“Do you have your own bathroom?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
“Show me the way, and I’ll take care of it,” she said.
He slid out.
She missed him the second he was gone.
He helped her to her feet and pulled up his trousers, but didn’t do them up before he bent and nabbed her panties from the floor.
He handed them to her, fastened his slacks as she yanked down her skirt, and then he took her hand and led her to what looked like just another wood panel on his wall but when he reached to it, she saw the cleverly hidden latch. He opened the door and exposed a fabulous bathroom with beautifully tiled walls in mellow browns and grays, contemporary fixtures and wood-framed cabinets covered in sliding doors of milky glass.
“Your interior designer really is amazing,” she mumbled.
“I’m very good at finding the very best of people, and when I do, holding on,” he drawled in reply.
But she stopped dead in the doorway, turned her head his way and looked up at him.
His handsome face was soft, sated and serious.
“Get cleaned up, sweetheart,” he murmured, using a hand in the small of her back to push her into his bathroom.
She went.
He closed the door behind her.
She found a pile of plush, thick, perfectly white washcloths in a cabinet. She cleaned up, put her panties back on, rinsed the cloth well and hung it over the side of the sink.
She then walked out to find Stellan standing behind his desk, looking down at a laptop open on it.
He didn’t have a PC. Just that laptop.
He also had a view of the Valley spread out along the entire side of his office where she could see Camelback Mountain in the distance.
She moved to him, looking at the view, and only turned her attention to him when she had to skirt his desk.
When she got close, he pulled her into his arms.
“I’ll walk you to the elevators,” he declared.
“I’m not sure your staff could handle that,” she quipped.
“I don’t give a fuck,” he returned.
Before she could say anything, he bent to touch his lips to hers and then he picked up her clutch, handed it to her, and moved them toward the door, not holding her hand, not curling her fingers around his elbow, but with his arm around her, their hips and legs brushing as they moved, his hold making it impossible for her not to curve her arm around him as well.
His hair was slightly messy from her fingers being in it, and he hadn’t fixed it (not that he should—as with everything Stellan, it was hot). It was too late to mention it when he unlocked and opened the office door and guided her through, not letting her go.
“Sixx is heading out,” he informed Susan. “Did you get a passcard for her?”
“Right here,” Susan replied, lifting up a card and shaking it in the air.
Stellan moved to the desk, took it from Susan, handed it to Sixx, and let her go long enough for her to tuck it in her clutch.
When she was done, Stellan claimed her back immediately, but Sixx looked to Susan, who spoke.
“See you tomorrow, babe. Totally cool to meet you.”
“Right back at you,” Sixx replied, earning a huge smile from Susan.
She returned one not as huge, but definitely genuine as Stellan moved them into the hall.
“You know, this is actually kind of cruel to do to your hungry-for-your boss’s-business staff,” she noted under her breath as they moved along.
“I find I have absolutely no response to that,” he replied, pulling her closer so she looked up at him to find him gazing down at her as they walked. “I don’t get into their lives. They really have no place getting into mine.”
“You’re rich, gorgeous and wear a suit way too well. When you’re that, it happens.”
He smiled down at her.
“No. Seriously. Have you ever seen David Gandy in a suit?” she asked.
“I don’t even know who David Gandy is.”
“Google him.”
“I don’t Google.”
She stared up at him.
“Who doesn’t Google?” she asked.
“I have so far found no need to Google, but if I did, I have staff to do it,” he answered, then suggested, “I could ask Susan to Google him.”
“I wouldn’t do that unless you wanted to lose her for the rest of the day.”
His brows went up. “That attractive?”
“She mentioned Harry, didn’t say much, I could still tell she was devoted, but regardless, she’d drop him like a rock if Gandy crooked his finger at her.”
“And you?”
Stellan Lange just ate her out on his knees at the side of his desk then fucked her on it.
David Gandy was … well, David Gandy.
But Stellan was Stellan.
“I think I’m good.”
He threw his beautiful head back and shouted with laughter.
She watched him do it, not having any idea how gentle her face was and how openly blissful she looked doing it.
She did notice they were in the reception area but only because he stopped her by the elevators and tagged a button.
“Call me about dinner,” he murmured, pulling her around to his front and trapping her in both his arms.
She lifted her hands and placed them on his pecs. “Will do.”
He bent and touched his mouth to hers then twisted his neck to touch his mouth to her jaw before he went even further and brushed his lips at the skin behind her ear.
She pressed closer as she shivered in his arms.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“Can I share how elated I am that you decided to drop by?”
“I’ve been noticing you seem to like me,” she muttered.
“I’m glad you’re noticing,” he murmured in return.
Suddenly, it all came back, all of it, hitting her like she’d been hurled bodily at a wall.
“Stellan—”
His face came right into hers and he whispered, “Don’t fuck it up. Please, God, Simone, this has been one of those rare slices of perfection in life. Let us both have it, honey, without fucking it up.”
She closed her mouth and nodded.
He took in her nod, got closer, touched his lips to hers again, and when he lifted his head, the elevator binged.
He moved her to it, scooted her in, and stood outside as she stood inside, looking up into his dark blue eyes.
“Later at dinner, darling,” he bid.
“Right, baby,” she murmured.
The door closed him off from sight, but the entire time they slid shut, he did not move.
She stared at them, thinking she was supposed to remember something …
But she couldn’t quite …
Wait.
I’ve chosen a woman to spend my life with …
He’d said that.
He’d said, Spend my life with …
“Oh God,” she whispered to the doors.
He was lost too.
Stellan was in love with her.
And that was all Sixx could think about as she made her way out of his building, down the street and into the parking area of the building that housed her own office.
Which meant she didn’t think, not once that day, that she was down to two weeks and four days.
*
And hours later …
After she tiptoed into their room, quietly got ready for bed, and slid in beside him only for him immediately to pull her into his arms, then roll to his back with her mostly draped on his front while she whispered, “I’m home safe, baby,” to which he replied, drowsily but with a squeeze of his arms, “Good,” and then they promptly both fell asleep …
She still would not consider the fact that she didn’t think it at all.
sixteen
Right to the Sun
STELLAN
The next evening, Stellan was in the kitchen, his light rock Pandora channel coming through the speakers built in around the house, his hands engaged in preparing the salad they’d have with dinner that night, when he heard the garage door go up.
This was followed surprisingly shortly after by a cacophony of sound that could only be a hurrying woman entering a home.
He didn’t look to his watch to know that Susan, Harry and Crosby were due to arrive in fifteen minutes.
What Simone didn’t know was that, when it didn’t have to do with work, after Crosby was born, Susan was routinely at least ten minutes late, usually more to the tune of twenty, so he was prepared for them not to be on time.