The Billionaire's Secret: A BWWM Romance Mystery (3 page)

Chapter
Five

The huge, lumpy figure loomed in the
corner of my sight.

I shrieked and nearly fell off of my
stool "How long have you been standing there?!" I yelped at Kit.

He crossed his arms over his
down-jacketed chest and chuckled in the direction of the arrangement I was
working on. "You're here...early." His voice dripped with meaning.

I smoothed my eyebrows. "Yeah. I
wanted to get started on the receipts for 2010."

"Mmmhmmm." Kit looked
pointedly around. "And whereabouts are those receipts?"

"Shut up," I growled, and
carefully placed the sprig of lily of the valley above the amaryllis.

Kit waited a beat. "What time is
he coming?"

Bastard knew I sucked at lying.
"I don't know," I sighed.

"So you came in early...in case
he
comes in early?"

"Christopher Francis Young, I
thought I requested that you shut up, already."

Mirth was dancing in his eyes. They
were actually, honest-to-god twinkling. Never had he looked more like Santa
Claus's redheaded, gay cousin than right now. "I must have hit my head
pretty hard last night, because I swear, the last thing I remember about this
guy is you trying to claw his face off."

I threw the sprig down, huffing.
"Kit, I don't even know what I'm doing," I moaned, burying my head in
my hands. "He got to me, okay? Haven't you ever had a guy get to
you?"

"No. Never," Kit
deadpanned. I shot him a look. "Lover, it's completely clear. Your last
guy was shit. You want to believe this new guy, the first one who's paid
attention to you since you left the shit guy, isn't shit. So instead of
listening to your gut, you're here early working on the flowers he ordered and
thinking about his pretty, pretty eyes. Do I have it right?

"Ugh," I stabbed the lily
haphazardly to the foam. "Yes. Have I mentioned I hate you?"

But Kit didn't answer. He was staring
at the front door with an unreadable expression on his face. I turned to where
he was looking and my own jaw nearly fell to the floor.

"Good morning," Liam
called, cradling a tray of coffees close to his chest.

Kit was the first to recover.
"Good morning sir!" he trilled, stepping gracefully in front of me
and I quickly cleared the arrangement off of the counter. "Your order
isn't quite ready yet."

"I know," Liam smiled,
setting the tray down on the counter. "I was just dropping by to say
hello."

"You were?" I asked
stupidly. God, his eyes were even better than how I remembered them. They
looked like chips of sea ice on foggy waters. They pulled me into their depths
and suddenly there wasn't anything else in the room besides him and me.
 

"When I was in here yesterday,
you seemed cold," he grinned, showing that dimple that was going to be the
death of me.
Was there a double meaning
there? Oh, he's good.
"I stopped by on my way in to drop these
off." He gestured to the coffee. "Hoped that might warm you up a
little."

Offerings of coffee? Jasmine was
right. He really had read my manual.

"You have no idea how I like my
coffee," I told him bluntly. Two could play this double meaning game.

"I know how I like
mine...," he trailed off.

"If you say 'like how you like
your women,' I'm going to smack you," I seethed. No one had ever used that
line on me before. I was honestly a little impressed.

"So that's all I'd have to do to
get you to smack me?" He extended a cup in my direction. "I'll
remember that."

That raised eyebrow. "No."
I reached and took the proffered cup. Black as sin and sweet as death. It was
perfect, and as the warmth and caffeine spread through my veins, I couldn't
help but sigh in relief. "No, there are plenty of other reasons I can
think of to smack you."
Though I
can't think of a single one at the moment.

"Ahem," Kit stepped into
the middle of us. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Graves."

"Call me Liam," he replied,
standing straighter and extending his hand.

"Kit. Christopher. Kit."
Aww, Kit was tongue-tied. It was adorable
.
Wait, did I look that moony when I talked to Liam?

"Is this your shop, Kit?"

