Shopping for a CEO (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 7) (21 page)

I laugh through my nose, suddenly tongue-tied. “Just my usual. Naked in public nightmare.”

“Ouch.” He gives me a searching look, but one of companionship and acceptance.
It’s okay
, that look says.
Take your time. I’ll be here
. 

The residue of the discomfort from that other world persists, like an oily sheen on my skin. I want to talk about anything but the dream, especially when I am, indeed, naked right now. 

I look outside at the gorgeous spring day. “How about we have coffee outside on the balcony?”

His face goes blank. A pinprick sensation, a tingly sense that there is a misalignment in the room, washes over me.

“Let’s just stay here in bed,” he says in a clipped voice, avoiding my eyes.

I shove my hair out of my face and feel a thick thatch at the back of my head. This is no normal case of bedhead. This is, most firmly, sexhead, which is a physical manifestation of being well-thumped in ways where by
thumped
, I mean
fu
—

“I love how you look when I wake up next to you,” he says, his eyes tipping down to look at the top of his coffee. Shyness is endearing on most men, but on Andrew, it damn near makes my heart implode.

I’m going to need more caffeine for this level of emotional engagement and nakedness combined at 7:07 a.m. Whatever weirdness I just felt fades instantly. 

“I love waking up next to you, my fake brother.” 

His laughter carries across the room and out the open window, toward that family picture on his dresser.

“That felt a little porny if I’m your brother.”

“As if creating a clay mold of my cervix last night in class wasn’t inappropriate enough?” 

“It certainly was interesting when that instructor took your cervix and shoved the plastic doll through it.” He shudders as he drinks his coffee, his shoulders round and contoured, corded tendons popping out as he moves. I don’t need Netflix.

I just need Andrewflix. Twenty-four seven. I could watch him all day.

I shudder, too. “She seemed way too enthusiastic about perineal massage.”

His hand goes for my naked hip. “I don’t know. I’m not sure you can ever be too excited about that part of a woman’s anatomy.”

“You have an endless supply of frat boy lines.” I can’t stop giggling. He joins me, his deep chuckles rippling on the air, weaving with my laughter to form a cloud of contentment that fills the room.

“What were you really doing at the hospital last night?” I ask. We didn’t exactly, um, talk much last night after the childbirth class was over. In fact, I think my panties are still in the limo. Now that I have coffee and we’ve thoroughly reacquainted ourselves with every inch of each other’s skin, it’s time to turn to conversation.

“Board meeting.”

“Sunny said something about a cancer wing.”

He blinks fast, suddenly, and his neck tenses. “Right. Dad’s donating to the hospital. Wants to help bring new technology to the cancer center.”

“To help him?”

“To help everyone. He’s always had his hand in smaller philanthropic causes, but for this one he wants to pour a ton of his personal fortune into the new wing.”

“How do you feel about that?”

Andrew shrugs. “His money. His choice.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ask questions like this,” I say, suddenly feeling like I’ve gone in the wrong direction.

“What?” He holds my hand. “No. Nothing wrong with talking.”

“You seem closed off.”

“I do?” He purses his lips, eyebrows tilting down in an expression that’s not quite a frown. “I guess...I just don’t talk to people like this. It’s new.”

“Like what?”

“Like a human being.”

“You are one, you know.”

His eyes light up with mischief, little flecks of amber shining in the sunlight. “I’ll have to drive that out of me. Such a weakness.”

The heavy moment is over. I take a big gulp of my coffee and stay quiet.

He squeezes my hand. “You can ask me anything, Amanda. No subject is off limits.”

“Really?”

“Really. For instance, you could ask me about that family resemblance the instructor noticed last night—”

“Can we change the subject? You are
so
not my brother. Not even my fake brother. I’m an only child.”

“Lucky.” He drinks a big sip and looks at me. “You never had to compete for attention.”

“Nope. Just me and my mom.”

A shadow passes over his face. If I weren’t staring at him, I’d have missed it.

“Right. For us, it was just the three sons and our dad and our tutors and his assistant, Grace.”

“You mean Declan’s assistant.”

