For the first time in months, maybe years, I woke up knowing the name of the woman in the bed beside me. What a miracle.
As usual, I opened my eyes first, and I studied Natalie as she got the last few moments of sleep before my alarm sounded. When it went off, she yawned and turned toward me.
“What time is it?”
“Seven forty-five.” I switched off the ringing.
“Hmm.” She molded herself against me and, for once, I didn’t consider asking her to leave as I had other women. Instead, I wanted to slow down the morning as much as I could.
“What time do you have to be at the yoga studio?” I asked into her hair.
“Never. It’s always closed on Sundays.” She propped herself on her elbow and looked down at me. “I have the whole day to do…nothing.”
“No plans?”
She shook her head.
“Good.” I reached up and cupped her face, then rose to kiss her cheek. “Do you want to spend the day with me?”
She arched her eyebrow. “And what do you have in mind?”
I kissed her again. “I can think of a few things.”
“You can?” Her eyes softened, and she moved, opening herself to me.
Hungrily, I covered my mouth with hers. A small moan escaped her lips, and before I knew it, we were entwined in a mix of desire, emotions, and raw chemistry.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” I murmured as I shifted over the top of her. I pushed away the bedsheets and took time to savor every part of her curvy body. I kissed her chin, the soft skin of her neck, her elegant collarbone, and the upper swell of her warm breasts. When I reached her hard nipples, I tasted the sweetness of each one before I skimmed my lips down to her creamy core, to the apex of her thighs.
I stopped and connected my gaze with hers. “I thought I was dead before I met you,” I said. “But now I realize that I’m just starting to live.”
“I feel that way, too.” Her breath came out in jagged gasps. “I know it’s crazy, but I’m falling for you.”
I climbed higher, walking my hands on either side of her hips, waist, and shoulders, and then I lowered my weight on top of her. We connected, and I entered her again, cherishing this moment of raw closeness that felt like nothing I’d encountered in the last few years. I couldn’t deny my hunger for her, or the maddening sensation of having her silky body entwined with mine, her long legs wrapped around me, her arms clinging to my neck, the scent of her musky arousal wafting up to stir my needs and make me harder. And the way she rocked with me—the snugness of her slick channel stroking me while her full breasts teased my chest. Hell, she must have been made for me—only me. I’d never had sex like this.
Never.
A short time later, we donned bathrobes and padded downstairs to find breakfast. George, my house manager, already sat at the large kitchen table, polishing a few pieces of crystal. When we walked in, his eyes widened, and he stood.
“Mr. Rothschild, I wasn’t aware that you had a guest.” George took a few steps toward the kitchen counter.
“That’s quite all right.” I held up a halting hand.
“Perhaps I could start a pot of coffee?”
“Yes, I’d like that. And Natalie will be joining me for breakfast.”
If George had an opinion about this, it didn’t show on his face. Instead, he located a frying pan in the drawer underneath the stove. “How about two frittatas, Mr. Rothschild?”
“Sounds excellent.”
Twenty minutes later, Natalie and I sat at the patio table overlooking County Road and the beach. We both had coffee and half-eaten servings of spinach-and-ham frittatas in front of us, and I admired how the sun captured the natural highlights in her ash-blonde hair.
She grinned at me over the rim of her mug. “You keep staring at me.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a beautiful face.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Still beautiful.”
She squinted her eyes and stuck out her tongue.
“You can’t make yourself look ugly. It’s impossible.”
“Oh, it’s possible. You should see me after a long night of drinking and no sleep.”
“Maybe some time, I will.”
She sipped her coffee, then placed the cup on the table beside her meal. “I just realized—we’ve slept together, and I know almost nothing about you. Well, nothing besides what Helen found on Google.”
“What do you want to know?”
She ticked off a list on her fingers. “Favorite food?
“Guacamole.”
“Color?”
“Black.”
“Band?”
“Radiohead.”
“Vacation spot?”
“Tough one.” I thought about it. “The Amalfi Coast.”
She cocked her head. “Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a stretch of coast in Western Italy.” I drank some coffee. “And it’s gorgeous.”
“I’ll bet.” She glanced down at the table.
“Have you ever been abroad, Natalie?”
As soon as I asked the question, I felt stupid. I knew the answer before she spoke it: no. She hadn’t.
“Only in my dreams,” she said when she lifted her gaze again.
“That’s a shame. Maybe we’ll change that sometime.”
We regarded each other for a moment, and I realized how much I wanted that idea to come true, how much I wanted to make those kinds of memories with Natalie. I could see it in my mind—the look of wonder on her face as we took in the sweeping clifftop views so famous in that region, the way she’d laugh when we dined at my favorite restaurant there.
