No Ordinary Billionaire (The Sinclairs) (R) (6 page)

She took a long bath, careful to protect her bandaged foot, and finished reading a romance novel Emily had recommended to her. Romance novels had recently become an obsession for her. So much emotion, and so much sex. She read the stories of love and desire with a fascination that she’d never experienced with any other books. Of course, they were fiction, but she wondered if it was even possible to feel that depth of emotion for a man. And the sex? Well, it certainly wasn’t realistic in her experience, which she had to admit was so sparse it was almost nonexistent. But for some unknown reason, she was addicted to reading about relationships that she couldn’t quite believe were even possible. As a doctor, she could admit that some parts of a sexual relationship could be pleasurable—probably more for a man than a woman because of anatomical differences. Still, women could definitely find some kind of pleasure with the right knowledgeable lover, she supposed.

I had sex with a med student. I would think he should have known how to do things properly. It wasn’t pleasant in any way. Maybe I’m just not a sexual person.

The doorbell rang just as she’d walked out of the bedroom and was about to pop a dinner into the microwave. After shoving the low-calorie meal back into the freezer in case it was a medical emergency, she brushed her damp hands on her jeans and went to answer the door with Coco at her heels.

She gaped as she saw Dante Sinclair standing in front of her, a large white bag in his hand and a hesitant grin on his face. Dressed casually in jeans and a dark T-shirt, the man still looked big and dangerous.

“Peace offering,” he informed her in a husky voice, jiggling the bag up in front of his face. “Lobster rolls.”

It was twilight, and the rain was still falling in a light mist. He looked damp and so did the bag he was holding. Sarah grabbed the sack and pulled him through the door.

“You can’t be out yet. Are you crazy?” Dante Sinclair needed to be resting, warm and snug in his own home. He was barely out of the hospital.

Dante shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. I wanted to see if you were okay. Those pills work. But they make me feel a little weird.” He closed the door before asking with a scowl on his face, “Should you really be standing on those cut feet?”

Sarah blinked at him, still trying to figure out why he was even out of the house. “The cuts are fairly superficial. Detective Sinclair, you need to be resting. The pills make you feel strange because you’re supposed to be home in bed sleeping after you take them.”

“I was worried,” he confessed hesitantly.

Sarah eyed him warily, happy that he’d finally taken the pills but wondering if he wasn’t just a little high. “I think you’re stoned, Detective Sinclair.” She took the bag of lobster rolls to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Sit down.” Her house was small, and she could still see him over the breakfast bar as she set her precious cargo down on the countertop. “How did you know I liked lobster rolls?”

“Call me Dante. And finding out what you liked wasn’t exactly difficult detective work. I called Grady and Emily.” He moved up to the breakfast bar, took a seat on one of the stools, and propped his elbows on the counter, staring at her unnervingly.

Her dog trotted over to sit politely at his feet.

“Coco likes you.” Sarah was starting to think she might like him, too, considering he came with a peace offering and had actually taken the time to find out what she liked. But the guy was way too intense, even if he was probably a little wasted on pain pills. “Please tell me you didn’t drive.”

“I didn’t drive,” he answered accommodatingly. “My brother Jared just got into town. He took me to get the lobster rolls and dropped me off.”

Oh, God.
Not another single Sinclair brother in Amesport. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Elsie and Beatrice that there’s another Sinclair brother in town.” After grabbing two plates from the cupboard for the lobster rolls, she dropped two on one of the plates and pushed it across the tiled surface between them, along with a napkin.

Dante shook his head. “Those are for you. And who are Elsie and Beatrice?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “I can’t eat six lobster rolls. Eat.”

“Elsie and Beatrice?” He looked at her curiously as he picked up one of the rolls from his plate.

Something about him seemed different now, and not nearly as sullen, morose, and angry.

Dante didn’t live here permanently, so Sarah assumed he’d never met the dangerous duo. “Town matchmakers. Both over the age of eighty and very sweet ladies. But very scary when they start trying to happily marry off the entire town. I’m surprised they didn’t know your other brother was coming into Amesport. They certainly knew you were on your way.”

