If the Shoe Fits (27 page)

Then Wolf blinked open his glassy, dilated eyes and caught hers.

She might be wrong about the extortion.

She was trapped in that glistening, infantile stare; there was nowhere to go when your own eyes were staring back at you… but deeper.

Bronte looked at Devon and smiled her new-mother smile. “See?”

Even though the dowager duchess had paid the socially prescribed attentions to Wolf over the past six weeks—the day-after visit to the hospital; peering into his bassinet while he slept on his two visits to Northrop House for tea—she had never actually held him in her arms. Nonetheless, Bronte had come to believe that Wolf was the link that would bridge the chasm between her husband and his thorny mother. Bronte had no delusions about being one of the links in
that
daisy chain, but she could do her part to help Max and Sylvia reach some sort of armistice.

Bronte slipped away with Sarah, leaving Sylvia and Devon to tend to Wolf. Max came over to ask Devon a quick question, then looked at his mother holding his son. He fought a moment of anxiety (he wanted to grab the baby from the unaffectionate arms of his own youth), then he paused and tried to let it go. She was holding him with unaccustomed care.

“Hello, Max.”

“Hello, Mother.”

“He’s a lovely boy.”

“Thank you.”

“Bittersweet Symphony” was playing in the background.
Perfect
, thought Max.

After they’d returned from their honeymoon, Max had asked Bronte if there were any changes she wanted to make at Dunlear Castle, and she couldn’t think of anything that would improve on perfection. Then, after a few weekend visits with the two of them hooked into their earbuds and reading, she’d asked if anyone had ever considered wiring the main rooms for sound. She’d met with the representatives from the National Trust to make sure there were no compromises to the architectural or historical integrity of the building, and then invisible wireless speakers had been installed in the drawing room, the morning room, and their bedroom. This afternoon, there was a mellow selection of contemporary acoustic music playing low in the background. Max looked at his mother and listened to the tender lyrics.

After a few moments, he asked, “Do you want me to take the baby?”

“If you wish,” said Sylvia, but Max caught the possessive hesitation.

“No. You keep him. He’s got your eyes, no?”

“I think he might. But babies change, of course.”

Even Max could hear that her concession was an effort to reduce her own unexpected attachment, rather than a contradiction.

“Well, I need to check on something in the kitchen. Just let Bron know when you tire of holding him.” He headed out of the room and watched as Sarah made her way back to Devon’s side, his mother smiling up at them. There was no point in wondering why Devon had secured his mother’s affection while Max had never been able to do so, nor why their respective female counterparts had elicited mirror emotions.

The rest of the afternoon sped by in a blur of family, food, and snippets of conversation. At one point around four o’clock, Eliot approached Sarah and told her matter-of-factly that he had offered to take Narinda and Abigail back to London. He knew that Sarah had hired a car and driver earlier in the week since Bronte and Max were going to be staying at Dunlear for a few days after the christening and wouldn’t be riding back into town with them.

“Seeing as there are only two seats in Devon’s car,” Eliot elaborated, “I’m sure he wants you, rather than Narinda, to occupy the passenger seat in the Aston Martin for the return trip to London. Let me take the car and driver with Narinda and Abigail, eh, Sarah?”

Sarah had a moment of terror—here she was trying to be honest and forthright and free and encouraging Devon to do the same, but the reality was that everyone already saw them as some sort of clinging pair. In reality, it was fine (heaven, really). In theory, it was horrifying. She wanted to run into the hired car and disappear into the mass of anonymous traffic on the M4.

Devon came up from behind her, loose arm falling around her waist.

“Perfect. I was trying to figure out how to manage the switch with equanimity, and now
your
Eliot
has taken care of all the details.”

Sarah thought Devon might have even just winked at Eliot. She felt like a parcel being handed off from one man to the other.

