Taming the Tycoon

chapter Eleven


Addie kept herself busy over the next couple of days with futile letter box drops for the Save St. Aggie’s garden campaign. She went out Friday and Saturday evenings to even more futile strategy meetings that went long into the night. She’d spent today at Soul Food going through the inventory and doing all those other things she’d been neglecting so badly this last month.

But now she was sitting on the Ida May, every square inch reminding her of Nathaniel and how he’d dominated her little home, and even though she was watching the television, she couldn’t stop the analysis going on in her head.

Telling Nate good-bye had been gut-wrenching. But sitting there in the garden, in her garden, as he’d talked to her as if she was some client who’d paid him for a business analysis rather than the woman whose mattress practically had scorch marks from their marathon sessions, it had become so clear.

She hadn’t changed his mind.

And no amount of time, of broaching the subject, of showing him how much it meant to her, how much life and living meant to her or how many letter box drops and strategy meetings she attended, was going to make an iota of difference.

All she’d done was buy some time.

The two-hundred-year-old walled rose garden was doomed. And Nate was going to be its executioner.

But it was worse than that. To add insult to injury, she’d gone and fallen in love with him.

She’d been telling herself every day that she was here for purely altruistic reasons—for the garden’s sake, for Nathaniel’s sake. Giving him experiences and showing him things in the hopes that he’d come to understand there was more to life than work.

Paying her debt to the universe.

But the truth was, she was in it for herself. Because she’d fallen in love with him.

Day by day, he’d wormed under her skin, and each night as he rocked her world, she’d fallen for him a bit more. Every time he’d smiled or laughed or seemed to be enjoying her little outings, she’d been ridiculously thrilled. Every time he’d looked into her eyes when he was deep inside her, she’d lost her breath.

Every time he’d left in the morning, he’d taken her heart with him.

And now, without even having a clue because, despite their time together he really just didn’t know her at all, he’d stomped all over it.

How could she have been so wrong about him? She’d been an idiot to think they were some kind of kindred spirits because she’d recognized a bit of herself in him. Even back in her rat-race days, she’d never been this out of touch with her humanity.

She looked around at her cozy home, the fire going, the walls a lovely warm honey color, vibrant throws, colorful rugs, lacy curtains, the remnants of Nathaniel’s last flower delivery.

His place was like a bloody mausoleum—all black and white. She’d only been there a few times and had been pleased when his self-imposed grueling schedule meant that he came to her. There’d been something so sexy about him oozing testosterone all over her girly environment. Seeing his big, naked body covered in her floral sheets or wrapped in her pink bath towels.

Addie blinked hard. She would not cry. She’d seen more than her fair share of tragic things in her twenty-seven years—people dying of cancer, grieving families, bald kids with old, old eyes.

Things worth crying over.

She would not cry over a man. She had her health, a roof over her head, food in her belly, and people who loved her.

She was lucky.

Luckier than Nathaniel by far, because he didn’t realize that was all you really needed in life.

She blew her runny nose and turned the television up really loud.

Nathaniel stood where the Ida May was moored, looking down at the longboat, the night lights of the docks twinkling in the water. The last two nights had been the longest of his life. He hadn’t slept. He’d barely eaten. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on work.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and along his jaw. Hell, he hadn’t even shaved.

And he had absolutely no idea how he’d gotten here. Or why he’d come. It certainly hadn’t been a conscious decision, but—here he was.

His gaze followed the black wisps coming out of the stack on the roof and he breathed the wood smoke deep into his lungs.

It was crazy that he was here. Addie wasn’t like anyone he knew. She had no concrete goals, she didn’t care about money or clothes or jewelry or even expensive flowers. She meditated, for crying out loud, and believed in the power of crystals. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, she had a pathological attachment to a garden.

A garden that belonged to him.

A garden that had to go to achieve his goals. Goals that he’d been working hard to achieve since he was nineteen and were so very close.

Nathaniel had goals—that didn’t make him a bad person.

He turned to leave, then stopped, fisting his hands as his body demanded that he go to her.

Goddamn it!

There was nothing about her that should appeal at all. Yet he wanted to belt down her door, stride inside, and make her come all night.

But it was more than that.

That was lust. Lust he understood. Lust was something he could control. Something he could take or leave. This didn’t feel like that. This was different.

Nathaniel stepped onto the boat, his hand delving in his pocket for the key she’d given him. But he knew after the way they’d left it, he couldn’t use it. So he knocked.

The door was open in ten seconds and she was standing before him in track pants and a T-shirt with no bra and some fluffy boot things and his heart was thudding so frenetically he thought for a crazy second he was having a heart attack.

“Nate,” she whispered, and then she was throwing herself into his arms, slamming her mouth against his and he was lifting her up and she was wrapping her legs around his waist and he was striding inside, kicking the door shut while her hands were undoing his belt buckle and her tongue was stroking inside his mouth and he could feel it deep inside his gut as if she was licking him there.

He strode blindly with her through to her bedroom, throwing her on the bed, her T-shirt hiked up, her hair spread out all around her like a mermaid.

