Dirty Rogue: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance(41)
“I’m not afraid,” he says, his voice even and calm. “I’m—I want you to be sure you can trust me.” He raises his hands, indicating the room. “That’s why we’re here. I want you to see how I really live.”
“Are you telling me you don’t always live in your apartment?”
“I almost never live there.”
I shoot him a look. That apartment was pretty damn nice.
“That’s…more of a crash pad. I spend most of my nights at my penthouse in Midtown.”
Understanding dawns slowly in my mind. “Wait. You have a separate apartment just to bring women to?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
I consider Christian’s face carefully. He doesn’t look ashamed to tell me this, and he shouldn’t be. He’s rich enough to have several places to stay. The crucial element here is that he’s being honest with me about it.
My heart warms, glows. He’s telling me everything, even the things that come off as a little bit unsavory.
This is the real deal.
“Well…as long as you can afford the rent.”
We both laugh at that one, and then he puts a hand to the side of my face. “You should know that I haven’t brought anyone there since we met.”
I put my hand to the side of his face. “You should know that was a smart choice, Christian Pierce.”
“Once you’ve met the right woman, everyone else pales in comparison.”
“Damn right.” I lean in and kiss him, softly, my tongue playing over his lips, then slipping into his mouth. “Any other secret apartments you want me to know about?”
“I own several other properties around the city. I’ll take you to all of them if you’d like.”
“But they don’t mean much to you.”
“No. They’re much like the apartment we were in together.” He grins wickedly. “The real action happens in my penthouse.”
“When will you take me there?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Okay,” I joke, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “Let’s go.”
Christian wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me back down to the comforter. “With dinner on its way up? Not a chance.”
Then his mouth is on mine, and I’ve forgotten all about being funny.
Chapter 32
Christian
For the next two days, I show Quinn firsthand what life is like at the Pierce Cottage in the Hamptons.
I start with the wardrobe I’ve had selected for her. Rosemary has arranged it in the closet of the guest suite right next to my room. Not that she’ll be sleeping anywhere but right by my side. This way, she’ll have a private place to dress and shower in the morning—if she wants it. Quinn spends a full fifteen minutes in the walk-in closet filled with clothes in her size, something for every occasion, from yoga pants to evening dresses. It doesn’t matter that we’re only staying for a couple of days. We can do anything we want while we’re here.
“You almost got it,” she says, running her hands down over a dark blue sheath dress that would stun at the Swan.
“Got what?”
“My style. Where are all the cut-off shorts?” She smiles at me, her sparkling eyes dancing, and I go in for a kiss.
After dinner last night, we soaped each other up in the shower in the master bathroom. If nothing else, watching Quinn thoroughly enjoy the simple pleasure of taking a hot shower, the water cascading down over her breasts, revealing her skin from underneath the soap suds, is a memory I’ll treasure for the rest of my f*cking life.
All day Saturday, I make sure she’s pampered to within an inch of her life. I hire the most exclusive masseuse in the area, who brings along a team of two other people to give us a couples massage in the downstairs living area. When Rosemary knocks on my suite’s door as we’re finishing a five-star breakfast prepared by Robert to tell us they’re here, Quinn’s eyes light up. “I never get massages anymore,” she says, beaming at me. “This place is heaven.”
When she’s here, it is.
Robert sends us meal after meal of meticulously prepared foods. Even the appetizers are a goddamn masterpiece. I wouldn’t expect anything less—he’s been with our family for a long time, since well before the divorce. I remember my mother sitting poolside, lifting each bite to her lips and then leaning her head back against the plush padding of her lounge chair, closing her eyes while she savored every mouthful.
That’s the image that comes to mind when Quinn does the very same thing in her lounge chair by the pool, reflections from the surface of the water dancing across her face, illuminating her exquisite beauty despite the shadows from the oversized sun hat she’s wearing. She laughed when she found it in the closet, but yet she refuses to sit by the pool without it, the canopy be damned.
Quinn stretches out on a lounge chair again midmorning on Sunday. The furniture has been replaced at least twice since my parents divorced, but the memory is still so powerful that I can see it right in front of my eyes. A stab of regret spears my heart realizing that Quinn will never get to meet my mother.
Or my brother.
My brother loved this place when we were growing up. The sun always made my head swim after an hour or so, sending me back to my room to read in the relative darkness, but he didn’t give a shit—he’d stay out by the pool until the sun set, doing cannonball after cannonball, sending waves of water over the sides of the pool. My father liked to stand at the grill, turning over burger patties and hot dogs—always cooking more than any of us could eat—and transferring them to a ceramic tray with a silver cover.