CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Riley
I settled into the plastic chair with an exhausted sigh. Every part of my body ached, but my calves hurt the most. Taking a moment to myself, I closed my eyes and stretched my legs out under the table. At least I was alone in the bakery. With the day done, all the customers and other employees were gone. It was just me, a dirty floor waiting to be swept, and a cash register waiting to be counted.
Opening my eyes, I stretched my arms above my head and looked out the window. Being busy all week long had been good. It afforded me less time to think about Xavier.
I thought he’d call by now, or at least text. The Xavier I thought I knew the week before wouldn’t have, but the Xavier I saw over the weekend? He was the kind of guy who didn’t let you out of his sight, the kind of guy who checked in every morning and called every night to make sure you got home safe.
What happened to that guy? Did he only come out on the weekends? On the full moon?
I could have just texted Xavier myself, but I didn’t know what I’d say. Hey, what’s up? I couldn’t ask him to meet up right then because I was up to my eyeballs in work.
He could have been busy. Just like me. The whole week had been kicking my butt. In an attempt to make up for angering Dan over the weekend, I’d picked up two extra shifts. Add those to my waitressing shifts, and that meant the last two days had been doubles. I was close to falling over. But at least I’d caught up in the money department. All my bills would be paid on time this month and I’d have some cash to put into savings. Remembering that made me feel a little bit better about my whole life.
Taking the bills out of the drawer, I started counting. I wrote everything down as I went, in an extra attempt to get the numbers right. Once I finished, I counted the bills all over again, checked my totals, and made a drawer for the next day. I put the fresh drawer back in the cash register and deposited the rest of the money in the safe in the office. Now all that was left was the floor. After I cleaned that, I was out of here.
As I walked back to the front, debating what kind of cleaning music I should jam out to, my phone beeped. I hurried over to my purse and took it out. Xavier.
Hey, did you see my wristwatch while we were at the cabin?
The initial euphoria I felt over seeing his name pop on my phone vanished. Instead, annoyance took its place. This was how he chose to get back in touch after four days of silence? By asking me if I’d seen his wristwatch?
And who even wore watches anymore? Rich, stuffy businessmen, that’s who. Like Xavier. A guy who could probably afford to buy every watch in the world, plus some more.
Nope. Sorry. I texted back.
I realized how cutting I sounded and composed a second text. I’ll look in my bag when I get home. Maybe it got picked up with some of my stuff.
I might have been annoyed, but being absolutely caustic wasn’t going to do me any good. The text messages sent, I got started on cleaning. I kept the music off, though, just in case Xavier texted me back.
My phone stayed silent as I swept and mopped the floor. I was just finishing up the last corner when Dan knocked on the window. Stepping carefully over the still wet spots, I unlocked the front door for him.
“Careful,” I said. “The floor is kind of wet.”
“It looks good in here,” he said, going over to the counter and checking the printout from the day’s sales. “I came to get the deposit. Gonna put it in the bank bright and early, before I go to Costco tomorrow.”
“Great.” I went back to my mopping. We were quiet as I finished up and Dan got the money from the office.
“I’m all done,” I announced.
Dan looked up from his phone, glanced around the front of the shop, and nodded. “Did you clean the bathrooms good?”
“Yes. I put those tabs in the toilet to soak overnight.”
He put his phone in his pocket and looked away from me. “I’m out.”
Draping my purse over my shoulder, I followed him toward the front door. Just as he opened it, a man rounded the corner. I froze and did a double take. It was Xavier.
I stood in the open doorway, surprise sealing me to the spot. Xavier stopped a few feet away, gave me a quick look, then glanced over at Dan. My manager, noticing something was up, lifted his chin. “Can I help you?”
Xavier inclined his head toward me. “I’m here to escort Riley home.”
Escort. Now I felt like we were in the nineteenth century.
Xavier chaperoning me home was news to me, but I kept my mouth shut.
“You’re Dan?” Xavier asked.
“That’s right.”
I cringed, anticipating the shit storm that could very well be approaching. I opened my mouth to stop it, but Xavier barreled ahead, doing what he damn well pleased, just like he always did. “I hope you’re not working Riley too hard.”
The dim lighting did nothing to hide the way Dan’s chest puffed up. “We pride ourselves on hard work here. And we reward it.”
“Do you?” Xavier asked, his voice like ice.
“Excuse me?”
Heat flooded my body, and I shut my eyes tight. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Xavier just went MIA for half a week, and now he was here, trying to defend my honor?
“Let me ask you this,” Xavier said. “Do you pay your employees the appropriate amount of overtime? Time and a half?”
“I know what the legal overtime is,” Dan growled. “And who are you to come in here and ask me about how I run things? What do you do?”
“I run a multibillion-dollar corporation,” Xavier coolly answered.
I’d heard enough. Not only had I never been so embarrassed in my life, I felt pretty sure I was about thirty seconds away from being fired. Moving quickly, I stepped between the two men. “I really need to get home.”
Dan ignored me and leaned to look past me to Xavier. His eyes narrowed, the disgust evident on his face. “Who are you again? Her boyfriend?”
Xavier’s mouth opened, but only silence followed.
“Right,” Dan answered. “I think I’ve heard enough.” He turned and walked down the sidewalk. A long, tense exhale left my chest. It wasn’t the exit I was hoping for, but at least I hadn’t been canned. Not yet, anyway.
