He nods. “Clearly, you do. I think it’s possible that you could be great.”
“But?” Because it’s obvious he doesn’t think I’m anywhere near that yet.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes. I need to know.”
He studies me, as if he’s weighing how to say it. “Your art is self-conscious. It’s not honest. I look at your paintings, Avery, and I see someone who’s either unsure of who she really is, or trying to hide from that truth.”
I bristle to hear it, a swift jolt of defensiveness—and alarm—shooting through me. Can he be right about my work? Even more troubling, can he truly see through me so clearly? It’s not as if the idea should come as a surprise. From that first night in the lobby of the Park Avenue building, I’ve felt stripped—exposed to my soul—under Nick’s shrewd gaze.
I feel that way now too, and every reflex in my body tenses with the urge to escape. I want to hide. And because he can read me like no one else, instead of letting me retreat, Nick closes his arms around me even more, caging me in his embrace. I glance away from his searching gaze, but he refuses to give me that either, gently catching my chin and bringing my eyes back to him.
“You have a gift, but you’re not letting it reach the canvas. I think you’re afraid of what you’ll see. You’re always going to be afraid, unless you find the courage to open your eyes.” A dangerous, alluring heat flickers in his fathomless blue irises. “I can open doors for you, Avery. I can lead you through them.”
His words from a few minutes ago seem to carry a darker, more sensual meaning while he’s holding me captive in his arms and his gaze. “Are we still talking about my art, or something else?”
His mouth curves, but his eyes remain utterly serious. “That’s up to you.”
It’s impossible to ignore his erection as we gently bob against each other in the water. The small waves rippling through the bay push us together in a lazy, sensual rhythm that has me reflecting back on everything we did last night.
Everything I am eager to do with him again.
And because he seems to enjoy provoking me—in and out of his bed—I shift my hips and bring my legs up, wrapping them around his waist. He closes his eyes on a groaned curse as my naked sex gets up close and personal with his abdomen.
“Better be careful, Ms. Ross,” he warns as his cock nudges my rear. “You’re giving me a lot of interesting ideas.”
I laugh and lean back in his arms, levering myself until I’m floating prone on the water. It feels like heaven, drifting suspended in Nick’s embrace with endless blue sky above me and a bed of gentle waves beneath me. “I don’t want to leave this spot. Can we stay here a while longer?”
“How long do you want to stay? The rest of the day, the rest of the week? The rest of the month?”
He can’t be serious. I lift my head out of the water and find him staring at me hungrily, his scorching gaze traveling the arch of my body and the swell of my breasts above the surface line of the water, where my nipples are pink and puckered as the tiny waves lick at them.
“Don’t you need to work? Do all of those important things that billionaire shadow moguls do?”
He chuckles. “Most of my business is conducted by email and phone calls. Anything I need to handle can be done from here.”
“Well, I’m supposed to be house sitting,” I remind him. “Claire’s plants will forgive a couple of days without water, but not much more.”
“I’ll call Manny. He’ll make sure everything is taken care of.”
“What?” I sit up, realizing he’s not joking. “Nick, I’m sure that’s not in his job description.”
“No, it isn’t. But if I ask, I’m fairly certain he’ll be willing to do it.”
I gape, suddenly understanding something I suspected that first night we were together. “You don’t just own the penthouse, do you?”
He smiles.
“Oh, my God,” I groan, but I can’t keep from returning his grin. “You’re crazy. We can’t just disappear for days or weeks on your boat.”
“Of course, we can. Whatever we need, we can get at one of the neighboring keys. Food, coffee, clothing, condoms.” He smiles wickedly. “All the essentials.”
I laugh, realizing I’m practically giddy at the idea of extending this fantasy escape with him. It’s wildly romantic, more than borderline reckless . . . and I can’t think of anything I want to do more.
I have no resistance—not for Nick’s plan, nor for the man himself. Noting my obvious surrender, he cups my nape and drags me to him for a breath-stealing kiss.
I moan when he finally releases me, arousal spiraling hot and tight in my core. “You’re going to corrupt me, you know that?”
“Oh, Ms. Ross. I fully intend to.”
Chapter 33
“Then, after island-hopping around the keys for three weeks, we sailed back to Miami and spent a couple of nights at his beach condo before flying home to New York last week.”
“Damn, girl! That sounds absolutely amazing.” Tasha beams, seated across from me at the diner in Queens where we’ve met for lunch on her day off from Vendange. She’s just spent the last twenty minutes listening indulgently while I recapped the highlights of my tropical escape with Nick.
The PG-rated ones, anyway. The rest of the highlights belong to Nick and me alone.
“You look amazing too, Avery. I can’t decide what you’re wearing better—that killer tan, or the smile that hasn’t left your lips since you walked in here.”
I tilt my head at her. “What, no smartass remarks about Nick or threats to disown me as your friend?”
“Nope. Not when you look this happy. I like seeing you finally let down your guard with someone.” She takes a sip of her iced tea, then salutes me with the glass. “And for the record, I’d be saying that even if your boyfriend wasn’t a drop-dead gorgeous bazillionaire with a yacht and multiple penthouse apartments. But it damn well doesn’t hurt that he is.”
