“Natasha Marx Stanton,” I whisper. He nods and gives me a nervous smile.
“Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” he says as he grabs my hand and kisses the back of it. His eyes searching mine. My heart has starting beating out of control and I think I have stopped breathing all together.
I shrug. “I would probably drop the Marx,” I say as I bite my bottom lip.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You would drop the Marx?” he questions.
“In an instant,” I breathe as my eyes tear up. “A millisecond,” I murmur.
We both stand still in silence, staring at each other. I wish I could freeze this moment in time. If I could just bottle this feeling I would. Then he is on me, kissing me like his life depends on it. His hands are in my hair, pulling me closer to him. “Natasha…I fucking love you,” he murmurs and the emotion in his voice nearly breaks my heart. This man is perfect and he loves me. Daggy Natasha from Sydney who loves McDonald’s fast food. He nearly rips my arm out of the socket as he pulls me towards the door and up the staircase. “I am taking you to bed for a very long time, Miss Marx…saddle up.”
True to his word, we have hardly left our bedroom for two days. Joshua has put himself on a self–imposed sex ban. I winced this morning at breakfast when I sat down and the look of horror on Josh’s face when he realised I was sore was priceless. I got the giggles, much to his annoyance, and he announced that we wouldn’t be having any sex for at least two days. Yeah right, I will believe that when I see it. He has gone out to meet up with his friends for lunch and Cameron has gone to the hospital. Josh tried to get Adrian to babysit me but I insisted that I need to get used to being at home alone if I am going to move here. What a joke…home alone. Birgetta is in the kitchen. Max my bodyguard is in the garden talking to two other security guards. A couple of gardeners are roaming about and there seems to be some activity in that room Josh didn’t want me looking at the other night, painting or building or something. I head down the hall to investigate. I open the door and am relieved to see that the workers are not in here. I walk in and pull back the curtains to get some light. This room is massive. To my surprise it opens with massive bfold doors onto the pool area. Another huge bar and stereo speaker system line the walls. Seriously, how many bars can one house have? I look around at the room and it seems…off. A huge space but only one leather lounge against the wall. This room is different to the rest of the house. What is it? I look at the floor and I realise that except for the bedrooms this is the only room that is carpeted. That’s odd for a room that I imagine would be used for parties. Hmm and I can smell wet paint. Why is it being repainted? A young blond painter comes through the bifold doors from outside. He is about twenty and quite good–looking. He is wearing a singlet and work shorts and he is tall, probably six foot two and very well–built. His eyes scan down my body and he looks shocked to see me. I look down at myself, oh shit, I’m in my swimmers with a towel wrapped around my chest. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here. I thought they had left for the day.
“Hello.” I smile.
He smiles back. “Hello.” Oh he’s English…I do love an English accent.
I look around the room. “Nearly finished the work?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Yeah, I suppose, just a patch–up job really. Not as urgent as I was told, god knows why it was a priority job.” Hmm, that’s interesting.
“Why was it priority?” I ask. This guy might just be dumb enough to tell me.
He shrugs. “Don’t know, my boss got a call from Australia saying this room had to be remodelled in three days and he is paying my boss, like, five times the quoted price.”
I nod and act uninterested. “When did your boss get the call?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know, last Wednesday night I think.” Hmm, that’s about the time Josh and I sorted our shit out and made arrangements to come here.
“So you have nearly finished the work?” I question. He smiles and nods.
“Yeah we just had to patch the ceiling and carpet and repaint the room.” My eyes flick to the patched wet paint on the ceiling.
“What was on the ceiling?” I ask innocently.
“Don’t know. It had all been removed by the time we got here, but there was some pretty massive holes where some big screws had been taken out.” He points to where the screws were. “And we patched the carpet in the same spot.” I nod as my mind races.
“You’ve done a good job on the paint.” I smile.
“Yeah, all five frigging coats of it.”
My eyes widen. “Five coats…why five coats?”
He frowns as if I’m stupid. “Black walls are hard to cover with white paint.”
I frown again, not understanding why this room would have been painted black.
“Can I help you?” Joshua snaps as he enters the room. His eyes scan down my body in the towel and I instantly feel uncomfortable. He throws me a dirty look and I shrivel under his glare. “I’m paying you to work, not chat up my girlfriend!”
“Joshua,” I stammer. My god, how embarrassing, this poor guy was just returning my questions, not chatting me up.
“Um sorry, Mr Stanton,” blond guy stammers in shock. Joshua glares at me again.
“I will see you out,” he gestures toward the door and poor blond guy walks out with his tail between his legs. I stand with my hands on my hips as I sum up the situation. So there was something on the ceiling. I walk over to the wall and notice four large indents on the carpet in a huge square. What leaves a mark like that on carpet? And then it hits me. This is bad, really bad. The only thing I know of that leaves a mark like that is a massive bed. I walk over to the scrap pile of carpet and pick up the piece that has been cut out. A hole has been cut with two screw holes either side of it. What screws to the roof and the floor? Think, damn it, think. Oh my fuck. A pole, the kind that strippers use and I know what’s been removed from the ceiling… mirrors.
This is Joshua’s fuck pad.
Chapter 28