“Thanks, Eliot.” Sarah widened her eyes at him. “But, Devon, how soon are you heading back into the city? I have an early meeting with the architect of the new store and I need to go over some papers tonight. Maybe I should head back with Eliot and—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drive you back. No problem.” Devon took a sip of champagne as if that settled it.

I’m not being ridiculous
, Sarah thought, resisting the urge to stomp her foot.

“I need to go, Devon. You and I can catch up later.” Her voice was a touch more strident than she had intended, and Eliot beat a hasty retreat, leaving the two newly-beds to sort out the parameters of love’s first blush.

Devon put a bit of pressure on Sarah’s lower back and gestured for her to follow him to a quiet corner of the room, to stand in the alcove at the left of the fireplace.

“What is going on, Sarah? Why don’t you want to ride back into town with me?”

“I’m perfectly happy to ride with you, but it just rankles to have you and Eliot—and your mother, for that matter—talking about me as if I’m a piece of luggage. I can take care of my own transportation quite well.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t want to chauffeur you around. I want to get you back to my place and attack you.”

Her stomach flipped and she blushed, looking down at the beautiful parquet floor that formed a perimeter around the room.

He put her chin into the cradle of his palm and lifted her face. “What’s going on?”

“Look, Devon.” She tried to escape his gaze but it was impossible. As usual. She finally met him eye to eye. “We’ve seen the result of too much, too soon. Let’s just take it easy.”

He released her chin and smiled. “Fair enough. Easy does it.” He stood up a bit straighter and continued in a perfectly formal voice, “Pardon me, Miss James, would you care to join me in my carriage back to the city in one hour’s time or would you prefer to accompany Mr. Cranbrook now?”

She smiled and felt free again. Even though his formality was mocking and he still got what he wanted in the end, there was at least the pretense of free will woven in there somewhere. “I would be delighted to join you, Lord Heyworth,” she said with prim acquiescence. Then she smiled and asked in a timid voice, “Is that your proper mode of address? Do you have a real title?”

He reached for her hand and kissed her knuckles formally, then kissed the tips of her fingers and pulled away slowly. “I think my correct title is Slave to Sarah James.”

She had an involuntary surge of desire when he said it (perhaps all surges of desire were involuntary where Devon was concerned). The rational area of her brain thought that she should be enlightened and opposed to slavery, but the base, lurid, rapidly emerging part of her was quite pleased (preening even) to be the queen who reigned over Devon Heyworth. She envisioned herself lounging somewhere, partially clad, the Mediterranean sun streaming in from somewhere, a platter of fresh, exotic fruit, and Devon there to serve her.

“You are so bad,” he whispered, his mouth closer to her ear than she had realized.

Her chest tightened against the silky lining of her bra and her breath hitched. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked with fake hauteur.

He pulled away a bit, then continued in that deep, sexy, lordly tone of formality, “I mean, mademoiselle, that you are quite looking forward to my enslavement and you are quite transparent about your utter lack of regret as far as my loss of liberty is concerned. I come willingly into your dominion.” He ducked his head slightly as if he were being knighted. “But please be kind.”

“Do we have time to run upstairs before we go back into town?” She was nearly breathless with wanting him in that moment. She didn’t want to be kind either.

“Good God. You are going to be despotic. What have I unleashed?” He grabbed her hand in his and they slid out the side door at the far end of the room near where they’d been huddled together. Devon turned a quick right out of the room, instead of left toward the large formal stone staircase in the main entry, and guided Sarah into a somewhat confined set of stairs that led from the kitchen to what Sarah supposed was the servants’ wing of the castle.

They got as far as the first cramped landing. Sarah had been grabbing at the back pockets of Devon’s trousers, which were at eye level as he preceded her up the narrow stairs. He whipped around and took her in his arms. She laughed quickly and then his mouth took hers in a rush of nearly painful, hard kisses. She gave as good as she got, battling his tongue with her own, the strength and power of his mouth a challenge. She pushed him solidly against the wall, pinning him as he had done to her in the upstairs hall on Friday night.

