Come Together Read online

“Oh. Oops,” I breathed, managing a small laugh.

  He smiled widely and shook his head before swiping my panties from the floor. “Here.”

  I glanced down at his tented pants and then back up.

  “I can wait,” he said. “I don’t want our first time as a couple to be in a dressing room.”

  I nodded even though I wouldn’t have minded at all. I took my undergarments from his outstretched hand. As soon as I’d clasped my bra, he was crouched at my feet holding open a dress. I placed my hands on his shoulders and stepped into it. He pulled it up and zipped me from behind. It was a simple black dress, conservative enough for work but still trim over my slight curves.

  “You have one like this, don’t you? With the thingie?” he asked, motioning to the shoulder of the dress.

  I smiled, amused that he was at all familiar with my wardrobe. “The rosette. Yes, I do.”

  “It suits you.” He perched his chin on my shoulder and watched me in the mirror. “If you look like this every morning on the way out the door, then I’m fucked. We’ll never make it to work.”

  I turned in his arms and smiled up at him, running my hands over his t-shirt and under his hoodie. It was our first moment truly alone and able to appreciate each other since everything had happened. Things were beginning to feel right. He dipped his head, and we kissed, leisurely but purposefully. It was nice to kiss him without feeling guilty or like I’d been simmering with need for months. The kiss was perfectly comfortable.

  “We’re going shoe shopping next,” he said. “If I have to bend over every time I kiss you, I’ll throw my back out before I hit forty.”

  I laughed and rose on the balls of my feet for a last peck. “Get out of here so I can change.”

  David had given the salesgirl his credit card long before we were at the register, so I never even saw the transaction. Suddenly the woman was handing me three large bags, which David chivalrously intercepted, and we were leaving the store.

  “Listen, I have some work to do,” he said when we were on the sidewalk. “Give me your wallet.”

  I cocked my head but dug it out of my purse and handed it to him. He stuck it in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slid out a credit card and held it out. “I’m going back to the apartment. Go find a dress for tonight, anything you want, anywhere you want.” I started to interject, but he stopped me. “Surprise me. Find something you think I’d like.”

  I took the card and opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say.

  “Don’t say thank you,” he muttered. “It makes me feel like I’m doing you a favor. I’m not. Like I said, we’ll talk money, logistics, all that shit later. Just take this for now. Oh, and this . . .” His hand burrowed in his hoodie pocket. “These are your cards and keys to the building. You remember which apartment it is, right?”

  “Penthouse,” I said with a defeated shrug.

  “I know it’s a lot,” he said softly, “but we’re in it now. Might as well get comfortable.”

  “Where’d you get all this?” I asked, palming my foreseeable future.

  “I’ve had it for a while. I told you,” he said, touching me under the chin, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THE LAST FORTY-EIGHT HOURS played through my head like a movie as I walked to David’s, evening gown in hand. Things had never felt as simultaneously terrifying and clear as they did now. I wondered how Bill was and decided to call Gretchen with my new number when I got back.

  I was reminded that David lived in a hotel as I crossed the lobby, his apartment one of a few residences comprising the top floors of the building. Not to be outdone, he was at the very top: the penthouse. It was intimidating to say the least, but it also thrilled me. It meant views of my beloved Chicago from almost every angle.

  I swiped the card in the elevator as I’d seen David do. When I reached his floor, I stepped into the foyer and looked around. Various emotions rushed through me as I remembered fleeing his apartment months ago. Desperate to escape, I had run out in just the sheet from his bed and changed here in the foyer as I waited for the elevator. I blushed when I noticed a camera in the corner, wondering if it belonged to David or the hotel. Neither possibility lessened my embarrassment.

  I walked to the front door and halted there, unsure of how to proceed. I dug out the single key and flipped it over and over in my fingers, thinking, immobilized. My phone pinged.

  Nov 10, 2012 4:12 PM

  Coming in?

  I smiled and unlocked the door. Apparently the cameras belonged to David. As I entered, I received another text.

  Nov 10, 2012 4:13 PM

  Last door on the right before my bedroom.

  I took in the semi-familiar space and automatically walked the path to the bedroom I’d once run from. When I reached the open door just before it, I stopped and looked inside. He was in a swivel chair, nodding against the desk phone held at his ear. Behind him was a jaw-dropping view of Chicago’s skyline. He motioned at me to come in, so I draped the garment bag that held my new dress on an empty chair and walked toward his waving hands.

  “Sketches are almost finished, but I still need to meet with Greer about preliminary estimates,” he said as I settled on his lap. He kissed me quickly on the cheek as he listened.

  I judged by the two oversized computer screens, piles of paperwork and drafting table that I was sitting in his home office. In the corner was a display of flat screen security televisions, and I blushed again when I noticed the one that watched the foyer. I was thankful to see that anything beyond the entryway was not included. He winked when he noticed my gaze. I didn’t see anything to indicate a personal presence; no pictures, no framed awards or articles, nothing distinctly special about the office’s inhabitant.

