Kissing the Tycoon (3 page)

He shrugged and jumped the ten feet to the balcony below, landing with catlike reflexes. “I know, but I also wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I think I’ve had it with men tonight.”

“Men or just Sherman men?”

“Try not breaking your neck, Trenton.”

Chapter Two

A
t five after ten, Barret helped Riley into his old beat pickup truck. He had been a little surprised that the only reaction from the other Shermans had been a courteous nod. Pulling into traffic, Barret smiled as he felt her eyes on him.

“I can’t believe you still have this old thing. With all the money you’ve made, I would have thought you’d upgrade to something that at least had air-conditioning.”

“This is all I need. Doesn’t make sense to have flashy cars I can’t put anything in.”

“I have fond memories of this truck,” she murmured, causing him to look at her as a slight blush covered her flawless skin.

“As do I.” And he did. More than once they had found a secluded area and made out, and other nights they had lain in the truck bed, talking about the future and staring at the stars.

“I guess I just assumed with your new jet set life you would get something to show your status.”

“That’s my brother. Status was never my concern as much as being stable. And as for jet set, I fly only when I have to.”

“What? No wild parties in Vegas, weekends in Paris, or lounging in Fiji?”

“Not my scene. Actually, I spend any free time I have working on projects closer to home.”

“Oh?”

“You’ll see.” He smiled, pulling onto the highway and away from the city.

“Where are we heading?”

“The north shore. Have you eaten?”

“Had a family breakfast this morning first thing.”

His phone beeped and he couldn’t miss the way she tensed. He tossed the phone at her. “Can you turn it off?”

“Don’t you need to see who it is?”

“Nope.”

“Could be important.”

“Nothing that can’t wait. Besides, the company can make do without me for one afternoon.”

“That’s a change.”

“I learn from my mistakes. I know what’s important now.” He reached over and brought her hand to his lips and gently kissed her knuckles.

“I hope so.”

“I don’t expect you to trust me right away. Trust is earned, but I am prepared to do whatever it takes to prove to you it’s worth a second chance.”

“I believe you.”

Content for the first time in years, Barret listened to her tell him about the night before, the money they’d raised, and he told her about the soup kitchen he was helping to fund. While she talked about ways to raise money, he listened. She hadn’t pulled away from him today. There was safe distance, but she was working with him. Hope flared within him.

City turned to small town as he pulled off route 128 and towards the coastline. He always found solace in the coastline of the North Shore, even as a boy growing up in Southie. The times he had come up here for fieldtrips as a boy, visiting historic Salem or Gloucester, were the happiest moments from childhood, the moments that had given him a reason to dream, something to work for. One day he would own one of those big houses. He would make sure no one in his family ever went cold or hungry again.

Only when he pulled into a driveway with a closed gate did he pull his hand from hers. He rolled down the window of the old truck and tapped in the code to open the gate. Pulling the truck forward, he hoped she would love the old house overlooking the sea as much as he did. But as he sat in the parked car, he wondered. She hadn’t said a single word since the house had come into sight.

He exited the truck then came around and helped her down. “Welcome to my home.”

“Home?”

He placed his hand on the small of her back, urging her towards the front door. “She is a bit of a fixer upper. I’ve been working on her for over a year now, when I can spare weekends and evenings.”

He put the key into the door and heard the lock disengage, but his hand froze on the doorknob. Facing her again, he offered her a nervous smile. “I haven’t gotten as far as I would like. Some of the rooms are done, but many I haven’t even started on yet. You’ll have to use your imagination in those.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

She must have sensed his hesitation. Her smile told him she would love everything about the old place. She walked past him and he held his breath. He hoped she would see—then prayed she wouldn’t—every ounce of love he had for her reflected in the renovation. From the colors to the furniture, each piece had been chosen from memories of things she wanted, dreams she had shared with him.

She walked into the large living room. Old wood beams ran the length of the room from bay window to the far wall. The old brick fireplace, blackened with soot, offered a glimpse to the use this room had seen. Other than steaming off the wallpaper, he hadn’t done much of anything else. “I rented a steamer so all the wall paper got steamed the same weekend. I’m still not sure what to do with the room. Maybe convert the old fireplace to gas.”

She remained silent as she looked over the room, looked at the front yard through the picture window.

“Ready to see the next room?”

She nodded and followed him into what should have been the formal dining room, but he had converted it into a home office. The large mahogany desk she’d bought him for his birthday now sat with the rest of the office set he’d ordered a few months back. The warm beige colors of the room’s wall had been the very ones she had described when she bought the desk. Images of her played in his head, lying naked on the desk as he had made love to her, telling him about the office she’d envisioned designing for him, or pleading with him to just stop working long enough for them to eat dinner together.

By the time they toured the whole of the first floor, Riley wasn’t sure she could mentally take touring the second. This house, his home, was slowly becoming—wall by wall, floorboard by floorboard—her dream house.

All those years she’d been convinced he wasn’t listening, he had heard her. Grunts and nods had been acknowledgements, not appeasements. That he had listened and heard hit her like a two-by-four to the solar plexus.

The modern kitchen surprised her. He’d managed to make the long thin layout work and seem roomy. If they had designed it together, he could not have come closer to matching what she would have designed. He knew her, really knew her.

She paused on the fifth step to catch her breath, very much afraid that the second floor would be her undoing. Barriers she’d worked so hard to put up might topple like the Berlin Wall. “There isn’t a TV,” she mumbled and wasn’t sure she had said the words out loud.