I could do this. I knew it. I could do it with her.
“Okay,” she said, breaking me away from the daydream. “Do you have a habit you wish you could break?”
“Biting my fingernails.” I examined my left hand, which had a hangnail that very moment. I picked at it, and made a mental note to cut it later. “I do that when I’m nervous. And you?”
She ticked through the list. “Tacos, blue, The Chainsmokers, I don’t know, and biting the inside of my cheek. I do that when I’m stressed out, which is often.”
“There you go.” I speared another piece of frittata with my fork. “Now we know each other. Which is good, since we’re exchanging bodily fluids on a regular basis.”
She wrinkled her nose, then laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”
I ate the bite of egg pastry. “You know, George probably wonders what’s going on. I don’t let a lot of women eat breakfast with me.”
“So, I should consider myself special, huh?”
“Something like that. None of my staff have ever met anyone since Faye. I haven’t allowed it.”
She knitted her brow. “How many people work for you?”
“Let’s see…” I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “Not including George—three. I have two gardeners, a housekeeper, and him.”
Her eyes widened.
“What?” I ate another bit of breakfast. “Does that bother you?”
“No…yes. I don’t know. It’s just strange.” She laughed to herself. “Well, it sounds strange to me. But I guess it shouldn’t come a shock. I mean, you are—”
“What? Rich?” I put down my fork. “In a way.”
She furrowed her brow. “In every way.”
“Being rich is relative.” I wiped my mouth on my napkin. “And all the money in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have people in your life that you actually care about.” I paused. “So, up until recently, I’d say I was pretty poor.”
Her jaw went slack. She didn’t have to tell me what she was thinking—I could already guess.
I drank some more of my lukewarm coffee. “Enough about me. Tell me about you—I want to hear it all.”
She sipped her own coffee, regarding me over the rim with wide blue eyes. “Trust me, you don’t.”
“Try me,” I whispered.
She nodded a few times, as if mulling it over in her head what she’d say next. “It’s hard. It’s not…it’s not easy managing a small business, and we can’t ever get ahead. Aunt Helen and I are at the studio six days a week, and we do what we can, but the competition is fierce Whatever isn’t going to our basic expenses goes right back into the studio, and lately business has been bad.” She looked away and focused on the beach for a beat. “It’s a grind. Plus, I have all these student loans…”
“What would you do if you didn’t have them?” I asked. “The student loans, I mean.”
She looked away for a moment, then focused back on me. “I’d probably open my own business. Something just for me.”
“Like what? A boutique? A yoga studio?”
She laughed without humor. “It isn’t worth thinking about. Not with all this debt. I can’t…I can’t afford to focus on things that will never happen.”
“I can help you with the debt.”
She shook her head. “You mean with the million dollars? I already told you how I feel about that. No deal.”
“Yes, I know that—I know where you stand. I’m talking about just in general. I don’t mind helping out, if you need it.”
“Thanks, but I can make it on my own.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, my god, I didn’t realize what time it was.” She stood from the table. “You know, my aunt is probably wondering what’s going on with me after last night. I should at least call her.”
She left the patio for less than ten minutes, and when she came back, everything had changed. She wore her dress from the night before, and a frown darkened her gorgeous features.
“What’s wrong?” I stood, more out of instinct than anything else.
“It’s… She wants me to meet her at the studio. It’s important.”
“What’s the problem?”
“She won’t say. She just wants me to meet her there.”
Luke drove me back to my apartment, so I could get my car—I didn’t want my aunt asking too many questions about why I hadn’t driven myself to the studio. When he pulled his BMW into the parking lot in front of my meager building, he skimmed his palm along my knee, sending a pleasant shiver up my thigh.
“Can I see you again tomorrow? Do you have anything planned?”
“Sure, I don’t have much on the schedule.”
I glanced down at his hand, and the memory of the night before pulsed through me once again. I’d just had the best sex of my life. No doubt. I didn’t want to leave this man’s presence, but I had to. Helen had sent me six text messages, called twice, and left one voicemail, all of which was very unlike her. I needed to figure out what was going on, and why she sounded so frantic.
“There’s a gala happening at the Phillips estate on the south end of the island that night. It’s one of those very silly events—a lot of money being raised by some very fussy and self-important people. I care about the charity, though, so I’m going. In fact, that reception we attended at Nicalao’s was tied to this ball.” Luke grazed his hand from my knee to my brow, and then pushed some hair away from my face. “Will you be my date?”