She watched as Dante took his first bite, his eyes closing for a moment as he chewed. Sarah wasn’t certain, but she was pretty sure his expression was the same look of rapture that was on her face the first time she tasted the succulent Maine lobster in Amesport. Mixed with mayonnaise, lemon juice, and spices, it was incredible on the warm rolls, which were brushed with butter on each side. “You’ve never had lobster rolls? They’re everywhere here.” She went to the fridge, pulled out two cans of soda, and pushed one toward him.

Dante opened it and took a swig before replying. “I’ve only been here twice, and then I only stayed for a day or two. And had I known about these, I would have gotten some,” he said before taking another bite.

Sarah started on her own roll, the two of them eating in silence for a while before she asked curiously, “Why have you only been here twice? All of the Sinclairs have had a house on the peninsula for years.”

“That was Jared’s idea. He decided we all needed to build a home here since we owned the property. Nobody argued, so he got them built. He did it after Grady put his house on the end of the peninsula. The only two times I even saw my house here was when Emily and Grady were first engaged, and for the wedding. I couldn’t stay long either time.” He stared at her, his expression concerned as he asked, “Should you be standing on that foot?”

Sarah’s heart warmed just a little at the worried look on his face. “I went to med school, and I’m a doctor. I’m used to eating standing up. My feet aren’t hurting. They aren’t cut that badly.”

After he refused another lobster roll, Sarah took both plates, rinsed them, and put them in the dishwasher. “Did you make the plans for the house yourself?” she called over her shoulder.

“Hell, no. The house is too damn big. I can’t find anything there. I have a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, and that’s all I’ve ever needed. I told Jared I wanted an exercise room and a couple of other things. He took care of everything else.” Dante finally looked down at the floor, where Coco still sat calmly at his feet. “Is that supposed to be a dog?”

Sarah took the last sip of her soda before tossing the can in the recycling container under her sink. She walked out to the living room, sat on the arm of her couch, and folded her arms in front of her. “Of course Coco is a dog. She’s a Chipoo.”

Dante turned on the bar stool to face her, a slight smirk on his lips. “What in the hell is a Chipoo? She looks more like a mop with eyes. But at least she’s not a yappy jumper.”

Affronted by his description of her precious canine, Sarah glared at him. “She’s extremely well behaved and trained, so she waits for an invitation to snuggle. A Chipoo is a mixed-breed Chihuahua and poodle.” Coco looked more like a dark brown small poodle, and her hair was long, but she looked like an adorable dog, not a mop. “And why in the world would you let your brother build your house? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Dante shrugged. “Does everything have to make sense to you? He wanted us all to have a house here, and I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t have the time to worry about the details. Since he wanted it more than I didn’t want it, I let him do it.”

Sarah shook her head, but she let the conversation go. It was obvious that the Sinclair brothers had more money than they knew what to do with. Maybe building a seven-figure home on a beautiful seaside peninsula and letting it sit empty made sense to Dante Sinclair, even though she still didn’t see how it would. “If you had my mother, you’d always make sensible decisions,” Sarah muttered to herself, slapping her thigh a few times to allow Coco to jump into her lap. She stroked the thick fur on her pet, and Coco settled comfortably into her lap.

“Lucky dog,” Dante commented huskily before adding, “Your mother was a slave driver? You were already a prodigy. What the hell else did she want?”

Sarah sighed, stroking Coco’s head absently as she replied. “My mother is a professor of mathematics in Chicago and a member of Mensa, along with a very long list of other scholastic achievements. The academic world is everything to her. She makes most tiger moms look like kitty cats. Having me move out of Chicago and to a small town to be a family doctor didn’t exactly make her ecstatic. She was disappointed.”

“And your father?”

“He died soon after I was born. But he was a genius, too. A real rocket scientist,” she answered quietly. “What about you? Why did you become a cop? A billionaire cop doesn’t seem very logical.” It was a question she’d been dying to ask even before she’d met Dante Sinclair.

