Page 20 of The Moon & His Tides
I studied the gorgeous, carefully cultivated woman before me, surprised by her transparent attempt to manipulate me. Not because I thought she was incapable of manipulation but because her words reeked of insecurity. For a woman with so much, I wondered how she could still feel so small. It awakeneda tenderness in me I’d previously only ever felt with my mother and sisters. A tenderness based on the heart-aching idea that I could make this wealthy woman’s life a little richer in ways unique only to me.
The lasso around my heart caught in Savannah’s small hand tightened inexorably.
I traced the line of one of her fingers on my forearm out of sight of Chaucer. “Well, consider me the shore, hmm?”
Her nostrils flared delicately, and I knew she understood what I was implying.
In this fledgling liaison between Savannah, Adam, and myself, I understood that I was the only one who would remain steadfast. Of course, I was. I had little to offer the likes of the Meyerses, and they had everything to offer me.
If I wasn’t so in lust with Savannah (and frankly curious about Adam), the unbalanced nature of our agreement might have been enough to give me pause. Instead, I assured my traitorous, overly passionate heart that I was entering into the dynamic with eyes wide open and emotions warily closed off.
This was sex and power.
An exchange as old as time.
If it made me seem like a prostitute, well, gigolos weren’t ill-regarded in my home country, and now, I understood why.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Savannah mouthed, raspberry-painted lips cutting the air into words I could read with my eyes.
Behind her, Chaucer shifted on her feet and delicately cleared her throat.
It was enough to stir Savannah into remembering herself. She stepped away and glanced with studied boredom at her glittering diamond Cartier watch.
“Chaucer, hurry along with Sebastian and then see what is taking the caterers so long to set up the platters.” Withoutwaiting for confirmation of her orders, she sailed out of the kitchen on elegant high heels.
I watched her go, noting the roundness of her pert ass beneath the skirt. When I turned back to Chaucer, she regarded me with a vaguely worried expression.
“I’m a hedonist,” I explained unabashedly as I adjusted the weight of my bag over my shoulder. “I enjoy beauty wherever I find it.”
She snorted indelicately, red curls shivering as she shook her head like a disappointed Italian mama at me. “You’re trouble is what you are.”
I shrugged because there was no use in refuting it.
She shook her head again and, without another word, turned to lead me through the open French doors at the back of the kitchen beside the breakfast nook. The flagstone patio extended from the house in an organic oval shape, then broke off into a pathway leading through surprisingly dense greenery.
“This is quite a garden,” I murmured as I took in the traditional English garden design and the antique-looking wrought iron furniture that made it feel like a fairy-tale kind of place. “Not what I would have imagined for the Meyerses.”
“Oh, Savannah wanted something a little ritzier. Trust me. But this was Adam’s mother’s house, and he refuses to live anywhere else while in town.”
Curiosity gripped me by the throat. “Oh? I think I read Adam’s mother was a countess?”
“The daughter of an earl who married a marquis,” she corrected automatically just as we burst through the garden into a small clearing where the flagstones encircled a beautiful oval swimming pool that was being decorated by three women with floating lanterns and bouquets of white flowers. “You needn’t worry about the titles or his parents, really. His mother passedaway ages ago, and he doesn’t speak to his father and his new wife.”
I wanted to ask more. Pump Chaucer for information until all of Adam’s secrets spilled between us for me to dissect and pick at. I told myself my curiosity was purely professional, but that didn’t explain why my heart picked up into a gallop at the thought of the darkly golden-haired actor with the slight cleft in his chin.
She stopped mid-step, Converse sneaker posed in the air, to suddenly turn and shoot me a glance. “Don’t hope for it, okay? I like you so far, and I don’t want you to ruin that.”
“Don’t hope for what?” I echoed innocently even though her words found purchase in my chest.
I barely resisted the urge to rub the pain there.
Chaucer was smart, and she wasn’t having any of it. “Adam is a movie star. He doesn’t have time for friends, not even his lifelong ones or his wife most of the time. So you can get it out of your head right this minute that he’ll want to become chums with the likes of you. You’re his driver, end stop.”
“You’ve read me all wrong,” I promised as I stopped beside her. “If I was interested in a Meyers, it wouldn’t be the Oscar winner.”
“If you think Savannah didn’t have a part in getting him that Oscar, you need to think again,” she countered, suddenly angrier than she should have been.
I watched, bemused, as she stomped through the manicured shrubbery at the left of the pool and disappeared.