“Get undressed,” he panted, looking down at her as he toed his shoes off, pulled his shirt over his head, unzipped his fly.

He stopped for a moment as she wriggled out of her shirt. The light was out but enough of the lounge light behind him filtered in to see her breasts laid bare to his eyes. He salivated at the thought of tasting them. Watching her watch him through half-closed lids was sexy as hell and he pushed his trousers and underpants off his hips, his erection springing free.

Addie reared up then and when her mouth closed over him he bucked and groaned, his eyes closing as his hands pushed into her hair. But he was balanced on a knife edge, too close to last long under the delicious suck of her mouth and the swipe of her tongue, and he pulled away, pushing her back on the bed again.

“Why are your pants still on?” he demanded huskily before he reached for the waist band and peeled them back, her underwear included, in one fell swoop, laying all of her bare to him.

And then she was rolling on her stomach, commando crawling closer to the other edge, reaching out to the bedside table delving in the drawer where he knew she kept the condoms, but the shift and wriggle of her buttocks was too enticing, just too, too much and he lowered himself onto her, kissing her back, her shoulders, her neck as his bent arms supported him, his erection rubbing along the cleft of her buttocks.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned in her ear.

Her answering moan was bone-deep satisfying, as was her slight lift as she passed the condom back, allowing him to slide a hand onto her breast. She turned her head toward his lips and he claimed her mouth. She moaned again as he squeezed and cupped her, his thumb rubbing over an engorged nipple.

“Hurry,” she gasped.

In ten seconds, he’d torn the foil packet with his teeth and, one-handed, sheathed himself and then she was pushing back up into him, raising herself up on her hands and knees telling him to Hurry, hurry, hurry.

The sight of her like this, her breasts swinging, her hair falling forward, was almost his undoing and he grabbed her hips roughly, taking only a moment to center himself before he was pushing into her high and hard.

He groaned as he slid in deep and she cried out as he nudged the neck of her womb. “Are you okay?” he gasped as her heat and tightness enveloped him in a wave of pleasure.

“Yes,” she panted. “More…more.”

Nathaniel complied, leaning over her, reaching for her breasts as he thrust in and out with deliberate slowness, each gentle movement grazing the nipples against his palms.

He shut his eyes and picked up the pace. “Yes, yes,” she gasped and he moved a hand down her belly and slid his fingers into the heat at her center. She moaned loudly as he found the right spot.

“Addie,” he groaned as she pushed back to meet his thrusts, stirring him to go harder, to go faster, his fingers moving in time.

And then she was throwing her head back, calling his name, trembling against him as she cried out and his orgasm rushed out to join hers and space and time and light splintered around him until there was just her and him and the rock and pound of their release.

…

Addie awoke to daylight. Her throat was scratchy, her bladder was full, and a heavy male arm was anchored around her waist. She didn’t remember much after they’d both collapsed on the bed together post-wild animal sex. Just crawling under the covers with him, turning in his arms, and drifting off to sleep.

She supposed they should have talked, but she was exhausted in a way that only a truly good orgasm could make you, and in the afterglow she didn’t trust herself not to blurt out the truth.

That she loved him.

So she’d shut her eyes and let the thump of his heart beneath her ear rock her into the oblivion of sleep where she could love him in her dreams.

And he would love her back.

But this morning, she had some hard facts to face. Succumbing to passion last night had been impulsive and unwise, no matter how good. A steady diet of head-banging sex wasn’t going to fix their problems. They were still fundamentally at odds and she didn’t see a way around that.

But maybe, for just a little while longer, she could lie in his arms and pretend everything was okay.

Which was fine for another five minutes until she couldn’t ignore the need to go to the toilet anymore and she shifted away from him.

“Hey,” he muttered, grabbing for her.

Addie looked at him, his jaw dark with unshaven stubble and she shivered, remembering how it had scratched along her back and neck last night. He opened his eyes and they were so impossibly blue her heart skipped a beat. “Just going to the loo,” she said.

He grinned. “Hurry back. I have something for you.”

Addie’s heart broke at his teasing. She wanted exactly this. Waking up next to him every morning with that look in his eyes that told her he was definitely going to perv on her when she got out of the bed.

But she didn’t see how it could work.

She slid out from under the covers, the temperature outside the duvet much, much cooler. Her nipples beaded when she stood and she turned and looked over her shoulder, waiting for his comment.

Instead, he was gaping at her as he vaulted upright. “Addie. Jesus, Addie!”

She frowned. “What?”

He was looking at her with an expression of horror, and Addie felt a spike of fear as the hair on her arms stood on end. “Your hips. I’m so sorry…I didn’t think I was that rough.”

Addie looked down and was greeted by dark black bruises on each hipbone that looked suspiciously like finger marks. For a moment, not a single thought entered her mind as she stood staring at them, frozen to the spot.

Then a hundred bad memories rushed out at her and she twisted back and forth, her neck craning around trying to see over her shoulder. “Are there any more?” she asked him frantically her heart rate beating off the scale.

