Chapter 8

Margot

My heels clicked on the marble flooring in the empty lobby of the building. Above us, chandeliers, fractal in their design, shimmered, and glass walls surrounded us, some misted, others clear. This was the fanciest office space I’d ever seen.

Cain led me, his hand on the small of my back, his touch more than a guiding force now.

“What is this place?”

“You don’t know?” There was laughter in his tone.

“No, I just like asking stupid questions,” I replied, and rolled my eyes at him, smiling though. Because tonight, Cain had made me feel good. Not like I had to control his behavior, but like he was in control of everything, from the restaurant choice to this very moment.

Thinking of him this afternoon had even dictated what type of dress I’d wear.

And the way he’d handled Kelly? The woman who’d taken everything I’d known and turned it on its head? That had been an eye-opener. The envy that had unfolded in my chest the minute she’d looked at him had pinned my senses to a mental wall.

Breathe. Think. Function, for god’s sake. He’s just your friend. Your annoyance.

I pressed my lips together and released them, slowly. I breathed through my nose. “Well? Where are we?”

Cain halted in front of a set of steel doors and hit the button for the elevator. “The Foster Tower,” he said. “My father owns this building. His masterpiece.”

“And you can come and go as you please?”

“No,” he said. “But I’m friends with all the guys on his security team.” He grinned at me, as the number on the plaque above the doors clicked downward.

“Friends?”

“I pay them well,” Cain replied. “Come on, Margot, you know I don’t have any real friends.”

“I’m hurt.”

“Is that what you want?” He turned to me, ran his palms down my bare arms. “To be my friend?”

I couldn’t answer. My tongue had basically glued itself to the roof of my mouth. Fantastic. No human being had rendered me speechless in my entire life—apart from the time my English teacher had made me dissect The Catcher in the Rye in front of the class—and Cain had done it twice in the matter of a few days.

Cain leaned in, pressed his cheek against mine. “Anything can happen,” he said.

The elevator doors slid open behind him and he drew back. I withheld a little moan of regret.

What’s gotten into you? This is Cain! The troublemaker. The guy who does whatever he wants whenever he wants. The guy who’s just broken into his father’s building.

I grabbed hold of that thought. “Why doesn’t your father want you here?”

Cain chuckled and took my hand, walked me into the elevator. “Take your pick. I base jumped off the building. I made his secretary quit. I bought everyone a bottle of champagne on my father’s birthday and drank it with them in the lunchroom. Total debauchery. None of them got fired, of course, but productivity was way down that day and the next.”

“What? That’s—” I cut off with a gasp.

The entire back of the elevator was glass, and it looked out on Chicago, on the distant Willis Tower, on the skyscrapers and the lights, the lines of traffic below.

The elevator doors closed.

Cain’s arms slipped around my waist. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t afraid of heights. I was afraid of this moment. His arms around me, his body touching mine. It wasn’t only sexual. It was deeper than that, and it was all the things I didn’t need in my life.

Not now.

But I couldn’t step free of him. How was it possible to want someone this much and be this afraid at the same time?

Cain leaned over and pressed a button on the wall beside us.

The elevator slid upward, the glass one continuous line, the buildings shrinking inch by inch, the lights bright, smaller, smaller. I sucked in a breath and held it. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going to the top, Margot.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where you belong.” Cain kissed the back of my head. “Now, hold still and watch. Feel what’s happening out there and in here. Just feel.”

I did as I was told, leaning into his warmth. His fingers worked across my shoulders, under the straps of my dress. He slipped one off.

“Cain,” I said, but I couldn’t breathe.

“I know you care. You care too much about everything,” he whispered. “I see it in the way you move, the way you talk, the way you interact with people. The way you worry. Breathe, baby. Be here.” His lips grazed the spot where my strap had been and I shivered.

It was too good. I needed him more than I could take.

“I’ve never been good at this,” I whispered. The lights flicked lower, the buildings soared, and so did I. God, so did I. I wasn’t just high off the ground. I was high in my soul, in the very part of me that didn’t want to be.

A lump in my throat that refused to be swallowed.

“What aren’t you good at?” Cain asked, and slipped the other strap free, kissed that place too, tenderly, his lips hot and wet against my skin.

“One-night stands.” I hiccupped it out.

He spun me away from the view and cupped my cheek. “One-night stand,” he growled. Hazel fires burning me, taking me. “Who said it was that, Margot?”

“But if it’s not, then what—?”

The elevator halted, and the doors opened. Cain lifted my straps back onto my shoulders and took my hand, led me out into a wide carpeted hallway, the cubicles here dark and empty, not even desks or chairs.

“What is this?” I managed.

“My father’s new project. He’s going to turn this entire area into a restaurant because why the fuck not, right? A private restaurant for him and all his business cronies.” The bitterness in Cain’s voice shocked me.

He was cocky, arrogant, and way too commanding, but never bitter.

“You don’t like him,” I said. “Your dad. You never have. What happened, Cain?”

He tucked his arm around my waist and carried on walking. “We’re not here to talk about him, Margot. We’re here for us.”

“Us.”

“That’s right. Us. You know, I’ll give you everything you need tonight.”

But not forever. And that was fine. Totally fine. One night was all I needed with him to get rid of all those squiggly bullshit feelings that distracted me every day at work. Man, maybe this would even be productive—it would help clear my mind.

Are you seriously considering doing this?

“Here,” Cain said, as we reached the far end of the space. He tugged open a steel door, pulled it wide so it wouldn’t swing shut on us, then guided me out onto a balcony.

There wasn’t a magical picnic waiting. No candles or tables or chairs. No fairy lights.

It was only the view, and concrete, and us.

