Until I'm Yours (28 page)

H
ow much bliss can one person take? It’s rhetorical, a question I don’t want to answer in case I’ve reached my limit. I’ll just keep testing the boundaries of happiness with Trevor. I didn’t know the world could be this bright, that sex could be this good, this meaningful. Every time we’re together, he entrenches himself more deeply, seeping through my pores. He has worked himself into my crevices, woven himself into the pattern of my life so intricately, I’d have to pick him out slowly and painfully with something sharp to separate him from the fibers of my heart. I didn’t know I had this in me, but Trevor has been digging around inside me, unearthing things I thought were for other women. Not for me.

“Well, that was fun,” Trevor says, holding my hand in the backseat of the SUV as we leave François’s atelier in the Meatpacking District.

“Yeah, that was supposed to be
my
fitting, but François spent more time oohing and aahing over those shoulders and that ass of yours.” We share a grin, fingers locked and caressing. “I knew François would have a ball with a strapping fellow like you.”

“I’m not sure I like the term ‘strapping,’” he says. “Makes me feel like Paul Bunyan.”

“That sounds about right.” I laugh.

“You should see my father. He’s taller than I am.”

“Good grief. How tall?”

“Six seven.” He shakes his head, a smile creasing his handsome face. “And my mom’s a little bitty thing.”

He hesitates, studying our hands before looking back up at me.

“I’d love for you to meet them.”

Gulp. What? Walsh is the only man I’ve dated whose parents I met, and I “met” them at birth. They were my godparents. I don’t
do
parents.

“Um…wow. I don’t know. Maybe someday.”

“What about Thanksgiving?” His eyes stay steady on my face, but I feel his fingers tighten around mine. “Based on where things stand with your parents, I wouldn’t trust you with a carving knife around them. Doubt you’ll be eating turkey at home.”

“Yeah.” I smile so stiffly it feels like a cramp across my lips. “Especially not after my mother’s latest statement.”

A reporter asked her about my involvement with Kyle Manchester fifteen years ago. Mother recalled me as “troubled” and emotionally unstable during that time. She said I acted erratically, abandoning my college plans and moving “on a whim” to Milan. She also added that I was under a psychiatrist’s care around that time.

Yeah, after Kyle raped me I changed my mind about college and saw a therapist for two years trying to recover. My mother
would
distort and use that information against me.

“Sof?” Trevor brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, luring me away from my thoughts and back into the conversation.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said so why not spend Thanksgiving with my family?”

“That’s in less than a month, Trevor.” I pull my fingers away from his to toy with a zipper on my skirt. “We haven’t been…well, we’ve only been…”

“Dating?” He leans forward, eyebrows lifted. “Is that the word you’re searching for?”

“I guess that word will do.” A nervous grin plays across my lips. “It’s just…am I really the girl you want to bring home to mama right now? I’m freaking notorious, and I bet your mother teaches Sunday school.”

“You called it.” He chuckles, taking my fingers back. “Every Sunday for twenty-five years.”

“You don’t think she’s read all the stuff Kyle’s campaign has said about me?” I melt into the leather seat at my back, shame slinking through my belly at the thought of Trevor’s churchgoing mother knowing all my exploits.

“I think she knows her son.” He tips up my chin, plumbing my eyes. “She knows I’m not a fool, and that I’m an excellent judge of character.”

“Maybe you’re having a lapse of judgment.” My harsh laugh cuts into the air between us. “I’ve been known to have that effect on men before.”

“What have I told you about comparing me to them?” Irritation thins Trevor’s full lips. “I don’t care who you’ve been with before. You’re with me now.”

Every time I think I can get lost in this thing with Trevor, something reminds me that he deserves better. Avoiding blogs and working from home for a few days hasn’t made my problems go away. And so far, no one else has stepped forward with allegations against Kyle. So it’s just me, hanging out to dry, making a stand that might not even do any good. That might just leave my life in ruins, but not fix anything.

“I want you embedded in my life, Sofie.” Trevor’s fingers tangle in the hair at my neck, telegraphing tingles across my scalp. “And I promise you I’m going to be embedded in yours. Nothing will shake me loose.”

He kisses me, sending his tongue diving deep, invading, marauding, taking his pleasure, all along the way giving me more than I think my body can withstand. This pleasure, this special brand of pleasure, is wrapped in tenderness, spiked with care, and lined with an emotion I’m afraid to name. Even when he moves to pull away, my lips cling to his. My hands hold his face so I can greedily take more, savoring him, savoring these moments because something this good can’t last. Not for me.

“We’re here, darlin’,” he whispers against my lips. “I just need to grab a few things from my office, and then we can head back to your place.”

