“Well, I’m definitely not that anymore.”
He huffed a breath as if he agreed but didn’t want to and went back to staring. I did my best to match his stare, but while he studied me and thought of my plan, I studied the straight line of his nose, pointing like an arrow to his full lips.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a position at my company?”
“In transportation and shipping? That’s gonna be a hard pass.”
He laughed, easing the tension. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s boring as hell compared to sex.”
“Fair enough. I know you don’t need my approval, but I’m here if you need me. And you’re welcome here as long as you need a place to stay.”
“Thank you.”
With a nod, we finished eating and cleaning up.
Just before I walked into my bedroom, I called his name. I looked down toward the end of the hall where he stood outside his own door—only two down from mine. “Do you think my father would approve?”
“I think he’d roll over in his grave if he knew his daughter was taking over his escort business and delving so deeply into sex.”
My heart sank.
“But I think he’d be damn proud of your tenacity and vision. I think he’d mutter disgruntled comments to you while bragging to everyone about his business-minded daughter.”
Like the Grinch, my heart grew so big under his words I thought it might burst from my chest. My cheeks pulled tight into one of the first genuine smiles I’d had in a long time. The joy washed over me until it became too much and burned up my throat, looking for an outlet.
“Thank you,” I said, darting into my room before he could see my eyes gloss over.
With a deep breath, I held the tears at bay and fell back to my bed with a smile.
And when I finally drifted off to sleep, it was to thoughts of Corbin and fantasies of what the spark behind his eyes meant when he looked at me.
I wasn’t exactly sure, but the more I thought about it, the more I planned to find out.
Chapter Three
CORBIN
If someone told me a week ago that I’d be home before four in the afternoon for the fifth day in a row, I would have called bullshit. Yet, there I was. As much as I wanted to claim that work hadn’t been so busy, I knew the reality was because of the woman I knew I’d find inside.
Only because I owe it to her after the past six years, my inner voice tried to convince me. I hadn’t been there before and foolishly let Juliette send her away as soon as she arrived. Alec entrusted me as Rose’s guardian. The least I could do was show up now.
Yeah. Guardian. Liar, another inner voice sneered.
A more honest one.
I could try to church-it-up however I wanted to, but I knew being there for her as her guardian was the weakest excuse I could use.
No guardian watched their ward like I watched Rose.
No guardian’s chest worked overtime at the mere thought of seeing her.
No guardian woke up in the middle of the night, fisting his length after a dream of slowly feeding her his cock while she stared up with innocent and pleading gray eyes.
No guardian finished jerking off even after he woke and knew better.
What the fuck had Alec been thinking when he decided to leave Rose with me? If he were alive, he’d have murdered me at least ten times by now.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Rubbing a hand across my face, I took a deep breath, trying to expel the memories from my dream before climbing out of the car. I almost headed into the kitchen when sounds of splashing water stopped me. The back door of the garage was open, and I followed the sound.
As if in déjà vu, I found a woman making her way across the water with clean, easy strokes. I almost thought it would be different, except for when she executed a turn into a backstroke, her pert nipples, the same color as her name, poking above the water.
She skimmed above the water with utter confidence. She always had confidence. Hell, she oozed it. Not that I was surprised because Alec had been the same way. And I was just as drawn to hers as I had been to his. But hers came with something else—something that led me to believe it wasn’t as true as she wanted me to believe. Like, she’d pretended her whole life, and now it came as second nature. But I saw how the thin armor was barely shielding an innocence.
No. Not innocence.
Nothing about Rose screamed innocent. More like…inexperience. A curiosity. As if she stood on the edge of a cliff, peering over with rocks crumbling under her feet, but she was so desperate to discover what lay over the edge that she didn’t care. All she needed was someone to hold her tight and jump with her so she could soar. It had me edging, closing in on the edge with her, wanting to reach out and show her what lay on the other side.