Her hand reached for him; he was already hard and ready for her touch. She undid the button closure and zipper of his pants and slipped her cool hand into his warm underwear.

“Sarah, no…”

He caught the look on her face, her eyes a million miles away. Her tongue trailed slowly and methodically back and forth across her upper lip as her thumb mimicked the same motion across his tender skin.

“Sarah, please, I can’t…”

Then her eyes caught his. “I thought you were my slave,” she whispered in a raspy, mildly threatening, dictatorial voice she barely recognized. “Doesn’t that mean you must do what I say? My bidding, as it were?” She began to stroke him in long, languorous passes. “Oh, Devon”—she breathed the words, her authority slipping—“you’re so ready. What if I just knelt right here…”

Her legs started to collapse and he shoved her away, thinking he saw a flash of movement at the bottom of the stairs. He fumbled with the button of his pants as best he could, grabbed the softly laughing Sarah firmly around the waist, and dragged her roughly behind him to get her into his bed, or behind a closed door at least, as quickly as possible.

Ten minutes later, the two of them were a limp pile of half-covered limbs tossed across the down sofa in his bedroom.

“Dear God, Sarah. What’s to become of me? Would that I had never mentioned my slavery.”

“I thought I was a very kind master. How many masters get on their knees? I just want you when I want you, that’s all.” Her head was tilted back across one of the tapestry-covered pillows on the masculine brown sofa. She spoke with her eyes closed, her mouth smiling through the words. Her ivory silk blouse was untucked from her velvet pants. Said pants were unzipped and also in an acute state of disarray. “Look what I’ve become.” She looked down the length of her disheveled body for a second, then closed her eyes again. Happy.

Devon was not looking any better: shirt unbuttoned, pants at his knees. “Yes, we are quite the picture of impropriety.” He started to pull his pants up, then looked longingly at Sarah’s blouse stretched across her still rising-and-falling chest. “What time do you need to be at your meeting tomorrow?”

“Don’t even think about it. We are not staying here tonight.” She levered herself up onto her elbows to get a better look at him. “In that regard, I
shall
reign supreme. You will not drag me down into your world of imaginary jobs that do not require attendance or dedication.” She was laughing lightly, but he knew she meant every word.

“Just because I don’t attend doesn’t mean I’m not dedicated. Go finish packing and we’ll head home as soon as you’re ready,” Devon said.

Probably a mistake to call it “home,” as if it went without saying that she was staying with him. He had to be a bit more mindful of helping her transition away from Sarah James, Independent Woman of the World, to Sarah James, Better Half.

She gathered her luggage together and left her bag just inside the door of the bedroom she’d stayed in over the weekend. She went downstairs to say good-bye to Max and Bronte, and gave Wolf one last hug. Devon came back into the living room as Sarah was holding the baby close and cooing into the crook of his neck. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to keep to any traditional timeline of dating, courtship, dinners out—this woman had completely taken him into her thrall. The sight of her holding the baby in her arms, laughing with Bronte, oblivious to his stare, was almost more than he could process.

Max came up behind him and gave him a firm shove in the middle of his back. “Get ahold of yourself, Devon. She’s just a girl.”

“Right. That’s rich advice coming from you. I seem to recall the occasional moment or two of frantic longing in your pursuit of Bronte.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. We met. We fell in love. And we started a family. Totally uncomplicated.”

“Honestly, Max, I don’t know how long I can wait. I have an almost painful sense of urgency.”

“You sound like you have a prostate problem, for Christ’s sake. Where is my reckless brother?”

“Very funny.”

“Oh my, this is even worse than I’d imagined.”

Devon was holding the door open to his flat. The sun was setting across the Thames in crystalline splinters, reflecting in glorious, fractured bits of light against the glass walls, stainless steel surfaces, and blond wood that cut at right angles throughout his modernist apartment.

Sarah continued into the middle of the living room and sat down on a beautiful, angular though surprisingly comfortable Italian blond wood chair. “I feel like an éclair balanced on the head of pin,” she pouted.

