Manwhore +1 (35 page)

Without a call.

Without a text.

Without any kind of forewarning . . .

I head to M4.

Saint asked me to come to him, but the truth is, I need to. I just need to look at him and be inspired by all that strength of his and maybe, I just need to hear him tell me everything will be all right.

I’m leaving the old me behind at
Edge
.

I’m leaving all my mistakes.

I’m leaving the scared girl behind.

This is me taking the leap.

And I need to know that he won’t let his father goad him any farther, that he won’t be acquiring
Edge
.

Because Malcolm Saint has done enough for me.

I’d let him do anything else now, I realize, because I
trust
him—he can love me, protect me, help me—but not go to war over me.

At reception, the ladies are surprised to see me—but I can tell they’ve seen the social media. They know I’m the “girlfriend” now.

“Miss Livingston, what a surprise,” one says. “I’m sure Mr. Saint will be pleased—if you’ll let me ring you up?”

I thank her and then head up in the elevator.
Breathe, Rachel.

Catherine is already on her feet when I get off, also a bit flustered by the surprise visit. “He’s with some of his board, if you’ll just take a seat for a moment.” I smile weakly and grip the M in my fist, tugging it and rubbing it against the R.

As I wait, I listen to his four assistants take calls and type on their keyboards. I smooth my skirt down my thighs when the door to his office opens and a pack of businessmen emerge.

They’re all screaming confidence and power. “Good day, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Thompson,” Catherine calls to the businessmen as they head to the elevators.

And then I hear
his
voice from within the room. It’s so deep—familiar—I feel it like a low hum, vibrating in the deepest part of my body.

“He should’ve known if he wanted to play hardball, I’d be game. I’d strike a home run before he even realized he made a mistake throwing a ball my way,” he says decidedly to the man with him. Then he spots me and lifts his eyebrows and the ruthless smile he’s wearing—the one directed at the person he means to crush—starts to fade when he sees me sitting here, my eyes maybe a little red as I struggle not to show how crestfallen I feel.

“We’ll settle this once and for all tomorrow at two,” he tells the businessman in a lower voice.

The man nods and leaves. My gaze is caught—my heart is frozen—as Saint slowly stalks forward. Directly toward me. He takes me gently by the arm as I stand, and leads me to his office, and I know by his gentle but firm grip that
he
knows I’m not okay.

Inside his office, he pulls me into his arms, tells me, “Breathe.”

I grip his tie and nod.

“You came to me,” he groans then, in my ear, as if that thought undoes him.

“Always,” I whisper, still gripping his tie.

“Mr. Saint,” his intercom beeps. “Your one o’clock just arrived?”

I watch him walk with that confident stride of his to his desk as I try to hold myself together. With a press of a finger, he tells her, “Reschedule. I’m going to need an hour.”

I shake my head. “Don’t, really. I’m all right. I just came to let you know . . . I’m out. I leapt.”

I spread my arms out and turn to stare out his window, not sure how I feel about my next words.
Scared? Hopeful?

“I’m a free agent.”

“Then turn around and look at me, Rachel,” he whispers.

Hearing the raw emotion in his voice, I turn.

Holding my gaze with fierce intensity, he lifts the phone on his desk and dials a number. “We back down,” he says, and then, he hangs up, very slowly.
Click.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I admit. “I just wanted to . . .”

“Know that I kept my promise,” he finishes.

“Yes, but . . . no. I wanted to see you, Saint. I always want to see you when I’m happiest, or saddest, or . . . I just always want to see you.”

I watch a dozen emotions skid through his eyes. “I’m here for you, Rachel.”

“I know,” I say. And for the first time I believe it, 100 percent.

Maybe no man has ever been there for me before. No father, brother, boyfriend, and now, I believe Malcolm Saint is here for me because he wants to be. My chest hurts with love.

“So you just backed out?”

“That’s right.” He shrugs dismissively. “There’s a binding agreement running through the auction, legally binding the winner to go through with the purchase. The bragging rights will cost him a fortune.”

My body’s shaking. I didn’t realize, in my haste to come here, that when I dumped my old stuff outside of
Edge
, I also dumped my sweater.
Really Livingston?!
The air-conditioning is blasting as high as these top business corporations always keep it. I’m shivering so much the last part of what I say is through clenched teeth.

“I know you said I could work at M4 but—”

“But you’re right, it’s not ideal for us,” he quietly admits, eyes probing me in silence. “I won’t be holding you back, Rachel. Tying you down where you’re not happy.”

My teeth chatter. “You know my reasons are because I want us . . . more. I’m going to start freelancing . . .” I stop talking when he crosses his office to a familiar, pristine white, smooth space on the wall.

With a tap, he opens the hidden closet and takes out a jacket. “Here.”

“I don’t . . .” He puts it over my shoulders and the brush of his fingers on the back of my neck triggers a tremor down my spine. “Saint, don’t,” I say. I’m afraid that his touch is going to make me crumble from the inside out.

His eyes look liquid on me as he touches the R and the M necklace resting at the base of my throat. “What happened to Malcolm?” he teases me.

I can see he’s trying to make me happy and it makes me love him all the more.

“Malcolm,” I then say, with a smile. His eyes go liquid with heated tenderness as he takes my hand. “Come with me now.”

“I’m sorry you had to butt heads with your father for me,” I tell him as we board the elevator.

We stop one floor down, and Saint tells the pair of businessmen about to board, “Take the next one,” and they instantly retreat.

