Caine: I’d like to join you, see the study you’ve been working on first hand.
My pulse increased. Get a hold of yourself, Rachel. It’s Professor West working on a thesis with a graduate student, not a sexy man asking you on a date. He didn’t even find it proper for me to fraternize with undergraduate students. Yet any contact from him made me feel like an excited teenager whose phone finally rang after hours of waiting for the cute boy to call. God, I’m pathetic.
Rachel: That would be great. You’re welcome any time.
The dots jumped around as I waited for his response.
Caine: How about tomorrow?
Rachel: Sure. I usually try to arrive at ten so I don’t interrupt his daily activities.
Caine: Try to arrive at ten…is that code for somewhere between ten and noon?
Maybe. I grinned down at my phone.
Rachel: Lucky for me, Umberto isn’t such a stickler for punctuality.
Caine: I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty.
Rachel: At my apartment?
Caine: Unless that’s a problem. If you prefer to take two cars, I can meet you there.
Rachel: No. One car is great. I’d like that.
I gave Caine my address and then got dressed and ready for work. Though the day seemed to drag on forever, the smile I wore didn’t leave my face at all.
I wasn’t sure of the proper protocol for your boss picking you up at home. Did I go outside at nine-thirty or wait for him to ring the bell and invite him up? The answer was decided for me at twenty after nine when my buzzer sounded, and I wasn’t finished getting ready yet.
I pressed the intercom. “Caine?”
“Yes.”
“Third floor. I’ll buzz you up.”
I hit the button that unlocked the main door to my building and opened the door to my apartment. When Caine stepped off the elevator, I took a deep breath to try to hide my reaction to his appearance. He was dressed more casually than I’d ever seen, but even in a simple, fitted navy polo and jeans, he still managed to look sexy as hell. I realized it wasn’t the clothes he wore, but the way he wore them that seemed to work for me. He had a quiet confidence and casual elegance that I found extremely attractive. The stubble he tended to sport by mid afternoon was clean-shaven, and even though I really liked the scruff, his tanned skin and the strong lines of his jaw were just as hot.
He looked at my wet hair. “I can see you’re ready on time, as usual.”
“You’re early.”
Checking his watch, he raised a brow. “It’s nine twenty-four. You’re going to be ready in six minutes?”
I opened the door and stepped aside, rolling my eyes. “Just come in.”
Caine grinned and stepped inside. Of course, the man always smelled amazing, too. I wasn’t sure if it was aftershave or cologne, but he had a masculine scent that was distinct and woodsy. It sparked a desire I hadn’t felt in a really long time, and for a second, I considered sticking my nose in a can of coffee beans to stop the assault on my body. That would have been interesting to explain my way out of.
My apartment wasn’t very big, but it was clean and decorated in a shabby chic way that I loved. Caine looked around, taking in the crazy different patterns all over the place. Each chair at my small kitchen table was different. Two of the walls in the living room were painted deep red and lined with art or photos framed in matte black, while the other walls were nude and stark.
After a minute, he nodded.
“What?”
“This fits you.” His tone didn’t indicate whether that was a good thing or bad.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. It just feels like you should live here.”
“Because it’s a little crazy?”
His lip twitched. “Maybe.”
My hands went to my hips. “What exactly does your apartment look like?”
Still surveying everything around him, he seemed to give my question some thought. “It looks like anyone could live in the place. Lots of white, black, and stainless steel. I’ve lived in my house for five years and never realized it says nothing about me until I walked in here.”
Hmm. No idea what to make of that. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
Caine smiled. “You should. It was meant that way.”
I had been just about to get dressed when the bell rang, and I completely forgot what I was wearing until Caine’s eyes reminded me. He wasn’t leering or anything, but I watched as his eyes did a sweep up and down my body, and I felt exactly where they lingered. The sheer T-shirt I was wearing left little to the imagination, and my nipples had hardened as he stepped off the elevator. Watching him check me out, I could feel them saluting through the fabric.
“Okay…I’ll…uh…go finish getting ready. There’s coffee brewed in the kitchen, if you want.”
I disappeared into my bedroom. The outfit I’d planned on wearing seemed suddenly not good enough for Caine West to appreciate, and I wound up changing three times before I even started to dry my hair and swipe on some makeup. When I was finally ready, it was close to ten o’clock. I thought I’d find Caine tapping his foot, but instead he still seemed intrigued by my apartment. I found him studying the framed pictures on the wall.
“I’m so sorry. I lost track of time.”
“It’s fine. I helped myself to two cups of coffee.”
“Oh, good.”
As I dumped my thesis files and notes into an old leather tote, I noticed Caine had stopped in front of a framed black and white photo.
“Is this your mother?”
I’d looked at it so often that I knew every nuance in the photo, even without looking. She was sitting on a swing in the yard of the house I grew up in, a white daisy tucked behind her ear. Her smile sparkled so wide, I sometimes used it to brighten my day.
“Yes.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. She was.”
He turned to me and studied my face. “You look just like her.”
“Cancer,” I blurted out.
I had no idea what possessed me to say it. To this day, I don’t think I’ve spoken about her to anyone but my sister. I’ve been friends with Ava since we started undergraduate school five years ago, she was my roommate for years, and she has no idea what my mother died from. It wasn’t a secret; I just kept a lot of things bottled up.
I stared at the photo. “Ovarian.”
Caine put his hand on my back and gently rubbed. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat and pointed to a different picture. “This is my Aunt Rose and Uncle Nate—my mom’s sister and her husband. They raised me and my sister after…well, they raised us as their own after Mom died. My father wasn’t in the picture from the time I was an infant.” Even though I’d opened the bottle voluntarily, I wanted to cork it. “You ready? They serve lunch at twelve-thirty, and I don’t like to interrupt Umberto’s routine.”
“Just waiting on you. As usual.”
“Do you need to be back at any specific time? Sometimes I take a break and write my notes while he has lunch and does an activity or two. Then I go back and finish up.”
“Nope. I’m yours for the entire day.”
I liked the sound of that.
Rachel