"Yeah," Xander smiled and winked at me, looking less worried than he had just twenty minutes before. "By the way, 'Throw Back Thursday' was a big success." He grinned. "I got about a thousand likes."
Calder laughed softly. "It was an incredible painting." He smiled smugly.
"It's the subject that makes that painting great. God, I was even good-looking at ten."
Calder walked Xander to the door as I laughed after them and then he came back and sat down. He took my hand across the table. "I'm sorry. I went to bed while you were watching that movie with your mom last night and I didn't wake up until this morning. I promised we'd never sleep apart one single night again." He looked down, shaking his head. "I just . . . I felt like I was going to melt down . . . so many things swirling through my brain. Sleep seemed like the best option."
I sighed. "I know this is hard, but I want to be able to help."
He sat back in his chair, letting go of my hand. "I know you do. I know that. And that means everything to me. Truthfully, I don't know if there's anything either one of us can do right now."
I got up from the table and went over to him and sat down on his lap and pulled his head in to my chest, stroking his hair. I kissed his forehead. "It'll all be okay."
"When?” he asked.
I sighed. "That's the part I don't know."
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Madison called me yesterday," he said.
I froze. "Oh?"
"Yeah, she called to let us both know it was her assistant that leaked the news about you, and about us. She confided in him and . . . anyway, it doesn't even really matter. Like Molly said, it was bound to get out sooner or later. I just wish it had been on our terms, on our timeline. Madison feels badly. She wanted me to apologize to you."
I nodded, continuing stroking his hair. "You're right, what's done is done. I don't blame Madison." Although inside, just thinking about Madison still brought a sharp pang of jealousy. But I needed to move past that.
Calder leaned his forehead on mine just as the doorbell rang.
We both went to answer it, Calder standing a little bit behind me, and when I swung the door open, Detective Lowe was standing there with two other officers. "Eden, hi," he said, his eyes sweeping down my body. I was still only dressed in a small, short bathrobe. I pulled it more tightly around me. Detective Lowe seemed to catch himself and cleared his throat.
"Uh, come in," I said. He did and I looked over at Calder who was staring daggers at the detective.
"Sorry to bother you two days in a row, but we just have a couple questions for Eden about Clive."
"Oh," I said, "okay. Let me just go pull on some clothes and I'll be right back."
Calder followed me upstairs. "I'm gonna get in the shower," he said, his face still tense.
"Hey, you okay?" I asked.
Calder spun around, talking in a loud whisper. "I hate the way that guy looks at you," he said. "God, maybe he should just move in here, too. He's here enough."
I relaxed my shoulders and tilted my head. I opened my mouth to speak, but the detective's laugh floated up the stairs, the officers chatting loudly. My eyes moved toward the stairs and then back to Calder.
"Go answer their questions," he said more gently, turning toward the bathroom. I sighed and turned toward my room. I'd answer their questions and get them out of here.
An hour later, when the detective and officers left, I heard splashing sounds coming from the pool outside and looked out the back window to see Calder doing laps in the pool.
I went upstairs and changed into my swimsuit. When I walked out the side door onto the patio, Calder was out of the pool and sitting on one of the deck chairs next to the stone bar. Water was cascading down his bare, smooth, muscled chest in little rivulets and his hair was pushed back away from his face in wet spikes. God he was ridiculously gorgeous. And there was something especially beautiful about him when he was wet. I'd thought it before and I thought it now—it was as if water was his own personal element and he wore it better than anyone else on the face of the earth. "Hey, handsome. I thought you were getting in the shower."
His eyes swept up and down my bikini-clad body and I blushed despite myself. This man had seen me as naked as the day I was born a hundred times over, and from every angle imaginable, and yet I still felt that same modesty I'd been taught to feel when I was showing an "indecent" amount of skin.
"I changed my mind."
I sat down on his lap and ran my thumbs over his chiseled cheekbones and down his strong, masculine jaw, rough with a day's worth of dark stubble. I leaned forward and kissed his lips. He tasted sweet. "Hmm, what have you been drinking?"