House Of Payne: Scout (18 page)

“I have a personal assistant and a manager. Maceio and Estelle are nothing like the extended foster family you have, but they are a part of my life. I have no real family that I would like to introduce you to, so Maceio and Estelle will have to do. I was thinking that you might want to get used to them so that you won’t feel, as you say, weird having people around while you relax at home with me.”

Home
. That word resonated inside her until it was all she heard. “I’m cool with that.”

“Excellent.” He glanced out the window and pointed to a high rise further down the coast. “I am just across the way, a couple of floors down from where we are now. If you are up for it, you can come over to my place after breakfast so I can change clothes and show you a little surprise I have been working on for you.”

“Really?” She felt her whole face light up, and not just because of a surprise. It meant everything that he wanted to bring her deeper into his world and make herself comfortable there. That had to mean something. “Tell me about it.”

“Nice try.” Shaking the wrinkles from the sheet stretched between them, he came to her to join the corners he held to hers, and lowered his head to kiss her in the process. “The faster we go, the quicker you will get your surprise.”

“Watch my dust.” Grinning, she made short work of folding the sheet and dropping it on the rest of the neatly folded linens. She nodded to the coiled string of Christmas lights before she hauled up the folded stack, clamping a hand on the top before the sheet could slide off. “Could you do me a favor and put that in the box marked ‘Xmas’ I left open in the storage room? First door on the left,” she added when he quirked a brow in question. “Once we get the cushions back on the couches, I’ll be ready to get out of here.”

The question was, what else would she be ready for once they got to his place? As Scout sorted through the blankets and sheets and put them in their proper place, she had to admit she’d had it easy up to this point. Ivar had come to meet her on her own turf every step of the way. Now the tables were turned and she was being asked to find a way to get comfortable in his corner of the world and meet the people closest to him.

Nothing like a little pressure to tie her stomach into knots.

But if he could do it, joining her in her world and making himself at home, then she could damn well return the favor, she decided, shutting the linen closet. It was a privilege to be invited into the most carefully guarded areas of his life, considering how he’d grown up. It even hurt a little, to think that the main people in his life were employees. If he wanted to share that facet of himself with her, she was honored that he trusted her enough to let her in.

To her surprise, she didn’t find Ivar in the living area by the elevator, so she backtracked and found him still in the storage room. “There you are. Ready?”

Ivar started at the sound of her voice, clearly jolted out of some deep thoughts. Then he shot her a preoccupied glance before nodding. “Yeah. I need to get out of here.” But as he headed toward her, he looked back over his shoulder at the boxes.

For no reason that she could fathom, her trouble alarm began to sound.

Chapter Eighteen

Something was wrong, Scout was sure of it. Just as she was sure she had no frigging clue what it was.

She had to give Ivar credit. He was one hell of an actor. He kept up the appearance that there wasn’t a single cloud on his horizon. He smiled at the right times. He laughed at every single one of her stupid jokes. He asked all the right questions and even engaged Leo in conversation about various types of coffee. She couldn’t have asked him to be a more attentive man.

But his eyes had shuttered over, locking him in.

Locking her out.

Why?

She’d been so agitated to see those old barriers back in place that she’d broken a personal rule about invading a person’s privacy and straight-up asked him if there was anything wrong. For a long moment he seemed to waver between lying and getting something off his chest. In the end, he simply shook his head, hugged her to his side and told her it was nothing.

It hurt—
really
hurt—that he’d opted to go with the lie.

It took just a handful of minutes to get to his building, the Aqua Tower. The undulating balconies on the eighty-two story high-rise prevented updrafts and vacuums from occurring on windy days—something that happened on a regular basis in a town known as the Windy City—thus making the skyscraper virtually “sway-proof”. It also made the sides of the building look like the rippling surface of water, which explained the tower’s name. It didn’t surprise her that Ivar had set up household in one of the newest and more famous buildings in a city known for its architecture, as his exacting standards demanded the best of the best. It also didn’t surprise her that when they entered his place, the open-plan, ultra modern space done in monochromatic black and white was visually stunning. At his core, Ivar was an artist who appreciated beauty in all its facets.

She, on the other hand, was a pragmatist. That meant she appreciated the truth, no matter how ugly it was.

“Good morning.” A young man with wavy black hair, liquid black eyes and teak-toned skin appeared from down a short hallway as Ivar put his keys in a metal bowl by the door. Had Scout not already decided Ivar was the most gorgeous male on the planet, this young man would have knocked her sideways with his exotic good looks. “May I take your jacket?”