I look at the Brooklyn brownstone I haven’t been back to since he left for South Africa. I know Harold and Henri are back. I’m still smarting from the disapproval that bloggers, Kyle’s supporters, and the media dish out virtually. I don’t need an in-person dose from Trevor’s assistant.

“I’ll wait here.” I reach down for my iPad, setting it on my lap.

“No, you won’t.” He pushes the iPad off to the side. “Come inside. Say hi to my friends.”

“Trevor, they don’t like me.” I swallow the hurt swelling in my throat. “Henri doesn’t like me, and I can’t promise that my inner bitch won’t show her ugly face if that woman pushes me too far.”

“Does she have doubts?” Trevor leans his arms above his head against the car, looking back at me unwaveringly, honestly. “Yes.”

I drop my eyes and reach for the iPad again.

He leans in and tosses the device to the floor mat, grabs my hand, and gently tugs until I’m standing sandwiched between his big body and the car.

“Do I give a damn?” He presses his forehead to mine, breath on my lips. “Nope.”

“Bishop, I don’t want to come between you and your friends.”

“Then let’s hope Hen doesn’t make me choose.” He clasps my waist, fingers splayed over my back. “Because she would get the very short end of that stick.”

Even though I don’t want to cause strife between Trevor and one of his closest friends, hearing that he would choose me is a feather floating in my chest. I’d choose him over so many things that have been important to me in the past. I can’t help but remember Kerris’s impassioned speech about putting the person you love before yourself because you know they’re doing the same. I realize for the first time that I’d choose Trevor over
myself
, and that scares the living crap out of me. This is as close to selflessness as I’ve ever come, and there’s only one thing I can blame it on.

I’m in fucking love with Trevor Bishop.

Only I would have this epiphany on a busy Brooklyn street.

“You okay?” Trevor studies me closely. “Let’s get this over with so we can go back to your place.”

“Um, yeah.” I paint a fake smile on my face, feeling it dry and tighten at the edges. “Sure.”

I follow Trevor upstairs to his bedroom, and can’t help but remember the last time we were in this room. I lie down on his bed, the divan cool at my back, stretching my arms over my head. Oh, if this bed could talk it would moan. My eyes drift to where Trevor flicks through a stack of papers on the desk in the corner, his powerful shoulders hunched, concentration wrinkling his expression into a frown. Even his frowns turn me on. The man fucks like a matador. Or maybe he fucks like a bull, and I’m
his
matador, waving myself like a red flag every chance I get. Provoking him to lust and want and…

I can’t fill in that blank. I had an epiphany on the street. Doesn’t mean Trevor did. I know he cares about me. But
love
? That’s huge. That’s something I’ve never considered. I had the artificial version with Walsh, basically an overgrown puppy love I should have shaken when he didn’t take me to the prom. But this? This is all grown up, all consuming, forget-what-you-thought-you-knew-about-love
love
.

It’s a secret I want to lock in my heart under a trap door covered by a thick rug. If there’s one thing Daddy taught me, it’s that love is a luxury people like me can’t afford. People with enemies. People with dark pasts. People with secrets. Love becomes a weapon, and I’m in the fight of my life right now. I won’t have anyone using Trevor against me.

“Hey, I think what I need is downstairs in the office.” Trevor makes his way over to the bed, running his eyes over my body, lingering on my legs where my skirt pulls up. He runs his finger from my knee up and over the sensitive skin inside my thigh. He dips until his lips hover over mine.

“You laid out on my bed like this,” he says, eyes wicked. “Is that an invitation?”

I bend my knee so that his finger slides higher, closer to the heat centered between my legs.

“Do you accept?”

He chuckles and taps my nose.

“You will not distract me.” He drops a quick kiss on my lips before straightening. “At least not here. Now when we get back to your place, you’re all mine.”

“Hmmmmm.” I flick my eyes up to the ceiling and then back to his smiling face. “You keep saying that.”

“I keep meaning it.” He gives me a wink before leaving the room.

I relish the quiet that takes over the room, leaving space for me to hug my discovery close. I love Trevor Bishop. Who woulda thunk it?

Approaching footsteps bring a smile to my face. I bend my knee higher, sliding the other leg to the side so he’ll see my pink silk panties as soon as he walks through that door.

“Changed your mind?” I lift up on my elbow, my sexy grin petrifying on my face when my eyes meet Henrietta’s. I drop my knee hastily, sitting up and pulling down my skirt. “Oh, Henri. Sorry. I thought you were—”

“Yeah, that was obvious.” She glances around the room. “I thought I heard Trevor in here.”

“He went downstairs to look for something before we go.”

“So he
is
staying with you?” Henri tsks, which I didn’t think people could actually do, but she proves me wrong. “I hate that.”