“She is now. But back then, she worked for Dad.” Andrew’s face goes wistful, the light stubble on his face the only manifestation of adulthood holding him back from looking like a teen as he remembers. “Grace was the one who helped keep us functioning after Mom died.” 

I look at the family picture. He looks at me.

“Have you seen that?”

I nod as I drink more coffee. A salty gust of wind lifts up and into the room, carrying my heart with it, lifting so high in my chest it seems to cry out as it bangs against its limits.

Crawling to the end of his bed, he stretches and grabs the frame, then settles next to me, holding it.

“She—” His voice cracks like a preteen’s. Having him sit here, post night-time lovemaking, drinking coffee in bed while going into the very vulnerable center of his being is a gift. I want to spend the rest of my life just sitting next to him. Holding his hand. Drinking coffee. 

Just
being
.

That feeling rolls through me with a resounding certainty that clears my mind.

“She what?” I ask, urging him on. This is like having a windowless room turn out to have an enormous skylight buried under three feet of snow that has just thawed.

“Nothing. Not important.”

“It’s important to me.”

The fluttering of his eyelashes as emotions fight against each other within him makes me ache for what his life must be like on the inside. Andrew McCormick, CEO of Anterdec. He’s a wheeler and dealer, the young CEO everyone is watching for his first big mis-step, eyes of the business world on him not in admiration but with a smirk, just waiting for him to screw up.

And here I am, in his bed, listening to him talk about missing his mom.

“She would have liked you.” His hand crawls under the sheet, seeking mine again. The threaded pull of our ten fingers intertwined like roots makes me smile. 

The stinging pain of unexpected tears and a protective tenderness towards him makes me inhale slowly, like discovering a new flower so beautiful you have to smell it. 

“I’m sorry I never got to meet her.”

He leans over and kisses my cheek, all while squeezing my hand. “Me, too.”

The picture frame set aside, he reaches for my coffee and puts it on the end table, then slowly, sweetly, makes love to me as if I’m his entire world, as if eternity were an unending loop of all that is good and right in the world and each time our bodies connect, we create a new universe.

Chapter Twenty-One

I think there is a checklist of Things You Do in a Relationship When You Live in Boston, and going to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park is one of them.
 

Except when you’re dating a CEO and a near-billionaire, the experience is a wee bit different from the masses. I’m standing in a premium suite behind home plate, after spending an hour drinking beer and munching on little lobster and sushi bites. Andrew’s company is hosting an event here for some investors in a new office building in the Financial District, and I’m arm candy.
 

I’m enjoying being arm candy. It’s a new role for me.

We’re here for a mid-afternoon day game. Being Andrew McCormick, we’ve come by limo, doorstep to doorstep, from the underground garage in his apartment building to a back door he walked through so quickly you would think he was on fire.

He is certainly in his element, dressed in a polo shirt and khaki casual trousers, wearing the requisite Red Sox cap. I am dressed in a too-tight V-neck Red Sox jersey that he gave me last night, especially for this event, and I’m learning something about myself as I make small talk with eight men who each are worth more than the Gross National Product of half the countries in the world.

I am pretty hot.

That sounds so braggy. I know. But coming from someone who has never based her self-worth on her looks, but rather on her ability to fix problems, this is new. Being with Andrew makes me feel attractive. Desirable. Worth the male gaze.

And this jersey he gave me is eating up gazes, all right. My boobs have never had so many conversations.

Most of them with Andrew himself.

He extracts himself from some scintillating talk about reinforced steel and snakes an arm around my waist.

“Nice shirt.”

“Someone gave it to me.”

“He has great taste.”

“He doesn’t know my size.” I tug at the hem to cover my quarter inch of exposed belly. All that does is expose another half-inch of breast.

“Oh,” he sighs, so hard I feel his hot breath on my cleavage. “He most certainly does.”

“Game starts in ten minutes!” someone shouts.

“Ready to get to our seats?” he asks my breasts.

I touch his chin and make his eyes meet mine.

“They don’t talk, you know.”

“If they could, though, they’d say really nice things about me,” he says with a smile. “That Andrew is so attentive.” He pretends to be my breasts, his voice shifting into a falsetto. “He’s so sweet. We wish Amanda would let him touch us more.”

