Page 12 of Breaking the Rules
“I think if I explain my motivations, it will be easier for you to accept that I’m back and maybe even support my efforts.”
They both watched him suspiciously. He passed a loaf of fresh bread around. Kate made a grab for the bread, but Marisol looked at him like she sensed a trap.
“I plan to help Waverly out of whatever trouble she’s gotten herself into and then I’m going to marry her.”
Kate choked on a gulp of beer, sending a fine spray of it across the table in all directions. As she gasped for breath and reached blindly for her napkin, Marisol didn’t take her dark eyes off of him.
“I imagine, Mari, you’re wondering how serious I am,” Xavier continued on conversationally. He pulled the small box out of his pocket and put it on the table between the two women.
Kate stared at it as if it was a rattlesnake. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Xavier shrugged one shoulder. “Open it.”
Kate grabbed it and opened it. “Holy mother of bling.” She gaped at the ring and made Xavier feel even more confident in his choice. The cushion cut, all four carats of it, winked at them in the candlelight, as did the diamonds lining the thin band.
“I don’t care how long it takes or how long I have to wait out her feelings for Dante Wrede. He doesn’t deserve her. I don’t deserve her, either, but I’m the one who will spend the rest of my life trying to.” Xavier speared a piece of fish with his fork and stared both women down. “And I’ll do it with or without your help.”
Marisol looked at him for a long, silent beat and then nodded. “It is good you’ve finally come to your senses.”
“Good luck,” Kate said, chancing another sip of beer. “Even with a ring like that, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
He didn’t doubt it.
Xavier insisted on clearing the table since it was Marisol’s last night with them, and when she and Kate wandered off to their respective rooms, he plated up the last piece of chocolate torte and carried it up the stairs.
He rapped lightly at her door and heard a quiet “Come in.”
He found her propped up on pillows against the headboard of the gigantic bed. The bed faced the patio and the doors were open wide. The sheer curtains billowed inward on the night breeze. Behind the bed, a wall of stone carried the eye upward to the high, pitched ceiling and its white timber rafters. Waverly’s face was as pale as the white duvet she lounged on. When she saw him, she slammed her laptop closed. “You didn’t use your Invictus knock,” she accused him.
Xavier grinned. “So you do remember, even though our ‘time together was so short,’” he said, turning her words back on her. Xavier and all of his staff in every Invictus location knocked the same way. One hard rap followed by two short taps and Waverly had once asked him about it. A long time ago.
“You disguised your knock to get into my room. That’s cheap.”
He’d been right about her energy. She seemed even more tired now after spending the whole afternoon and evening resting in her room. She hadn’t even thrown anything at him yet.
“I didn’t want you to miss out on everything from dinner,” he said, pulling the plate from behind his back.
“I’m not hung—” She spotted the plate and stopped mid-complaint.
“Chocolate torte from a bakery down the road,” he said, waving it in front of her face like a bouquet of flowers.
He saw her hands clench the light blanket that covered her legs. “How about I leave it here?” he offered, placing the plate next to her on the duvet. “Then you can eat it without shame when I leave.”
“Oh, you’re leaving? Gee, what a pity.”
“I’m leaving your bedroom to go downstairs and unpack in mine. Unless, of course, you’d like me to stay here.” He tested his luck and sat on the mattress facing her. The bed’s arched headboard rose above her, dwarfing her and making her look fragile, as did the dark circles under her eyes that looked like bruises.
He brought his palm to her forehead, and she gave him an annoyed look as he felt for fever.
“I’m not sick, and I’m not stupid. And you’re not welcome in my room. Chocolate or no chocolate.”
“You look like you’re exhausted. You’ve been lounging around on a beach for five days, and you look like you got hit by a car at the end of a triathlon. If you’re not sick, you’re hurt, and if you’re not hurt, you’re worried.”
She looked away. Waverly Sinner never backed down from a good argument. Now he was the worried one.
“Why are you here, Xavier?”
He nudged her chin until she looked at him again. “I’m here because of you. I’m here because I was a scared, stupid asshole all those years ago, and I’m going to make up for it. I’m getting you out of whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, and I’m sticking around after.”