“Exactly the effect I was going for.”

Devon dropped their two bags just inside the entryway and shut the door behind him, locking the deadbolt, then turning back to see Sarah in situ.

“What? The effect of a very round woman sitting self-consciously on a very square piece of furniture? I feel like a superfluous jumble compared to all this immaculate perfection.”

He walked across the (immaculate, perfect) wide plank wood floors and took both of Sarah’s hands in his, lifting her from the (immaculate, perfect) chair. “You are the immaculate perfection and everything else is a superfluous jumble, Sarah.”

“Go on…” she started kissing his neck.

He pulled at the back of her shirt, tugging it from the waist of her pants, and she raised her arms to let him pull it up over her head. “Don’t be fooled by appearances, love.” He slid her right bra strap down one shoulder in a tantalizingly slow gesture, kissing the bare part of her collarbone where the elastic had been pressed into her skin. “I want everything to pale in comparison to you.”

“That sounds good… what else?” She stretched her neck and shut her eyes.

“You are a greedy minx.” He kissed her again down her exposed neck.

“What is a minx, anyway?” she wondered absently.

“I have no idea,” he growled as his kisses trailed down between her breasts. “A cross between a mink and a lynx?”

The reverberation of her laughter came through to his lips as he kissed her.

She put her hands on his cheeks and lifted his face so they were eye to eye. “Sorry to distract you, but I need food.”

He gave her a crooked half-smile. “Do you want to eat in or out?”

“I think in,” she said as she pulled her bra strap back into place and picked her shirt up from the edge of the chair where it had fallen, half touching the floor.

Devon watched as she walked, practically topless, across the Spartan room to her luggage, extended the handle of her wheelie bag, held her shirt over one shoulder, and then turned back to face him. “So, where is my room?”

“You are hilarious.
Our
bed is that way, and
our
bathroom is in there.” He pointed toward the half wall that separated the living area from the sleeping area.

Here, alone with him, all this fantastic intimacy and the implications of eternal permanence were exhilarating, but the reality of, well,
reality
was niggling quietly but persistently at the very, very back of her mind. She liked having her
own
room. Of course she wanted to sleep in the same bed, but a guestroom where she could spread out her clothes and makeup and go to the bathroom… ugh. Maybe she was more like Letitia than she cared to admit. She had a momentary vision of herself as Scarlett O’Hara, pulling at the flounces of her nightgown and calling to Rhett from her bed that he was
now
allowed to come into her bedroom. She sighed and set her bag down in the very exposed corner of Devon’s bedroom.

Sarah missed doors.

She went into the bathroom to shower and change into comfortable clothes while Devon unpacked his bag, ordered dinner, and fired up his laptop in his small office at the other side of the flat.

They ate dinner at the marble kitchen counter, spicy Indian tikka masala and a couple of bottles of Kingfisher beer. After dinner, Sarah spread her work materials out onto the dining room table and spent an hour reviewing the latest cost overruns on the London shop construction. Devon wandered back and forth between his office and his bedroom, putting a load of laundry in one time, unloading the dishwasher the next.

Sarah savored seeing these little acts of domesticity. Devon Heyworth Does Dishes—the headline flashed across her mind’s eye—or Devon Does Laundry. She was smiling when he passed behind her and trailed a finger along her neck.

“Stop trying to distract me,” she said, ignoring him.

“I’m not trying to distract you. I just want you to remember that I’m here,” he said.

Such
a
little
boy
, she thought. “How could I forget that you’re here? I’ve had to read the same stupid cost analysis four times because my mind starts to wander, contemplating profundities like, how can he manage to look sexy while doing laundry.”

“Really? I do?” He smiled the sexiest damn smile that Sarah had ever seen—just like that,
snap
, right on cue—and looked down at his low-slung striped pajama bottoms and bare chest. “In this old thing?”

