The Reality of You, page 21
My fingers gripped the edge of the desk behind me. Indecision rolled through me. I wasn’t sure if I should ask why, if it would be intrusive, or if I wanted to know the entire story. Yet not asking would be like leaving an elephant trumpeting in the room.
I cleared my throat. “Why would you want to be away from your grandfather?”
“Well…” he said hesitantly, regarding the art on the opposite wall and apparently collecting his thoughts. His hands curled stiffly into fists on the edge of the desk before he loosened them and his gaze lifted to me. His expression slowly relaxed, and he looked as if he had come to a decision. “Perhaps not at first, but over time, my grandparents were somewhat negligent, at least compared to my parents. However, there were never any issues until I turned eighteen.”
My face remained as blank as my brain. That number was apparently important, but I was clueless.
“The age I came into the first wave of my inheritance.” He absently reached for a pen and caught it between his thumb and index finger before he started tapping it lightly on the desk. “I was in high school when he began trying to persuade me to sign over control of the money.”
My butt found the edge of the desk. Of course the issue would be money.
The drumming pen paused as his lips formed a scornful twist. “At first, it was suggestions based on vague worries. I was ‘too young.’ I wasn’t ‘responsible.’ He’d ‘keep it safe.’ Nonetheless, I didn’t see the point. I told him several times that I wouldn’t touch the money. I already had a monthly allowance that more than covered my expenses.” Dropping the pen, he frowned. “Even for a rich kid partying on the weekends with his friends.”
I imagined a young Reese surrounded by females at a loud house party. It was better than imagining a grandparent after his money.
He leaned back in the chair, his eyes distant, full of memories. “He began putting on more pressure. Requesting me home, something he never did, for long weekend-long rants. I grew distrustful and began hating the thought of coming home. The conversations started getting uglier. One Saturday afternoon, after yelling at me for hours, he threatened to pull me from my too-expensive school. When I still wouldn’t agree, he lost it. It started with backhanding and slapping”—I’d known it was coming, but even so, it stunned me enough to gasp—“until it progressed into a full-out beating. Despite shock and anger, I couldn’t hit a seventy-year-old man back. I just took his anger, and fists, in silence.”
Shaking my head, I scooted closer to him, reaching for his hand. “Oh, Reese, that your own grandfather did such a thing… Did you go to the authorities?”
He looked down at our connected hands for several long seconds before letting out a sigh. “Maybe I should have told someone, but I was deeply embarrassed, too young, shocked, and very, very angry.”
He smiled lightly, and I realized that the smile was to reassure me. My expression must have been horrified.
“I tried to ride it out at first, leave on the weekends before he got there, or take off to a friend’s in the city. Then, after a couple of uglier incidents, one where he even came to my dorm room, I tried to go directly to the account firm and cut my grandfather off and out of my life. But the account firm seemed to be resistant, slow, and never had time to deal with me.”
Without meaning to, my hand gripped his harder. “Your grandfather’s influence?”
He shrugged. “I assumed as much and started communication with a lawyer. That had just begun when the headmaster called me into his office and informed me that my grandfather was taking me out of school. School had become my home. The thought of living with my grandfather, even for the time it took lawyers to get control of my inheritance, was too much. I finally gave in and signed every document. It only equated to about five percent of my total inheritance, and at the time, five percent didn’t seem worth the fight. I never went home again that year. Actually, I’ve never been to the penthouse since. My grandmother still lives there.”
I was astonished at his past and overwhelmed that he was telling me all this. Yet I somehow asked, “So how did you end up in Oregon?”
“I did plan on Harvard. However, I refused to ask for my money to pay for college. In addition, I wanted to cut all ties to him. Thus, I decided to go my own route. I researched reasonably priced colleges, took a bus after graduation, and simply disappeared. A student loan, a crap job, and a dumpy apartment later, I became completely free, learned what it was like to be on my own and earn my own living.”
Now I stared at him with an open mouth. “So no one ever figured out who you were there?”
