The Billionaire Beast(30)

“What’s your favorite painting?” she asked, holding his wine glass and stealing yet another sip. “I mean out of the ones in your house. Mine is that photo on the top of Everest.”

He didn’t answer immediately, and she didn’t notice the minute tightening of his muscled body. “There’s one of a view out over rooftops,” he replied after a moment. “You won’t have seen it.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because I took it down a couple of years ago.”

His response was flat, penetrating her pleasantly muzzy haze, and she twisted around to look up at him. “Why?”

His dark eyes glittered, but beneath her, his large, warm body remained relaxed. “My taste changed. I preferred jungles.”

Dimly she sensed that this line of questioning probably wasn’t wise, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. It was a little piece of himself, and she wanted to know more.

Shifting until the edge of the table pressed against her back and she could get a good look at his face, she raised the glass again and took another sip, the wine sweet and heady on her tongue. “What did you like about it?”

He tilted his head slightly and lifted a hand, pushing a lock of hair that had escaped her bun back behind her ear. “There was a bird in the painting, flying up into the sky. Flying over the rooftops. I just liked to look at it.”

Her throat felt tight, because there was something in his voice. Something that sounded almost like yearning. A bird flying. A bird flying free . . . Did he wish he was that bird? Why? What had happened in his childhood that made him wish he could fly away?

“What did you like about the bird?” she asked, trying to be careful.

His hand trailed down the side of her face, a gentle, light touch. “What did you like about the Everest picture?”

“Freedom. Possibilities. The world at your feet.”

He was silent another long moment as if considering that. Then he said, “I used to like drawing birds back when I was a kid. I liked how all they had to do was open their wings and they could fly away.” The look in his eyes grew distant, but he didn’t stop touching her, his fingertips gentle on her face. “I could see them from my window, and I liked watching them fly. The sky was so dangerous and they were so brave. I was glad to be inside and safe, but sometimes I wished I could be brave and fly like the birds.” His voice had gotten softer with memory, a strange wistful smile curving his mouth. “I used to try to get them to land on my windowsill, but my mother wouldn’t give me any bread. It was a waste she said. Bread was difficult to find.”

Phoebe didn’t want to move, didn’t want to speak. She could barely even breathe. He was telling her something about his past, and she didn’t want to do anything to make him stop.

“Christ, I tried so hard to get those fucking things to land on my sill, but they never did.” He gave a short laugh, focusing on her face all of a sudden. “I asked Mom if I could have a bird once, but she said no. My room wasn’t big enough, she said. And she was right. It was only five paces wide and six long.”

The sky was dangerous . . . Bread was difficult to find . . . Five paces wide and six long . . .

A deep-seated unease twisted inside her. Something terrible had happened to him in childhood, hadn’t it? She could feel it like a knife inside her.

“That’s small,” she said. “I thought your father was rich. Didn’t you live in a big house or something?”

Nero’s black brows twitched, his focus on her face getting sharper. “How many sips of wine have you had?”

He wasn’t going to tell her anything more, she knew it instinctively. Yet was this the right moment to push him?

That wistful smile turned wicked. “Are you drunk, Phoebe Taylor?”

It might have been the moment, if she’d wanted it to be. But that look in his eyes was as wicked as his smile, and so she let it slip away. She wasn’t brave enough yet.

She blinked owlishly. “No, of course not.”

“Yes, you are.” Gently Nero took the glass from her fingers and put it on the table. “You sound very British when you’ve had more than a couple of glasses.”

“I do not sound very British,” she said with great care, the moment for revelation slipping even further away. “I can say ‘ass’ as well as any American.”

“Can you?” His hand moved, sliding under her skirt, brushing against the front of her panties, sending an electric shock right through her. “Tell me something dirty, British girl. Not ‘ass.’ Say ‘arse.’”

She wanted to protest, because she wanted to keep talking to him even if it wasn’t about his past, but his hand kept moving and it felt too good. And she couldn’t remember why she was supposed to be pushing him away, so she giggled and said ‘arse,’ plus a number of other very dirty words. And even though it was broad daylight and the doors were wide open, the outside world encroaching, it was like he didn’t even notice, directing all his attention on her. And after she’d screamed her pleasure into the midday sky, she returned the favor, unreasonably thrilled with herself when she made him roar like the lion she’d imagined him to be.

They had lunch in the dining room every day after that, and she counted it as a victory. And a couple of days after that, she found the picture of Mount Everest in her bedroom, on the wall opposite her bed. It was hers now, Nero told her when she’d asked him about it. She could wake up to freedom and new possibilities every day. The rush of warmth that had filled her, the glow, should have been a warning that perhaps she needed to be more careful with her emotions, but she ignored it. She’d flung herself into his arms, telling him he wasn’t to give her gifts yet unable to contain her delight. He’d told her, in his usual arrogant way, that he’d give her gifts if he fucking well wanted to and anyway, it was all out of total self-interest, because seeing her smile was worth any price.

She loved that. Loved the way things were between them. But just because she didn’t want to change things by not asking him difficult questions, didn’t mean she didn’t think about it. Think about him. About the birds and the dangerous sky.

In fact, thinking about him was all she did. What had happened to him? Why he was the way he was? Why did he seem to understand some things and not others? How could he not understand what Charles meant to her and yet talk about birds and how they could fly away, his voice full of yearning? As if he himself hadn’t been able to . . .

It didn’t make any sense.

Which was why Phoebe was in her sitting room a couple of days after her dining-room victory, her laptop on her knees, searching his name and trying to find any information she could about him. And it was proving frustrating because there was no information on him. The news sites had the odd article about him and DS Corp, but apart from a couple of gossipy articles about “the reclusive billionaire” there wasn’t anything else.

It annoyed her.

She sighed and tipped her head back against the arm of the couch, frowning up at the ceiling.

Damn. She really was going to have to talk to him, wasn’t she? She didn’t have to, of course. Nothing was forcing her except her own curiosity. But if she didn’t, what then?

An uncomfortable feeling crept through her, an awareness of something she’d been trying very hard not to think about for the past couple of days. No, scratch that. She’d been trying not to think about it ever since they’d started sleeping together.

She hadn’t considered how long this . . . affair would last nor had she wanted to. But now, things were different. She’d talked to him about her parents, about her sister. Had revealed her secret fears to him, things she hadn’t told anyone. It made her feel close to him, and it made her want more of him. More of his own secrets, the things he didn’t talk about. About his childhood and where he grew up. About birds and why he kept trying to draw them. Anything about him, really.

She studied the ceiling intently, sorting through ideas on where to go to get more information There were his brothers, of course. Maybe she should email the oldest brother, Lorenzo. Because how else was she going to find out what she wanted to know?

Something caught her eye, a flash of red light.

She blinked, then narrowed her gaze at the fire alarm that had been fixed on the ceiling at the corner of the room. There was a small red light on it, so small she hadn’t noticed it before, and it was flickering. Did that mean it needed the battery changed?

Phoebe frowned at it for a moment. Then she noticed something else weird about it. There was a dark round circle just above the red light. A circle that . . .

Something cold slid down her back. No, that couldn’t be what it looked like, could it? That wasn’t . . . a camera? Because why would there be a camera here in her room? She was seeing things, obviously.

Glancing back down at the screen, she pulled up her mail program in preparation for sending out an email to Lorenzo. Then, because it kept nagging at her, she glanced back up at the fire alarm and the little dark circle.

It really looked like a camera.

Dammit.

Phoebe put aside the laptop on the couch, got up, then gripped the edge of the coffee table and dragged it over the carpet until she’d positioned it right underneath the fire alarm. Then she got up on top of it.