“Stop fishing for compliments and let me get to the bottom of this once and for all.”

He remained standing behind her back, spying the spreadsheets. “Do you want me to take a look?”

She looked up at him with new eyes. “Would you want to?” She sighed. “I’m reaching the end of my rope.”

He pulled one of the metal chairs away from the table and turned it around, the back coming up between his legs, his forearms resting on top. “What’s the gist?”

“I just don’t know where the money is going,” she admitted. “And the scheduling, even more than the finances, is making me so crazy. Why does everything take so long here? It’s like, if I want a leather sofa made in New York, I just dial an 800 number and two weeks later I have it. Here?” She barked a quick laugh. “It’s like, that will be nine weeks, madam, while we hand-shear the wool from the sheep that will be used for the batting, and another seven weeks while the tannery hand-dyes the skins, and then we will have the upholstery hand-sewn in our four-hundred-year-old factory on the moors outside of East Bumcrack. And
then
we will pack it into a wooden crate of the finest construction and have it hand-carried to you on the backs of our third-generation porters.”

Devon laughed at the image she was creating. “It’s not that bad!”

“It’s worse,” Sarah laughed over her words, picking up steam. “I told the carpenter last week that I wanted a half wall near the front door—to create a sort of entryway feeling—nothing much, just about four feet high and eight feet long, and I mean, that should be like a three-hour job, and the next day, I get in and he’s hand-sawing oak! I was like, what’s wrong with plywood and drywall? Seriously!”

Devon laughed but took the side of the carpenter. “Well”—he shrugged—“if you want it to last…”

“Oh! Stop! I want the shop to open! If it’s not ready by September, I’m going to be furious.” Her voice softened. “And in a serious financial mess.”

“Where are we? Let me see.”

He held out his hand and she slowly started handing him the sheaf of papers—the very guts of her business, the highly detailed financial reports that revealed every aspect of her company—then had a moment’s hesitation. She smiled ruefully. “I think I might be more afraid of exposing myself right now than I was the night we first met.” She held the documents poised in midair, then placed them meaningfully into his waiting hand.

“Sometimes it’s easier to give your body,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

And then he was gone.

His body remained sitting there beside her, but she watched as his mind flew away, clicking and cycling around the different documents. At one point, he reached for the pen and yellow legal pad Sarah had been using to take notes; he didn’t even look up from the financial pages, just took the pen and paper. He was completely oblivious to her mere inches away. He took the occasional note, marking down random numbers and dates.

He looked up, his eyes revealing nothing. He was a machine. “May I write on here?” Devon used the tip of his pen to point to one of the documents.

“Sure. I have other copies. Go for it.”

Then, with a sure hand, he began making quick computations in the margins of various spreadsheets.

“What are you doing?” she asked at one point when he was reworking some of her long-term projections. “Those net present values are—”

“Sarah.”

“What? Why do you sound so serious?”

“It’s not good.”

“What do you mean ‘it’s not good’? Thank God you are not a doctor because your bedside manner is atrocious.”

He smiled, remembering she was Sarah, then his eyes went dark again. “These numbers are not consistent. They are almost a form of pretzel logic, perfectly accurate within the self-referential world they inhabit, but they are not true.”

“I don’t even know what you are saying.”

“Who does your accounting? Are they totally reliable? Do you trust them?”

“Of course they’re reliable. I use the same firm that’s been doing my father’s company’s books for generations.”

“Is there anyone within your organization that might be, you know, skimming a bit off the top? Do you ever borrow personal funds against assets—”

“Give me those documents right now.” She grabbed at him and he held them back.

“Sorry. That was unnecessary.”

“How dare you accuse me of stealing from my own company. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s all…
mine
… why would I steal from myself?”

“You’d be surprised. It happens all the time. Shareholders want their shares and owners don’t always feel they’re entitled to quite so much—”

“Give me the papers. Now!”

She gathered up the reports, tapped them into a neat pile, and put them into a manila folder, then put the manila folder into the trim briefcase that held her iPad and portable keyboard.

