Heart of the Billionaire Page 6

  For a second, the pause button was pushed on the whole world again. Even the birds stopped singing.

  Then, with a look of quiet resignation, I pushed to my feet. “I understand.” Without another word, I headed inside, leaving him on the balcony without a backward glance. “Just give me a minute to pack my things.”

  James stood and stared after me with a horrified mixture of confusion and shock that I could feel even without looking at him. For a second, he seemed completely incapable of speech, until he rushed after me with all the intent of an NFL linebacker trying to sack a quarterback. “Della, wait! What are you—”

  “A steady girlfriend of a certain pedigree, right?” I flashed a wry smile over my shoulder as I snatched my purse from the side table. “I’m sure an American transplant, a yank of lowly estate, won’t do, will it? Especially an employee at your company, a member of the working class.”

  He raced behind me like a rebellious shadow, pulling everything out of my hands as I picked it up to leave. “No! I wasn’t saying that at all. I was talking about—”

  “And a brunette at that. Not a blonde.” I shook my mop sadly. “That’s just pouring salt in the wound.”

  At that point, he seemed to realize I was messing with him, because his frantic efforts to stop me came to a hesitant pause, and he lowered his hands and took a cautious step back. “You’re just... You’re not...” he stammered.

  In the next second, I was flying through the air, brandishing a beaming grin as I tackled him. He released a soft gasp as he caught me, but my bag slammed into his legs at full force, sending both of us tumbling to the floor.

  “It’s about time,” I said, pinning his wrists to the floorboards as I pressed a mischievous kiss against his lips. “I’ve been waiting for quite a while.”

  “Have you now?” His eyes twinkled as he gazed up at me. “My apologies.”

  I tightened my grip, imprisoning his arms above his head as my legs tightened slowly around his waist. He stiffened automatically beneath me, and without breaking eye contact, I reached down and started to unzip his pants, wearing that same playful smile.

  “Ferdie!” he called. “I think you should take a break for a bit.”

  “Please,” I echoed, remembering my manners. “Please and thank you, Ferdie!”

  There was a disgruntled huff from the kitchen, followed by what sounded like a muttered tirade against the reckless sexual abandonment of Generation Y. A metallic dinging sounded from the elevator, and a second later, he was gone.

  “Please and thank you?” James repeated with a smile, still staring up at me with an insatiable hunger as my dress fell down to my waist. “You surprise me.”

  His hands lifted to touch me, but I captured them firmly above his head. “Manners, James,” I reminded him, then punctuated that with another kiss. “Those are two words I promise you’ll be saying a lot more of in the hours to come. Is that understood?”

  His body shook with silent laughter beneath me, his eyes sparkling in the light as he bit down on his lip to restrain a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.” Then, without another word, I ripped off his belt and looped it expertly around his wrists, doing my best to conjure up some fun with his stuffy work attire. “In that case, let’s begin.”

  A second later, his pants were around his ankles, and my dress was on the floor.

  “Delilah Jones, I do believe we’ll make an English lady out of you yet.”

  “Not so fast, Prince Cross. I don’t intend to be ladylike for quite some time,” I teased.

  Chapter 9

  WE WENT TO THE FUNERAL and laid James’s father to rest. Abby and Nick were so supportive. Nick told him how his dad was like a second dad to him. James held the tears back that I know he wanted to cascade down his cheeks. I saw Madison and other people from the office there to show their support. Robert even showed up, but kept his distance from James. When we were off on our own, James softly sang one of his dad’s favorite songs as he stared out, looking at the blue sky and pretty trees.

  “That was beautiful,” I said.

  “Thank you. I’m trying to stay strong, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. I miss my father so damn bad, and I’d give anything just to see him one more time. It just hurts so much. My granny said death leaves a hole so big that nobody can heal, but love leaves a memory no one can steal. But I want more than memories.”