I return her teasing smile, and go back to eating my turkey wrap and fries. “My boyfriend? I’m not sure I’m comfortable calling him that just yet.”
She shoots me an incredulous look. “Are you kidding? Uh, gee, let’s review. You’ve been practically inseparable for the past two months—nearly half of which has been spent alone with him, sunbathing and skinny-dipping your way around the Florida coast on his million-dollar sailboat. Which, by the way, he’s never done with anyone else before. He’s cooked for you, taken you out to nice places and fancy parties, and now you’re sitting in front of me looking like a woman who’s not only extremely well taken care of and well-pleasured, but also very possibly falling head over heels for this man. What the heck would you call him?”
“Well, when you put it that way, maybe.” I laugh and shake my head. “But I don’t know. And I’m not falling in love with him.”
God, am I? What I feel for him is intense, no doubt. It’s white-hot and consuming. After all the time we’ve spent together—naked and otherwise—I certainly can’t call our relationship casual anymore. He is my first thought when I wake up and my last as I’m falling to sleep every night. Granted, both of those moments are usually spent in his arms, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s nowhere else I’d want to be. And despite the fact that I haven’t considered where we’re heading in just a few more weeks when Claire is due back from Japan, I can’t think of Nick and not imagine us together.
Whatever feelings I have for him, I’m getting in deep and I can’t deny it. Least of all to myself.
Apparently I can’t deny it to my best friend either.
“So where is lover boy today?” she asks as she stabs a forkful of Caesar salad. “I’m surprised he let you out of bed long enough to come see me.”
“He’s got business meetings with his acquisitions team in London again.”
“Oh, back to London again?” She sighs melodramatically, her voice effecting a bored tone. “Well, Tony’s going to Staten Island tom
orrow to head up a new sewer pipe installation with his construction crew. So really, that’s like almost the same thing, right?”
“Shut up.” We burst into a fit of giggles, and I shake my head at her. “Anyway, Nick left yesterday and he won’t get home until a week from Friday.” I don’t mention that I’m missing him terribly and can’t wait for our time apart to pass. Instead, I munch on a fry and glance over at Tasha. “Speaking of work, how are things at the restaurant?”
She rolls her eyes. “Kimmie got promoted last week. Joel put her in charge of the bar, of all things.”
“What? She can hardly place a drink order without messing it up, much less mix one.”
“You’re telling me? Not that it matters. She’s an expert at kissing Joel’s fat ass, so she’s golden.” Tasha dumps a sugar packet into her tea, then chases the granules and ice cubes around with her spoon. “I’m supposed to be training her on the inventory and the register in our downtime, which, as you know, is next to nil. So, basically, I’m doing everything myself while she stands around and chats up Joel and the customers.”
I wince. “I’m sorry. If I’d known my leaving was going to make things worse for you—”
“No. Don’t even go there,” she interjects sharply. “I’m glad you stood up to him. I’m glad you got out of there. Believe me, I would too if I had half your guts.”
There was a time, not so long ago, that the thought of locking horns with my employer would have been unthinkable, let alone something I’d actually do. But I’m not that person anymore. Maybe I never was. I just never dared to push back before, to let that side of me loose.
Nick has said he thinks I’m running from who I really am—hiding from it. I’ve been turning those words over in my mind ever since, and although he made that observation in connection to my art, I can’t help thinking that he is right. There is so much about me that he’s gotten right. So much that he’s unlocked, set free.
I can open doors for you. I can lead you through them.
The truth is, he already has. Even if our relationship ends tomorrow, I know I can never go back to the person I was before he entered my life.
Where exactly that leaves me now, I haven’t quite figured out yet.
“So much for my bartending career,” I mutter, giving Tasha a wry look. “Vendange was the only restaurant I’ve worked in since I came here, and it’s not like Joel is going to give me a reference.”
“Oh, please.” Tasha dismissively waves her hand. “Who needs references when you’re Dominic Baine’s mystery girl?”
“His what?”
“You haven’t seen it?” She draws back, giving me a surprised look. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot—you’re allergic to the Internet. Yes, you and your maybe-sorta boyfriend were all over the society pages after the mayor’s gala last month.”
She wipes her hands on her napkin, then digs in her purse for her phone. I feel uneasy and confused, waiting as she brings up a website page on her browser. She turns the screen toward me and wiggles her brows.
“See? There you are.”
It’s the gossip page of a big New York City newspaper. There among the dozens of paparazzi shots of socialites and business magnates attending the mayor’s fundraiser are two photos of Nick and me. One is the snapshot taken of us through the windshield of Nick’s limo. The other was captured as we made our way past the photographers and police barricades into the hotel for the event.
“‘A rare public appearance tonight by billionaire businessman and philanthropist, Dominic Baine, arriving with his guest, Ms. Avery Ross,’” Tasha recites for me, adopting a faux snooty inflection that normally might make me giggle along with her. But not now. Not over this.
“Let me see that.”
I take her phone and look at the photos, groaning because I know how Nick values his privacy. Hell, I value mine, too, and it’s with no small amount of alarm that I realize these photos—and my name—are now in the public domain. They must’ve gotten my name off the registry when Nick and I checked in that night.
