“It’s okay,” he murmurs, reaching out and caressing my face. “You’re okay, baby. Just breathe.”
I close my eyes and breathe deeply as he takes me into his arms. We stand together silently for a while, our bodies pressed together, until he decides it’s time to pick me up.
He carries me out of the kitchen and down the hallway into my bedroom, then kicks off his boots and lays next to me on the bed so we’re facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes.
“Hi, beautiful.”
“Hi.”
“Talk to me.”
“I was hoping you’d start.”
“What do you want to know?”
I study his features for a moment, admiring how fine and symmetrical they are and wondering how a rich guy who looks like a GQ model winds up doing what he does.
“How much leeway do I have? Because I know you’re Mr. Secrecy, and you don’t normally answer questions.”
Looking contemplative, he rubs his thumb slowly back and forth over my cheek. “Can I ask you something first?”
“Yes.”
“Are you mine?”
My throat closes. My chest tightens. If I cry, I’m going to beat myself up. “You know the answer to that.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I thought you didn’t do relationships?”
“I don’t. But you stole my heart the first night we met, and I finally realized it’s hopeless to keep trying to resist you. Every time I see you, it’s like the first time I’m seeing the sun.”
I close my eyes and remind myself to breathe. He strokes my hair until I’m calm enough to speak again.
“I’d be lying if I said I wanted anyone else other than you. Or can think about anything else. You’ve taken my brain hostage.”
“Hostage is good.”
“No, it isn’t. Hostage is bad. Hostage is when something’s held against its will.”
“Open your eyes.”
When I do, he’s gazing at me with a look of such adoration, my heart skips a beat.
Eyes shining, he says quietly, “I meant it’s good because you’ve taken my brain hostage too. And my heart. And my soul. What’s left of it anyway. It’s all yours, if you’ll have it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut again. When I speak, my voice is choked. “Goddammit.”
“What?”
“I’m in love with Tony Soprano, and everybody knows what happened to him in the end.”
He pulls me against his body and hugs me tightly, sliding an arm underneath me so I’m cradled. Then he throws a leg over both of mine so I’m completely surrounded by his warmth and strength.
Inhaling against my neck, he sighs.
“I dream about your smell,” he whispers. “I wish I could replicate it from eating cologne and flowers like that idiot Florentino did.”
I raise my head and look at him with lifted brows. He rolls his eyes.
“Yes, I read Love in the Time of Cholera. Emery said it was your favorite book. But I have to tell you, baby, I’ve never read such depressing bullshit in my entire life. I needed a prescription for Xanax by the time I finished. ”
“You talked to Emery about me?”
Instead of answering, he makes a face.
“When?”
He admits grudgingly, “The day you started as my assistant.”
“After I told you she was the one who referred me for the job?”
“Yes. But don’t be angry with her, she wouldn’t answer any of my ten thousand questions about you except what your favorite book was. She said I should have a conversation with you instead.”
“That’s a surprising suggestion, considering conversations are your least favorite thing.”
“Not my least favorite.”
“No? What is?”
He answers with total nonchalance. “Getting blood stains out of white carpeting.”
When I stare at him in horrified silence, he chuckles. “I’m kidding.”
“I can’t deal with gallows humor at the moment, Cole. Have mercy.”
He tucks my head into his shoulder and kisses my hair. “Mercy it is.”
I close my eyes again, flatten my hand over the center of his chest, and count the beats of his heart until I get to sixty. Then I sigh and snuggle closer to him, hoping this man I’m so enamored with won’t someday be the subject of a true crime documentary.
He strokes my back and hair, stopping every so often to kiss my cheek or my forehead. He’s so gentle and sweet, it’s almost impossible to reconcile this side of him with the other side I know exists.