  His eyes welled up with tears as I squeezed his hand. “I can’t even begin to express how much my heart aches for you. I wish I could take away your pain. There are no words to tell you how sorry I am. Ben brought so much joy to everyone around him. He will definitely be missed by everyone.”

  He squeezed my hand as he closed his eyes and pondered. I hated seeing him in so much pain, knowing there was nothing I could do to ease it.

  He let out a long sigh. “When I was little, Nick and I snuck off and watched some stupid horror movie. It scared me to death and I started having nightmares, swearing that a monster lived under my bed or in my closet. My father would hear me wake up screaming, and he would burst into the room with his monster spray. I would tell him to blast every single creature lurking in those dark shadows straight back to hell. The man would spray it everywhere, under the bed, in my closet, and even in my shoes. Honestly, I just think my shoes stank.”

  I laughed. “But it worked. Stay back, monsters!”

  He smiled.

  “But my dad was like Superman, right there to fight off any monster that might try and do me harm. And I felt safe and secure. He would kiss me goodnight and the entire room smelled like lavender. I knew my room could never be safer. And sleeping in the dark was no problem at all. The scent was so comforting and lulled me to sleep. And to this day, whenever I smell lavender, I think of him.”

  “That’s a sweet memory.”

  “He never got upset with me. Not matter how many times I woke him up. He had the patience of a saint.”

  “I know you had a wonderful dad.”

  “He was the best. I’ll miss him like crazy.”

  We spent the rest of the day away from everyone. James took me to one of his quiet retreats and we just talked and stayed isolated away from the world and from the press.

  A WEEK LATER, WE STARTED working on the English lady makeover. Not only did I awake to James holding a silver platter of tea and pastries, a display made even more enjoyable because he had yet to find his pants, but the second we finished eating, he pulled me out of bed and abruptly announced that we were going to the opera, something that struck me as a very English thing to do.

  “The opera?” I repeated incredulously, watching as he tossed the platter carelessly on the floor and headed into the bathroom for a shower. “That’s still a thing?”

  The sound of his sparkling laughter echoed off the tiles as he flipped on the water and waited for it to heat up. “Was it ever not a thing, love?”

  “I don’t know. I just...” I wandered sleepily inside to join him, stepping out of my tiny shorts and pulling my camisole over my shoulders. “I guess I thought that sort of went out of style back when men wore top hats and women tried not to faint while being slowly suffocated by patriarchy and corsets.”

  “Style and class will never go out of style,” he said, placing his hands on my shoulders and leaning down for a soft kiss. “You, my dear, have and deserve both. Now, as far as aristocratic pastimes go, it’s actually not that bad. They’re performing La Bohème tonight, one of my favorites.”

  He has a favorite opera? Does he also play polo and hunt quail or fox on the weekends?

  “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore,” I said, swaying sleepily on the steps, not even noticing when he stepped beneath the jets of water. I squinted contemplatively as I tilted my head toward the ceiling, trying to reconcile a world in which I went to the Royal Opera House in London. Until just a few months ago, I had yet to leave the country. Now I was living in Europe, about to attend the same theater Her Royal
Majesty frequented, with James Cross as my date.

  “Not that I wish to risk patriarchy and suffocation, love,” he said above the splish-splashing of the water, “but I wouldn’t object to you stuffing that beautiful bosom of yours into a corset. If the need arises, I will happily offer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said, stalling nervously, my eyes widening as I imagined a million things that could go wrong.

  He laughed. “I am only teasing about the corset, Della.”

  “No, I mean... Well, if this is to be our first official outing as a couple, can’t we start a little smaller? Maybe...pizza and miniature golf?”

  He caught my arms with a smile and tugged me gently into the water. “Given that we’re no longer twelve, I must nix the mini-golf on principle. I must also ask that you never bring it up again. Also, given that I must be presentable as the next CEO of the largest corporation in all of Britain, I think the opera’s a good place to start.”

