding fearfully to the bike again, ‘I trust whizzing through the streets on a hunk of metal with wheels not breaking me.’
‘Just think of all that power between your legs.’
Her next look my way borders on contemptuous. ‘Really? At a time like this, you want to talk about sex?’
‘I don’t want totalkabout it,’ I reply with a sly half smile. ‘So why don’t you just get your arse on the bike and we can go do something about it.’
~*~
As I help her pull the helmet from her head, I don’t know if it’s the ride, her brush with Tate, or the subterranean parking garage that has her eyes the size of dinner plates.
‘Where are we?’ she asks as I feed my fingers through hers to pull her to the lift.
‘Home.’ I bite back my grin. ‘Tell the truth, you thought I lived in some grotty flat share in Islington, didn’t you?’
‘I’m well aware of my privileges,’ she answers snippily. ‘There aren’t many under thirties living in London who don’t have housemates.’
‘Keep your undies on.’ I slide my gaze over my shoulder and shoot her a saucy wink. ‘At least until we get upstairs.’
The elevator comes to a stop. It’s not the penthouse, but a thirteenth-floor apartment overlooking the river Thames. Mutli-million dollar real-estate, the kind most personal assistants only get to dream about. As I slip off my jacket and drop my keys on the table in the hall, I can tell that’s where her mind has gone.
‘Do you rent?’ As the words hit the air, her expression turns a sort of wide-eyed horrified. ‘Ignore that.’
‘I think it’s time I clued you in on a few things,’ I say, placing my hands on her shoulders from behind. I push the old Parker she’d had in the boot of her car from her shoulders, dropping it next to mine. I’m pleased she had something to wear as bike rides are wicked cold in spring. ‘I work for Keir,’ I begin, lowering my mouth close to her ear. ‘Mainly because it saves me from being one of those rich arseholes who don’t work. I also work for Keir because I’ve been learning how the property development market works.’Slotting away the insights to his killer instincts. ‘But none of that alters the fact that I am one of those rich arseholes.’
Her stay resolutely on the bank of windows and the terrace beyond, filled with greenery. The apartment is pretty stark; white floors and upholstery, the only real colour from a massive parlour palm and my huge TV on one wall.The space is light and bright, and I suppose in some ways, I’ve subconsciously brought a little bit of home here with me. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the sunshine.
‘And you didn’t think to mention any of that to me?’ Her tone is even, her voice clear.
‘Not until this week.’ Not until I offered Keir a cash injection and a partnership.
‘I don’t think I understand.’ And why would she? I’m the only one of my brothers that hasn’t really done much for themselves. Granted, we all went through that mad playboy stage coming into our inheritance after uni, but the Phillips clan are over-achievers, professionally. Apart from me.
‘You’re asking why not work for myself from the start?’