“Nope. And though anger and pride pushed me into it, it was the best thing I could have done.” His thumb absently rubbed over my knuckles. “I’d grown up expecting to take over the empire my father and grandfathers had built, but after several years on my own, I wanted to make my own future, build my own empire. Regardless if it never equaled theirs, it would be mine.”
I blinked at him several times, trying to collect my feelings of amazement and confusion. His past was astounding, actually uplifting, but why share it with me? Reese was not the type of person to want pity. I couldn’t wrap my head around the why, yet I could respond to what he’d gone through.
“I’m glad, and slightly jealous, you’ve found your place in life. But I sincerely wish that never happened with your grandfather.” I shook my head. “Why did he… Was he just greedy?”
“He was a cold man, and even when my parents were alive, my mother was never close to her parents.” Shaking his head, Reese sneered slightly. “Though my grandfather was a lawyer, they were always way more pretentious than my family. They liked the money, the upscale penthouse, the chauffeur, but looking back, I think his motivation mostly stemmed from the fact he was running for district attorney that year, and he was losing.”
“He wanted the money for his campaign,” I stated, despite the fact it was obvious.
“And he got it,” Reese said, standing, “while I got a new lease on life, learned how to truly live, and never looked back.” He tugged at my hand. “Come on. All this talk is making me ravenous.”
Who the heck said ravenous?
In the kitchen, Reese poured coffee and mixed milk in mine. He drank it black. Funny, our time was nearly over, but we were starting to know each other rather well. He set the coffees down and took the sandwiches from the bag. I sat still, pondering all he’d told me as it mixed with everything I already knew about him until a light bulb—yeah, as usual, it’d taken me some time to put the pieces together—went off in my head.
“You don’t live off your inheritance!” I blurted.
He paused unwrapping a sandwich. “I was starting to wonder how many hints I needed to drop.”
I gave him an annoyed look then inspected his apartment. “You paid for this. That’s why it’s an investment.” Yes, though slow, I felt rather smart at the moment.
He hid a grin behind the back of his hand. I ignored it.
“Do you use any of your inheritance?” I put up my hand in a stop gesture. “You don’t have to answer that. It just kind of came out.”
Still smiling, he lowered his hand and reached for his coffee. “I use it for a few things. Like Paul. There’s no way I could afford him. He’s been with the family so long I can’t let him go in good conscience. And for taxes and upkeep on the properties I continue to own.”
“Huh,” I said, overwhelmed again, sitting next to a billionaire who essentially earned his own living. “So it sits there?” I put up my hand again. “Don’t—”
“Partly. I’ve sold several of the smaller companies and passed the money to charity. I’m taking it slow, finding the right investors. And there are some things I’ll probably never be able to part with, like the house in South Haven. Too many memories of my parents there…”
The guilt lined on his face had me shocked again. “Reese, if you gave away half and kept the other, I’d be amazed. Yet what you’ve done, what you’ve given up… Even when you were being an ass in Puerto Rico, I respected your determination, work ethic, and drive for perfection. But right now, I’m flabbergasted, and seriously, the respect-o-meter is off the charts. I mean…just, wow.”
Staring at me with warm eyes, he leaned across the counter, cradled my jaw in his hands, and kissed me so thoroughly I would have fallen off the stool if he weren’t holding me up. After, his nose centimeters from mine, he said, “I never took that shower. You?”
“No.” Though a little lightheaded with his hands on me, I managed to escape from his grasp and hop off the kitchen stool. “And I’m feeling kind of dirty,” I said, laughing and running toward his room, yanking up my shirt.
Half naked himself, Reese caught up with me in the bathroom. I was yanking down my bra straps when he said, “Not next weekend, the weekend after, I’m taking you with me to Toronto. The hotel I stay at there has these showers…” He paused as I became frozen. “Naomi?”