  I hedged my bets as he eased me gently under the water, combing his fingers slowly through my long hair. “Surely no one in the corporate world has a problem with the two of us going on a little picnic.”

  “I would love that,” he said, then leaned down with a smile and kissed the tip of my nose. “Perhaps we can picnic...at the opera.”

  “James, I’m serious!” I complained, lathering sweetly scented shampoo in my hair and leaning back into the water as he sank surreptitiously to his knees. “I don’t know the first thing about how to behave at an opera. I mean, they have them back home, in the States, but I never went to one. Am I supposed to bring my own binoculars? How many commoners do I have to snub on the way over?”

  “Ha ha!”

  Then, a sudden thought struck me, one more terrifying than all my other worries. “What am I supposed to wear? I keep having these Pretty Woman flashbacks, and that—”

  “Shh,” he shushed before a quiet chuckle echoed up from around my thighs. “Would you like me to smash your fingers in a box full of diamonds?”

  I shrugged and sent a helpless sigh into the steam. “Hey! What are you doing down there? Oh my gosh! It feels wonderful!”

  My eyes snapped open for the first time as I felt the unexpected and unbearably warm sensation of a moist kiss between my legs. A gasp tore out of me as I threw out my arms for balance, bracing them against the tile walls.

  “James, I—”

  “Quiet,” he commanded, hitching one of my legs over his shoulder as he shot me a professional frown. “I require complete concentration.”

  I giggled nervously, swaying again as I tried to balance upon one foot. “Okay but seriously, you can’t do this in here.”

  Clouds of steam wafted up around us as a torrent of hot water rained down.

  “I’m going to... I think I’m gonna faint.”

  Completely ignoring me, he ran his tongue along the inside of my thigh, and then his head disappeared somewhere between my legs. My back arched in pleasure as my hands gripped desperately onto the soap dispenser and even the showerhead above me.

  “Fainting is good,” he murmured between kisses, closing his eyes as the water drenched his hair and the rippling muscles in his shoulder and back. Every now and then, his lips curved up in a smile, and he gave me a naughty bite. “Fainting is very English. Our women swoon all the time.”

  A million sarcastic comebacks died on the tip of my tongue as I surrendered myself completely. Only a few seconds in, was putty in his hands. I was nothing more than a willing victim, a doll to be moved and positioned however he liked. A moment later, he grabbed my other leg and threw it over his shoulder as well, then lifted effortlessly to his feet with my entire body wrapped around his neck like some kind of writhing scarf. Then he bit me again, and every other thought flew from my mind.

  There was nothing else to hold on to up there, so I weaved my fingers through his dark mane. Knowing Ferdie was gone and no one else was home, I threw back my head and cried out aloud. It seemed nothing in the world could stop our passion as James dug his fingers into my thighs and I came.

  Finally, just when I thought I was honestly going to pass out between the heat and acute pleasure of it all, he let go. I fell backward with a shriek, but he caught me a second later, one hand gripping the small of my back and the other on my leg that was wrapped securely around his waist.

  Before I even realized what was happening, he was slamming me into the wall, panting into my shoulder as he knocked me senseless with thrust after exquisite thrust. My mouth fell open as my legs tightened around him. My nails raked his shoulders, and I held on for dear life. More pressure built inside me, so much I feared I would surely implode. James cried a primal howl into my shoulder as his body hardened beneath me, letting me know he was just as close as I was, that we were ready to go there together, that we had both reached the edge of our limits.

  “James, I’m going to c—” I started, only to be interrupted by a cheerful voice that obviously wasn’t my lover’s.

  “Are you guys here? We brought scones.”

  James’s eyes shot open, as I slipped suddenly against the tile. He barely caught me as the two of us tumbled apart, and we landing in a breathless pile on the shower floor.

  That delicious pressure vanished in the blink of an eye, and I dug my fingernails into the sides of my legs, shaking with silent, tortured laughter. “I freaking hate your friend. You know that?”

