ROOK (Billionaire Buck Boys Book 6), page 9
Once I showered, I tugged on a pair of button-fly faded jeans and a green T-shirt that bears the logo of the company I work for.
I decided on comfort and convenience since I knew I’d be lending Posey a hand with painting today. She’s the one being paid for her work on it, but when I visit Abby and the baby, I want to glance at the mural and know that I contributed to it, too, even if I’m not a true artist like Posey.
An hour ago, she accidentally blurted out the amount she’s making on this side gig. It made me seriously question why I dropped out of my elective art class during my sophomore year of college.
She tucks the handle of one of her freshly washed paintbrushes into the front pocket of her denim overalls. She has at least a half dozen in there with all the bristles exposed so they can dry. Each is a different size and serves a unique purpose. She explained it all to me when I offered to help.
So far, I’ve been gifted with the task of filling in the petals of a yellow flower in the bottom right portion of the mural.
“I’ll order us lunch in an hour or so,” I offer. What are you in the mood for?”
Her blue eyes shine as she steals a glance in my direction. “Why don’t I handle that? I’d love to surprise you with something special.”
I’m not the most adventurous person when it comes to food, but I’ll give almost anything a go at least once.
“That sounds good to me.”
“When you’re done with the yellow paint, I’ll upgrade you to blue.” She winks. “A cute little bluebird in the corner could use your magic touch.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I have a steady hand, not a magic touch.”
She tugs one of her paintbrushes out of her pocket. “I happen to think you have both.”
“You’re Carrie, aren’t you?” Elio Franzini looks down at me.
Holy smokes…he’s tall and handsome in a bad boy, messy hair and tattooed way.
He’s not my type, but I understand the appeal.
Usually, when I see him at his restaurant, he’s wearing a chef’s coat and is embroiled in a discussion with one of his staff.
Right now, his focus is solely on me.
Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, I smile. “That’s me. I live a couple of blocks from your restaurant.”
“I know,” he says.
His smile could disarm a bank robber. It’s that captivating.
“Carrie said she loved the dessert pizza,” Posey tells him. “You brought one for her, didn’t you?”
He nods. “That one and another new one. Consider it a first taste.”
A knock at the door sends Posey in that direction. Since I’m expecting a floral delivery for her, it’s perfect that she’ll be handed the bouquet of wildflowers.
I wanted to thank her, in my own way, for painting the mural for my sister.
When she swings the door open, it’s not a stranger holding a bouquet of wildflowers.
It’s Rook Thorsen.
He’s dressed down in jeans and a black V-neck sweater. I tear my gaze from him to focus on what’s in his hand.
It’s at least three dozen lavender roses. The stems are bound together with a beautiful deep purple ribbon.
As Posey moves aside, Rook takes one step forward and smiles at me.
That’s a smile that can turn my world upside down. I feel that now as my heart skips a full beat.
“Hey, Carrie,” he says, his voice husky. “These are for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rook
I thought the flowers would impress Carrie. Little did I know that a tattooed beast of a chef would be lurking right behind her.
The guy’s biceps are a work of art.
I work out like a champ as often as I can, but I’ve got nothing on Elio Franzini.
Thank fuck Carrie seems more entranced with the roses in my hand than anything going on with Elio.
She steps toward me. “Those are for me?”
Before I can answer, someone is clearing his throat behind me.
I turn toward the still open door to see a young guy with a toothpick clenched between his teeth, a New York Mets cap on his head, and a bouquet of flowers in his hand, too.
What the hell is going on?
From where I’m standing, it looks like this kid had the same brilliant idea I did today.
Little does he know that lavender roses are Carrie’s favorite, so I’ve clearly won this round.
I could do without all the extra competition, though. I assumed Carrie and Posey would be the only people here, but it looks like I was dead wrong.
“Oh, hi,” Carrie calls to the guy in the doorway. “I ordered those. Thanks for delivering them.”
He nods. “No problem, darling.”
Posey lets out a giggle. “Cute.”
“Thanks, darling,” he tosses that same endearment at her.
It seems this guy’s repertoire consists of one note.
Carrie takes the bouquet from the kid before she places something in his hand that she plucked out of the back pocket of her jeans.
Naturally, he’s the type to unveil the tip in front of everyone. He turns the twenty dollar bill over once and then again before he holds it up as if he’s checking if it’s counterfeit.
“You can go,” I tell him, pointing toward the door.
“I’m in no hurry, man.” He looks at the roses that I’m still holding. “Bigger isn’t always better, dude.”
“Ah, yes, it is,” Elio chimes in, crossing his arms over his chest.
What the fuck is up with this midday circus?
Not only do I feel like I’m in the middle of a flower pissing match with the delivery guy, but I swear to fuck, I smell pizza.
I glance at Elio. Is it him? Does he always smell this good?
“I had these delivered for you.” Carrie hands off the wildflowers to Posey. “It’s a small thank you for the mural.”