“I don’t have—”
“I know. You don’t have a dress.” He cocked his head. “And there’s probably not enough time for me to take you shopping on Worth Avenue for one.”
“No,” I said, thinking again about my aunt’s messages. I had a feeling that whatever she had to say would take up most of the rest of the day.
“Hmm.” Luke snapped his fingers. “Why don’t you go online and order something from wherever you’d like? You can overnight it, and I’ll pay for it.”
“No, I can’t—”
“It’s a gift, Natalie. Nothing more. Nothing attached to it at all.” He placed his hand on my arm as if to drive home that point. “I’ll text you my AmEx number when I get back to the house.”
I eyed him, still a little skeptical. “The same AmEx card I gave back to you?”
He nodded. “I figure you didn’t write down the numbers.”
“Nope.” I smiled. “Paying for it is awfully generous of you. Very trusting.”
“I think you’ve proven that your trustworthy, Natalie,” he whispered.
We kissed, and the fire reignited between the two of us, not that it had ever really died down. This man wasn’t like any of the other men I’d ever dated. Not at all.
Oh, god, I really was falling for him. Hard.
After Luke and I said goodbye, I got in my own car and drove to the studio. In the lobby, Aunt Helen sat waiting for me on the bench across from the main check-in desk. A white piece of paper and an opened envelope lay on the wood next to her. She had her arms crossed and her lips pulled tight. She didn’t get up when I walked in the door.
“What’s going on?” I didn’t even bother greeting her because I knew from her expression that whatever she had to say wouldn’t be pleasant. Easier to just get right to it.
“Sit down,” she ordered. “You need to sit down for this one.”
I took a seat on the bench opposite hers. “Okay. Tell me.”
“I got the mail this morning”—she picked up the paper— “and I found this in between the stacks of catalogs and junk ads. I almost missed it.” She sniffed. “Thank god I didn’t.”
“What’s the—?”
She handed the paper to me and my breath caught in my throat. No. No way. This couldn’t be true; this couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not to us.
And yet, it was.
“Eviction? What?” I looked up from the paper and my gaze met Helen’s. “But our lease here at the studio isn’t up for another six months.”
“They’re giving us thirty-days’ notice.” Helen sighed. “And the new owner activated the early termination clause.” She slumped against the wall behind the bench. “Of course, when I signed the papers, that’s not something that I ever thought about.”
“Oh, my god.” I gulped. “How is this happening?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing for the last hour.” She buried her face in her hands. “And I can’t figure out what I’m going to do.”
“What are they doing with this place if they don’t want a yoga studio here?”
She looked up from her hands. “The new owner—some trust called RCS, LLC—plans on turning this whole development into mixed use. He wants to tear down this strip mall. A multimillion-dollar project.”
“I haven’t heard about it.” I glanced at the paper again. “And he’s giving you two grand to go away. How generous.” I didn’t bother to hide my sarcasm or annoyance. Who did this person think they were? They obviously didn’t have any kind of attachment to West Palm Beach, or the small businesses that made up the heart of this community.
“Some people would probably say they are being more than kind. They don’t have to give us money to leave.” Helen shrugged. “I Googled RCS, LLC, and I didn’t find anything except incorporation papers in Delaware. Nothing else. Nada.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Her emotions caught in her throat. “Just when I was thinking we could turn this place around, and that we might have a chance, this happens.”
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?
“I think so.”
As I gripped the bench, I started thinking about all the bills that would mount at the end of the month, all the things we wouldn’t be able to pay because of this happening—my rent, Helen’s rent, my student loan, my credit cards…to say nothing of the membership refunds we’d have to give…we were screwed. Royally screwed. More than that—we were fucked.
“Shit.” I groaned as the dollar signs crowded in my head. Even if I tried to pay off all my debts, I wouldn’t be able to. Not even close.
“Shit is right.” My aunt sighed. “We’re never going to get out from underneath this. And I still have almost fifteen grand outstanding on the loan that I took out to start this place.”
“Plus, all of the other bills.”
“I know.” Her voice broke. “And I don’t know how I’m going to pay for it. I don’t know what to do.”
My thoughts drifted to Luke, and what he’d said that morning at breakfast. Twice since I’d know him, he’d offered to bail me out. Heck, he’d even gone a step further than that—he’d wanted to pay me a million dollars to pretend to be his fiancée in front of his dad. Maybe he’d still take me up on the offer?
If he did, we’d have more than a fighting chance.
“I just don’t know how we’re going to figure this out.” Helen’s heavy voice brought me back to reality.
“You will—we will,” I said. “I promise.”