Waiting For Forever (Beautiful Surrender, Part Four) (2 page)

"May I?" she said, gesturing for permission to pour
it for me. I nodded a second time, giving her a tight smile. The
sound of the water filling the glass dominated the silence, the
awkwardness from the interrupted moment writhing like the bubbles
that danced in the glass.

"I’m sorry," the server said smoothly, the
high-pitched youth all but disappearing, "But you're Logan Mason,
right? The billionaire dating Delilah James?"

"
Dated
," Melissa corrected brusquely.
She blushed when the server arched her eyebrows with interest.
"Sorry."

The woman pointed at the two of us. "So you two are
together now?"

I eyed her warily. "I'm not sure how any of that is
your business."

"My apologies, Mr. Mason," she said sweetly. "Why
don't I give you two another minute to decide what you’d like to
drink?"

Before I could remind her that she
had just delivered our drinks, she hurried off toward the
kitchen.

"Sorry," Melissa apologized again. "Do you get that a
lot? Random people coming up and asking you a bunch of
questions?"

"Unfortunately these days, yes," I sighed. I looked
toward the kitchen, something scratching at the back of my mind. "I
don't mind the questions, I'm just used to them being asked by
photographers that hound my every movement, not a server in a
restaurant."

Worry rippled across Melissa's face. "And what will
happen when they find out about me?"

"We'll deal with it," I assured her. "Together."

A harried looking server stepped up to our table,
pulling her lips into a smile that was more of a grimace. "I'm so
sorry it took me so long to get over here. We've been slammed. And
we had an issue with a photographer sneaking in to get pictures of
some billionaire." She paused, noticing we already had drinks. "Who
was helping you?"

Melissa's jaw dropped in disbelief.

I shook my head, tossing my napkin on the table with
disgust. "Welcome to the circus."

CHAPTER TWO

Melissa

Breathe.

Just breathe.

My body seemed happy to completely
ignore my commands. My heart still roared in my ears. My breath
still came in rapid hiccups. My brain replayed the moment I
realized that I was
so
out of my element: our actual waitress coming to our table,
apologizing and telling us they had an issue with a reporter
sneaking into the restaurant. Realizing that the reporter was the
one who had been pretending she was our waitress, bringing our
drinks and slyly asking Logan questions.

Realizing that my life as I knew it was over.

I clutched the seatbelt like it was my lifeline as
Logan's Benz purred to life. The parking garage was dimly lit, the
fluorescent glow of the sparse light peeking into the car. I was
glad it was dark and his attention was on maneuvering us toward the
exit and not on me. I didn't want him to see just how shaken I
was.

Even though I'd managed to laugh and eat my croissant
with minimal hand shaking, the truth was slowly devouring me, chunk
by chunk. I mean, this was some super spy stuff. The woman had
infiltrated the restaurant with the sole purpose of digging up dirt
on Logan. To find out about me. What would happen now? How long
until they found out my name? Where I worked? Where I lived?

Logan's hand shifted from the
gearshift to my thigh, and I struggled not to jerk away. Not
because I didn't want him to touch me. His touch was the only thing
that made sense. The only thing that felt right. But every person
we drove past made me suspicious and worried they were secretly a
photographer or some crazed Delilah fan.

"It's overwhelming, huh?"

I thought I was playing my cards close to the chest,
but one look at his face and I knew that he saw past my
charade.

"Overwhelming is an understatement." I forced myself
to ignore the feeling that the whole world was watching, judging
and concentrating on us. I lowered my hand on top of his, and
almost instantly I stopped shaking and a calm settled over me. I
realized something that made my heart flutter to my throat. "You
knew I was pretending I was okay in the restaurant and you didn't
call me on it?"

He lifted his fingers, slipping them between the
cracks in mine. We were just holding hands, but I felt the desire
building inside me, my core warm with need. He turned something
innocent into something deliciously sinful.

And then his words made me fall for him a little
harder.

"You didn’t need me to state the obvious. You just
needed me there."