I hit him gently, right above his belt buckle.

“Oof.”

“My breasts don’t talk like that. They have a genteel southern accent.”
 

He starts to put his ear on my cleavage. “This I have to hear.”
 

I sprint for the door, knowing that only propriety stops him from hungry-handing my ass.
 

We wind our way up stairs to the pavilion suites, where a wall of glass faces the ball field. One of the men in the group lets out a low whistle. I join him.
 

Andrew whistles, too, but I don’t think he’s looking at the ball park.

“That is a view,” I say.

“Sure is,” he agrees, staring at my rack.

“Can that glass wall open up?” one of the men asks.

Andrew tenses and answers, “No. We’re keeping it closed. It’s too humid out there.” While he’s right that it’s a nasty, swampy June day in Massachusetts, he’s not telling the whole truth.

“The glass wall does open,” I correct him. “This can become an open-air suite if we want.”

Andrew’s glare makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong, so I shut up instantly. My teeth snap together from the force of how fast I close my mouth. He doesn’t even have to ask.

Suddenly, this shirt is all wrong. Being in this suite is intolerable. I can’t be here. I give him a shaky smile and go back downstairs to grab my sweater, practically running. The suite is over air-conditioned anyhow, so I have my excuse if anyone wonders.

In the downstairs lounge, I give myself a few minutes to catch my breath.

What the hell just changed upstairs?

“Honey?” one of the female bartenders asks as she dries a fresh rack of washed glasses. “You okay? Those guys harassing you?” She gives me one of those looks that only two single women can give each other in a sports setting where alcohol is everywhere. 

“I’m fine,” I assure her. “Just, you know. My date is here with his clients and I needed a break.”

Her eyebrow shoots up. “Andrew McCormick’s your boyfriend?” She makes a
whew
sound. “Nice.”

I smile. “Thanks.” It definitely feels weird to hear someone call him my boyfriend. Andrew and I haven’t had that conversation yet. I let it slide, because I can. He’s nowhere nearby to overhear. 

“Have fun. Not that you won’t,” she says with a wink. “You’re living on a whole different plane of existence from the rest of us.”

As I walk to the staircase, slipping my arms into my sweater, it hits me how true that is. I zip up the cardigan and square my shoulders, pasting on a smile. 

The game opens just as I reach the suite, and all the men are lined up in their tall stools at a long counter, facing the glass wall. The room smells like freshly-popped popcorn and a burnt sugar scent. A quick glance at the counter reveals the source of that.

Caramel corn.

Andrew pats an empty chair next to him, on the end, with no one else next to me. “Saved you a seat.” There’s no trace of his earlier anger, which is a huge relief. As I settle in, he hands me a small cone of popcorn and we face the field.

Play ball.

As I look over the crowd at Fenway Park, an uneasy familiarity creeps over my skin. Andrew’s hand is on my knee and he’s avidly watching as the players get ready for the pitcher, the first inning about to open. Loud organ music pounds through the air, muted in here.

I’ve been here.

Not in this suite, but I’ve been here. At Fenway Park.

When Andrew asked me to this game, he questioned whether I’d attended a baseball game before. Other than once, in high school, I told him I had a vague memory of my mom bringing me to a game when I was really little. Or maybe my grandpa? I couldn’t remember. 

Suddenly, an image of myself as a tiny girl and the faint olfactory memory of peanuts transports me back two decades. My hand is in the warm clasp of a man’s callused palm, the back of his hand covered with black hair. He puts a baseball cap on my head and it’s too big.

His laughter rumbles and he’s hugging me, the vibration of his chest against my ear so loud. His breath is sour against my cheek. I look up to find his face surrounded by a halo of bright sunshine. I have to squint hard to see his face. 

Crack!

One of the pitches hits the bat and the shortstop makes a long throw to first base, barely beating the runner. Everyone’s on their feet, cheering.

The roar of the crowd.

A flash of sunlight and I’m blinded, except there is no sun outside right now. It’s a partly cloudy day, with no chance of rain, and no bright orb in the sky.