We’ve only got one week left together. The thought keeps invading my life, whether I’m working or driving or, worst of all, when she’s under me and I’m so deep in her I can’t tell anymore where she ends and I begin. Sappy? Yeah. But I can admit that I’m going to miss her, and more than just her body.
Either way, I want to hear her laugh a lot more often. I want to walk into the kitchen and hear her singing or humming Broadway tunes the way I have a few times when she doesn’t know I’m there. Silence doesn’t suit Samantha, and she’s been too quiet the last few days.
When I walk into the penthouse, she’s sitting in her usual spot: the big, cushy chair near the windows overlooking the bay. Her laptop is on her lap, and she glances up when I walk in.
“What’s this?” she asks when she sees me with the grocery bags.
“I’m cooking tonight,” I tell her, and the little smile, the appraising look she gives me, makes my blood heat immediately. She sets the laptop aside and stands up. She’s dressed in a pair of figure-hugging jeans and a black v-neck sweater. Her hair is up in a messy bun today, which means I can stand here like an idiot drooling over the curve of her neck and the very recent memory of how good she smells when I bury my face right in that spot as I fuck her.
“Can I help?” she asks with a smile, and I nod. She follows me into the kitchen, and we start unpacking the canvas grocery bags, setting the ingredients I’ve bought out on the counter.
“Well, this already looks amazing, and it isn’t even cooked yet,” Samantha
says as she surveys the ingredients. “What are you making?”
“Ratatouille. And I have a really nice bottle of Bandol Rouge I’ve been saving. We’ll have that, too.”
“And here I was thinking of ordering delivery pizza,” she jokes, and I smile, relieved to hear even a little bit of humor from her.
“Do you want me to do anything?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Nope. I want you to sit here and keep me company.” I nod toward one of the stools on the other side of the kitchen island, and she smiles and slides her sweet ass onto it. I go to the wine cellar and retrieve the bottle I was thinking about, uncork it, and then pour a glass for each of us.
“Thank you,” she murmurs when I hand her glass to her. I watch as she takes her time, swirling, sniffing, and then finally tasting, letting the wine sit on her tongue for a moment so she can get the full flavor of it.
And it hits me then: she fits into my world just fine.
No. No, no, no. I don’t do that kind of thing. Freedom. Independence. No.
Samantha smiles at me. “Wow.”
I grin. “That pretty much sums it up.”
I go to work chopping onions and garlic, and she sits, watching, occasionally sipping her wine.
“You said before that your father’s construction business wasn’t your ‘thing,’” she says. “Is this your thing? Cooking?”
I glance up at her and shake my head. “No. This is relaxing and something I don’t do often enough.”
She nods, but she doesn’t press me for more details. To my surprise, I keep talking.
“My father builds luxury high rises for rich people. People who already have it all but want more. Bigger. Better.” I grab an eggplant and start peeling it. “The thing is, with a background and skills in construction, you can actually change the world. At least for some people.”
She’s studying me. “Not just for rich people, then?” she asks with a smile.
I shake my head. “What I want to do…what I’ll be able to do, once I finish this current project for my father, is help build homes and other facilities for at-need communities in Third World countries. Places most of the world seems to have forgotten.” I take a breath. This isn’t something I talk about a lot. It’s something I do. I’m not my father. I don’t believe in talking myself up to make myself look important. “It just doesn’t seem fair. All this luxury here, and not even basic shelter in other places.”
She’s watching me, her big dark eyes seeming to see far too much, as always.
“How did you get started on that path?” she finally asks.
I think for a minute while I’m chopping. “I traveled a lot as a kid. But we always went to the nicer places. The places they cover in travel magazines and shows. When I was in college, I became friends with a guy who was from a very, very poor area in western Africa. He knew I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I think he took it as his own personal mission to show me just how different other people live. And I’ll be grateful for that for the rest of my life.”
I start arranging the vegetables in layers in the baking dish, and I keep talking. “One spring break, we went to his village. He wanted to see his family and friends, of course, and he wanted me to see the world not as the tourism boards want us to see it, but as it really is. I met some of the kindest, most generous people in the world on that trip, and I saw how they went without even the most basic comforts. And here I am, with the resources and talents to help…it would be ridiculous not to.”
I chance a glance up at her, and she’s watching me intently.
“So you want to build for them?”