Page 47 of A Billionaire Gentleman

“Sit,” Jude said with a smile. “Let the boy get you coffee if it makes him happy.”

As I sat, Cynthia leaned across the table and stage-whispered, “The Holden men like to take care of their women. I’ve found it best just to let them do it.”

I laughed as Jude rolled his eyes. The two of them didn’t have a traditional relationship, but anyone who actually watched them couldn’t deny that they loved each other.

A stab of wistful jealousy tempered my humor. What would it be like to have this sort of family? Not rich or anything like that, but to be this close to each other. Okay, being close had some negatives – such as hiring a showgirl to seduce your grandson to keep him from marrying the wrong person – but these things were done from love. Holding people too tightly could be dangerous, but not wanting to have a grip on them at all was worse.

I knew all too well what it felt like when someone who was supposed to love you let go.

My father had taken my brothers and left before I’d been more than a couple months old. I’d been a last-ditch attempt to save a doomed marriage, and my dad hadn’t even wanted visitation rights.

I sometimes wondered if he’d thought I hadn’t been his, but Mom had never mentioned an affair or the possibility of someone else being my father. Considering how often she’d bad-mouthed him throughout my life, I doubted she would’ve kept quiet if there’d been anything to tell.

From what I’d gathered over the years, they’d both been verbally and emotionally abusive to each other, and if my dad had followed Mom’s pattern, he hadn’t stopped after the divorce. He’d just kept doing it in Rhode Island.

As far as I knew, he still lived there. If my two brothers had moved after becoming adults, they’d never reached out. They could’ve grown up to be good men, but my gut said our father had trained them well.

Deklin’s hand on my shoulder pulled me back to the present. “Sleep well?”

“I did.” I poured some creamer into the coffee he handed me and then added some sugar. “You?”

“Yes. Do you want some breakfast?” He gave me a sheepish smile. “I promise it’ll go better than yesterday.”

“I’m allergic to shellfish,” Cynthia said as Deklin went to make me a plate. “Didn’t find out until my parents took me out for my sixteenth birthday. I spent the night wheezing in the hospital.”

“Do you two have plans for the day?” Jude asked, squeezing his wife’s hand.

“Tentative ones,” Deklin said. “If Sofi still wants to, I figured I’d take her shopping and then to the symphony. Make up for the date that didn’t happen yesterday. Or, at least, didn’t happen the way I would’ve liked.”

“That sounds good to me,” I agreed. I could feel Jude’s eyes on me, and I hoped he knew I was doing whatever I could to make sure Deklin was happy with me. He didn’t seem like he blamed me for the ER trip, but I didn’t want him to have any doubts about my commitment to my job.

Besides, when else was I going to get a chance to go shopping in Houston? I might as well enjoy my time with Deklin…in a non-sex way. Because I wasn’t going to sleep with him again. I couldn’t. Even if it had probably moved things with Deklin along a little faster. It still felt too much like prostitution to me.

His hand brushed across my shoulders as he returned to his seat, and a shiver of pleasure made me want to reconsider my ‘no sex’ resolution.

Maybe it was a good thing he had plans for us that didn’t involve being alone in the house. Shopping and music. That was safe.

Right?

* * *

As Deklin backedme into a corner, I decided that dressing rooms made shopping verynotsafe.

My arms went around his neck as his hands slid down my sides to cup my ass. His mouth was hard on mine, hungry and demanding, feeding my own desires until the only thought remaining in my head was how badly I wanted to have him inside me.

The dress that I was supposed to be trying on hung from a nearby hook, and the clothes I’d worn here were on the bench beside it, leaving me in only my underwear. Even the soft cotton chafed my overly sensitive nerves as Deklin’s hands slid over my bare skin, setting me on fire.

I moaned as he bit my jaw, and the sound jerked us both back to reality, and he broke our kiss.

He rested his forehead against mine, our breathing harsh in the relatively small space. The tips of his fingers stroked my waist, heat still coiling and twisting inside me.

“I should probably leave,” he said.

“Unless you want us to get kicked out for indecent exposure,” I said with a half-laugh.

“We wouldn’t want that.” He laughed, then took a step back.

When he glanced down, my gaze followed his, and I couldn’t stop a nervous giggle. “You go out there like that, and you might still end up getting in trouble.”

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