“Asshole,” Xavier muttered from behind me.
Anger flashed through me so quickly it was a surprise I didn’t black out from the intensity of it. Spinning on my heel, I faced the arrogant man in front of me. “Are you kidding me?”
Xavier looked at me in confusion.
“You just embarrassed me in front of my boss! And maybe got me fired. And why? Because you had to come over here and make sure I didn’t have your stupid watch?”
His nose wrinkled. “I don’t care about a watch.”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “Then why did you come here?”
“To see you.”
“Oh.” I let his words sink in. As they did, some of my anger faded away.
“Come over.”
“Now?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “My car is right over there.” He nodded his head at an idling SUV just down the block.
Even though I was mad about what just happened, I took a deep breath to clear my head. Did I want to say no to Xavier? Could I? He held out his hand, the invitation to go with him clear. As if drawn by a strong magnet, my fingers threaded through his. He smiled, and we walked to his car and climbed in. The driver said good evening, and I nodded back.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Xavier said as he took a seat next to me.
“I get that.”
“But I did.”
“Uh-huh.”
Xavier turned his face toward the roof of the car. “That man is even worse than I thought he would be.”
My anger was back. “So what? What if he is? That’s my problem. Let me deal with it. I don’t barge into your office in the middle of the day and tell you how to run things.”
“That would be amusing.”
His lighthearted response punched me in the gut. I fell back against my seat and stared out the window. I felt too defeated and too tired to stand up for myself anymore. In between work and Xavier, it seemed like I was always fighting a questionable and chaotic war. But was it even worth it?
“Riley.”
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at him. If I did, he’d win me over with whatever apology or cocky declaration he was about to spew. And being won over by Xavier was dangerous. He might be there that night, but what about the next?
“I haven’t heard from you all week,” I found myself saying, still not turning back to him. “And now you show up, chewing out my boss and… and...” Words failed me. I didn’t even know where I was headed next.
A long silence followed. My eyes burned and my stomach twisted into a knot. Maybe I should have just asked Xavier to take me home. Even if he was really into me, his behavior was too much. I couldn’t risk my job for him.
His voice permeated the darkness of the backseat. “You’re mine. I won’t let anyone abuse you. Ever.”
The fierceness in his voice was so strong that I thought I’d imagined it. When I turned to face him, though, I found him looking at me with an intensity that I’d never seen before. His face vanished into intermittent darkness and light as the car passed by street lamps. Each time his eyes appeared again, they were still fixed on me, staring me down. Gazing into my soul. Winning me over.
No one had ever called me theirs before. I’d been a girlfriend, but I’d never belonged to someone. Not in the way Xavier made it sound like I belonged to him. He made me feel important. Needed.
With a start, I realized that I hadn’t thought of Jesse all week. The ex-boyfriend who absorbed my thoughts for well over a year was finally gone and in the past. I’d moved on, and it was because of Xavier.
“You need to be protected,” the man sitting next to me said.
“Do I?”
He blinked rapidly, like the answer was only obvious. “Of course.”
He reached across the seat and laid his hand on mine. With his thumb swirling soft circles across my skin, it would be difficult to say no to anything he proposed. I sighed and closed my eyes, enjoying the wave of relaxation that rippled through me at Xavier’s touch.
It occurred to me the driver was only a couple feet away. There was no way he hadn’t heard everything Xavier and I had just said. The thought made a round of laughter burst from my lips. I opened my eyes to see Xavier looking at me in pleasure.
“That’s better.”
I quelled the laughter and nodded my head toward the front seat. I didn’t have to say anything. Xavier understood what I was getting at, though he didn’t seem perturbed at all over the thought of someone listening in on our conversation. He lifted a shoulder and smiled like it was no big deal at all.
I blinked my eyes to dry up the tears that were starting to collect there. “I understand what you’re doing. And thank you. It’s just that your methods are a little… harsh.”
Xavier dropped his head back and looked at the roof. “I’m not going to agree with you.”
“I see that. How about we agree to disagree for now, and talk about it more in the future?”
“I can adhere to that.”
“Good.” I squeezed his hand. He winced at my touch. Confused, I looked down just as we passed a pool of light. There was a bruising on his knuckles that I hadn’t noticed before. “What happened?”
“With what?”
“Your hand. It’s all bruised.”
“Oh.” He drew his hand away from mine and held it up for inspection. “I didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t feel it? How did it happen?”
“I was boxing the other day. At the gym. I missed the punching bag and hit the wall. It happens sometimes.”
“Ouch.”
He retracted his hand even further and massaged the top of it. “It comes with the territory.” He leaned down and looked out the window. “We’re almost there. Are you hungry? Did you eat dinner?”
“Yeah, but it was hours ago.”
“I’ll order you something and have it delivered. What are you in the mood for?”
I shrugged. For some reason, I couldn’t get his bruised knuckles off my mind. Him saying he didn’t feel them seemed like it had to be a lie. How could you punch a wall and then just forget about it?
“Riley.”
“Uh-huh?”
“You’re capable of making decisions. Remember?”
I smirked. “Chinese. I want Chinese.”
Xavier’s mouth broke into a full smile as the car came to a stop in front of his building. “Excellent choice.”