Chapter Ten
Natalie awoke with no idea where she was. All she knew was that bright sunlight was pouring down around her, the sheets were pure white and far better than any she had ever slept on, and that there was the sound of someone singing from the bathroom.
Her memories returned with a rush, and she had a moment of pure pleasure before it was drowned out with horror.
"Oh my God," she whispered. "What was I thinking?"
But Natalie knew exactly what she was thinking. She knew very well how good Patrick felt, and her earlier imaginings, no matter how fevered, fell short. The proper billionaire was a fiend in between the sheets, and she had the sore spots and the lingering pleasure to prove it.
In the bathroom, Patrick was singing, and she paused in her panic to listen. His voice was tuneful and light, more a baritone than a base, and for a moment, Natalie was simply enchanted. He sang about a wood cut down leaving all the birds homeless, and she could hear the accent in his voice come out a little more clearly when he sang.
She shook herself.
I can't stay here, she thought. She tried to remember where her clothes were, and with a sinking sensation, she realized that they had been taken to some laundry room to be dried after her adventure in rainy Dublin the night before. Unless she wanted to dash out into the building in a mad search for her clothing, she was going to stay right there.
Patrick appeared in the doorway, and she tensed a little. How was he going to react upon finding her here? How did he treat the women he took to bed?
"You're up," he said with a surprised smile. "It's not even nine yet, I thought that you were going to sleep at least a little longer."
"Strange places," she explained uncertainly. "I don't usually sleep all that well when I'm someplace I’m not familiar with."
"Ah, that's fair enough."
He looked unfairly bright and well put together, even draped in his loosely-belted robe. She could see that he was fresh out of the shower and freshly-shaven at that.
"You look good," she said awkwardly. "It's Saturday — are you still going to work?"
"I could," he said slowly. "There's always something that could be taken care of. However..."
"However?"
"I thought perhaps it might be good to show you a little more of Dublin. Get you away from the alleys at least and into a finer class of place to get kidnapped."
She blinked at him.
"Did you make a joke?"
"I am known to do it from time to time," he said with a face of utterly perfect seriousness, and she grinned at him, unable to help herself.
"Honestly, I was thinking that you might just want me out of here. You know, love them and leave them, complimentary peach robe offered as a parting gift."
With a noise that sounded enough like a growl that it made her body lurch with need, he crawled into bed with her. In a single motion, he had pushed her back on the bed. She looked up into his dangerous blue eyes, and she saw that he was smiling too, though there was certainly some tooth in it.
"Are you insisting on being treated as a two-bit prostitute? I swear I have no intention of doing so, but from the way that you talk..."
"All American girls sleep around, or didn't you know?" she answered flippantly.
"And I know that's not true as well," he said, and an unexpectedly serious look crossed his face. "Are you quite well this morning?"
"Of course I am," she said, blushing a little. "Why wouldn't I be?"
She thought that he would slide back and let her up then, but Patrick only leaned closer. She could smell that woodsy scent of his, and she could feel his skin, still cool from the shower.
"When I first entered you last night," he said, and there was a heat to his words that made her want to squirm. "You can't fool me, pet. You were tight, and I don't know whether it was that I was so poor a lover that you weren't ready or that you simply had not had a man in a while. If your body was unused to it."
"Oh God, you can't ask me that," she groaned, but pushing against him was like pushing against a granite wall. Patrick Adair would move when he wished to move or not at all.
"I can ask you whatever I like," he said, and to her shock, she felt his seeking hand reach under the blanket to run up her thigh. For a moment, she tightened her thighs in shock. Then as he rubbed more firmly, kissing the side of her neck, she sighed, letting them fall open for him.
"Can you?" she asked, her voice little more than a breath of need, and he laughed.
"I can. You are welcome to try to resist me if you wish," he said with humor laced through his words. "In fact, I have to say that I find I like you with a little bit of fight in you. However, I want my answer and I will get it."
She thought about fighting him at least to see how far she could get, but then he slid his hand along her slit, making her moan with a sweet stroke to her clit.
This is one of those situations where I should give in sooner to spare myself a worst defeat later, she decided, and looked up at him.
"All right, I confess. It's been a little while since I've had a lover."
Patrick raised his eyebrow. His hand was still moving gently, which was completely unfair, but he didn't seem inclined to stop at all. She couldn't disagree with him, or at least, she couldn't do anything to make him quit at least.
"But you told me that you were getting away from a lover."
She wished he would just keep touching her, and at least if he was going to ask awkward questions that he waited until she had had some breakfast.
"That's true, I only broke up with Joe about eight weeks ago. He was just not interested. I asked him once, and he just said I wasn't his type."
Patrick looked at her with a surprise that was oddly gratifying. For some reason, he seemed to think it was the height of ridiculousness that someone might not want to be with her, and though Natalie was flattered, she also knew that it was not true at all.