“You might also want to have your hard drive wiped on your iPad and iPhone.” He got up from the table and went to the refrigerator and took out a beer. He popped the top and threw it out in the bin under the sink, then turned to face her, leaning against the kitchen counter.

She scowled at him.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“What?! You basically just raped me… or made me watch as you raped my company, and then you just mosey off to the kitchen for a refreshment and say,
what
? That’s what!”

“I don’t understand what you’re on about. It’s just numbers. Numbers don’t mean anything.” He shrugged again. “I was just manipulating the numbers. I wasn’t manipulating
you
. And it’s obvious that someone else has beaten me to it. Those numbers are compromised. They have been
raped
, if you must stick with that hideous analogy. But I’m the one who can help you
find
the perpetrator. I’m
not
the perpetrator.”

She tried to still the rising tide of anger that was coming over her. He was completely unable to see the link between those numbers and the very fiber of her being. “Those numbers mean something to me, Devon.”

It was as if he had been in a trance of some kind and then, in that nanosecond, snapped out of it. Her voice had cracked with emotion over the importance of those stupid numbers: the numbers that proved she was worthy of her father’s respect, the numbers that attested to her value as a member of the fashion industry, the numbers that validated her.

“Oh God, Sarah. I’m so sorry.” He was across the room and sitting directly in front of her in seconds. He forced her chair a quarter turn so they were facing each other, knee to knee. “I didn’t mean it like that. Of course they represent everything important and meaningful.”

She wiped viciously at a stupid tear that was trailing down her left cheek.

He kissed her wet lashes. “Please forgive me. I’m a robot… a machine… I’m a brute.”

She swallowed and tried to explain, as much as she could explain what she barely understood herself. “We don’t need to get into any Freudian claptrap, but my company is really,
really
important to me, Devon. My father has basically ignored me for the past fourteen years, since my mother died, and this business is the one way—” She coughed or choked, she wasn’t sure which.

He held her hands in his, rubbing her knuckles with his thumbs, trying to massage away her worry or sadness, whatever it was. “It’s okay, love. You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

“I want to,” she whispered, “but I just can’t—” She felt the pressure of impending tears throb against the back of her eyeballs as her throat seized and silent tears slid down her cheeks.

She felt so vulnerable. So exhausted. It wasn’t as if he was telling her something she hadn’t been suspecting for months—she’d hired a forensic accountant months ago—but the fact that Devon could glance over the most complex reports and come to that conclusion in a matter of minutes somehow reduced all of her hard work to something foolish. Trite.

He was so lost. Devon had no idea how to navigate a proper relationship. He’d never cared about anyone the way he cared about her, and still he was an ass. He reached his hands up to her cheeks. “Sarah.” He kissed her, trying to take away her sadness, her need for anyone’s approval. At the height of desperate arrogance, he wanted to shake her and say,
But
you
don’t need any of that anymore now that you have
me
!
He’d offer to take a swing at her father if he could negotiate that into the bargain.

She pulled away slightly, looking into his eyes. “I’m so tired all of a sudden, Dev. I know you meant well, and we can talk about it, maybe, in the morning. But for now, can we just go to bed… to sleep?”

“Of course.”

He helped her up from her seat, holding her protectively against his body. He hit the main light switch that turned out all the lights in the central part of the apartment and guided her across the loft toward his enormous, spotless white bed that appeared to float over the bare, blond wood floor. Like everything else in his world, the bed appeared cool and uninviting at first glance, but once she slipped between the sheets, Sarah thought the mattress and the linens might be the most luscious she had ever felt. Devon undressed her like he would a toddler, untying the drawstring waist of her pajama pants, then sliding them off, and then carefully unbuttoning the front placket of his white Oxford shirt that she had purloined from the back of the bathroom door and put on after her shower. The Egyptian cotton sheets were like cool velvet against her bare skin. She moaned in grateful relief.