The Tycoon

“I can swim. I don’t love it. But I can do it.”

“How did you vote in the last election?”

“Politics? So soon?”

“You can’t lie.”

“I voted Democrat.”

Relief, deep in my belly. He pushed the wine glass toward me.

“Relax,” he said. “Please. This is supposed to be fun. There’s cheese. You love cheese.”

I did love cheese. And Clayton saying please—I loved that, too.

I sat down at the counter and took a sip of the wine, which, of course, was delicious.

“Better?” he asked.

“Better.”

The soft, creamy Brie called my name and I cut off a slice.

“What did you want to be when you were a little boy?” I asked and put the cheese in my mouth, where it melted, salty and sweet on my tongue.

This easy-going man, the soft, smiling flirt who was so different from the Clayton of five years ago, stiffened. Turned away to fiddle with something on the counter behind him. A salad.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“What?” I helped myself to another piece of cheese and noticed he had a little pot of currant jelly beside it. Oh, he remembered that, too. Cheese with a little extra business on the side was my favoritist favorite. “Everyone remembers what they wanted to be when they were a kid. I wanted to be a florist.”

He looked at me over his shoulder. “A florist?”

I put a drop of the red jelly on the cheese and popped it into my mouth. It was hard work restraining myself from doing a little shimmy on the stool. Honestly. So good.

“My dad,” I said, after I swallowed the cheese, “used to take me to the florist in town. And every week he’d pick something out. A bouquet of something. Sunflowers. Tulips. Roses. He would take Bea and I with him. It was, literally, the only thing he’d do with us.”

“Where did the flowers go?”

I laughed without much humor. “Well, I thought they were going to my mother’s grave. But I’m pretty sure they were going to whomever was his mistress those days. Or maybe he was trying to get the florist to sleep with him. Hard to say.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be. My dad’s nature stopped hurting me long ago.” I took another sip of wine. “The lady who ran the flower shop let us go back into the cooler full of flowers and pick out our own stems and play around with arranging them. It was really nice. And I thought that would be the perfect job, all those ribbons and flowers to play with. So?” I smiled, enjoying myself despite being scared to. “Now you go.”

“When I was a boy I wanted to be strong,” he said, finally. “I wanted to be bigger. A man.”

The cheese was suddenly a lump in my stomach. “Why?”

It was obvious he didn’t want to answer. That he’d said far more than he was comfortable with. I sat there on the stool unable to move. Barely able to breathe. Had he ever told me about his childhood? Ever?

“Clayton,” I whispered, but the buzzer for the oven went off and I jumped so hard I nearly knocked over my wineglass.

With a tea towel Clayton pulled a covered dish out of the oven. The air was so thick with the smell of roasted beef that I could practically lick it.

“Ouch, ouch,” he breathed and set the dish down with a clatter on top of the stove.

He took two plates out of a low drawer and set them next to me on the counter. There was sliced bread in a bowl, wrapped up in another tea towel, and the salad.

“Wow,” I said, taking in everything he’d done.

“Well,” he said. “Since I signed the agreement and everything, I should probably confess.”

“Uh-oh.”

“The salad and the short ribs came from that restaurant you love. With the fountain out front.”

“Bishop’s?”

“Yeah. But I did cut the bread.”

Somehow…this was more touching. Somehow this was harder to process than his cooking the meal. Because this was the man I remembered from five years ago. This was Clayton Rorick.

And he was as beguiling as ever. As handsome and thoughtful, while still imperious and difficult. The man who’d taken such good care of me and then broken me in two.

That was the real danger. Remembering the good things and forgetting the bad.

That was what I couldn’t do.

“You going to tear up that contract because I lied?” he asked, pointing to the papers we’d signed.

“It’s not a real contract,” I felt compelled to point out. That stupid stack of papers that I’d honestly thought would make me feel safer. Like this man couldn’t touch me.

He was Clayton fucking Rorick.

He could do whatever he wanted.

12

VERONICA

The short ribs were amazing. The salad was delicious. The cheese perfection.

My glass was never empty, and by the time dinner was over I was in trouble.

Not because I was drunk…I wasn’t. But because I was talking again. Talking to him. Like I used to. I opened my mouth and the words just fell out of me. It was a relief to be telling someone about Bea and Frank.