Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(27)

I handed Stephan the phone.

I watched him warily but relaxed completely when Stephan began to laugh almost the instant that he put the phone to his ear.

“My pleasure, James,” he said, still laughing. He handed me the phone.

I held it to my ear.

“I have to go, but we have the photo shoot at three this afternoon,” he said. “Do you mind coming by my office before we go? Say, two thirty?”

“I’ll be there,” I told him. “What did you say to Stephan?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. Their exchange had just been too quick and strange.

“I told him that next I’m buying him a house next door to mine for making you laugh like that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to hear that joy in your voice, even if I’m not the one to put it there.”

My chest hurt a little. I struggled to find the words to respond. He was so terribly romantic, in a heart-wrenching kind of way. “You do put it there, James. I’m not good with the words, but just knowing you makes me feel privileged.”

He made a happy little hum of a noise into my ear. “There you go, making my day again.”

Words caught in my throat. I didn’t even know how to respond.

“I’ll see you at two thirty. Take care, Bianca,” he said softly, sounding just a touch sad.

“I’ll be there,” I told him.

He hung up.

Stephan gave me a pointed look. “If you don’t know that he’s completely in love with you, it’s only because you have commitment issues, and you are flat-out lying to yourself.”

I knew he had a point. Pretending that he didn’t return my feelings in some way was only my way of buying time. Time for what? I didn’t know. It was swiftly getting to the point that I didn’t even want to resist him. Perhaps it was just me trying to slow down Mr. Cavendish’s runaway train of a personality. One thing I knew for sure, though. I would do a lot to keep him in my life now. For better or worse, he was becoming essential to me.

“You worry that the S&M stuff makes you a victim of your childhood, but it doesn’t, Bee,” Stephan said.

I swallowed and he caught my hand, pulling me close, making me look at his eyes, showing me how serious he was. “But if you run from what you feel for James, if you would rather lose him than open up enough to tell him how you feel, it just may. I get that you have doubts, but I just want you to look at those doubts and tell me if they have anything to do with James, with the person that you know he is, and the way he feels about you.”

If it had been anyone else in the world holding me and lecturing me and speaking to me this way, I would have run, or withdrawn, or lashed out, but Stephan saying these things in such a serious tone, knowing that it might make me mad, knowing that I wouldn’t like what he was saying, but feeling the need to say it anyway, had a completely different effect on me. With Stephan, I just listened and tried to find the true answer.

“You’re right,” I told him finally. The way I felt wasn’t going away, and not looking at it directly was just another way I’d been a coward. “You’re absolutely right about all of it. I do need to tell him. He’s been wonderful to me, and I owe him the truth. It’s just the next step that scares me…and also, just how short a time I’ve known him. I feel like real love should take time, or at least, more time than this. I’ve been trying to make my head rule my actions, when my heart has so obviously taken over, but I feel how I feel, and I know it’s not going away.”

“Quit over-thinking it. Just tell him how you feel. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I’ve been doing that from the start, and he’s only tried to be close to me, to show me how he feels for me. I owe him my own emotional honesty.”

He stroked my hair, smiling at me in that way he had, like I was the most wonderful thing in the world—like I was family. I hoped my eyes communicated the same thing, because my heart felt it. “Yes. That’s all. I’m done with the lecture. I just thought you needed a little poke in the right direction. I don’t want to see you throw away something that makes you so…incandescent with love.”

I blushed down to my toes, because he was right, and because I’d done a dismal job of hiding it. James did that to me. He was so wonderful that I just couldn’t help it. And didn’t something so wonderful deserve a little leap of faith? Did I really need time to reaffirm something that I felt on such a profound level? My heart already knew the answer.

I clutched Stephan’s hand. “I love you. I have no idea what I would do without you.”

He nodded, smiling, his eyes so soft. “I love you. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, but I can’t hold you back. We don’t have to be neighbors to be best friends, just like we didn’t have to live together. This move will be no different than that. We’re growing up, Bianca, but we will never grow apart. I know you too well, and I know that’s part of what is holding you back, so just get that fear out of your head. You’re stuck with me forever.”





[page]CHAPTER TEN

Mr. Supermodel





It took me an unusually long time to get ready. I tried on a good number of outfits, making Stephan give me his opinion about everything, and changing my mind several times. It was a strange role reversal for us. Something about going to my supermodel boyfriend’s photo shoot made me want to look my best, apparently.