I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it,
breathing in his skin. Reveling in his love. It was probably some
sort of love-fueled delusion, but with him by my side, I felt the
fear subsiding.

He pulled up to the parking garage attendant and paid
the fee, and the fear level lurched back to high alert. People were
at the exit on both sides of the car, aiming their cameras at us.
Flashing lights cut through the windshield.

I slumped low in my seat as Logan eased from the
garage, their shouts putting my teeth on edge.

"Mr. Mason!"

"Logan, who's the girl?"

"Over here!"

I snapped my eyes over to Logan, ready to aim my
anger at him since the car seemed to be crawling through the sea of
paparazzi, but I saw the white of his knuckles, the annoyed set of
his jaw. There was no way he could gun it even if he wanted to.
They had us surrounded, and besides the likelihood that he could
injure one of them, if he dashed off, it would look like he had
something to hide.

He let out an audible sigh of relief as we veered
onto the street, fading into the bustling downtown traffic.
"Jesus."

I repositioned myself, leaning my head back against
the leather seat. "You calling on Jesus doesn't make me feel any
better." I bit my bottom lip, trying to calm the queasiness in my
stomach. "I need to believe that things will go back to
normal."

"Normal is boring," he joked. When I didn't return
his smile, he became serious. "Do you want me to tell you it gets
easier?"

"Yes!" I nodded so enthusiastically my neck hurt.

"That would be a lie." He let out a tired sigh as we
stopped at a red light. "Back when I was seeing Delilah, someone
spotted us. My picture appeared on some blog and from then on, I
had no privacy. People snapped pictures of me on my morning run,
when I went to grab coffee, on my way to work. My whole life was
suddenly public knowledge. Kids who wanted nothing to do with me
growing up were suddenly my best friends, doing interviews with
every tabloid on the supermarket rack.

When I ended things with Delilah and her fans started
in on me, I thought with time it would die down. But it didn't. The
only break I got was when I went to Pleasure Point. When I met
you."

I hung my head, knowing that this was a moment. I was
an escape for him, and he was an escape for me. We were both
running from something and ran into each other's arms. But I
couldn't get past his admission that it didn't get better. “I think
I should have gone with the lie.”

"C'mere."

He tilted my chin upward, his green eyes gazing into
mine. He guided me to him, his lips aligning with mine, silencing
everything else but our kiss.

He pulled away too soon, putting the
car back in motion. I was still, my eyes shut and holding on to his
taste and the heat between my legs. I was on fire, wanting to climb
on top of him, to ride him until we both melted together--and I
wanted to climb into his bed and fade into his arms, surrounded by
the warmth of him. I'd never been so simultaneously in lust and
love with someone. So horny and hopeless.

“
Just to warn you, there will be
more of them at my building. If I could, I’d order them off the
face of the Earth,” he growled. “They can’t come inside the
building unless they’re a resident, but the sidewalk is public
property.” His green eyes scanned me, then shot back to the front,
on high alert. “We just have to get inside the parking garage and
we’ll be good.”

I swallowed the expanding knot in my throat. “I
understand.” The minutes that passed between his lips on mine and
the reminder that my life could be turned inside out had me
doubting if I truly understood. I didn’t understand that going on
the vacation alone would put me on a collision course with Logan.
That I’d meet someone who knew me so intimately without ever
touching me. A guy who saw the real me beneath the person I
pretended I was. And while I knew that love had everything to do
with why I came back after I shut him out, I didn’t understand how
deluded I’d been to think that everything would be okay once I saw
Logan and we fixed things between us.

The traffic was at a slow crawl, a
Gothic styled building standing out among high end department
stores and trendy restaurants. The first thing that popped in my
mind was New York, a grand building where even the concrete was
molded into the shape of filigrees, every square inch a work of
art. I peered out the window at the black awning with the street
address in bold, white letters. Standing like an unmovable force
was a man in a black suit, ready to leap into action the moment
anyone that didn’t belong tried to enter the building.