“You hate that he’s staying with me?” My hackles rise little by little. “Why exactly?”

“I hate to argue with him.” She gives me a long-suffering look over the round rims of her glasses. “In all our years of friendship, we’ve never disagreed like this. That’s what I hate.”

“What are you disagreeing about?” I scoot to the edge of the bed and smooth the skirt over my legs, the closest I can come to modesty.

“He didn’t tell you?” Caution slows Henri’s words and puckers her brows.

“Why don’t you?” I have a sneaking suspicion this is about me.

“If you must know…”

“Well, now I must.”

She licks her lips and straightens her glasses even though they sit perfectly centered on her straight little nose.

“In South Africa, concerns were raised.” She clears her throat, looking at me directly. “About Trevor’s relationship with you.”

“With me?” I press my hands flat to my chest. “What kind of concerns? Who?”

“Several of the Collective members who want Trevor to be the next leader are concerned about the scandals he’s adjacent to being involved with you.”

“Adjacent?”

“It means—”

“I know what ‘adjacent’ means,” I snap. “Are you saying that they would hold everything going on with me against Trevor? That it might affect whether or not he gets the position?”

Henrietta doesn’t look away from the insistence of my words, my eyes.

“Yes, I’m saying as much.
Others
are saying as much, but he won’t listen.” Her eyes travel from my leather knee boots over my skirt and up my fitted sweater. “He won’t see reason because all he can see is you.”

“Trevor’s a grown man.” I narrow my eyes at her. “A smart man, not to be led around by the nose. Give him some credit.”

“Oh, it’s not Trevor I don’t give credit.” She tilts her head, a nonsmile on her face. “He’s worked too hard to see it all go down the drain because he’s infatuated with some woman who can’t keep her name out of the tabloids.”

“Oh, you mean my salacious rape allegations?” Gloves off. Done with trying to gain this woman’s sympathy. “How very naughty of me, going off and getting myself raped.”

“It’s not the rape, Sofie. I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s all the things that keep coming out about you that have nothing to do with the rape charges.”

“It’s
all
about the rape charges, Henri. You know that.”

“But it’s your life. Your
choices
. Things you brought on yourself, and I don’t want to see them brought on Trevor.” She turns to walk out the door, but looks at me over her shoulder before she goes. “I think you actually do care about him. If you do, maybe think about how this will all affect his life when you’re done with him.”

Even minutes after she’s gone, her slimy words stick to my skin. If I really love him, can I put his needs before mine, even when it might hurt us both? When he walks back into his bedroom, holding the file he went looking for, and his eyes find mine, tender with promises, I’m not sure I can.

Y
ou’re quiet.” Trevor slides his thumb over my palm, concerned eyes on my face. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” I muster a fake smile. I hate being phony with him, but it’s a hard habit to break. “Just thinking.”

“About what?” He rubs my knee, pulls my head to his shoulder, and kisses my hair.

“About the Goddess press conference Friday.” The lie comes easily to my lips, only affirming that I am too false for such an honest man.

“That dress François fitted you for today is gorgeous. You’ll knock ’em dead.”

“It is,” I agree, the words barely registering. The only words I hear are the ones Henri dumped all over me at Trevor’s house.

The privacy partition rolls down, surprising me. What’s his name is so unobtrusive, I’m usually barely aware of his presence, but his eyes seek mine in the rearview mirror.

“Ms. Baston,” he says. “Clive from your building just called. There’s some work going on in the underground lot. Will you be fine getting out at the curb, and maybe Mr. Bishop can walk you in while I park?”

“Of course, that’s fine,” Trevor answers before I can. He loves the fact that I have security, but feels like I need it only when he’s not around. I think it offends his alpha sensibilities to think someone else is protecting me when he’s here. His protectiveness has only intensified since he found out about Kyle’s visit.

Trevor takes my hand, helping me step onto the SUV’s running board. He keeps my hand as we walk toward my building. Before we can make it to the entrance, one reporter after another approaches, until we’re surrounded by them, a shoal of piranhas circling us. All asking me the same question with one voice in a hundred different ways. I can’t make anything out until my brain seizes on one word from the furor of their interrogation.

Baby.

I jerk my hand from Trevor’s, turning wide eyes on him.

“You have to go. Bishop, right now, you have to go.”

“What?” He sticks out an arm, fending off a reporter shoving a microphone in our faces. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not leaving you. We’re almost inside.”

But not close enough. God, so close, but not close enough.

The last person I expect or want to see shoves her way through the crowd, eyes livid and mouth distorted into a scarlet slash across her face.

“Seville.” I barely get the name out, the simple math of them asking me about a baby and Esteban’s wife showing up here equaling disaster for me. And Trevor right here to witness it.