“This way.” He took me again, from the door and over to the edge, to look down on the mapwork of streets, the toy cars, the specks which were people.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Scary,” he replied. “All those souls. People who are working late or losing what they wanted. People who are completely alone or surrounded by their families. Every single life laid out before you, Margot. Doesn’t it make you feel insignificant?” He wasn’t morose as he said it. “Doesn’t it make you feel like your problems don’t matter? Your life isn’t that bad?”

“No,” I said, and leaned against his side, the wind whipping the loose pieces of my hair against my throat and back again. “It makes me feel real.”

“You are real.”

“Sometimes, I feel like a shadow of who I used to be. Or I’m supposed to be. Is that stupid?” I searched his face for any hint of judgment.

“No,” he said, smiling, his eyes shining from the inside out.

So gruff and manly, yet beautiful in the sense that everything around here was beautiful. Everything in existence. Everything below us and above us. The dirt on the streets, the scarred concrete, the stars above.

“I’ll make you feel real, Margot.” He patted the lip of concrete. “Sit with me.”

“Are you—are you crazy? We could fall.”

“What if we fly?” He asked, grinning wide.

“That’s humanly impossible, you know.”

Cain threw back his head and laughed, pure joy radiating from every pore. “God, I love that about you. You’re so fucking practical.” He let go of me, stepped up to the ledge, swung one leg over, then the other, and sat down, facing the fall.

He braced himself with one hand and reached back with the other. “Come. Trust me.”

“Trust you? I don’t trust myself.” I gripped my arms, now covered in goose bumps from the nip in the wind minus his warmth at my side.

He didn’t shift his hand.

Don’t. Don’t be crazy. You’re not supposed to risk things. You play by the rules. That’s who you are.

But that wasn’t who I had to be.

I took Cain’s hand, scooched my ass onto the ledge, and swung one leg over, my heart beating so fast it would surely thud right outta my chest. I moved the other leg over and shut my eyes tight.

Cain tugged me to his side and held me. “Open your eyes.”

The wind picked up and tugged at my dress, at my arms, my legs. Oh god, what if I we were sucked down? Mom and Jemma needed me. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be doing this.

“Open your eyes, Margot.” It wasn’t a question.

I opened them, stared out at the night and its many lights.

“Look down.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, my jaw clenched so tight I’d need the Jaws of Life to pry it the hell open. “I’m getting off.”

“Do it.” He jiggled me against his side.

“Oh-ho, don’t do that. Don’t you dare do that.”

“I’ll carry on shaking you until you look down.” He made good on his promise. “Are you ready?”

Finally, I lowered my gaze to my lap, then my knees, then past my dangling feet. I exhaled a massive breath that turned into a shrieking giggle.

Just below us, there was another balcony, one that jutted out from the building, with a sturdy base and high railings, open to the air. If I fell, I would be caught, not killed.

“You asshole,” I said, and turned on my tenuous seat, punched him on the arm. “That scared the crap out of me.”

“Well, you’re too full of crap,” he replied, and shrugged, grinning from ear to ear. “This seemed the best way to rid you of it.”

I waved a finger under his nose. “You’ll be the death of me, Cain Foster.”

“No,” he said, and took hold of my finger. “The salvation.” He tugged me closer and brushed the tip of his nose against mine. He kissed it once.

Butterflies in my stomach? No, everywhere, in my heart and mind and fluttering down my legs and arms.

I opened my eyes wider, taking him in, memorizing each pore, the crook in his nose, those hazel eyes, almost golden in their intensity as they flicked up and down, studying me.

“I’ve never believed there’s anything perfect in this world,” he whispered. “I’m starting to change my mind.”

“Cain, I—”

“Don’t ruin it.” He snaked his fingers into my hair, tangled it all up, and pulled me into him.

His lips brushed against mine, and I moaned, far too loud. Seriously, it was only a kiss, but the noise that’d come from me suited the throes of deepest passion. Because that’s what this is.

I was instantly wet. Fuck, pity I’d decided to forgo underwear tonight—I’d ruin this dress.

“If you make those kinds of noises, Margot—” He spoke against my lips. “I’m trying to do the right thing, here.”

“You?”

“Fuck, I’ll kiss the cynicism right out of you.” He licked my bottom lip, and I moaned again. I couldn’t keep it in.

Cain tightened his grip on the back of my head, tugged lightly on the strand of hair he’d captured. He licked my top lip.

I opened my mouth to him, moved against him, with him.

The kiss was longer, deeper. His tongue claimed the space, massaged mine. He tasted a little like beer, but mostly like him. In all the nights I’d spent imagining this moment, it had never been this.

On top of a building, the city laid out beneath us, his flavor invading me.

It was perfect.

But nothing was perfect, surely.

He tilted my head back and increased the pace of the kiss, holding me against him, so solid, a rock. We didn’t sway or fumble on the edge. He controlled each movement precisely, the fingers of his free hand racing down the front of my throat, across my shoulder, down my arm, to my hand. He squeezed it and broke the kiss.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“My place.”

“Your hotel room?” I asked, my lips still humming from him. God, I was flushed from head to toe. I’d never had sex with a man I didn’t love, and certainly not in a fucking hotel room.

“No,” he said. “My place.”

“Where’s that?”

He nipped my bottom lip. “No more questions, Margot.” He released me, adjusted his pants around his dick, then got off the ledge, back onto safe ground. “Turn around.”

I scooched on the rough edge, slung my legs back over onto the safe side.

He held out his arms, head tilted to one side, smiling again—but in a different way this time. It was enigmatic. The glint wasn’t fully mischievous. It wasn’t just trouble. It was deeper than that.

“I told you, Margot, I’m going to take you places,” he said. “You’re safe with me.”

I squashed the kernel of doubt in my gut and slid off the ledge and into his arms.