Nathaniel frowned. “No, of course not. I wasn’t that rough. I don’t—”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish, bolting for the bathroom, slamming the door after her. She headed straight to the mirror. Her face looked flushed and suddenly her scratchy throat took on a whole other meaning.

This was how it has started last time. Waking up with what she thought was the flu and a whole bunch of bruises.

She saw panic in her gaze and fear and she placed her forehead against the cool glass before she saw death.

God, no, please. Not now. I’m just a couple of months shy of my five years. Please, I can’t go through this again.

“Addie?”

Oh God, Nate. Why, oh why, did he come into her life now? Was there some sick, grand plan to kick her while she was down?

“Are you okay?” he called from the bedroom.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” she called, her hands shaking as she sat on the loo to relieve herself, her brain grappling with a hundred worst-case scenarios.

She took some deep breaths trying to calm herself, trying to find her center. She shut her eyes reciting her precious numbers, counting from one, chanting them quietly like a benediction, but she was too panicked and she kept losing her place as a more desperate mantra took over.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

She felt tears prick her eyes and she pushed the balls of her hands into them as she rocked back and forth.

“Addie?”

How was it fair to finally fall in love and not only have it potentially snatched away, but to be with someone who seemed incapable of loving anything that didn’t have a pound sign attached?

She grabbed her fluffy robe off the back of the bathroom door and threw it on. She had to get rid of him. She couldn’t have him here. Have him around her. If he wasn’t on her side, he had to go. If she had to face leukemia again, she needed people she could count on around her.

Goddamn wretched, horrid, cruel disease!

She quickly washed her hands and splashed water on her face, then opened the door. He was sitting on the side of the bed in his underwear.

“Addie.” He held his arms out for her but she stayed well out of their reach and he dropped them, running the flats of his palms up and down his bare thighs. “I’m so sorry. I really don’t think I was that rough. I know I kind of grabbed you but I didn’t think it would be hard enough to bruise you.”

Addie nodded. “It’s okay, it’s not you. Don’t worry.”

Nathaniel frowned. “This has happened before?”

Addie sat on the bed at a safe distance. “Yes.” Tears threatened again and she swallowed hard against them. “When I was first diagnosed with…my illness five years ago.”

She couldn’t even say the word. Didn’t want to. If she said it—the “L” word—it would be like opening the gate. She watched as he caught on fast.

He shuffled nearer. “Do you think—are you saying—”

She shut her eyes because she didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to go back to bed and pull the covers over her head and start the day all over again.

“Is the leukemia back?”

She shook her head vigorously as Nathaniel named the unmentionable, as if she could erase it ever being said.

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

She opened her eyes. “I’ll have to get some blood tests. I’ll make an appointment with the doctor as soon as they’re open.”

Addie congratulated herself on how calm she sounded. Except for a very slight tremor in her voice, she doubted he could tell. Which was pretty damn amazing, considering she was hyperventilating on the inside.

Nathaniel nodded and reached for her hand. “I’ll come with you.”

Addie felt tears well as their joined hands blurred before her eyes and she blinked them away. She didn’t want or need his pseudo concern.

“There’s no need,” she said briskly, dropping his hand as she stood, moving to stand over the other side of the bed to him.

“I don’t mind.”

Addie felt a sudden surge of anger. “Going to take some time out of your work day, are you?” she asked caustically and when he hesitated, she shook her head. “Just go, Nate. Go to work. Go back to your life. Knock down the garden, make your billion pounds. I’ll be fine.”

Nathaniel stood and still, even in the middle of this terrible crisis, she loved him. “I just need to call Margaret and rework some things.”

Addie nodded. Of course he did. Any other man involved with a woman staring down a leukemia relapse would just ring and say he wasn’t coming in.

And that was the difference between being with someone and being in love with them.

“There’s no need. I’ll call Penny.”

Not a conversation she was looking forward to. Penny would be just as devastated as she was.

“I can do it,” he insisted.

“Why?” she demanded. “There’s no obligation for you to do so. I’ve only ever been a pain in the arse to you anyway. Consider this your get out of jail free card.”

He glared at her. “Addie, please.”

But she was suddenly incensed, building up to a rage because it was easier to concentrate on that than what might be going on in her body right now. She loved him but she didn’t want him here when he didn’t love her back.

“I don’t want you here, Nate. Ever since you’ve been in my life, I’ve been sucked back into a world where nothing matters but working and the pursuit of money. The kind of life that I left behind. For good reason. It’s not healthy and if I’m going through this again, I don’t need unhealthy influences.”

Addie looked at the floor. His discarded clothes were near her feet and she scooped them up. She threw them on the bed. “Just go. I don’t want you here.”

She turned and left the bedroom, her determination to be strong lasting only until he brushed past her fully clothed five minutes later, telling her he’d ring.

The doors shut behind him and she burst into tears. Because she was frightened and angry. But mostly because she wanted to call him back and tell him she’d take whatever crumbs were left over at the end of his busy day as long as he loved her.