"My mother's." Kit was
practically drooling. And with Liam's attention away from me, I was free to
undress him with my eyes again.

He was wearing a woolen pea jacket
several shades darker than his eyes, trimmed in leather at the collar and the
hem. It looked soft, but with an edge, like there was more to this guy than
skillful flirting. "Your mother's? That's incredible. You two work
together?"

Kit puffed up. "We do." His
evident pride put to rest any questions about apron strings or mama's boys.
"She's getting on in years, but this has been her life's work and I plan
on keeping it on as long as she can. And I can."

Liam chewed his lip in thought.
Strange shadows were passing over his face. "That's wonderful," he
finally said, but his tone was guarded.

He looked back at me. "It was
good to see you again, Shay. I'll be back tomorrow."

"You will?" I squeaked.

"For my bouquet?"

ooh. that.
"Thank
you for the coffee, Liam." My hand fluttered at the edge of the counter
Was I going to shake his hand? Touch his arm? What exactly was I doing here?

He answered that question by
snatching my hand up and bringing it to his mouth. The lightest touch, the
barest brush of his lips against my knuckles, and then he set it down again.
Only the searing heat in my core remained.

"I hope you'll let me do it
again," he said, and his voice was strangely tight.

"Bring me coffee?"

"That too."

"Oh."

"Have a good day," he
turned and nodded at Kit, who was openly staring. "Both of you."

When at last he left, I found I could
finally move my legs again and promptly sagged into the stool.

Kit turned to me.
"Girrrrrrl."

"Yeah," I exhaled.

"He wants you. Bad." He
shook his head. "Lucky bitch."

"Yeah." I seemed to have
lost the powers of speech. My knuckles tingled.

"Shay? Earth to Shay. What are
you doing here, lover?"

I shook my head. "I have
literally no idea."

Kit nodded. "Then I'll tell you.
You need to
do him
."

Chapter
Six

The afghans slid off in one big pile,
leaving me to shiver myself awake. My dreams were a jumbled mess of second
guessing and my knuckles still let off a ghostly tingle every so often.

He brought me coffee. But he's a cheater. He's sex on legs. But he's a
dog.

Frustration finally launched me to my
bare feet, which promptly froze on contact with the floor. I yipped a little
and unsteadily hopped over to the area rug to thaw.

Jasmine's classes didn't start until
eleven, so I had the apartment to myself in the morning. I crept quietly passed
her bedroom, my feet freezing with each step on the hardwood floors. My
slippers were somewhere in the storage unit, I hoped.

The huge windows of Jasmine's lofted
living room let in a draft that was strong enough to move the hairs on my
exposed forearms. I shivered and grabbed the throw blanket off the back of her
book-strewn couch and wrapped it around my shoulders as I padded to the
kitchen.

I am not a grab and go sort of girl.
I need a proper, sit-down breakfast to start my day. This morning, it was
bacon, toast and two fried eggs, accompanied by French press coffee so strong
you could stand a spoon up in it. I heaped several spoonfuls of sugar into it,
tasted it, and then spooned in two more. Tre used to joke that it wasn't the
caffeine that started my mornings, it was the sugar rush.

Once it was done, it tasted exactly
like the coffee Liam had brought me yesterday.

Thinking about him being sweet put me
in a bad mood that wasn't made any better by the prospect of walking nine blocks
on the slushy sidewalks of Philadelphia. It was always a gamble whether or not
the sidewalks would even be cleared this early in the morning. Hell, I would
probably have to shovel the area in front of the store first thing upon
arriving.

I closed the door to Jazzy's
apartment and threw the deadbolt with the key she had given me, locking her
safely inside. Then I took a deep breath and wound my scarf up around my neck
and over my mouth. The hallway was overheated, and the sweat prickled at my
hairline, but I knew the feeling of warmth wouldn't last.

When I stepped outside, the icy wind
was enough to make me gasp. Breathing hurt. I hunched deeper into my puffy
jacket and began the slow, painful trek to Young's.

