Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(51)

“You can make my rent disappear with a snap of your fingers, you mean.”

“Well, yes…”

“No.” Natalie said. “You told me why it’s okay for you to buy me gifts, how it’s important to you. Well, this is important to me. I can see myself just getting lost in it all, like how I get lost in your books. I’ll just sink into you…your life, your home, your money. What happens to the rest of me?” She stroked his cheek. “You catch my drift?”

He smiled. “I think so.”

“This weekend was perfection and I’d love more like it. Not the fancy stuff necessarily, just more dates. Movies, dinner, dancing. You can pay for all of it to your heart’s content. I mean, even that sounds presumptuous.”

“No, that sounds absolutely appropriate.”

“But if I stop working or let school fall away, I won’t be much good to anyone and…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re a gift the universe set down before me, and I don’t know what I did to deserve such a treasure.”

“Stop right there,” Natalie said. “I’ve been marginally good all weekend about blubbering—only one total break down in a café but who’s counting? If you start in with your talk I’m going to break my twenty-six-hour-long streak.”

He laughed heartily and kissed her shoulder. “Okay. I’ll call you a car. You’ll let me do that, yes?”

She glanced at the clock. “I have a little time. You don’t have to kick me to the curb just yet.”

“In that case…” He kissed her again, this time with intention behind it. She felt a thrill surge up her spine…and then the security system beeped.

“That would be David,” Julian said. “Not the best timing, but I’m eager for the two of you to meet.”

“Does he always come and go as he pleases?”

“Officially, he works four days a week but I’ve long ago stopped trying to convince him to do less. He takes care of all the things I’m too lazy to do myself. He spoils me, really.”

They got dressed but one glance in the bathroom mirror and it was pretty clear how they’d been spending the morning. Natalie ran her fingers through her hair and followed Julian into the living area where a tall, lanky young man in his early thirties stood glancing about uncertainly. He wore a nice suit, if a bit rumpled, and his brown hair looked as though he drove a convertible with the top down. His smile stretched from ear to ear, but didn’t touch his eyes in the slightest.

“Hi, there,” he said, hurrying over to Natalie, hand outstretched. “Heard voices…didn’t want to intrude…Not staying long, just dropping off and picking up…I’m David Thompson.”

“Natalie Hewitt,” she said. His hand felt cold and dry, his grip harder than necessary.

“Pleased to meet you, Natalie. I’ve heard a lot about you from the boss here.” He glanced at their breakfast dishes from earlier strewn over the counter. “Oh darn. I didn’t know you’d have eaten already. I brought you a breakfast burrito from El Gordo.” He offered Julian a white plastic bag he’d been holding behind him as if it were a bouquet of flowers.

“Hey, thanks!” Julian took the bag. “I’ll save it for lunch since Natalie is abandoning me.”

David’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you’re not staying?”

“No, I have class,” Natalie said. “In fact, I’d better get going…”

“I’ll call the car.” Julian went to the phone in the living room, leaving Natalie and David alone.

Natalie glanced up at him. For the briefest of seconds she found David wearing a dark look, but then he beamed. “So, what do you think of Julian? He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Yes he is.” She cleared her throat. “And you’ve been his assistant for…?”

“Six years. Time does fly, though. Doesn’t even feel like work. We’re more friends than employer and employee.”

Natalie had the impression of a jack-in-the-box bouncing on its spring. She smiled faintly. “That’s…good.”

“Primarily, I handle his accounts and finances,” David continued, his tone more subdued now. “Wealth management, investments, that sort of thing. He has a trust fund, you see…”

“He told me who he is,” Natalie said, and felt a strange surge of pleasure at the look of dismay that flitted over David’s face.

“Oh, he did?” David ran a hand through his fly-away hair and laughed shortly. “Well, that was…impulsive of him.”

Natalie thought she could exchange “impulsive” for “stupid” and it would have more accurately reflected his tone. She glanced at the living room and saw that Julian was gone, perhaps to the bedroom.

“He’s never told anyone. Not in ten years. You must be very special to him for him to trust you with such an important secret.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Are you?”

Natalie balked. “Am I what? Special?

“Trustworthy?”

“Of course,” she said, rubbing her arms from the sudden chill that danced over them. “I only want him to be happy.”