Captivated by You(92)

Linking our fingers together, I started leading him back toward the bedroom.

“I want to be the man of your dreams, angel,” he said, surprising me. “I want that more than anything.”

I looked back at him. “You’ve got that in the bag already.”

I stared down at the contract in front of me, my heart racing with a dizzying combination of love and delight. I looked up from the coffee table as Gideon entered the room, his hair still damp from our bath, his long legs encased in black silk pajama bottoms.

“You’re buying the Outer Banks house?” I asked, needing his confirmation despite having the proof in front of me.

His sexy mouth curved. “We’re buying the house. We agreed we would.”

“We talked about it.” The agreed-upon price was a bit staggering, telling me the owners hadn’t been easy to persuade. And he’d asked them to convey the copy of Naked in Death with the property, along with the furnishings in the master bedroom. He always thought of everything.

Gideon settled on the couch beside me. “Now, we’re doing something about it.”

“The Hamptons would be closer. Or Connecticut.”

“It’s a quick hop down by jet.” He tipped my chin up with his finger and pressed his lips to mine. “Don’t worry about the logistics,” he murmured. “We were happy there on the beach. I can still picture you walking along the shore. I remember kissing you on the deck … spreading you across that big white bed. You looked like an angel and that place, for me, was like heaven.”

“Gideon.” I rested my forehead against his. I loved him so much. “Where do we sign?”

He pulled back and slid the contract over, finding the first yellow sign here flag. His gaze roved over the coffee table and he frowned. “Where’s my pen?”

I stood. “I’ve got one in my purse.”

Catching my wrist in his hand, he tugged me back down. “No. I need my pen. Where’s the envelope this came in?”

I spotted it lying on the floor between the couch and table, where I’d dropped it when I realized what Arash had sent over. Picking it up, I realized it was still weighted and upended it over the table to let the rest of the items inside spill out. A fountain pen clattered onto the glass and a small photo floated out.

“There we go,” he said, taking the pen and slashing his signature on the dotted line. As he went through the rest of the pages, I picked up the picture and felt my chest tighten.

It was the photo of him and his dad on the beach, the one he’d told me about in North Carolina. He was young, maybe four or five, his small face screwed up in concentration as he helped his dad build a sand castle. Geoffrey Cross sat across from his son, his dark hair blowing in the ocean breeze, his face movie-star handsome. He wore only swimming trunks, showing off a body very much like the one Gideon boasted today.

“Wow,” I breathed, knowing I was going to make copies of the image and frame one for each of the places we lived in. “I love this.”

“Here.” He pushed the contract, with the pen lying atop it, over to me.

I set the photo down and picked up the pen, turning it over to see the GC engraved on the barrel. “You superstitious or something?”

“It was my father’s.”

“Oh.” I looked at him.

“He signed everything with it. He never went anywhere without it tucked in his pocket.” He raked his hair back from his face. “He destroyed our name with that pen.”

I set my hand on his thigh. “And you’re building it back up with the same pen. I get it.”

His fingertips touched my cheek, his gaze soft and shining. “I knew you would.”





15


“HIS-AND-HERS MASTER SUITE—a classic.” Blaire Ash smiled as his pen flew across the large notepad clipped to a board.

His gaze lifted to roam the entirety of Eva’s bedroom in the penthouse, the one I’d had him design specifically to look exactly like the room my wife had in her Upper West Side apartment.

“How big a change are you looking for?” the designer asked. “Do you want to start with a blank slate, or are you just looking for the easiest structural change that will combine the two rooms?”

I left it to Eva to answer. It was difficult for me to participate, knowing this change was one neither of us really wanted. Our home would soon reflect how fucked up I was and how badly our marriage was affected because of it. The whole exercise was like a knife in the gut.

She glanced at me, then asked, “What would the easy way look like?”

Ash smiled, revealing slightly crooked teeth. He was attractive—or so Ireland assured me—and sported his usual attire of ripped jeans and a T-shirt under a tailored blazer. I couldn’t care less about his looks. What mattered was his talent, which I’d admired enough to hire him to decorate both my office and my home. What I didn’t like was the way he was looking at my wife.