Page 100 of David's Love

My eyes move over the wooden floors, bare walls, comfortable sofas, fireplace, and pillows while his stare burns my cheekbone.

“Wait to see the bedroom,” he says, setting my bag on a chair in the open kitchen and helping me to take my jacket off.

He drapes it over the back of the chair while I look at him, stranded, like a particle suspended in an ocean of surprise.

“What are we celebrating again?” I murmur, enthralled with his eyes.

Flashing a dazzling smile, he pivots to the kitchen.

He removes his sweater on his way over, and I stare at the slim-fit T-shirt stretching across his muscular torso and chiseled arms that almost look photoshopped.

“You getting a job,” he says, amused.

He nearly killed that man last night. Keith. And we all forgot about Keith. And then he offered me a job that was not a job, only a pretext to have me with him––although we can’t blame my presence here on that job either.

We forgot about that as well.

We will face a lot of people next week, but right now, we look like two people in love.

I don’t know what makes me say this. The warmth curled up in my chest. The glint in his eyes. This beautiful cabin that is even more fascinating than his house on Long Island.

The suits that are gone––we forgot about them too.

The fact that he is James Sexton’s business partner and Ed Preston, who is my cousin’s husband.

For fuck’s sake, I’m related to Thea’s twins. We forgot about that, too.

Not to mention that we forgot about Anna.

I did, for sure. And he probably did, too.

He hands me a glass of ruby wine that catches the light trickling down from the ceiling and looks like blood.

Things happen so fast for us, the memories created at such a high speed and just as quickly stacked away, that a sense of dizzying surreality hovers over me.

We clink our glasses, but I set mine down. The tension in my body is too dense and hard to ignore.

“What are we doing, David?” I ask quietly with a shred of concern in my voice.

His eyes become pools of dark water.

I read surprise and genuine worry. He briefly struggles.

“What do you mean?”

His voice is forged in apprehension I never thought he had in him. If there was one man who feared nothing, it would be him.

Everything he does oozes confidence.

He was so sure I’d like this place––and I do––that he just sent the car to pick me up.

This is David Moore. The billionaire. The man with an untouchable heart.

But this––the man I have in front of me––is not the man Rain had portrayed in her book.

This is not the man who exchanged cash for bedroom activities, showered her with gifts, and treated her like a queen.

This man is different.

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