But she wasn’t listening. She wanted in that warm water and she wanted in now.
He murmured something else that she didn’t listen to then moved toward the door, going through and closing it quietly after him.
Silence fell. Absolute, incredible. She’d never been anywhere so quiet. All the time, the noise of the city was everywhere she went—a constant, night or day. But up here, in Xavier’s penthouse, it was like she’d gone deaf.
She swallowed, her hands moving to the buttons on her coat, undoing them, her fingers shaking. It felt like forever to discard all the layers she wore, and she wore a lot of them because how else could she keep warm? But one by one they fell away until at last she stood in Xavier de Santis’s bathroom, naked and shivering.
Being naked felt wrong, felt exposing and dangerous, but no one was going to get her here, were they? No one could come in and attack her. No one except Xavier. She was starting to think he probably was telling the truth when he said he wouldn’t hurt her, but you could never be too careful, so she extracted his beautiful knife from the tangle of clothing and walked over to the bath, laying the knife on the broad edge of it.
Then, slowly, because the water was very hot, she lowered herself into the tub.
Her mind blanked as the water closed over her bare skin, her whole body going into something like pleasure shock. And for a moment, her toes and her hands hurt, aching painfully as the warmth penetrated. Then . . . holy shit. Warm. So incredibly warm
She lay there in the water, staring up at the darkness of the ceiling, not thinking of anything at all. Floating.
And for the first time in years, muscle by muscle, Mia let herself relax.
Chapter 5
Xavier sat in the kitchen, eating the rest of Mia’s mac and cheese and going over some emails on his phone. Of course his father had wanted an update on the Washington situation and so Xavier had called him, since that was quicker.
As he’d expected, his father had been delighted with the result of the meeting and the nice, fat government contract that was going to come out of it. Delighted enough that he’d scheduled a personal meeting with Xavier tomorrow to discuss handing over ownership of the ranch.
Scheduled for a meeting with his own father. Fuck, it was kind of funny when he thought about it. Who else had to do that to see their own father? But then that was old Cesare de Santis all up. Nothing was more important than his company, nothing at all.
Xavier might have been pissed if he thought about it too much, but there was no point in getting pissed, so he didn’t. He left that shit to his brother Lorenzo. It was easier not to let things bother him, to just float along the surface of life, taking pleasure in the things that interested him. Women. Beer. Weapons.
Christ, there was a reason that the media had dubbed him the “redneck in a suit.”
He flicked through his emails, sliding most of them in the trash.
A reminder popped up on the screen, telling him he was due at the workout he’d scheduled before he’d realized he was going to be bringing home an uninvited guest.
Speaking of which . . .
Xavier looked up from his phone and stared through the kitchen doorway to the hall beyond. How long had she been in that bath? It had been at least half an hour, hadn’t it? Maybe more. Okay, so he knew women liked that tub—he’d had a few in it, mostly with himself in there too—but they’d never been quite that long had they?
A flash of concern went through him, unfamiliar and sharp.
She’d seemed . . . quiet when they’d stepped out of the elevator. And quite frankly he’d thought she’d eat more than she had. Unless it had been too rich for her? But still, she hadn’t eaten a lot and even with all those layers covering her, he’d bet there wasn’t a lot to her. When he’d put his hand on her back out at the front entrance to his building, she’d felt so . . . slight. Like she’d blow away in the first strong breeze.
Maybe something had happened to her?
Or maybe she’s just enjoying a nice bath and taking her time about it. Relax. This chick is getting you way too wound up.
True. She was here and he’d fed her and now she was in the bath, there was nothing to get too concerned about, right?
He spent the next five minutes trying to read an email from the marketing department about some problem to do with the latest campaign for the De Santis semi-automatic range. Reading and not taking in a word since he kept listening out for Mia to come out of the bath and not hearing anything.
“Dammit,” he said aloud to the kitchen. Then he put his phone down and strode in the direction of the bathroom.
The door was firmly closed when he got there and no sound was coming from inside, not even when he put an ear to the door. Strange. Surely he’d hear the sounds of water moving or at least something?