  “Let’s set that up then.” He paused, covering the mouthpiece. “When should we go see your father? Can you get Friday off so we can make a weekend of it?”

  I bit my lip. My boss frowned upon taking time off, but I had plenty of vacation days because of it. I gave him a half-shrug. “I’ll try.”

  He removed his hand and placed it on my lower back. “Monday,” he said into the phone. “I probably won’t be in on Friday. No, it won’t be resolved by then. Monday then.” After a moment he hung up and ran his hand up and down my back. “How was shopping? Is that your dress?”

  “It was great. Thank you,” I said, pressing my lips to his cheek.

  “I’ve had a serious boner since the boutique,” he said with a sigh.

  I laughed. “Well, there are ways of fixing that.”

  “I’m well aware, Miss Germaine, but not until tonight. Good things come to those who wait.”

  “And those who don’t?” I asked, brushing a kiss against the corner of his mouth. He turned his head and caught me in a heated kiss, pulling me closer so his erection pushed into my hip.

  “You taste so good,” he murmured when he released me. “Tell me you’re moving in, and I get to do this whenever I please.”

  “David,” I started, placing a hand on his chest.

  “We own a house together, for God’s sake,” he interrupted.

  Oh, yes, the Oak Park house. I had purposely been avoiding the topic. David had bought my dream home on a whim because he couldn’t stand the thought of someone else buying it for me. Not two days into our relationship and there was a house involved.

  “You own a house,” I corrected.

  His eyebrows furrowed. “We, Olivia. Great as it is, that house means nothing to me without you in it.”

  This I already knew, since he’d practically given it to me days earlier when he’d almost walked out my life. “That’s way in the future anyway,” I said. “I still have a whole divorce to go through.”

  “Again, we,” he corrected. “I’m going through it too.”

  “Right, okay, but it’s ridiculous for me to go from being married to someone else right to moving in with you.”

  “What’s ridiculous is you paying re
nt on some shithole when you’ll be here with me every night anyway.”

  “Every night?” I repeated.

  “If you think I am willingly spending even one night away from you, after every night we’ve already spent apart, then you have no clue what’s been going on in my head the past few months. You’re my girl,” he said softly, “and I want you here.”

  I smiled and touched his hair, because I thought it was cute when he called me his girl. I thought it was so cute that I shifted against his lap again.

  “Don’t try to distract me. We’re having this talk now.”

  I pouted. “You’re a cock block.”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry, honeybee, I won’t let you off so easy tonight.” My insides clenched, and I wished we were already home from the party. I stood up and sighed. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s talk.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t think straight being that close to you.”

  “If thinking straight is a requirement, then might I suggest we do this over the phone?”

  “Very funny,” I said, moving to the couch on the other side of the office. I removed my shoes and sat against one arm with my knees bent. He followed my lead and after toeing off his own shoes, he sat opposite and extended his long legs on both sides of me.

  “I could get used to this,” he said, letting his eyes drift over me. “I look forward to spending my days learning what you love, what you don’t, and all the little details in between.”

  I blushed as I tried not to smile.

  “I want our relationship to be completely and totally open,” he continued. “Honesty, and the irony of this is not lost on me, but it’s the most important thing to me when it comes to you. No lies. No fibs. No telling me you’re goddamn fine when you’re not. Nothing.”

  I took a deep breath. It would be hard. I’d spent my life beating back the things that I didn’t want to feel. Telling Bill I was fine and having him accept that made things easy. Telling David how I really felt, whether it was mad, sad, happy, jealous – that wouldn’t always be easy.

  “Hey,” he called, and I realized I’d been staring off into space. “You hear me? No ‘fine’ bullshit.”

  “I’ll try,” I promised.

  He eyed me another moment and continued. “If Bill calls and tries to get you back, I want to know. I’ll be fucking pissed, but I’ll do my best to control it. Because I need you to come to me.”

  “This is a two-way street, isn’t it?”

  “What does that mean?” he asked, raising his chin at me.

  “You haven’t exactly been a saint through all of this. Dani, Maria – they’re gone, right?”

  The angles of his face sharpened, and he looked almost angry. “Gone. I have nothing to hide from you, and I never have.”

  “What about Oak Park?”

  I had him there, and he knew it. Even though the Oak Park house had been my dream home, and it had symbolized the beginning of a new future with Bill, David hadn’t hesitated to snatch it out from under us.

  He looked away and didn’t speak until his gaze found me again. “I’m sorry about Oak Park. The thing is, when I had you there in front of me and we were in that house, rundown as it was, I saw us there, together, as a couple.”

  I sucked in a breath. He’d seen it too. We belonged in that house; everything about it felt right. I remembered how deplorable I’d felt having that thought when I was supposed to be building a life with someone else.

  “I knew one day it would be real,” he continued. “By the time we were leaving, I’d already done some initial sketches in my head. We’d work on it together, move in, raise a family, be fucking happy. When you told me Bill had made an offer, well . . . it hit me like a ton of bricks, baby. I was shocked. I wasn’t going to give that dream up.” He was so beautiful when he was passionate, and I loved listening to him as much as I loved watching him. “I guess I had this idea that you and I would eventually end up together, and that sort of shattered it.”

