Page 85 of Owen North

I close my laptop and place it on the side table. “I’m finished.”

“Okay, well then, you should go to bed.”

“Sit and talk with me, Charlize.”

She stares at me like I’ve just ordered her to do something very objectionable. “Is this another one of your unacceptable demands?”

My eyes bore into hers, remembering my last demand. “Yes.” Fuck, I could stay up all night with her.

She looks torn, unable to decide which way to go with this. Just when I think she’ll tell me no, she joins me on the sofa, sitting as far from me as she can. After she curls her legs up under her, she says, “If you’re going to force me into this, I’m going to force you into absolutely skipping the gym.”

I’ve never enjoyed being bossed by a woman so much. “Done.”

She opens her mouth to say something but snaps it closed just as fast. Her flustered state is endearing as fuck. I want so much more of this with her.

I extend an arm across the top of the sofa and lean toward her. “Tell me one thing you’ve been thinking about.”

Her gaze drifts to my arm on the sofa, staying there for long enough to cause my gut to tighten. When she gives me her eyes again, she says, “Do you play the piano?”

If I was asked to write a list of things I imagined Charlize to have been contemplating, that thought wouldn’t have been anywhere near my list.

“Yes. I started lessons when I was four.”

“Do you play it often?”

“Not anymore.”

She wiggles around for a moment getting comfortable, bringing an arm up to rest on the top of the sofa. “So, you have a piano that just sits there looking pretty?”

Now I’m the one who’s distracted. I look at her arm and extend my fingers so I can touch her hand. Then, keeping my fingers resting there, I look back at her. “I don’t have the time or reason to play it.”

Her brows pull together. “Why do you need a reason to play? Isn’t the joy of playing it enough?”

I stroke her hand lightly, the feel of her skin irresistible. “I’m not certain I ever thought of playing the piano as joyful.”

She sits with that statement for a long moment before softly saying, “Because you only ever did it for your parents, and their expectations suffocated any chance of joy being discovered?”

Fuck, if anyone has ever nailed something about me, it is this.

“I had a piano lesson weekly and was expected to practice for half an hour every day until the day I turned ten, at which point that daily half hour became one hour.”

She looks at my fingers that are still ghosting across her skin. “What else did you take lessons in?”

“Polo, tennis, Chinese, French, philosophy.” I curve my fingers around her wrist. “You name it, I took lessons in it. My mother ran our household and her sons like a company, always with an eye to destroying the competition and gaining market share. I had tutors around the clock, six days a week.”

“Wow,” she says, her eyes widening, “I thought my mother was the boss of bosses, but now I think that was your mother. What was your father like?”

“Hewas the boss of bosses. My mother was the COO, but my father wore the pants, and he didn’t cut them in half and share. Any expectation Mom held was tripled in his eyes.”

“Were you two close?”

“Not in an emotional way, but he was always around teaching me what my place in the world was to be.”

“And what was that?”

“To carry on the North name. To ensure our family held its place in the world.”

As I unlink my fingers from her wrist, Charlize threads hers into them. It’s everything I need right now. “That’s a heavy load to carry, Owen.”

---