This January had been brutal, a deep
freeze blanketing the east Coast. The snow-piles that lined the streets just
sat there, frozen into sharp crystals that breaking off and nosediving into my
boots as I stepped off the curb.

As I turned off Jasmine's sheltered
block, the full force of the wind caught me full in the face. The faster I
walked, the more the wind whistled in my ears. I ducked my head almost entirely
into my scarf, bending into the stiff gale that turned the streets of South
Philadelphia into wind whipped canyons, and cursed.

 
I rushed the whole route to Young's by
memory; left on this block, right on that block, two blocks north. I sprinted
against the lights, crossing in front of SEPTA busses in the blind hope they'd
stop for me.

I was almost there.

"Oof!" I slammed into
something warm and solid just as my feet hit a patch of ice. I skidded and
scrabbled for purchase, visions of a broken hip dancing through my head, when
all of a sudden my fall was arrested.

"Are you okay?"

It was a familiar voice, but my scarf
had slipped over my eye. I jabbed blindly with my key until the two of us
practically fell into the warmth of the shop. I landed on the floor with a sigh
of relief. Too relieved, even, to be embarrassed.

That came right at the moment I saw
Liam Graves picking himself up off of the floor.

"Are you okay?" he
repeated, extending his gloved hand.

I took it wordlessly and allowed him
to haul me to my feet. I was grateful that my scarf covered my face and I could
blame the cold for my red, flaming cheeks.

"You're here early," I
stammered. That was the least graceless thing I could have said. I should have
been thanking him for catching me before I broke my skull.

But Liam was not bothered. "I
have a meeting this morning. I headed out first thing."

"A meeting with
her
?" I asked, pointedly.

"Her?" His eyes were blank.
He was completely clueless.

"You're here to pick up the
flowers today, right?"

"Actually," he showed that
dimple again, looking boyish. "I was hoping to see you again." His
dimple deepened as he smiled wider. "Start this cold day off with some
sunshine."

Bringing me coffee yesterday was one
thing, because he had brought some for Kit too. But this? This was an outright
admission that he was hoping to catch me alone. "It is so cold, isn't it?"
I babbled inanely. My knuckles tingled in recognition.

If he noticed I was babbling, he
didn't call attention to it. "Worst cold snap in the last quarter century,
or at least that's what they said on Channel 6 this morning."

I sighed. "I hate winter. Every time
it rolls around, I swear I'm not going to be here in Philly for it, and yet
here I am once again."

"Here we are," he echoed.
"Must be gluttons for punishment."

Something about the way he said that....

"Do you have plans to get away
this winter, Shay?"

"Ha!" I shook my head. He
was rich beyond all sense, of course it would be normal to him to just jet off
somewhere warm. "No, I wish I could.”
Why was I talking to him like this? Why was it so easy to just chatter at him?
"But working here helps."

"Here? Around the flowers?"
His eyes twinkled a little in a way I didn't understand.

"The colors, and the textures
too. It's nice to see color other than the gray of dirty snow."

"You have a beautiful way with
words, you know that?"

"I do?"

"You do. The whole language of
flowers explanation you gave.
 
and
now with your descriptions. You have a very poetic way of speaking."

My mind flashed back to the pile of
notebooks sitting in the cardboard box in storage. I hadn't written since Tre
left. When I sat down and let the words come, what they said was too painful to
read. "Thank you," I said instead. "That's nice to say."

"I'm a nice guy...," his
dimple deepened. "Unless that's not what you're into...."

I'm into single guys!
"Didn't you have a meeting to get to?" I asked him
abruptly. The way he was looking at me was confusing every moral I had.

I could barely hear him over the
thudding in my ears, but I could feel him. He was moving close to me. I flushed
hotter, burning up in my winter coat. "Right now it doesn't seem all that
important," he said, with that peculiar thickness in his voice.