Posey tears up. “For me? Really, Carrie? You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to,” she says, her voice soft and comforting as she rubs a hand over Posey’s shoulder. “I know my sister, and I can tell you that when she gets home and sees what you’ve done, she’ll be so touched.”
Posey lowers her head to smell the wildflowers. “That’s more than I can hope for. Abby has been good to me. I’m honored that I can be a part of this.”
“So…” The delivery kid breaks into the tender moment. “Are either of you hotties single?”
That’s enough bullshit for one day, so I level my gaze on him again and add to it with a step toward him. I’m all for intimidation if it gets this joker out of here. “You’re leaving now.”
“Fine.” He darts both hands in the air. “I was just trying to be friendly. No harm. No foul.”
“Go,” I reiterate my point with another step toward him.
He walks backward toward the door, shifting his gaze to Carrie. “Thanks for the tip, darling. If you need more flowers, you know right where to find me.”
“I won’t.” Carrie shakes her head. “I will never need to find you. Ever. Shut the door on your way out.”
I bow my head to hide a smile. That’s one down and one to go. Two, if I count Posey.
I want this apartment cleared out so I can finally get that moment alone with Carrie that I’ve been craving since the wedding.
Despite my best efforts, Posey wouldn’t leave Declan and Abby’s apartment. Her commitment to getting the mural done before the newlyweds set foot back on American soil is unwavering.
Shortly after the delivery kid took off, Elio said he needed to head back to Franzini’s. I encouraged his sister to tagalong but she tossed me a look I’d classify as somewhere between confusion and shock.
“I don’t have time for that, boss,” she said as she flung her arms into the air.
After a quick hug goodbye between the siblings, Elio was out of the apartment door, and Posey was back in the guestroom that will soon be completely transformed into a nursery.
That left Carrie and me alone for less than two minutes before she shot out of the main living area like a dart, claiming she needed to find a vase for the flowers.
She’s been out of my sight for almost five minutes. I know for a fact that her treasure hunt shouldn’t have lasted more than ninety seconds since there’s a large vase on the kitchen counter.
Abby keeps it at the ready because her husband brings her a fresh flowers every week.
I finally hear the tap running. I take that to mean that she’s filling the vase.
Not more than twenty-seconds later, she appears with it in her hands.
I stalk toward her to take it from her, but she hurries to the dining room table to place it down gently.
She immediately gets to work untying the ribbon holding the stems of the roses together.
I stand near her, but not close enough to crowd her.
I suspect she knows what I want. Or maybe she was too drunk to recall her virgin confession. Either way, I need to test the waters.
“Lavender roses are my favorite,” she whispers before I can say a word about the night of the wedding and what she said to me.
“I know.”
She stops placing the roses in the vase to look up at me. “How?”
I stare into her eyes. “Abby was ordering flowers for your birthday, and I overheard her. She told the florist that lavender roses are your favorite.”
She blinks twice. “My birthday was months ago. It was before we met in her office.”
“Yes,” I admit. “Lavender roses are rare, so that stayed with me. I remembered it.”
Her gaze drops briefly before it’s back on my face. She takes her time studying the curve of my jaw and the shape of my nose before she locks eyes with me again. “They’re beautiful, Rook. Thank you. I know you brought them because you think having Posey here is disruptive, but it’s not.”
Posey didn’t factor into my decision to pick up those flowers for her. I brought them to put a smile on her face.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I smile. “Or a coffee?”
It’s not the ideal scenario to discuss what happened at the wedding, but that conversation is overdue.
“You want to buy me a drink or a coffee?” Her gaze leaves me again to fall back on the flowers.
Her hands follow. She starts dropping the flower stems into the vase.
“Yes.” I take a small step toward her so the distance between us is minute. “I want to talk about the wedding, Carrie.”
Her head snaps up. “What about it?”
I lean closer. I’m so close that I can almost taste her lips. “I haven’t forgotten what you said to me. I want to discuss that.”
A tiny exhale escapes her. “I thought you’d forget.”
I almost laugh because the notion that I could dismiss her confession from my memory or erase the image of how she looked that night is impossible. All of it claimed a permanent place inside of me.
I ache to reach up to tilt her chin up so I can kiss her, but I fight that temptation. We need to talk before I touch.
“Have a drink with me, Carrie,” I implore her. “Give me an hour of your time.”
“Now?”
“Now,” I repeat, but with all the pent-up longing I feel seeping into that one word.
She picks up the remaining roses to drop the stems into the vase at the same time. “I’ll arrange these later. Let’s go talk.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Carrie
I’ve never been the type to hang out at a bar. When my friends in college were doing that, I was at home with my nose in a textbook, enriching my mind to solidify the future I envisioned for myself.
I wasn’t always that focused, but high school wasn’t kind to me. It fractured me in ways that I imagine it did to many young women. The splintered pieces inside me…my heart and my pride, are still fusing back together.
It’s been a slow journey, but I’m on the right path.
“Just a water with lemon for me,” I tell the server as soon as she reaches our table.
We’re in a bar not far from Declan and Abby’s building. Rook took the lead and headed straight here. When he held the door open for me, the man behind the bar called out his name in greeting.