“He must have been quite a fool then, not to see what a wonder you are.”
Natalie couldn't stop herself from laughing a little bit.
“‘A wonder’? Are you serious? We spent almost an hour yesterday fighting over how we were going to enter those old deeds into the computer system. You certainly weren't calling me a wonder then.”
Patrick shrugged, a faint smile on his face.
“I was feeling a bit put out,” he said, as if he had not been shouting just as loudly as she had been. “And if the truth be told, I would still have said you were a wonder, though that doesn’t mean I would have allowed you to win that particular fight.”
She felt it again, that peculiar tugging at the bottom of her heart that suggested that perhaps staying in Dublin would not be such a terrible thing. That maybe she could continue seeing Patrick, continue to touch him and be touched by him.
“Well, I would hate to see you compromise your morals,” she said, and then she remembered that this Patrick, the one who had woken up this morning with all the grace and elan of a stalking lion, was a little different from the one that she had known for weeks.
Instead of playfully baiting her, his blue eyes took on a distinct heat and his hand traveled up her thigh, finding where her skin was the softest and the warmest.
“Do you know,” he said softly, “I think I am done talking about deeds this morning.”
***
Some endless time later, Natalie made it back into the shower — only this time, Patrick was with her. She was startled by how tender he was after they made love, insisting on washing her hair and bathing her all over. She lost the battle to resist, and instead she simply stood still, eyes closed as he cleaned her gently with a soft washcloth. It was pleasure without the heat they had experienced together, but she could still feel that heat curling in her belly. The passion that he had wakened within her felt too good to be denied, and she knew that it would start again if he only kindled it a little more.
Patrick chuckled, and she thought it was almost as if he could read her thoughts, or at least read the pleasure that flowed through her.
"I would love nothing more than to take you again and again, but I think it might be for the best if we had some lunch, and then perhaps a talk?"
She sighed a little, because she knew he was right.
"It's just that you feel so good," Natalie murmured, and she gasped as Patrick tweaked her nipple gently.
"You have no idea at all how very tempting you are, pet," he murmured. "Believe me when I say that there are very few forces in the world that could prevent me from taking you right now. Besides, there's nothing to say that we cannot get back to it at some point in the future."
"But food and talk is very good," Natalie sighed.
She should have figured out that something was afoot when Patrick tossed her a few granola bars. She looked at him in confusion, and he winked at her.
"Just to tide you over. There's a place that I would love to take you, but it's a little complicated to get there. In the mean time, the granola will keep us well enough. I promise you that it will be worth it."
The granola was quite good, and after all, she did trust Patrick. Still, she was shocked when he took her to an airfield some forty minutes out of the city.
"Patrick? Where the hell are we going for food?"
"Scotland," he said with a grin, and she stared at him.
"Seriously?"
"One of my favorite restaurants is in Glasgow," he said. "Beef tartare like I've never had anywhere else and a menu as long as my arm. I am certain you will enjoy it, so why not?"
She got out of the car, staring at the plane and looking between it and him.
"God, what kind of real estate firm do you run that you can afford your own plane?"
He looked at her in surprise.
"You still don't know?"
She shrugged defensively.
"You didn't tell me initially, and you didn't look much like a serial killer, so I guess I never really looked you up. Excuse me for not wanting to live my life online."
Patrick laughed, shaking his head. He folded her in a fierce hug that felt entirely natural, and then he pulled away, looking at her with some amusement.
"I need to talk to the maintenance for a moment. Why don't you make yourself comfortable in the plane, and look me up. I should be easy enough to find."
"You could just tell me," she said, but then he was walking away, greeting one of the men in the khaki jumpsuits.
With a shrug, she climbed the rolling staircase into the plane, and got her second shock. The plane was small, but it was certainly not plain. It was as well-equipped as most living rooms, and it was far nicer than some of the places she had lived and stayed. There was a soft beige carpet that seemed to be an inch thick, there was a quad of four seats all facing towards a small table, there was a bar across from that and a bedroom towards the back. It was insanely luxurious — far too much for one man to own, surely?
Natalie felt as if any moment, she would be asked to leave, but since no one had asked yet, she gingerly sat down on one of the immensely comfortable seats and pulled out her phone. Slowly, she typed in "Patrick Adair" and waited to see what results would show up.
Natalie was not entirely surprised to see that he was the first result to show up. After all, he was a businessman, and she knew that Adair did all sorts of deals all over the world. From her time working with them, she had seen how far-reaching the enterprise was. She even felt proud of Patrick, because she knew that his father had left him a business when he was very young, and that it was through skill and luck and talent that he had grown it as much as he did.