I glance down at the social media stats at the bottom of the article and feel some of the color drain from my face. “Are you shitting me? Tasha, this article has more than a million views.”
“Congratulations,” she says cheerfully, unaware of the growing knot of unease that’s coiling in my stomach. “You’re officially famous, girlfriend.”
~ ~ ~
I’m in a restless mood when I arrive home from brunch with Tasha, and I can see it in the painting I’m working on in my makeshift studio in Claire’s living room. The landscape I’d been trying to perfect for so long without success currently sits abandoned against the wall, along with the crated works I haven’t bothered to open since I brought them home from Dominion a couple of months ago.
On my easel now is something all new, a piece inspired by my getaway with Nick. I began working on it secretly after we arrived back in New York. In the weeks since, it’s been my obsession. As I add the last of the shading on the silvery feathers that are the heart of the piece, I’m so engrossed, I barely register the ringing of my cell phone on the end table beside me.
Although I’m waiting on a call from Nick after texting him when I got back from brunch, I’m not surprised to see the Pennsylvania area code on the caller ID display. After a favorable interview with the parole board a couple of weeks ago, my mother’s excitement for her pending case review next month is practically all she talks about now. I’m excited, too, praying with an almost desperate hope that the state finally shows her some mercy.
Setting down my brush, I quickly wipe my hands on a paint cloth and grab for my phone. I swipe the lock screen and wait to hear the automated operator.
But the familiar message doesn’t come.
The line is connected, but all I hear is empty air . . .
And the faint sound of breathing on the other end.
“Hello? Is someone there?” I wait another second, then pull the phone away from my ear and check to see if the call has dropped. No, it hasn’t. And now I swallow on a suddenly arid throat, even as I assure myself that I have no reason to feel afraid. “Hello? Mom, is that you?”
The line goes dead.
I’m still holding the phone in my frozen fingers when it rings again. Whether it’s been a few seconds or a several minutes, I’m not entirely sure. All I know is the rapid pound of my heart beating in my chest, and the chill dread that squeezes me in its fist as I nervously glance at the screen again.
Nick.
Relief pushes the air out of my lungs on a heavy sigh, but my nerves are far from steady as I swipe my finger across the phone to answer his call.
“Hi.” My voice comes out thin and quiet, almost breathless.
“Hi, yourself.” He gives me a low, sensual groan. “Why do you have to sound so damn sexy when I’m thirty four hundred miles away?”
I smile despite the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. Hearing Nick’s voice always has a comforting effect on me, and now is no exception. Besides, I’m sure the other call was nothing. Probably someone from the prison administration or the public defender’s office calling my number unintentionally. Just a harmless butt-dial. No reason to start looking for ghosts or jumping at shadows.
Instead, I reach for a tether to bring me back to the real world. “How was the meeting with the aerospace people?”
“Profitable. We closed on the acquisition before dinner tonight.” He sounds genuinely excited, even proud.
“Nick, that’s fantastic. Congratulations.”
I can practically hear the grin in his reply. “The capital we’re injecting into the operation’s going beef up production schedules by twofold. If everything goes well, by this time next year, Baine International will be the third largest entrant in the private spaceflight market.”
I’m astonished, but not surprised. Nothing about this man’s ambition and drive, nor his intellect, shocks me anymore. He is a force to be reckoned with, and I doubt he??
?s ever met a challenge he couldn’t conquer—on this planet or any other, evidently. “If you keep dominating markets outside our orbit, you’re going to have to seriously consider new letterhead. Baine Intergalactic has a nice ring to it.”
He chuckles. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“I’m excited for you, Nick. I wish we could celebrate in person.”
“So do I. And we will, as soon as I return.” Then his voice takes on a deeper timbre. “Until then, I can think of some interesting ways to celebrate together long-distance.”
“I’m sure you do.” I laugh, even as my body quickens with interest. “And I want to hear every wicked one of them, but . . . that’s not the reason I wanted to talk to you. I met Tasha in the city today. While we were talking, she showed me a gossip page article about the mayor’s gala last month. There were photos of us together as we arrived. Apparently, they’ve gone viral on the Internet.”
“Ah.” He doesn’t sound pleased. Then again, he doesn’t sound surprised either. “I suppose that was to be expected.”
“You already knew?”
“I employ enough people who’ll bring these kinds of things to my attention if I don’t see them for myself first.”
“So, you’re not upset that we’ve been photographed together?”
“Of course I’m upset. But I’m used to the press constantly buzzing around in search of their next meal. They might’ve fed on us for a lot longer if we hadn’t left the city when we did and for as long as we did.”
“Oh.” A pang of disappointment stings me as he explains. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right, Nick.”
Dominic Baine is nothing if not a shrewd man. And, as I’ve learned, he is always in control, always one step ahead of everyone else drifting through his orbit.
So, I really can’t fault him for thinking that far ahead, for taking steps to protect his privacy. I shouldn’t feel disappointed if his motivation for whisking me off on the fantasy getaway of my life was more pragmatic than it was spontaneous.