With my bra strap stuck in a yank, I could no more than stare at him while the words “weekend after” echoed in my head. The weekend after was way past three weeks. Stupid, stupid, stupid me. I’d never considered the three weeks as time in stone. It wasn’t just the passage of time that woke me up. It was the why he was telling me about his past that was finally making sense. He wanted me to know and understand him. The realization warmed me all over.
This wasn’t a fling.
“Naomi?” Reese said again, his hands pausing in their pants removal.
I was going to faint. Or let out a whoop. Or tackle him. And it wasn’t just because he was removing his pants.
His expression turned speculative the longer I stood frozen.
Oh shit. I didn’t want to destroy the moment with my previous assumptions and Kara’s brainwashing. I needed to get myself together. Fast.
I finally unfroze, letting go of the bra strap. The thing snapped hard enough to leave a welt. I ignored the sting. “Toronto?” I said in a tone that conveyed excitement, because I really, really was excited. This wasn’t a fling! “I love Toronto!” I said, tackling him.
We crashed into the tiled wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him—more like devoured his mouth in my excitement.
When we came up for air, Reese said, “Well hell, we need to go to Toronto at least once a month.”
Chapter 27
Later that afternoon, the Brooklyn Bridge, with its massive arches and cables against the backdrop of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, loomed in the distance as I ran with Kara in the park. Well, more like jogged at an excruciating slow pace. My roommate had never been much for exercise. I could get her to the gym on a weekend afternoon—never in the morning prior to work. Since I’d moved here, we’d run together a total of three times. It was a warm, sunny spring day, and when I’d suggested a run, even Kara hadn’t been able to refuse. And yeah, caught in a natural high after this morning with Reese, from major realizations and awesome sex, I needed to get rid of the copious amounts of energy bottled inside of me.
As we rounded the trail, running under newly sprouted trees, I dredged up enough courage to say what had been on my mind since Paul dropped me off at the apartment hours ago. “I need to find a new job. Soon.” Now that Reese and I were real, my working—even in a roundabout way—for him and hiding it had to stop. I wanted to come clean, but once I had another job. At least that was what I’d been telling myself.
Gasping for breath, Kara glanced at me, her blond ponytail swishing and her forehead wrinkling. “Why?”
“It isn’t a fling, Kara.” I didn’t need to elaborate. She knew I was referring to Reese. “We’re”—a smile escaped me—“pretty much in a relationship.”
She stared at me, her expression wild and stunned. Unfortunately, staring at me, she veered away from the path and right into a tree with a thud. Fortunately, she hadn’t been moving that fast, and I caught her bouncing back from the tree before she hit the ground.
Holding her under the arms, I asked, “You okay?”
A jogger, who’d probably also witnessed Kara’s whap into the tree, paused next to us and waited to be a Good Samaritan if needed.
It took a few seconds, but Kara yanked away from me and twisted around, her face furious. “Am I okay? No! What the heck, Naomi? You can’t be serious! You can’t think you’re going to have a relationship with him!”
After making wide eyes at my roommate, the lone jogger quickly moved on.
I’d hoped Kara’s accepting my decision last weekend was authentic. So much for hope. Though I reined aggravation in, my expression stayed stern as I crossed my arms. “I don’t think. I am in a relationship with him.”
Kara slapped her forehead. “Oh no! You’ve really fallen for him!” She rubbed the skin between her eyebrows. “I knew this would happen.”
I held in an irritated sigh. “He’s taking me to Toronto in two weeks. That’s way more than a month of dating.”
After looking stunned again, she let out a stream of air. “Okay, fine. You beat the three-week mark. Yet the man has never, ever been serious about a woman. Don’t tell me his record doesn’t have you worried.”
“No. Not anymore. I was blinded by his past and the crap you were always shoving in my face so much that I didn’t understand what was happening between us until this morning. We’re getting close, Kara. It happened without me realizing it, but it’s simply become me wanting to be with him and him wanting to be with me.”
She frowned. “Good sex does not mean some lofty romantic connection.”
“My heart may be weak willed, but I’m not an idiot,” I snapped.