Ivar looked up. “Scout, this is Maceio, the guy who keeps me on track even when I do not want to be, and probably the closest thing I will ever have to a brother. Whenever I am coming in, he is usually here, but otherwise has the apartment across the hall, should you ever need to find him. Maceio, this is Scout.”

“No introductions necessary for you,” Maceio said with a smile, taking her jacket and purse. “It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

Not quite as formal as Ivar, she thought, smiling. But close. “Likewise. And do I have to worry about what Ivar’s told you about me?”

“Not unless you find it worrisome to be described as ‘magnificent.’”

Her brows shot up as Maceio disappeared back down the hall, and she looked to Ivar, wide-eyed. “No way.”

He lifted a shoulder before curling an arm around her waist. “
Magnificent
is the word that fits you best. How else would I describe you?”

“No one from South Deering’s Slag Valley has ever been described as magnificent.”

“I see. And how are people from South Deering’s Slag Valley generally described?”

“Tough.”

“Of course.” He nodded and bent to brush his lips against hers. “That is an admirable facet of your overall magnificence.”

“And realistic.”

“Another facet.”

“Naturally suspicious.”

“Ah, now that is a facet of your magnificence that I love.”

“Let’s hope so,” she muttered, pulling away just far enough so that she could look him in the eye. “Because I’ve got a suspicion something’s going on with you, and you’re not telling me about it.”

His hold on her loosened. “The only thing I have refused to tell you about today is your surprise. Sadly, it seems to be hiding at the moment.”

“Hiding?” Perplexed, she shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Just walk nice and slowly with me toward the kitchen area to see if anything chooses to cross our path.”

What the hell?

“Tell, me,
ma fleur
. Have you ever been to Paris before?”

“Um, just once, and it was for work, not pleasure.” More baffled by the moment, she let him thread his fingers through hers as he led her in a leisurely stroll toward the opposite end of the apartment. “All I got was an impression of an ancient city that revered beauty in all its forms. I promised myself I’d one day get back to see it.”

“Then this is what we shall do. Breakfast at Claus, my favorite little shop in the morning, and dinner at Jules Verne inside the
Tour
, or Tower. There are unbelievable views of the city from there, especially at night.”

She gaped at him. “The Tower? The
Eiffel
Tower? You mean there’s a freaking
restaurant
in there?”

“Of course. It caters to tourists, naturally, but the food is an experience. Be prepared for the meal to last at least a couple of hours, and they are not shy about slapping one’s hand if your dining etiquette is off. Ah,” he said, voice dropping as his attention sharpened. “There she is.”

“What…”  She broke off as a streak of fluid movement zoomed toward them.

“There we go.” His tone was surprisingly gentle—a low velvety purr that both coaxed and praised as he looked down at his feet. “Did you miss me, little one? Or is it that you just missed me feeding you?”

Scout also looked down and saw a little calico cat looking up at him in obvious adoration, weaving around his ankles as if his shoes were made of catnip. It was scrawny, with a neck that looked too long and ears that were too big, clearly no more than a kitten. Just like the one at the pier…

She came to a dead stop as she stared at the cat, her heart bounding up to take residence in her throat. The image of the hungry little stray trying to hide from the rain under the sandwich board and this cat converged, tearing a gasp from her.

No way…

“Do you recognize her?” His tone was still that low, lovely purr, as if he had a little bit of cat in his DNA as well. “This is your little friend from Navy Pier.”

“How…?” Now that he’d confirmed that this was, indeed, the cat from the pier, she struggled to find her voice through layers of flabbergasted amazement. “You… Are you seriously telling me you went back and caught this cat?”

“Of course. And do not worry—I have had her checked over by a vet. She is undernourished, of course, but she is working diligently on correcting that particular problem.”

“But…” She shook her head, unable to stop herself from gaping at the calico. Didn’t he see that there was no “of course” about this? “Why?”

“I could not help myself. She reminded me so much of you.”

“Me? Oh, I get it,” she went on before he could answer. “Because she’s a stray, right?”

“Not even close.” Unlike so many of the smiles he’d given her that day, this one was soft and genuine as he brushed the hair away from her face. “She was wary of the world, certain that more harm than good would come to her if she came out of her hiding place. Yet she responded so sweetly to your kindness, and showed remarkable courage when she chose to come near you. Fate has been unkind to this little one from the very beginning of life, yet she chooses to believe in the goodness of people. That is a miraculous thing, I think.
Both
of you are miraculous, and so I wished for her to be with someone who appreciated how wonderful she is.” He frowned when she continued to simply stare up at him with eyes filling with tears. “You are not disappointed in your surprise, are you?”