  James pounded his head against the wall, trying to slow his frantic breathing as his body struggled to change pace. “He’s not my friend. He’s a menace, one that must be destroyed.”

  As if on cue, Nick hollered again, his voice as bright and energetic as the smile that was no doubt plastered across his insufferably perfect face. “Hurry it up! Coffee’s getting cold!’

  James took a deep breath, then resigned to turning off the tap, still looking like a man who had a solitary thing on his mind, a thing that certainly had nothing to do with scones. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it was sex either; in all likelihood, it involved a sharpened spear, followed by a swanky Manhattan funeral. “After you,” he said, with a roll of his eyes.

  I slipped out of the shower in front of him, wrapped myself in a towel, and cautiously pushed the door open.

  When James stepped out behind me, with a bronze towel wrapped around his waist, Nick looked up with a bright smile, offering out a paper bag. “Scone?”

  I knew when I met James that his life was crazy, at least by comparison to the lives of all the normal people I knew, normal people like me. The money alone elevated things to a whole other level, and his whimsically impossible personality didn’t exactly help. I also knew immediately that he had crazy-high standards. As if jet-setting and the castle in the clouds wasn’t enough, I had recently learned that a small mountain range in Peru would soon be named after the man. The thing I had no way of knowing when we met, though, was that James’s friends were just as insane as he was.

  Abby walked into the bedroom. “Oh. You’re not dressed. Sorry. We didn’t know.”

  I grabbed a white robe and slipped into it. I then handed James one.

  “Can you please wait downstairs?” James asked, slipping the robe on.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Nick gestured excitedly toward his phone. “You should thank me. I just signed you up for the first-ever recreational flight to the moon.”

  “You’re dead to me.” James stormed across the room in a huff, pausing only to give Abby a cursory kiss on the cheek. “And by that, I mean both of you.”

  “But I brought scones,” Nick repeated, baffled as to why his presence during a sexual interlude might possibly present a problem or even a minor inconvenience. “You love scones.”

  “They’re very English,” I reasoned, hiding a grin as Nick passed me a latte. “Why, I could just swoon eating one of these,” I teased.

  “Thank you,” Nick exclaimed, as exasperated with James as James was with him. “They are
very English, not that I’m sure why that suddenly matters.”

  “Would you get out so I can dress?” James demanded, slapping the top of his bureau for good measure, “or would you like me to show your wife what she’s been missing all this time?”

  Abby cocked her head curiously. “But I thought you said we’re dead to you? I know you as many things, James Cross, but I never took you for being into necrophilia.”

  “You wouldn’t be dead under me, dear,” James wickedly said with a wink.

  At that point, a frown wrinkled Nick’s forehead, and bickering banter came to a sudden stop as he stared at his friend in alarm. “What the fuck happened to your leg, man?”

  I glanced over nervously as James looked down in surprise. Since his showdown with Robert, the damage done to his leg had yet to fully heal. While the swelling and abrasions had long since vanished, a nasty collage of bruises still marked his entire knee, as if he’d been kneeling in the ashes of a particularly gruesome fire.

  Before he could say a word, Nick turned on me and snatched the latte away, obviously my punishment. “Did you do that?! Now, I don’t know how they teach you to fuck in Kentucky, but you’re supposed to be the kinder, gentler sex!”

  “Della didn’t do anything,” James interjected.

  “Hey, how do you know I grew up in Kentucky?”

  Nick looked at me as if it was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked him, then turned an excited stare back on James, the type of stare that demanded answers. “So? You admit someone did this to you?”

  “I admit nothing.” James sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Now give me a scone.”

  “Not till you tell me what happened!”

  “Nick,” Abby said, quickly moving to her feet to lay a calming hand on her husband’s arm, “why don’t we tell them the real reason we’re here, and you can beat it out of him later?”

  Ever the diplomat. I could learn a thing or two from her.