“You’re right, and I think you should keep right on being witty for me, too.” I pulled her lips to mine and kissed her thoroughly, mentally preparing myself to tell her the part I wished I didn’t have to bring up. “I want you to know I was with someone before I met you. She left me in doubt about what she was doing, and who she was doing it with when I wasn’t around. Even though we always used protection, I still got tested immediately after we split. I’m clean. I never would’ve gone there with you just now if I wasn’t, Brooke. You can trust me.”
As much as it pained me to mention Janice, even in the past tense, I felt better telling her myself, because the Internet was loaded with a multitude of stories and photos about me. If Brooke wanted to know about Janice and others I’d been with, the pictures were there for her to find in living color right along with some gossip’s take on where I’d been, with whom, and for what purpose. She’d probably seen some of it already. I hoped Brooke realized most of it was absolute bullshit, too. The kind of press I loathed because it was paparazzi reporting based only on my name and personal wealth. Nobody wanted pictures of men with barely two cents to rub together when out with a date. Just once I’d love for some press on the clean well water Blackstone Global was bringing to third-world farm villages to be plastered next to my picture. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it would sure be fucking nice for a change.
“I know I can trust you, Caleb Blackstone.” She reached up and held my face. I wondered if she knew I was her captive when she did small things like touch her hand to my face. “So, about the birth control . . .” She rubbed her thumb over my lower lip, which I struggled to resist from claiming by pulling it into my mouth. “Before I left the shelter they offered testing and an exam, which I had done. The doctor gave me a prescription for pills. I never filled it because it felt like I would be putting myself out there for casual sex, and I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready emotionally for much of anything when I first returned to Boston. I needed those five months to work and take care of Nan and rediscover myself even. But that was before I met you, Caleb. I can’t deny that after meeting you, it was different for me, too. I wanted to be with you. I knew that you would be good for me, and I could safely entrust my body and my heart to you. My point is, I can have my prescription filled now and start them. We should be protected by the time you return from Abu Dhabi.”
She gave me a look when I didn’t respond in an appropriate amount of time, and then a little squeeze to my cheek where her hand still rested.
I guess I was too busy falling more in love with her to notice.
THE Black Bay Club was situated right on the rocks, overlooking the bay from its miles of manicured green fairways that were prized by golfers the world over. Golf had been my father’s game, but it wasn’t mine. I’d kept the exorbitant dues at his private golf club current after he’d died, though. You never knew when it might be useful, and tonight being a member of Black Bay was very useful—affording me a private venue for taking Brooke to dinner and saying my dreaded good-bye before I took off for Abu Dhabi around midnight. She’d cooked for me and spoiled me rotten for two solid days, and now I insisted she have a break.
The thought of leaving her behind on the island was a bit easier to take than the idea of leaving her in Boston. I knew she was taking the rest of the week off from work to help her grandmother get settled after her release from physical therapy. I couldn’t deny being pleased my girl would be tucked away safely on the island for most of my business trip. I didn’t trust the media getting hold of Brooke and my relationship with her. I knew it would happen in time, and hopefully when it did, I could have her more under the shell of my protection to shield her from the worst of their scrutiny. The paparazzi were fuckers, pure and simple. They would dig up any dirt to be dug up and share it with the world just to sell a few papers. I didn’t want her hurt by their certain insensitivity to her past or anything to do with her life before I’d met her.
“I haven’t had a chance to hear about your work much. What inspired you to become an interior designer?”
“I was following in my mother’s footsteps at first I suppose.”
“How so?”
“Well, she attended Suffolk University when she was in college, and she studied design. I told you how she met my father while on a semester in London.”
“Right, I remember.” I’d seen a picture of her parents on display at the cottage. Her mother looked like a 1990s version of Brooke in the photo—the same beauty easily recognizable in their shared features. “You said ‘at first.’”
“Yes, I think I liked the idea of learning the same material as what she had studied, and even going to the same school. It gave me a way to feel close to her by having something in common.” She rubbed the back of the left side of her neck, which was a tell as clear as day from where I was sitting. I hadn’t earned my billions without learning to read people over the years. “I love my job. I really enjoy the challenge of finding the perfect design for a client’s vision,” she said.
“Why do I hear a but at the end of that statement?”