“It’s in the man cave in the basement, complete with a pool table and full bar. It’s the only way I can get Chandler to come over and help out.”

“Why not up here where you could have enjoyed it more?”

He shrugged and moved past her up the stairs. He acted as if the thought had never occurred to him. Yet she knew he followed sports and stocks religiously. They wandered through two guest rooms to the left of the staircase. Neither done, but both habitable. He explained he was still working on the color schemes. But it was as they approached the third door that the hair on that back of her neck stood up. From the hallway, she could see the warm masculine wall and sparse furniture, but as she went to enter the room, Barret walked in front of her and closed the door.

“Sorry,” was all he said, looking uncomfortable. He motioned for her to head to the other side of the hall.

“Barret?”

“This room is private.”

She nodded but felt hurt, which was silly. If anyone else had taken her on a tour of a house and asked her not to go into a room, she wouldn’t have thought twice. “The room’s a mess,” or “it’s my husband’s office”—any excuse that a room was off limits wouldn’t have even pinged on her radar. But he was keeping this part of the house separate, as if it were his and his alone and she wasn’t welcome.

The only other closed door on the floor was at the end of the hall, just past a small bedroom not yet touched. The old wallpaper was gone, leaving the horsehair plaster walls bare. The old orange fifties rug, ugly and worn, hurt her eyes. He hadn’t stepped into this room with her. In fact, other than the wallpaper being gone, she got the impression he didn’t come in here at all. Nothing else was touched. Even the other rooms showed some form of decorating. Some had paint chips, tiles, or notes about what he wanted to try. This room had nothing, not even blinds to shut out the light.

Coming out of the smallest bedroom, she found him standing before the closed door. His hand gripped the doorknob until his knuckles were white. She waited, although curiosity was eating her alive. Finally, he opened the door and stepped to the side to let her pass. Frozen to her spot in the doorway, she knew why he had hesitated. The world seemed to pause before her.

When she had dreamed of them buying a house, getting married, having children, and growing old together, this—
this
was the room she’d imagined. It was as if he had taken a picture of her dream and recreated it in life. From the pale green walls with wainscoting, to the cherry wood furniture, to the four poster bed with the cream linens and sheers hanging from the canopy.

The painting above the headboard caught her attention. It was a local artist’s rendition of Rockport, the very same painting they had fought over just a few weeks before she had walked out. “You said art was a waste of money.” The words seemed to come from her soul. It hurt to actually say them.

“I’ve evolved.” His voice was a mere whisper.

She turned to find him leaning against the doorframe, as if he weren’t sure if he was welcome in the room.

“I went to buy this a few weeks after we first saw it, and they said it was gone…but you?”

“Me.” This time he did walk in. “I was walking around Rockport a week after you left. I hoped to see you there. Thought if we just bumped into each other around the shops, I could convince you and you would listen. For hours I walked up and down the street, but always I ended up back at the art gallery. Staring at that painting in the window.” He now stood beside her.

She itched to touch him but he seemed so lost in his thoughts.

“The artist finally came out and laughed. ‘So either your wife finally convinced you to buy it or you are in the dog house looking to get out.’ Apparently, our conversation a few weeks before had been memorable. Then I asked how he remembered. He said an artist tries to remember everything, to grow and take inspiration from life. He then explained why he painted, and before I knew it I was laying down eight hundred dollars in cash and walking away with a brown paper-wrapped painting with nowhere to hang it.”

He turned to her, took her face in his hands, and stared in her eyes. “I created the whole room around that painting.”

“It’s perfect.”

“I haven’t been in here since I finished it by hanging that painting. Martha, Chandler’s housekeeper, comes in a freshens it up, but it’s been over a year since I even looked in here.”

“Why? Why create such an amazing room and leave it to sit empty?” This wasn’t like him. He was like a hunter who used every part of his kill, nothing going to waste.

“This room was never meant for me.”

“But it’s the master suite.” She pulled away, spinning as she did. “It’s amazing.”

“You weren’t here to share it.”

“Barret?”

“Listen, and I know what I am about to say might make you run for your life. But once the room was done, I couldn’t imagine it without you in it. So I closed the door and vowed I would never step into it again without you.”

He loved her, always had. She knew that now. Knew his love for her would never fade or die. The problem was he wasn’t a man of words. He had a hard time telling her his feelings, but boy, could the man show her. “I am here now.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, but what do you plan to do with me while I am here?”

His lips captured hers as he walked her back to the bed. She didn’t pretend to be shocked or play coy. She wanted this, and they both needed it. She worked the button of his shirt and pushed it over his muscled shoulders. She’d always loved the feel of the hard muscles under soft skin. He’d filled out more in the couple of years since she’d last seen him, gotten broader, more muscular.

The years melted away as he deepened the kiss. Every nerve ending in her body ignited. The truth was that no passion ever matched what they had together. She felt sexy and curvaceous, not over weight. He made her feel complete.

“I love you,” he murmured against the sensitive skin of her neck. His warm breath sent shivers up her spine.

Clothing fell and landed unnoticed on the floor. They stood gloriously naked in the mid-morning sunrays peeking through the window sheers. She wasn’t ready to take the final step of loving him yet. She needed him with a hunger that never waned. But love—love required opening a part of her again that she had put under lock and key.

He stepped back to look at her. His gaze raked over her with a hunger that burned into her skin. “Wow,” was all he said, before cupping her full breasts in his hands, feeling them, weighing them, then finally lowering his lips to feast on them.