As soon as we’re disconnected, I call the private chef I hired to cancel. Then I place a few different food delivery orders. Taking everything off the table, I replace it all with two regular plates, paper napkins, and a coaster for beer at both my seat and Stevie’s.
I make sure Rosie’s crate, leash, and toys are perfectly where they need to be because even though tonight is more than just a home visit, there’s still that aspect to it.
Since Christmas, I’ve been visiting Rosie once or twice a week, but I purposefully kept it quiet from Stevie, partly because I didn’t want to break her heart if it didn’t work out and partly because it had nothing to do with her.
Adopting is for Rosie, but selfishly it’s for me too. Rosie just wants to love and be loved, as do I.
Pacing my living room, I keep my eyes glued to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side, looking like a creep as I wait for Stevie to leave her building and head over to mine. It’s still a bit before seven, but the nerves are sinking in.
I’ve never done this. I’ve never had dinner and conversation with a girl I had feelings for. Who am I kidding? I’ve never had feelings, period. This is all fucking terrifying and nerve-wracking.
I have no idea where we’ll stand after tonight. Will we go back to Stevie simply working on the airplane my team charters? Or will she give me a chance to prove that I can be more than the guy in the tabloids?
More than anything, I hope it’s the latter because I’m showing someone who I am for the first time in a long time, and I don’t know if I can handle being abandoned for it again.
My phone rings on the kitchen island, pulling me out of my worry. Jogging over, I quickly answer the unknown number, eager to talk to the girl I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
“Stevie?” I quickly answer with an all-too excited smile.
The line is quiet, with no response.
“Stevie, can you hear me?” Plugging my opposite ear, I listen harder.
“Evan?”
My stomach drops to the floor. I want to throw up. I want to hide. I want to chuck my phone against the wall, hearing this woman’s voice. The woman who left me when I was sixteen.
“Mom?”
29
STEVIE
I’ve been a ball of nerves all day. I have no idea what’s going to happen tonight. I don’t know what he’s going to say, what I’m going to say, or where things will stand after it’s all over.
What I do know is that I’m wearing some awfully see-through panties under all my winter layers in hopes that Zanders will be seeing them and subsequently tearing them off.
A physical relationship would be easy. It’s what I think I can handle and what he wanted initially, but now he won’t give it up without something more. But something more with him scares me.
Everything magnifies with him. If I thought I was broken after Brett, that’s incomparable to the potential level of destruction Zanders could leave in his wake. On the flip side, what I thought was love with my ex, isn’t even on the same playing field of where my feelings could go if I open my heart to the possibility of Zanders.
It’s all terrifying.
As I ride the private elevator up to Zanders’ penthouse, my throat is thick with nerves. The building is stunning and pristine—money in the form of walls. The exclusive hallway off the elevator to his place is clean and modern but cold.
Swallowing down the instinct to run, I knock two times on the large mahogany door of Zanders’ penthouse, but after a minute, there’s no answer.
I give him another moment before I knock again.
Still, no answer.
Pulling out my phone, I dial, inevitably giving him my number. His phone is loud enough that I can hear it ring in his apartment, on the other side of this door, but it continues to go unanswered until I reach his voicemail.
I give the door one more loud knock, just to be sure, but still, there’s no answer.
I’m not going to lie. My heart is pounding, and not because I think something might be wrong with him. The guy seems unbreakable. Untouchable. But even though Zanders was persistent about tonight, did he change his mind? Is he regretting asking for more already?
My cheeks are flush, and my stomach is twisting with embarrassment as I turn back to the elevator to go back home, but halfway down the empty hall, I stop in my tracks. If he wants to bail on me, he can say it to my face. He’s so adamant about me standing up to people? Well, that’s precisely what I’m going to do. Besides, of anyone in my life, I’m somehow able to stand up to him without fear or worry.
Without overthinking it any longer, I take confident strides back down the hall, twist the knob, and surprisingly open the unlocked door. But as soon as I walk into his penthouse, I instantly regret it.
It’s intimidating, dark, masculine, and just very much him. The ceilings are high and expansive, making it feel like they never end. I’m in a space I shouldn’t be privy to without him.
“Stevie?”
Snapping my head around, Zanders stands down the hallway in nothing but a towel hanging low on his hips. A bit of moisture lingers on his golden-brown skin as steam rolls off in the air around him. The shadowed concaves of his muscles are even deeper thanks to the low lighting in the dark hall.
“Shit.” He tightly holds the towel around his waist as he takes a couple of steps down the entryway, coming into view. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear the door, and I lost track of time.”
The closer he gets, the more evident his exhaustion is. “Are you okay?” I ask, brows furrowed, and any frustration towards him wholly abandoned.
He gives me a sad half-smile, telling me he’s absolutely not okay. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that, but I’m really happy you’re here.”
I walk into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, before pressing my cheek against his warm, wet chest. He sighs into me, snaking his free arm around my shoulders and holding my body to his. I can feel every muscle in his tight frame relax around me before he rests his head on mine.
I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s upset.
“You let yourself in,” he quietly notes.
“I was coming to yell at you for forgetting about me.”
“As you should.” His body vibrates from a silent laugh before he squeezes me even tighter. “But I could never forget about you, sweetheart.”
I run a soothing hand up and down his bare back.
“Can you give me a minute? I’ll be right out, but I should get some clothes on.”
“I don’t mind you naked.”
Another laugh shakes my body as Zanders relaxes. “Make yourself at home. There’s beer in the fridge.”
He runs a hand over my curls, brushing them out of the way before he walks his gloriously stunning body around the corner and back to his room.
Alone in his space once again, but feeling a bit more welcomed, I take my coat off and hang it on the hooks by his front door before kicking off my snow-covered sneakers that are far too used to be worn in his clean place.