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Desire: A Billionaire Virgin Romance by Simone Sowood (174)

Chapter 26

 

 

 

“Richard? Wow, Sam never told us who she was bringing. Great to see you.” He took my extended hand and shook it. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been my boss, moments before Calvin released the email to the entire company.

“We’re just friends.” Sam pointed at each and every one of us to punctuate her point.

“Hello, Mr. McAllister,” Richard said when Jay entered the room.

“Oh, please, Richard. He’s James in this house.”

“I am?”

“Yes, you are. Richard is here as Sam’s guest.”

“Hi!” Jenny and Marla said in unison as they walked into the house.

“You found us.”

“How could we not? It’s too big to miss.” Jenny blushed as she realized she’d said that in front of Jay.

Jay kissed the cheeks of Sam, Jenny and Marla. Jenny and Marla’s dates stood behind them.

“Collin,” I said, rushing up to him. “How are you? It’s been so long, I can’t believe you’re back in town!” It’d been years since I’d last seen him and I gave him a big hug.

“This is Marla’s date, Trent.” Jay shook their hands and I smiled at them.

“I don’t know what I want first, to see the wedding photos or have a tour of your house.” Sam grabbed my hand and pulled me deeper into the cavernous entrance hall.

 

* * *

 

“Well, it’s a bit bigger than your condo.”

“Whatever, Jenny. This is the craziest thing of all, we’re standing on the floor of the indoor swimming pool!” We’d left the men behind and I’d taken them through the ground-floor rooms and down to the basement. Or I should say lower level. We’d had to breeze through the rooms in order to get back to the guys in a reasonable amount of time.

“Shut up,” Sam’s over-excitement caused her head to waggle and her curls to bounce. I raised my eyebrows, remembering how shocked I had been when I’d found out.

“Come this way, I want to show you his horse trophy room. It’s incredible, the smell of leather is intoxicating. And there are pictures of Jay as a little boy, with his mom holding him on a horse. It’s so cute.” I loved the pictures of Jay as a child, of him being all cute and innocent but still with the same hint of charisma in his eyes. I really wanted to show them one.

They followed along behind me and we stopped in front of the door of the horse room. I took hold of the door latch and tried to open it, but the door was locked. I rattled it, twisting and pushing again but it didn’t budge.

“I guess Jay locked it. Another time.” Why did Jay lock it? I didn’t remember there being anything valuable inside. Maybe it was sentimental value.

“You are showing me your sex palace.”

“Sam!” Marla smacked her.

“No, it’s fine. You want to see my bedroom? Come on, and I’ll show you all the clothes he bought me!”

I led them to the elevator and pushed the button.

“Are you kidding me? An elevator? My goodness, lady, this is insane.”

We entered Jay’s bedroom, our bedroom.

“Here, there are some pictures of Jay of a kid in this room.” I moved to the side table with all the framed snapshots. I scanned them for the ones of him as a child, but even though the frames were the same, the childhood pictures of him had been replaced with photos from our wedding.

“Holy cow, you weren’t kidding about the see-through dress,” Sam said.

“It’s beautiful though, Abbie. You look stunning,” Jenny said.

“And tasteful. I would never have guessed a sheer dress could be so sophisticated,” Marla said.

“Well, it is Vera Wang.”

“We’d better get back, Trent will kill me for abandoning him for so long,” Marla said.

“How did you meet?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. He’s a partner at my recruitment agency.”

 

* * *

 

Rosie set elaborate plates of food in front of each of us. Food I couldn’t identify but smelled delicious. Some kind of meat in some kind of sauce displayed in the prettiest fashion.

The eight of us chatted easily, and I was glad to see my closest friends hitting it off so well with Jay. He charmed them with his charismatic ways, the men as well as the women, and my heart overflowed with love for him.

At a lull in the conversation, Trent said, “Jay, you must certainly be glad you had Abbie headhunted into Force McAllister.”

“What?” I set my fork on my plate.

“Yes, Jay had us approach…”

Jay cleared tapped his fork on his glass until he had everyone’s attention. Everyone’s but mine. What did Trent mean, Jay had me approached? Jay stood and gave a little speech but I only tuned into it at the end.

“To Abbie,” he said raising his glass.

“To Abbie,” everyone said in unison and raised their glasses in response. All eyes were on me and I blushed. I hadn’t heard what Jay said, but what were the chances he’d acknowledged Trent’s comment?

 

* * *

 

I waved at the cars and closed the front door after the last one had pulled away from the house.

“Jay, what did Trent mean when he said you had me headhunted?”

“I don’t know.” He walked out of the entrance hall to the living room.

I sped after him.

“You do know. Of course you know. Otherwise you wouldn’t have cut Trent off.” I was tired of this. Every time I thought he was not hiding anything else, another thing came up.

“Beautiful, I’m not…”

“I’m your wife now. We can’t have any secrets. Stop hiding things from me.”

“I don’t know what it is you think I’m hiding.”

“Why did you lock your horse room?”

He shrugged. “Habit.”

“Habit to lock a room in your house?”

“Keeps out the staff. I don’t like them in there, they move stuff around.”

Jay always had a plausible explanation. I never knew whether to believe him.

“What did Trent mean?” My voice was forceful. I would not back down, I hoped. My heart pounded in my ears.

“You should have asked Richard. It’s his department, how should I know?”

 

* * *

 

All weekend I’d slept as near to my edge of the bed as possible. I hid in one of many the rooms all weekend, on the pretext of working. Jay didn’t press me for anything. It seemed like he was giving me space.

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