“I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think… I just—”
“What, Kara? Reese dates tons of fabulous women, so there’s no way he’d fall for me?”
“I didn’t—”
“You don’t have to. And I get it. But unbelievably, I do believe he’s falling for me.”
As she stared at me, her mouth twisted as if she were stopping words from escaping.
“Are you two coming or what?” someone who sounded a lot like Avery yelled in the distance.
Both of our heads whipped to the voice. Avery stood with her hands on her hips farther down the path, giving us a questioning look. We’d both forgotten that we were supposed to meet her and Jules for lunch at a place under the bridge. That we’d both forgotten with the bridge over our heads attested to the fact that our conversation had put us in our own little incensed world. We glared at one another, both of us upset, then began walking toward our friend.
Avery peered back and forth between us until we stepped up to her. “What has you two looking like pissed-off teenagers?”
“Nothing,” I said in an irate tone.
“Nothing,” Kara echoed in the same tone.
Avery took one more look between us then shrugged. “Well, come on. Jules is saving us a table. The weather has people out in droves.”
Silently, we both followed her into the restaurant. Freshly baked bread and seafood hit my nose the second we entered the place. Avery had been trying to get us all here for months. She loved finding little places that served gourmet food on paper products. Jules had stated several times that she’d never understand Avery’s aversion to china, and if the food were that good, then it would come on real plates. Given that I’d eat almost anything, neither argument made sense to me. China or not, good food was good food.
Avery ordered some crazy combo that came with a little of everything. Still silent, both Kara and I helped her lug the trays through the crowd to Jules waiting in a corner booth. Amid seafood sandwiches, pickles, and chips, Jules told us about her latest fashion show woes while Avery kept asking everyone about how awesome the food was. Both Kara and I listened, nodded, and ate.
Sometime after the horror story of lipstick on a five-thousand-dollar gown, Jules asked me how things were going with Reese. I felt Kara tense beside me and instantly grew furious at her reaction. Then I truly considered the question and warm emotions overrode my anger.
I set my bottled root beer down. “Things are going fantastic. He wants to take me to Toronto in a couple of weeks.”
“Oh, you lucky girl,” Avery said in a gleeful tone through a mouthful of lobster salad.
“You’re getting serious with him then?” Jules asked.
Funny—not—how Jules considered me getting serious, not Reese. “He’s fun and sweet and sexy… Perhaps a bit demanding, but nothing like the gossip portrays him,” I said, resisting a glare at Kara. It felt exciting to talk about him and let my feelings show without receiving condemnation.
“And rich as sin,” Jules added.
I shrugged. “He’s not… We don’t… We just watched the soccer game and goofed around and talked in his apartment over the weekend.” I didn’t know how to explain Reese without disclosing his personal past, so I tried to explain how we were together, how it was perfect without any of the things his billions could buy. “We simply like being together,” I said with a smile I couldn’t contain. “He’s getting me hooked on old movies. And wine—I’m starting to love wine. He actually thinks I’m funny.” My tone became more excited with each thing I told them. “Neither of us can cook, so after…ah—a shower and a bought breakfast, we decided that we should take some lessons together. He has this awesome gourmet kitchen and…”
Jules’s and Avery’s wide, astonished eyes ceased my descriptions. I refused to look at Kara sitting next to me, especially as a warm giddiness bubbled up inside me.
Getting control of her eyelids first, Jules said, “You’re falling in love with him.”
I stared down at my hands curled in the lap of my sweatpants. When I glanced up, my gaze met the anticipation in theirs. “Yeah, I think I am.”
Kara’s gasp rang out next to me while Avery put her chin in her hand and sighed. “I wish I could fall in love again every day.”
Jules rolled her eyes. “And I wish I could have falling-in-love sex every day.” Her attention shifted to Kara. “Why are you so quiet?”
“I-I’m worried. Okay? I’m…glad that Naomi is happy, but you didn’t see her after the accident, after James broke their engagement.” Kara drew a deep breath “She was completely broken in both body and mind. I never want to see her like that again.”