He looks at me once we’re alone again. “You grew up without a father. In your mind, he would’ve cared for you, appreciated you, he would’ve talked to you. I
had
a father, but every time I threw a ball, he threw it farther just to show me how short my range was. Every time I built something, he smashed it in the simplest way he could, to show me all the flaws in my plans. Not all fathers lift you up. Some stick their foot out to trip you.” He speaks without inflection, as if it’s only a fact of life. “In the beginning, you try harder just to show him that you can. Then, you do it to prove to
yourself
that you can. Until there comes a day when you simply do things because you can. I’m not doing this for my father. I wasn’t backing
Edge
.”

He opens a room on the eleventh floor. “I was backing you, Rachel.”

I glance around at a dozen computers, high-tech equipment, the offices in the corners. It looks like a . . . newsroom.

“This is where Interface started. Before we went corporate. When it was just an idea, the start.” He signals around, and as I take in the impressive room, I feel him eyeing me with a gaze that is both achingly gentle and silently contemplative. “So you see, it’s standing here . . . just waiting for another great idea. Another great start.”

As I look at all of the high-tech computers and chrome desks, I have a déjà vu moment of the time he took me to the Interface building and kissed the
fuck
out of me.

“You can take this floor.
Yours
,” he emphasizes. “I’ll fund your start. You can build your own team. Your board. You’ll make the choices. And you’ll give yourself the platform you need to write whatever it is you want to write.”

He looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and hope, as if he wants to see me smile, as if he’s hoping this will be it.

“You’d have more responsibilities than writing, true. But you’re smart, you can bring in your team. If you get stuck, I’m sure you’ll think of someone who can help you. You can build your own
Bluekin
. Even better.”

His stare is so admiring and respectful and loving, I can’t breathe.

Oh.

God.

Epic love. This is it. Want it or not. Do you take the leap? Do you take it?

Saint did. He believes I can do something more than what I do—he believes he can give me freedom and help me build a platform to see me soar.

My eyes water a little and I duck my head and try to wipe a tear. He reaches for me. He puts one hand on my face, forcing my gaze to stay on him.

I feel a pull of heat in my belly.

“Let me give you this.” His eyes are completely mine, but at the same time, they swallow me. I’ve never felt his energy so powerfully wrapped around mine. Have never seen such pure, undiluted, raw emotion in his eyes. My chest hurts.

“You don’t know how much I admire you, Rachel.” His eyes glow with the force of his emotions. “How you care for others. For me. I appreciated your words before, but this . . .” He takes something out of his pocket, and I hold my breath when I recognize the magazine cover for the article I wrote. “This was very brave, Rachel. Putting yourself out there like that for me. This was a leap on its own. You’re right.” He lifts it up for me to see, then sets it aside on a nearby desk and starts coming forward. “It was our story, but not our entire story. It was only the beginning.”

I cry freely now. “I love you, Malcolm.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes, really.”

He frames my jaw in wide, warm hands, tilting me to his line of sight as he dries my face. “The first time I heard it, I couldn’t think of anything else. Even when all the shit came down, I’d think of those three words. I’ve loved you for a while, Rachel. All the fortune I’ve amassed and I’d never wanted to lay it out there for someone the way I want to lay it out there for you.

“You wanted your world to go still, stand still with me. I may be thirsty, ambitious; I’ll charge out there, but this . . . what we have. Let’s stand still here, you and me.”

My throat closes when I remember what I told him before. I’ve never been held like this by anyone else. I’ve never had a man’s arms around me in comfort, making me feel so utterly safe. I never imagined that I could stand in the middle of the storm that is Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint, and truly feel like my world is finally becoming still.

His smile.

His. Damn. Smile.

I forget its effect on me.

My stomach is in a wild swirl.

“Malcolm,” breathlessly, I stare. “You’d do this for me?”

“I’d do more.”

A silence full of meaning falls between us. I want to say so many things but I can’t find my precious words. His actions won over this time, for real.

“I love you, Malcolm.”

“And I love you, Rachel. Very much.”

My throat closes. “Hold me for a hot second.”

He already is holding me as he whispers, “I’ll hold you for four.” Then, in my ear, he adds gruffly, “Go home and think about this—”

“Yes,” I cut him off, and this time it’s me who grabs him by the collar and kisses the fuck out of him.

“I’ve got to get back to work. Let me take you to dinner?” he asks me.

“I’ve used up all my no’s with you,” I say quietly, kissing him as I speak.

He kisses me as he speaks too, voice husky with male pride. “So it’s another yes.”

“Definitely.”

“Not good enough, Rachel. Say it.”

I laugh. “Yes, greedy man. You freaking woman-wizard. Yes, yes
yes
!”

That evening I call my ex-coworkers and tell them if they’re leaving
Edge
—I want them with me. I’m having lunch with a few of them next week, including Valentine and Sandy. Then I talk to Gina and we call Wynn.

“Rachel!” is all Wynn can say. “I’m . . .”

“Speechless, I know. This dude leaves me speechless all the fucking time now,” Gina jumps in to say.

I sit here speechless too, or rather wordless, feeling warm and fuzzier than my socks. They’re both getting hung up on the fact that he’s supporting me and my dreams. I’m hung up on the fact that—despite his upbringing, loving his variety in women and business ventures, and the fact that it seemed fairly impossible to do—I’m very, very sure that Saint loves me.

When Malcolm arrives, I’m wearing a little black dress and ballet flats, my hair down and hardly any lipstick.

The door of his Pagani Huayra flies open, and he holds my hand as I slip inside, and soon we’re speeding off.

“Hey,” I ask. “How was your day?”

“Good now.”

He reaches out to give me a brief, but delish corner kiss, and I reach out to take his hand after he changes gears, leaving it there.

We go to a private room at a five-star restaurant called Tableau. Behind a set of velvet curtains, we’re alone, just Sin and I, talking about today. I guess I’m the one talking the most, but he’s listening to me like he always does with a charmed amusement that spears into my heart and melts me.