Her eyes widened when she fell onto the word 'billionaire.' Surely that was some kind of typo, a word that was used to describe a man who was well off, regardless of his cash situation, but then she saw it again and again. If it was a mistake, it was one that plenty of people were making, but sooner rather than later, she stopped thinking it was a mistake. She scrolled through the links, becoming more and more appalled and shocked, and when she found a decent biographical article, she read the whole thing from beginning to end.
She was just finishing up the article when Patrick entered the plane, favoring her with a warm smile.
"The pilot will be boarding in just a few minutes," he said, coming to sit beside her. I figured we didn't need an attendant; if we want drinks, I am more than competent enough to mix them."
"You're one of the seventy-five most wealthy men in the world!" Natalie choked out. "People Magazine declared you among the ten most attractive men in Europe."
Patrick looked mildly startled.
"Unless my PR team has left me grossly misinformed, People Magazine voted on that some eight years ago. I'm not sure I'm their type anymore anyway. Being thirty-four usually knocks you out of the running, I imagine."
"That's not the point," Natalie managed. "You didn't tell me you were..."
"Rich?" He smiled at her, but there was a slightly rueful edge to it. "Honestly, I thought you knew. Then I found out that you didn't, and it was just a conversation I didn't care to have. It's awkward, and you learn some truly unpleasant things about people when they find out that you have money. And I did tell you to figure it out. I'm honestly surprised that you didn't."
"I always meant to," Natalie confessed. "I mean, you were smiling so much when you told me to figure it out. I assumed that there was some kind of joke involved, not that you were rich, I guess. And then I started working at the firm, and it just seemed so normal. You didn't wander around doing what I thought billionaires do, you just worked. A lot. Without taking any breaks."
"In all fairness that's one of the things that's required if you want to stay on top," he said with a laugh. "I made the bulk of my money on my own. As these things go, I'm still considered new money. My father did well for us, but I've multiplied the fortune he's left me many times over."
Natalie bit her lip. It felt as if there was some kind of old hurt here, and the last thing that she wanted was to fall into something that stung.
"You mentioned that you don't always want to have that conversation; that it’s awkward."
He looked away for a moment.
"It is. Once, I told a girl who had been laughing and chatting with me, sweet as anything. The moment she found out, she launched into a sad tale about her father dying. I suppose she forgot that she had told me that he was healthy and working the blackjack tables in Monte Carlo just forty minutes earlier."
Patrick was utterly sanguine about it, but Natalie couldn't stop herself from flinching. His problems were utterly foreign to her, but she could imagine it: talking with people and then having them change the way they acted immediately as soon as they realized that you had money.
"I'm sorry, that sounds difficult."
"Not really," he said. "People always want something for themselves. The only thing that changes is how much they think they can get."
“That feels like a lonely way to look at things."
"To be perfectly honest, loneliness is a thing I am quite used to."
"So that's why you’re taking me to lunch in Glasgow?"
He laughed a little at that.
"Well, I'm taking you to lunch in Glasgow because I believe that you will truly enjoy it, and I feel that it is in our best interests to get some distance from Dublin right now. It is where we got to know each other, and though I would not give that up, I also believe that it limits us. In Dublin, we can only be a boss and an employee. Maybe in Glasgow... well, there are many different possibilities."
On the last word, he looked into her eyes, and Natalie was suddenly convinced that she had never seen anything so blue. She felt as if there was some kind of exchange between them, something perfect and pure. She had taken something from him in that moment, offered up something of herself, and they would live like that forever.
"Exploring our possibilities... I like that," she said.
Patrick leaned back in his chair, and it occurred to Natalie that he was watching her with a kind of possessive pride. It was as if he had won her after some kind of feat of strength or skill, and now she was his to enjoy. She wondered if she should have been offended by his gaze, but instead she felt drawn to him.
"I think," Patrick said, "I have a great deal to learn from you."
Natalie had to laugh at that.
"You're a real estate mogul worth billions of dollars," she said. "I've actually been kicked off of a train because my fare money got stolen and I couldn't replace it. I'm not sure I have all that much to teach you."
"You're selling yourself short," he said sternly. "You live in the world. You take it as it comes, and my God, you are so open to it. Perhaps that would be good for me."
She smiled at him a little uncertainly. On one hand, she wanted this conversation to continue; she wasn't sure she had ever heard him so honest or so open. On the other hand, she wasn't sure she wanted things to be this serious.
Patrick shrugged, as if sensing her unease.
"And to be honest, there's a property a few hours north of Glasgow that I've been meaning to visit for quite some time."
"What is it, a castle?" she asked, only half-joking. "I mean, after the plane, a castle wouldn’t really be a surprise."
He gave her a considering look.
"Wait, is it really a castle?"
"No. Not exactly. There is a castle on the property, but it was ruins long before my family or I came into the picture."
She shook her head.
"I really never know what to expect from you," Natalie complained, and to her surprise, Patrick burst into laughter.
"Believe me when I say that that is how I have felt ever since I met you, pet," he said.