When I saw the sea of photographers, my confidence
dimmed. As if they could smell our scent, they turned in our
direction. The cameras went off like bombs as Logan made a hard
left, laying on his horn when a group of them stepped into the
driveway to the parking garage. I doubted they could see his
bloodthirsty glare, but they wisely dodged out of his path.

He zipped through the lane like a bat out of hell,
braking hard when we got close to the elevator towers. A single
spot remained beside it, a sign glittering above the parking
stall.

“
Mr. Mason,” I read aloud, sighing,
finally feeling like it was safe to truly relax. “Your very own
parking space?”

The mischievous twinkle in his eye made butterflies
swarm my tummy. “I’d hope so. I own the building.”

My eyes bulged and I clamped my lips together to keep
myself from asking a dumb question like, ‘the whole building?’. His
house in Pleasure Point was far from a shack, and I knew he was
wealthy, but I struggled to wrap my mind around the fact that he
owned the entire place.

Even though I got out of the car and followed him to
the elevator, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d left something
vital behind. My mind. My common sense. This was all happening so
fast, leaving me in silent terror that I was too out of place, too
normal to exist in this world of money and celebrity.

And then he touched me. It was the softest whisper of
his fingertips, sweeping from my neck, down my spine, and pausing
on my lower back. I looked up at him, words evaporating on my
tongue, but my body whispered sweet nothings about love and happily
ever after.

Rich, poor, crazy celeb ex or not, this man had a
hold on me, and I never wanted him to let me go.

CHAPTER THREE

Logan

God, she tasted good. Sweet, naughty, and feisty, her
tongue dashed in my mouth, the arm wrapped around my neck pulling
me closer. I nearly said fuck the elevator and pushed her back
against the wall to claim her in the garage, but she ended the kiss
with a sly grin. She sauntered into the elevator and I drank in her
curves, her tiny waist and round hips.

She spun around to the front, hand on her waist.
“Well?”

I stepped in beside her, the warmth of lust blazing
through my veins, demanding that I pull the emergency stop and have
my way with her. The only thing that made me type in the code to
the penthouse instead of ripping her clothes off was the fact that
she was staring at the camera perched in the left corner of the
elevator. Mesmerized by it.

I thought back to how painfully tight she’d gripped
her seat belt after we escaped the paparazzi. I’d put money on her
palm being marred with the imprint of her nails.

She was terrified of being watched.

Guilt poisoned my bloodstream, sex the last thing on
my mind when I pulled the lever, the emergency brake slamming us to
a stop.

She yanked her trench coat closed, her aqua eyes
suspicious. “This isn’t an Aerosmith song. If you think I’m about
to hook-”

“
I knew you were bothered by the
paps. Who wouldn’t be unless you thrived on the attention?” She was
still eyeballing me like she was expecting me to screw her into
submission, so I took a step back, giving her some space. “This
isn’t about that. This is about my selfishness.”

She released her grip on her coat,
slack jawed. “Your selfishness?”

I massaged my temple, trying to alleviate the tension
headache I felt growing, but it was no use. When I looked at her
face, full of questions and worry, I realized the ache wasn’t in my
head at all. It was in my heart.

I’d become accustomed to the insanity. Flashes
captured every moment of my daily routine, and I never stopped to
think about what it would be like to be thrown into this world. It
was all noise except for my one prerogative: having her in my life.
Melissa hadn’t even spent a day in my world and she was already
holding onto her sanity for dear life.

“
Delilah, the baby, the cameras,
and all the shit that comes with it is on me. That’s my life. I had
no right to expose you to it until you were ready.”

She evaluated me, her thoughts a mystery. I was used
to looking into her eyes and knowing exactly what she was thinking.
Was she having second thoughts about me? Wondering if she knew me
at all? If the headlines were to be believed, I had a new
girlfriend for each day of the week. Dating me would only lead to a
broken heart or worse. I didn’t care about their lies, but I cared
about what Melissa thought. I wanted her to see the person in me
who had the capacity to love. The person who loved her.