I guess that means he’s a regular, or maybe he’s only been in once before with Declan.
Rook is a hard man to forget, after all.
Rook studies my face as the server studies him. Her eyes take in all of him, including how the fabric of his sweater strains over his broad chest.
“I’ll have two fingers of scotch.” He finally glances at her. “The best you have.”
“Neat,” she says, and I have to wonder if she’s asking if he wants ice or just commenting on his drink order.
“No ice.” He nods his head.
She tosses him a smile and tilts her chin. Her eyes are rimmed with dark shadow, and even darker mascara coats her lashes. She’s stunning, and with the tight T-shirt she’s wearing with the bar’s name emblazoned across her chest, she must make bank in tips.
“I got it.” She taps her forehead as if she’s committing our order to memory. “We serve a limited selection of food in the afternoon. Wings, mini tacos…”
“Just the drinks,” Rook informs her, shifting his gaze back to me.
“Just the drinks,” she repeats quietly before she walks away.
As soon as we rounded the corner headed toward this bar, I debated turning around and sprinting back to Abby’s apartment. I know why we’re here, and although I’ve worked hard to rebuild my ego after it took a brutal beating when I was eighteen, I’m still vulnerable in some ways.
This impending discussion about my virginity will leave me exposed, but it needs to happen. I want the subject to be buried forever, and since Rook obviously remembers my confession, I have to face it head-on in order to put it behind me.
“Carrie,” he starts, his voice has a tender note woven into the deep richness that is always there.
I never noticed how the rough timbre of a man’s voice could spark something inside of me until he first said hello to me in my sister’s office months ago.
“Let’s wait for the drinks,” I say, with a plea woven into it that I hope he can’t hear. If I can grab another minute or two to steel myself, I’ll take it. “I don’t want her to interrupt us.”
“Right.” He nods. “That’s smart.”
I’ve heard that word on an almost daily basis all of my life in one form or another.
“You’re the smartest girl alive,” my mom would say before every test I ever took.
“You’re too smart for your own good,” one of my middle school teachers playfully warned me with a wag of her finger after I aced a test.
“Smart girls don’t have the same choices as pretty girls.”
That’s the one that haunts me. It cut into my self-esteem like a sharp-edged knife on the worst night of my life.
It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes before the server returns with our drinks in her hand.
She sets mine in front of me before pivoting her entire body toward Rook to set his down. “Two fingers of scotch. No ice.”
He doesn’t gaze at her. His only acknowledgment is a curt nod.
She’s expecting more because her feet don’t move, so I help them along. “Thank you. If we need anything else, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
She tosses me a look and then, surprisingly, a small smile. “You’re welcome.”
She heads to the only other occupied table in the bar. Three women are sitting there, their heads crowded together as they study something on one of their phones.
Rook samples his drink, his eyes closing briefly as he does.
I don’t bother doing the same because water is water. This glass will likely cost more than a few dollars, but that’s just one of the perks that an address this close to Central Park West affords a business.
“Carrie.” My name leaves his lips in a low rumble. “The wedding.”
I stop him with a hand in the air. He’s a lawyer. Judging by what my sister has shared, he’s a very good one, but this is my conversation to start and end when I see fit.
“I told you I was a virgin,” I say, trying to keep my tone even.
My hands are nestled in my lap, out of his view. I don’t want him to know that they’re shaking.
He studies me carefully as he sips from his glass again. “You did.”
I edge forward on my seat. “No one else knows.”
His eyes widen slightly, but he doesn’t say a thing. I see the unspoken question in his expression, and it’s there in the way his brow has furrowed.
“Not even Abby,” I go on, “I haven’t told Telford. No one but you knows that I’ve never…”
“Fucked a man.”
Those words in that voice send a need thrumming through me. I have to look down and take a deep breath to chase back the blush I know is approaching.
I was going to finish my sentence with ‘had sex,’ but Rook has had sex enough times that he’s direct and bold. He’s just telling it like it is.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He downs what’s left in his glass in a single gulp, and before it’s back on the table, his hand is in the air, motioning to the server.
He’s not calling her over, though, he’s halting her in her tracks.
I glance over my shoulder just in time to see her bright smile slip into a frown.
She turns and marches away from us with frustration, driving each step.
Rook leans both of his elbows on the small circular table. His gaze searches my face.
I watch with bated breath as his tongue darts out to line his bottom lip.
He takes a heavy breath and exhales harshly in a sudden rush. “I meant every word I said at the wedding, Carrie.”
I don’t have to rewind my memory to recall what he said because it’s been playing on a loop inside me since. “You said that you wanted to do the thing I hadn’t done yet with me. You said that before you knew what it was, though.”
The words are messy and clumsy, so I revise them. “When you offered to do what I hadn’t done yet, I know that you had no idea I was talking about sex. It’s not as though it was a promise, Rook. Let’s forget the conversation ever happened, and I’d appreciate it if you never mentioned it to my sister or Declan.”