“Disappointed?” A half-laugh broke from her, and it sounded very much like a sob. Which made sense; the trouble he’d gone to just to make this happen touched her almost as deeply as his explanation of why he’d done it. No one looked at her and thought she was miraculous, least of all a man like Ivar. “I’m just so totally knocked on my ass I can’t even think of a thing to say.”

“Knocked on your ass.” A chuckle escaped him, and he curved a hand around her nape to massage the muscles there. “Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?”

“At the risk of echoing you, this is the
best
thing.” She stood on tiptoe to brush his mouth with hers. “Thank you, Trouble. Thank you so much for seeing her worth.”
And mine
.

“My Scout. You have no idea how you break me, in all the right ways.” He deepened the kiss as if he were on a mission to create the world’s most perfect connection. When he finally lifted his mouth to rest his brow on hers, she decided his mission was thoroughly accomplished. “I have not yet named her, you know. And since you have such a talent for finding appropriate nicknames, I thought that honor should go to you.”

“That’s an easy one.” Her eyes stung and her throat grew tight at his thoughtfulness. With seeming effortlessness, he touched the deepest part of her soul and healed parts of her that she didn’t even know were wounded. “Since she and I are fans of red hots, I think that should be her name. Red, for short.”

“I should have seen that. In my head I have been calling her the Navy Pier cat.”

“That’s a little long.”

“Not to mention unimaginative.” Moving into the open kitchen area, he opened a cabinet and handed her a can and a small paper plate. “Would you do the honors of feeding Red? She seems to be a bottomless pit.”

“Of course she is.” She’d been much the same about food while growing up—scarfing it down whenever it was available to her. It was all about survival, and Red knew it. “She doesn’t seem like a feral cat, does she? She’s wary but not completely wild.”

“Tell that to Maceio,” came the drawling reply. “His hands look like he tried to get a manicure from a blender. He says he has always been more of a dog person, and Red seems to sense that.”

“Yikes.” Kneeling down and making sure not to make any challenging eye contact, Scout went about the business of emptying the can onto the plate, then smooshing it around for easy access. Just like before, Red slunk in as if gravity had suddenly quadrupled, gave her a wary look, then delicately began to chow down. Scout made sure she didn’t move out of fear of frightening the cat away from her meal. “She seems relaxed enough to me, and I’m a stranger.”

“Animals know good people when they find them.”

There it was again, that sweetness. Was it any wonder he’d reached right into the core of her heart and stolen it for his own? “Are you going to keep her?”

“Of course.” He seemed surprised by the question. “Why else would I have brought her here?”

“You’d be surprised.” With Red so immersed in her meal it was doubtful she would have noticed a small bomb going off, Scout carefully rose from her crouch. “Not everyone understands that when they bring a stray home, they should be making a forever kind of commitment. When she makes a mistake like peeing in the wrong place or scratching up the furniture, there are some who wouldn’t think twice about hitting the eject button.”

“Like it was done with you when you were a child?”

“I never peed in the wrong place.”

“Funny.”

“I try.”

“Your humor is another facet of your magnificence. When you make me laugh, you also make me want you like I have never wanted anyone before.” He caught her hand in his and pulled her close. “And when you throw vulnerability into the mix, I am completely lost in you.”

She shivered, because he made her feel very much the same way. “Who said I was vulnerable?”

“You did.”

The shiver gave way to a slight flinch. That stung. “You must be thinking of some other Scout Upton.”

“Why do you think being vulnerable is a bad thing?”

“Because it is. Being vulnerable means being weak.”

“Not at all. It means that you have a deep understanding that life can be unfair, even harsh. It means you have weathered storms, and are braced to weather more as they come your way. Your confidence was borne from your vulnerability. This is a beautiful thing to see.”

The defensiveness melted away before it could build its first wall.  “It’s a beautiful thing to hear. Especially when you seem to be weathering some sort of storm now—a storm you don’t want to tell me about.”

Like a switch being thrown, his eyes went dead. “Scout—”

Before he could tell her that nothing was wrong—again—the familiar chime of her text interrupted him. When she pulled her phone out her pocket and read the screen, she almost threw it across the room.

“Damn it,” she muttered, angrily jamming her thumbs at the screen. “I don’t have time for this shit now.”

“Problem?”

“You could say that.” With a short breath, she scrolled to the beginning of the text, and read aloud, “
Scout, I’m sorry I’m doing this via text, but it’s the quickest way to get it done, so here it is—I QUIT. Love, Angel
.” She shook the phone, because Angel wasn’t within reach. “How many times do I have to tell everyone that I’m…on…fucking…
vacation
?”