“You bitch!” Seville screeches, lunging for me, fingers extended like talons toward my face. Her nails rake over my cheek, leaving a trail of fire across my skin. Trevor grabs her around the waist, dragging her back. Panic tears at me, pulling at my seams, ripping any façade of calm away. Even as reporters block the door, hurl questions at me, I still try my best to calm her down.

“Seville, wait. I can explain, but not here. Come inside.”

“Explain?” Her heavily accented English sags beneath outrage and pain. “
Si
, please explain to me that you had my husband’s baby. That you killed my husband’s baby! Explain that,
puta
!”

“Baby?” Trevor’s eyes snap to my face. “Sofie, what’s she talking about?”

“Sofie, can you address these new reports that you were pregnant with Esteban Ruiz’s baby?” A reporter yells at me. “Is it true you had an abortion in Milan?”

I close my eyes and draw a shaky breath, hoping against hope that this is an old nightmare about long-buried secrets, and I’ll wake up any minute. But when I open my eyes, it’s still pandemonium, with reporters hurling questions and accusations at me. Seville is still straining against Trevor’s strong arms, trying her best to maul me. Trevor’s eyes still question me. I’m still a twig in a tornado, tossed madly to and fro.

“Do you know how long I have tried to give him a son?” Seville yells, tears streaming over her hollowed cheeks. “Fifteen years. Fifteen years I have tried, and you were with him what?
Months?
And you get my husband’s child? You took that from me.”

Her tortured cries grip and twist my heart. I had no idea.

“Seville, I’m so sorry, but I—”

“Now you have apologies?” Tears ravage her face, her hatred contracting and expanding with every labored breath. “You are poison in a man’s blood. A man is never rid of you. You spit on everything that should have been mine. I spit on you,
puta
!”

She spits in my face, and cameras flash. I can’t even flee the glare of what feels like a million lights. I’m stunned; a living, breathing affront trapped in this spectacle. I wipe her spit from my face, humiliation wrapping around my whole body, a vine winding from the ground and anchoring me to the spot.

“Sofie!” That voice penetrates the miasma of shame and horror enveloping me.

“Sofie,” Stil says again, her eyes set on me, waiting for me to respond. “Let’s get you inside, hon.”

Details filter in like light through a dark cloud. Stil isn’t alone. Geena, my publicist, and Karen are right behind her. All urging me toward my building. Stil grabs my arm and pushes through the wall of flesh and flashing bulbs. I look over my shoulder, seeking out Trevor. He stands in the middle of the mess I’ve made, Seville slumped against him, limp, weeping, distraught. I did that. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know my Latin lover was her husband. I didn’t know an ill-fated pregnancy would break her heart this way. I didn’t know the man I love would end up holding the bag of my folly.

The man I love. Our eyes connect for what feels like the last time. I stop moving forward, turn back to him before I realize it.

“Sofie, go!” Trevor shouts, pulling one arm from Seville to wave me inside, ahead. “I’m right behind you. I’m coming. Just go.”

“He’s right,” Geena says, speeding us toward the door of my lobby. “This is a disaster. Get inside.”

I’m galvanized into action, rushing to the entrance, my team insulating me from the questions, surrounding me, protecting me.

Clive holds the door open for us, his eyes anxious.

“Ms. Baston, I’m sorry,” he says. “If the underground parking lot had been done, none of this would have happened.”

“It’s not your fault, Clive,” I manage to assure him.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he calls from behind us as they rush toward my private elevator.

I stop and turn, catching his eyes, resisting Stil tugging on my arm to pull me inside the elevator car.

“There is something you can do for me, Clive.” The words queued up in my throat will hurt me like I’m cutting off my own arm, but they have to be said. If I love Trevor, they have to be said. “Take Mr. Bishop off my list, effective immediately. He’s not to be let up.”

I step into the elevator, a preternatural calm taking over my body, cell by cell. Now that Trevor is out of the picture, protected from the toxicity of my life, I can focus on taking that bastard Kyle Manchester down knowing that I’m the only one who will suffer the consequences. I swirl bitterness, rage, and indignation into a witch’s brew I plan to force-feed Manchester personally.

I don’t take my eyes off the numbers, lighting up one by one as I head toward my tower fit for a princess, even though I’m not one. Never have been. If anything, I’m the frog, and my prince is probably already trying to scale the wall I just erected, but he won’t be able to. I’ve made sure of that.

“Sofie, what was that you said to Clive? Why would you do that?” Stil demands, her eyes like lasers on my profile as I study the ascending numbers headed toward my penthouse. “You’re ruining everything.”

“No, not everything.” I harden my expression, freeing it from the pain soaking through my heart. “This time, I’m only ruining myself.”