Page 14 of Come Away With Me (The Andrades 1)
A slow burning anger started deep in Julia’s stomach. Between gritted teeth she said, “Sounds like you put a lot of thought into this offer.”
“I did,” he said, so calmly that she wanted to kick him.
“And never once did it sound offensive to you? I can’t believe I was upset because I thought you were going to say you didn’t want to see me again.” She threw her hair back over her shoulder. “You make me so angry I could strangle you.” She poked a finger into his suit-covered shoulder. “And not in some funky, paid-mistress way. I mean actually hurt you.”
He pulled her to him and the kiss they shared channeled her anger into a frenzied passion. Her hands flew to the back of his head and she ground against him, unable to deny the pull between them. His hands cupped her from behind, grinding her against his pulsing erection.
“Get a room,” someone said behind them, but the taunt wasn’t enough to pierce through their haze of sexual need. They stumbled backward against the side of a building, and Julia finally understood why people risked everything for this. There was something exquisitely, almost painfully, beautiful about giving in to a primal need and leaving the rest of the world behind.
His hand was sliding up her rib cage beneath her shirt when a camera flashed and someone said, “Got it.”
He pulled back. “Shit.” He reached for the photographer, but the young man was too fast and disappeared into the busy stream of people. His face tight with anger, and his eyes still storming with unfulfilled passion, he said, “This is exactly why we can’t continue as we are . . .”
Julia’s head was still spinning from the kiss. “I did not mean for that to happen.” She covered her lips with one shaking hand.
“I did.” He looked down at her intently and then, with his hand on the small of her back, guided her toward his office building. “Maybe now you’ll stop pretending we don’t want the same thing.”
She looked up at him sadly. “I don’t know what kind of women you’re used to dating, but I don’t want your money. I don’t need you to pay for an apartment for me. And I’m offended that you think I would.”
“Then tell me what you do want.”
Julia looked away and then back at him. She had difficulty forming coherent thoughts when he was around her, but if he cared enough to ask, then she felt he should get an honest answer. “All the normal stuff. Ask me out. Send me roses. I’m partial to pink ones.”
He didn’t look happy with her answer, nor did he flat out reject the idea. They reentered Cogent Solutions together. He walked her to the door of her station, not seeming to care that all eyes were on them as he did. “I don’t know what we’re doing, but God help me, I can’t stop myself when it comes to you.” After one final, deep kiss that left Julia sagging against the wall, he walked away.
Julia was still standing there, watching him go, when she heard Paul say, “See. When a woman is that beautiful, no man is immune.”
“Shut up, Paul,” Tom said.
Still floating from the kiss, Julia wasn’t bothered by the commentary. She returned to her station, sat down, and hoped no one decided to break into the building that night because her attention was definitely not on the monitors.
Back in his office, Gio sat down at his desk and picked up his phone. Years of erasing stories in the media had given him the contacts necessary to ensure that photo wouldn’t see print. It wasn’t an easy feat in this day of the Internet, but people rarely published anything unless there was potential profit in it. The trick to getting a story killed was to make sure that remaining silent was more profitable for the source; or safer for their career.
He preferred to keep things positive, but he’d go to whatever lengths he needed when it came to protecting what was his.
And Julia fit that definition, regardless of how she might try to fight it.
She would be his.
Even though she fought him at every turn. He closed his eyes as he remembered how he hadn’t cared who was around them on the street. He’d wanted her with such urgency that the photographer had done them a favor. A few more minutes and they might have started shedding clothing and given the press a story that even his contacts couldn’t squash.
He groaned. After years of judging Nick for chasing everything in a skirt and mocking his lack of control, Gio was coming to the humbling conclusion that he had his own Achilles’ heel—and her name was Julia.
And what did she want from him?
Flowers. He did a quick search on his phone for a flower shop, then placed an order that the florist repeated twice to make sure she’d heard correctly.
Would he like to include a message?
Oh, yes.
Chapter Eleven
The long-stemmed pink roses started arriving the next morning in an abundance that revealed Gio had no idea how small her apartment was. Once she’d packed them into her tiny kitchenette, the window sill, all of the floor space around her bed, and even put a few in the bathroom, she’d asked the delivery man to hand the rest of the vases out on the street below.
Yes, at night the neighborhood showed its underbelly, but during the day its sidewalks were filled with regular people who were thrilled by this unexpected gift: mothers walking their young children, couples who felt the flowers were a sign from fate, and some street vendors she’d never seen smile until the florist pointed up toward her open window and offered them a bouquet. After their initial suspicion passed, many of them had held up the flowers and waved to her in thanks.
The entire experience had put a lasting smile on Julia’s face. She hadn’t opened the envelope that had accompanied the flowers. She knew who they were from and she wanted to savor the moment. When the last bouquet was given away, she closed her window, waded through a forest of roses, and sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed.
She held the envelope to her chest but still didn’t open it. He’s doing what I asked him to, but what do I have in common with a man like Gio? It would never work out. He wants sex. Hot. Glorious. Repeated sex. And he’s willing to do anything to get me to agree.
That’s not love.
That’s late-night porn.
Something he’s already offered to pay me for. That’s what being his mistress would be. A socially acceptable payment for sex.
Even these flowers. One thousand long-stemmed fuck-me-please flowers.
I didn’t think he’d actually send them.
Or that I’d love the gesture as much as I do.
She picked one of the flowers out of a vase on the floor beside her bed and raised it to her nose, closing her eyes in pleasure as the scent filled her senses. The soft petals brushed against her bottom lip, reminding her how his mouth had fit so perfectly over hers. Her body didn’t care about the poor timing of this temptation; it flooded with heat at the memory of being pushed up against the side of a New York building with a passion that had robbed both of them of their inhibitions.
She opened her eyes and studied the envelope again.
Does it include an invitation to somewhere?
It doesn’t matter.
The flowers don’t actually change anything.
I’d be better off spending the day in the Diamond District trying to make a connection than being pulled, albeit willingly, into something I know is wrong for me.
Call him at work.
Thank him and politely refuse to take this further.
Don’t read the card.
Once you open that door, you won’t be able to close it.
You won’t be strong enough to say no.
She lay back on the bed and covered her eyes with the paper.
Her phone began to vibrate on the nightstand beside her bed. She rolled onto her stomach. Unknown number. She held her breath and answered it. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Julia,” Gio said, his voice warm and intimate.
She sat straight up in her bed and dropped the card. “Mr. Andrade.”
“We’re way beyond using last names and
you know that.”
Protectively pulling down her nightgown to cover her knees, Julia said huskily, “About that. Thank you for the flowers, but—”
“Did I wake you?”
“No, the delivery did that,” she said, then felt bad that she sounded ungrateful. This wasn’t going as she’d planned.
“So, you’re not on your bed? I have an image in my head of you there, surrounded by those roses.”
The heat from a blush spread up Julia’s chest and warmed her cheeks. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. She said, “I am on my bed.” Then she hastily added, “But only because it doubles as my couch.”
He groaned. “I refuse to sink low enough to ask you what you’re wearing, but if you want to describe it I won’t stop you.”
There was something irresistibly tempting about doing just that. Was it the knowledge that in that moment she had the same power over him that he had over her? The sense that he was fighting this as much as she was?
It proved too heady to resist. “I’m still in my nightgown.”
He let out a long breath. “If I were there it wouldn’t be on you for long. Take it off, Julia. For me.”
