Authors: Suzan Battah
Chris’ arm came around her waist to direct her toward the elevator to head up to the penthouse. Elegant, immaculate, and pristine, the Augustine penthouse always reminded her of his personality. It hadn’t changed since she had last been there.
Throwing his keys onto the coffee table, Chris began to take off his shirt but stopped to settle down in the leather armchair. He watched her as she moved around the expansive penthouse.
She started to play with her necklace. A glance at Chris made her drop her hand away. Finally she came to stand in front of his wide-spread legs, noting the bulge in his jeans. As she unbuttoned the front of her top, she let it drop off her shoulders and shrugged out of it, letting it flutter to the spongy carpet.
He shifted in his seat while she continued to strip. She popped the first button of her jeans and the rest in quick succession. She slowly slid her jeans down, and bending forward, gave him a full view of her breasts.
Chris groaned, shifting again in the seat. She stepped out of her jeans, kicking them to the side. He sat up in an instant, hooking one hand behind her knee and the other on her lace-clad bottom to guide her toward his lap.
“Never again,” he whispered, softly touching parts of her body where her skin was exposed. “Don’t ever leave me.”
“Speak to me in French.” She caressed his arms, touching and kissing his bare skin. She reacquainted herself with his body.
“Ma belle femme,
toute
la mine.” He huskily obeyed her command, taking pleasure in the way her eyes grew hotter when he spoke. “
Je t
’aime, avec tout
mon
coeur
.”
She combed her fingers through his hair, pressing her lips to his, the ultimate sensation making the atmosphere turn up a notch in temperature. Their kiss deepened. She shifted back as he took his shirt off, her hands immediately drawn to the large expanse of hard muscle revealed. But she stopped and drew in her breath. There was a massive cut across his abdomen trailing upwards toward his chest. The cut was still raw, a fresh injury surrounded with scrapes and bruises.
She swallowed hard, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. “What happened to you?”
Chris glanced down to where she indicated as if he didn’t even know he was injured, looking back at her with aroused eyes. “Nothing, sweetheart.” He tried to pull her back to him.
She wouldn’t allow it. Her heart squeezed painfully. Something wasn’t right. “Christophe…”
“Why do you always say my name like that?” He chuckled at the look of horror on her face.
“You’re hurt and it happened recently.” She was alarmed that he could be so blasé about it.
“It was just a surfing accident.”
Julia embraced him close. Then leaning back, she had to ask and didn’t care if she sounded stupid. “It wasn’t a shark… please tell me it wasn’t a shark?”
Chris chuckled. “It wasn’t a shark… Now, my darling, my amore, please… you’ve been sitting in my lap for far too long.”
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” she whispered, caressing his body. She ran her hands over his shoulders and kissed his neck, sucking with just enough pressure. His head fell back, shifting her closer to him. “Hmmm.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The following morning, she wanted to spend the day in the familiar surroundings of her office. Yet, nearly everyone offered Julia congratulations on her engagement to the Augustine Boy, wishing her all the best. Her office was abuzz with excitement. A whole bevy of media were camped outside her office foyer. Security had been called to get rid of them.
“Okay, people!” Julia held up her hands for silence. “I am not engaged, so tell me what the hell is going on?”
Obviously being nominated as the spokesperson, Randy frowned. “You’re not engaged? But it’s in the papers, the magazines, even on the television. They can’t run stories that aren’t true.” He put down the champagne glass in his hand. Everyone was turning to each other with sheepish expressions. “Can they?”
“What newspaper?” Someone thrust a paper into her hands. “What is this?” Julia spotted the article and started to read through it, a little horrified.
She was front page news. A very unflattering picture of her and Chris on the beach was splashed across the front page.
“You’d think they could have put a nicer picture of us on the front page. It’s not true. They haven’t got any other news to put in the paper, so they have to make something up.”
Her cell phone began to ring. Julia closed her eyes in defeat. As usual, her days were getting just a bit more annoying if not a little interesting.
She continued reading the article. “Randy, do you mind?”
Randy held the phone out, obviously disappointed there was no engagement celebration. “It’s your mother.”
Sighing, she took the phone. “Mama! Before you say anything, Chris and I aren’t engaged. They’re just printing this as publicity or something, I don’t know. When I went away, I bet they printed something about a separation.”
After that, the morning in her office became more of a nightmare. Hardly any work was done. The phone was running hot with phone calls from the media requesting an interview. She had no idea what Chris was going through at the Augustine. She hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him. When she had first called, he had been in and out of meetings all morning.
Eventually, however, he showed up and came right into her office.