"What?" My head was
swimming with him so close. But I wasn't backing away.

He brushed his hand along my cheek.
It was a test. I knew it, and when I didn't flinch like I should have, he gave
a small grin of triumph. "I've wanted to touch these lips since I first
saw you," he said. His voice had dropped down to a tight, throaty whisper
that was doing something terribly exciting to my tummy.

This is wrong. Stop. This is so wrong.
I tilted my head up and looked at him.

He bent down and brushed his lips
against mine.

When I didn't pull back, he made a
low sound, and pressed them harder.

He kissed me like he knew me. Like I
was already his.
 
Like he already knew
everything there was to know about me, and what I needed in a man.

I felt a hot spark travel down to the
base of my spine where a slow ache began to build. I heard the noise I made,
low and pleading and suddenly jolted back to reality.

"Stop," I panted, pushing
him back off of me.

He pulled back. "Why?" Like
it wasn't completely obvious.

"You can't kiss me!" I
seethed.

He brushed his thumb across my lip. "I
already did."

I wanted to bite him. All of my
conflicted rage over the past two days finally reared its ugly head. It was
time for the truth, no matter how much I wanted to ignore it. I felt the
ferocity boil up and out and I nearly choked on it.

I yanked my head backward, "I
will not be your other woman!" I shouted. "I was on the other end of
this. I will not make another woman feel the way I felt."

"What?" His eyes darted
back and forth like he was trying to read me. Like I was an illegible book.

"You. Have. A. Girlfriend."
I snarled.

He stepped back. "What makes you
think that?" he asked.

God damn him, why was he being deliberately obtuse?
"The bouquet, asshole."

His eyebrows slammed together. "That
isn't for my girlfriend, Shay. You have the wrong idea about me." He at
least had the grace to sound angry now.

I folded my arms. "I don't think
I do."

"Oh really?" His gray eyes
snapped and he folded his arms across his broad chest. "Well then.
 
you've already made up your mind about me,
how can I defend myself against that?"

"You can't," I said. But
there was a small tremor in my voice.

He heard it too. "I think you
believe me. You want to believe me."

"I don't." But I did. I
wanted so badly to believe him and then for him to kiss me like that again.

 
"You're making an awful lot of
assumptions about me when you have no idea what kind of man I am." He
sounded more disappointed than mad.

I hid my shaking hands behind my
back. "So what kind of man are you?" I snapped.

He moved to cup my face again.
"Let me show you," he murmured. "What do you need, Shay,
hmm?"
 

I was overheated and freezing at the
same time. My cheeks were still frozen, but my lips burned where he kissed me. "I
need
to be able to trust you," I
said haltingly. "And that will take...time." Everything felt sped up,
including my heart. "Time," I repeated firmly. "I need time."
Time to learn to trust you...and myself
around you.

He nodded. "Very well then. I
can give you time," he said softly. "I can give you the time of your
life."

His fingers traveled to my face,
hovering just above my skin. Like he wanted to touch me but was holding back.

"I'll take my flowers now,"
he said. He sounded sad now.

I swallowed and went to the
refrigerator case. I had finished the arrangement yesterday all the while
sipping the coffee he had brought me. All the while my hand tingled from the
touch of his lips. And now I lifted it while my lips still burned from his
kiss.

It was beautiful and I was almost
sorry to see it go.

He looked at it and a soft whistle
escaped his lips. "She'll love it," he said tightly. Sadly.

"I hope she does." And I
meant it, somehow.

He reached for my face again. A
slight tremor shook him, like he was deciding something.

Then he pulled away and put his
gloves back on. "I'll be by tomorrow, when you close," he told me,
suddenly all business. "I'm taking you out, Shay."

"You are?"

"Yes." It was a simple,
inarguable fact, the way he said it. I could no more argue with him than I
could claim the sky was green. Or that his eyes were anything but shattered
gray. "I'll be here right at close, so be ready."