  “You thought that?”

  “That was one time where I worried I was living in a fantasy. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I’m sure as hell not sorry that I did it.”

  “I saw it too,” I blurted.

  “Saw what?”

  “Us. There. Together. It scared me. I realized my problems with Bill ran deeper than I thought, and that . . . my feelings for you did, too.”

  “I always follow my gut, Olivia. It’s how I’ve done most of my business. It’s how this happened.” He motioned between us, and I nodded in agreement. “It’s why I bought the house,” he concluded.

  I extended a leg and rubbed the inside of his thigh. “Thank you for the home. I don’t think I ever said thank you.”

  He caught my foot in his hand and massaged it gently. “Do you accept the terms of the honesty agreement?”

  “I do.”

  “Next, what birth control do you use?”

  I blinked at him. “The pill.”

  “We need it to be the Fort Knox of pills, considering my plans for you.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “That was a joke,” he said. “Why do you look scared?”

  “Toward the end, Bill and I fought a lot about birth control. He was pushing me to go off it.”

  “Pushing you?” he repeated. “How?”

  “He wanted kids,” I said blankly. “And he didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t ready.”

  David’s eyes flashed with anger. “You think he loves you, but it’s not true. If he did, he’d never pressure you into something like that. He’s a coward.”

  I blinked at him again. David couldn’t know what it meant to hear him say that after all the fighting Bill and I had done over it. I momentarily wondered if I should elaborate on the subject, but Bill had exhausted the topic of children for me. It was the last thing I felt like discussing, so instead, I said, “It was definitely a sore spot in our relationship.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Last time what?”

  “You and Bill,” he said, swallowing.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just do. I want to know.”

  I sighed and looked out the window at the city. “Bill and I haven’t been intimate much lately. He was respectful because I was grieving over Davena, but he didn’t know, couldn’t know, that my feelings for him . . . changed. After you. Or rather, I began to notice how they were different.”

  “When?” he prompted.

  “We only did it once since . . .” I let my gaze drift back to him. “I’m sorry, isn’t this weird?”

  His jaw was set, but he said, “Go on.”

  “Only once since you and I did. And that was, I don’t know, a couple months ago maybe.”

  “Jesus. It’s a good thing I was around to take care of you.” His face fell serious. “But I’ll tell you right now, that will never happen around here.”

  “It’s been difficult these last several months. He tried, but I was cruel.”

  “Because of Davena.”

  “She was a rock in my life. My mom and I have never known how to be there for each other emotionally, but it was never that way with Davena. She and her husband have been family friends since I was born. We became much closer once I moved to Chicago though.”

  “It was hard, wasn’t it? Her death?”

  I blinked up at him. “Incredibly, but it was only a part of my behavior the last few months. Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I spent the next three months trying to forget that night, wishing things were different, wishing I could see you, talk to you, be with you.”

  He rolled off the arm of the couch and leaned forward. His hands fell on my hips. “Things couldn’t be different because they had to happen this way. I had a rough time too, but things are going to be better now. Trust me.” He reclined back, sliding his hands down my legs until he was holding my ankles.

  I nodded breathlessly at his s
incere words and at his skin on mine. “Next order of business?” I asked, afraid that I might dissolve into an orgasm just from our proximity.

  “Finances,” he said tentatively. “If I were Bill, I’d be pissed right now.”

  I nodded. “We have a joint account, but he controls it. I handled everything – phones, rent, utilities – but it’s all in his name. I have my own savings. It’s not much,” I offered, “but maybe I can get some money in the divorce. Although, if I’ve learned anything from TV courtroom dramas, I know infidelity isn’t exactly encouraged.” I looked around the office and over at the view. I knew the rent there would be more than I even made in a month, maybe two. After a few moments of silence, my eyes returned to his.

  “I’ll take care of you, Olivia,” he said, his expression trained on me.

  I blinked rapidly but didn’t respond.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I do very well at the firm, and flipping houses is lucrative. I’ve seen to it that I’m one of the top architects in the country. My sister and I each received a hefty inheritance from our grandfather. Between that and work, I have more than enough to take care of us both. And,” he said with a crooked smile, “a family, when it comes to that.”

  I shifted against the arm of the couch. It was the second time he’d mentioned family, and it made me uneasy. If I let my mind go there though, I knew I would blow a fuse, so I pushed the feeling aside for later.

  I should have felt excitement about being taken care of, but it only made me anxious. Remembering the honesty policy, I said, “I feel weird about it.”

  “If you didn’t, I’d be concerned,” he said, his smile still hooked at the corner. “It will take time to get used to, but just know that you don’t have to worry. I don’t care what you do with your paychecks from the magazine, rip them up for all I care. I’ll get you a credit card, and you’ll use that going forward.”

  “David, living off my paychecks without having to pay rent or a mortgage will be sufficient.”

  “Use that money for whatever you want. I’ll get you a card Monday.”