“Can you believe it?” She returned his kiss, then distracted, looked back at her desk. She grabbed the papers and magazines, holding the bundle in her hands.
Julia found it exciting and irritating all at once. But Chris was looking uncomfortable as she continued, “I had my assistant go buy every magazine and newspaper that mentioned our apparent engagement. How many people have been ringing you?”
He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Not many.”
Julia paused, grabbed her eraser, and rubbed out an incorrectly placed line on the drawing in front of her. She glanced at Chris with a smile. He looked a little discomfited for some reason, and she tried her best to ease his mind.
Shaking her head, she giggled. “Everyone has been calling me. I’ve set them straight. There was a big mistake. Someone thinks you’ve bought me a ring. I’m not wearing a ring.
Relax, baby, I’m not upset about it, I’ve gotten over being annoyed by the media. It’s actually funny when you think about it. We didn’t go shopping for rings, so where do they get this info from? You really should have a stern word with whoever printed these. Things like this cause a lot of distraction in the workplace. How many of your staff has congratulated you?”
“Pardon?”
“You know, my staff have been too excited to get any work done and the phone calls are annoying.” Finally, she realized that he wasn’t answering. “Chris, what’s the matter?”
“It was a mistake. But…” He reached into his jacket and faltered for a second.
Julia glanced up, laughing softly. “You’re not upset about this, are you?”
“No!” He looked out the window for a moment. “Are you?”
“Of course not!” She laughed. “I’ve explained everything to my mother when she called this morning. You’ve spoken to your parents, I hope?”
“No, not exactly.”
Julia stopped what she was doing, her heart racing. “Christophe! You need to call your mother… now.”
She searched for the cordless phone under all her papers, and finding it, she held it out to him. When he didn’t take it, she frowned and jabbed the air with the phone.
Chris shook his head, refusing to take the handset. He looked down, then back up at her, and his eyes softened. For a moment, he tried to say something and finally coughed. Then some words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush, without making any sense at all. His eyes shut and he shook his head. She wondered if this whole incident had made him a little crazy.
“What’s wrong?” Julia put her pencil down. Chris was acting rather strange. She added, “Come on, you know.
Rumors
always pop up. I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.” She giggled then, unable to hide her continued amusement. “You’re acting as if… as if…”
“Forget it, it’s nothing.” Chris paced back and forth. “It wasn’t supposed to be ruined like this. It was supposed to be a surprise,” he added quietly. “Everything was planned.”
“Planned? What?” When he grabbed her hand tenderly, she nearly fell off her chair. Her heart beat faster.
He looked straight at her and then he shut his eyes tight. “Nothing, forget it.” His eyes opened and a sad smile formed on his lips.
She didn’t want to know what he was about to say.
“Hey.” She cleared her throat. “I was wondering what you want to do for your birthday. Do you want to have something casual at the Augustine?”
“Sure,” he said, turning to leave. “I’ll see you later.”
***
Julia could feel the pressure building up within her, but she pushed it aside. She should be happy that he hadn’t proposed. She couldn’t account for the sudden whirlwind of fear churning around in her. She loved Chris with all her heart; she didn’t need to admit it. She wasn’t sure he was going to propose but if he had, she wouldn’t know how to answer. She didn’t want to get married again. They were on separate pages, but could she tell him?
Julia wanted to surprise him with a special gift for his thirtieth birthday, as she had yet to give him anything. They were over at Julia’s place during the week, when she noticed that Chris was behaving strangely again. He was a little moody, sometimes downright grumpy.
“Are you okay?” She had been sitting on the bed after sorting out some dresses to try on for their dinner with his parents. But now she stood, studying him.
Chris just shrugged, tossing a little foam football from hand to hand. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he muttered and continued to brood.
Julia shook her head. Sometimes she just didn’t understand him. He had been in a funny mood since he’d nearly proposed. She was already suffering with jittering nerves and he wasn’t making it any easier. Of course, she suspected it had something to do with the dinner with his parents.
“Would you stop being grumpy and help me pick which dress I should wear for your birthday.” She clicked her fingers in front of his face, but got no response for a minute.
He looked up, half-smiling, and took a moment to think while she paraded in front of him. “The one before was hot.”
“What one before?” She frowned.
“The one before, you know.”
Picking up a pillow, she threw it at him. He ducked, finally coming out of his mood. She exclaimed, “I wasn’t wearing anything before. This is the first dress I’ve tried on.”
When he started laughing, she threw another pillow at him, hitting him squarely in the face, laughing along with him. He always said the funniest things.
“Then that one is all right, but you did look hot in the nude.”