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. My father was an abusive drunk, and luckily he was dead before I got out of high school. So I was free to pursue any career I wanted. And I wanted to be a cop. I went to college first, hoping I could advance through the ranks faster. I knew I wanted homicide, and I’d have to spend my time on patrol first. I got what I wanted when I turned twenty-six and got assigned to homicide.”

“And you liked it?”

Dante shrugged. “I was satisfied. I think doing police work is kind of like a calling, the same as wanting to be a doctor. As a homicide detective, I was basically on the job twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Murders usually didn’t happen in my district in broad daylight.”

Sarah could understand that. “I never wanted to do anything else, either.” She’d dreamed of being a doctor all her life, starting to fulfill her dreams at the same time most girls were just noticing that boys existed.

“Guess you didn’t have much of a childhood, huh?” Dante mentioned casually, as though he had almost read her mind.

Sarah smiled wearily. “I don’t ever remember being a child. When most girls were dreaming of being cheerleaders, I was studying college-level biology. I’ve always been . . . different. Amesport is the first place where I feel like I actually belong. I’m socially awkward, but nobody cares. They talk to me anyway. There’s such a mixture of different personalities here that I guess I fit in.”

“You’re not different,” Dante growled. “You’re special. Gifted. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Alone is alone, right? For whatever reason it might be,” she replied, giving Dante a questioning look. He was looking at her strangely, a gaze that she could almost swear was somewhat possessive and heated, and she started to squirm, feeling like a specimen under a microscope. Breaking contact with his fiery eyes, she set Coco on the floor and got up. “You need to be resting. I’ll take you home.”

Dante caught her upper arm as she walked past him, pulling her body close to his before he snaked an arm around her waist. Sarah’s breath hitched as her hips slid between his jeans-clad thighs. With him sitting on the stool, they were nearly at the same height, and she was eye to eye with him, the fierce, stormy look he was giving her even more frightening up close and personal.

“No boyfriend?” he asked gruffly.

Sarah shook her head slowly, unable to break away from his enthralling eyes and powerful grip around her waist. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Even injured, Dante seemed to pulsate with raw power and dominance that drew her to get perilously close to him.

“Have you ever been with a man?” His question was low, and spoken in a tone that demanded an answer.

Sarah wasn’t even going to pretend she didn’t understand what he was asking. “Once. In med school. It was awkward and painful. I was dating another medical student, and I wanted to see what I might be missing. He broke up with me the next day. I guess neither of us really liked it. Or maybe I wasn’t very good at it. I couldn’t see what the big deal was all about. It’s mating for the human species, and that’s it. I’ve never really figured out what other reason there is to do it.” She was speaking the truth, but she
had
been curious. So she’d tried it, only to find out that she was really missing out on nothing.

“Christ! Are you screwing with me? Is it possible to be a doctor and stay that innocent?” Dante rasped, his gaze sweeping over her face as though he were looking for something.

Her heart was thundering against her sternum as she watched his face, the healing scar on his cheek almost making him even more appealing, even more dangerous. “I’m not innocent and I’m not a virgin. I just don’t like sexual intercourse. It’s not very enjoyable.”

Dante slid his hand through her hair and caressed the sensitive skin at the back of her neck as he smiled wickedly. “I think I just found one subject where you’re completely misinformed. There’s this little thing called sexual chemistry that you aren’t going to read about in textbooks.”

Okay. Yeah. Some people seemed to feel sexual chemistry and attraction, but she didn’t. Obviously, she understood medically why sex might be enjoyable, but for her, it just wasn’t. She’d never had the desire to try it again. “There isn’t a thing that I can’t tell you about the human anatomy. There’s no basis to believe in sexual chemistry. Sexual attraction is just people assessing the reproductive potential of prospective mates,” she argued, but she licked her lips nervously, wanting to lean into the intense heat that Dante seemed to be throwing off in waves from his ripped, hard body. Her nipples were beginning to get painfully hard, and she nearly moaned as the hand at her waist slipped beneath the hem of her shirt and started stroking over the bare skin at her waist and back. He made lazy little circles with his palm and fingers, sensitizing every area he touched.