“Oh, be quiet.” She gathered the other dresses, still giggling, and headed into the bathroom. If he wasn’t going to be serious in helping her look her best for his parents, she would have to do it herself. She didn’t want to make a bad impression.
It took her a good solid twenty minutes, but she managed to decide on the gorgeous tropical palm-printed halter neck dress. As she packed up her rejected dresses, she noted that her room had gone quiet but for the muted sounds of the television. Perhaps Chris had fallen asleep. She approached him slowly so as not to wake him and got the fright of her life when he turned and spoke.
“Julia, listen, I’ve done something terrible… WHAT!?”
When she screamed, he sat up suddenly. She clutched her chest, feeling her heartbeat jumping on the spot.
“My God, Chris! I thought you were asleep,” she accused him as he lay back down on the bed. She flopped down next to him, his arm automatically opened for her to snuggle next to him. He didn’t respond, just continued to brood in silence.
The annoyance in him was obvious from the way his eyes glanced at her and then away. That reminded her of what he had just said. “And what did you do that was so terrible?”
An awful thought occurred to her. Had he cheated on her? Anger settled deep in her heart, after all they had been through, did he go and find someone else? Julia’s heart palpitated for a tense moment. All sorts of odd thoughts ran through her mind. First, she thought he might have done something illegal like kidnapping Dylan and needed an alibi or he would go to jail. Yet that couldn’t be a possibility because she had been with him the last few days and she didn’t remember any kidnappings. Then the worst thought crossed her mind again; he had cheated on her with another woman. That thought made her sick to the stomach. With a shake of her head, she stopped allowing her imagination to run away with her.
“What did you do?”
He glanced down at her, quickly reassuring her. “It’s not that bad, so don’t look at me like that.”
“What did you do?” The silence stretched as she waited for him to explain. But she sensed that he wasn’t snapping out of his mood and needed some help to get out of it. “I’m waiting for you to tell me,” she grumbled into the silence.
“My mother is going to be really mad,” he responded gravely.
Julia remained calm, she didn’t know what to expect from the way Chris was behaving. He sounded so serious. “It can’t be that bad.” She laughed to lighten his mood. But it didn’t work. He just looked away and completely surprised her with what he said next.
“I’ve told my parents we’re having a private dinner for my thirtieth,” he confessed quietly. “But I’ve invited a lot more people for our picnic. You’ll have to let the caterers know. I know it’s short notice. But my mother is going to kill me!”
Julia let out a breath that seemed stuck all the way down in her throat. He had her thinking something was really wrong. In her relief, she started laughing. She wrapped her arms tighter around him, but Chris just frowned at her as if she were crazy.
He got up from the bed and started pacing. “It’s not funny!”
“That is not a problem, Chris. We can still have dinner altogether as planned. This is a good way for us to all meet and get to know each other. Family is family. Your brother is my brother. Your sister is my sister. I don’t mind. Your parents shouldn’t mind, why would they? It’s your birthday, you can invite anyone you want.”
He stopped in front of her to say between gritted teeth, “My mother won’t like it, Jules, she’s really posh. She’ll be peeved that we’re having a casual picnic in the Augustine courtyard, completely catered. I had to lie to her, but I’ve gone and stuffed up the dates. They were supposed to arrive on the Sunday for our intimate family dinner, but they’re arriving on Saturday when we’re having the picnic. Well done, Christophe, Mamere is going to kill
you.”
Julia’s mouth dropped open, all sorts of imaginations of his mother being a complete dragon coming to mind. “What’s the big deal?”
“No! It’s got nothing to do with you, it’s me. How about we reschedule our dinner with my parents and have the BBQ with everyone. No one will know. My parents won’t mind,” he said quickly and began pacing again. “Do you mind?”
“No, of course not, it’s your birthday. I love picnics.”
He stopped pacing. “So that’s it, I’ll call my parents and tell them we have to meet them on Sunday for dinner, you and me.”
“So you don’t want your parents to come to your party?”
“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “We can do both, I guess.”
“Is this really about your birthday or introducing me to your parents?”
“You’re the first woman I’ve introduced to my parents. I’m afraid to say this, but I’m a chicken.”
“What? You’ve had plenty of girlfriends,” she scoffed.
Chris was silent for a second. “I’ve never introduced any girlfriend to my parents. You’re the real deal. I always talk about you and, trust me, they’ll love you. My family is a bit different to your family.”
He was serious. The sudden weight she felt on her shoulders doubled. Now she had to be the real deal. And there must be something scary about his parents if he never introduced his girlfriends to them. They couldn’t be that bad, could they?