Seduced by Stratton (The English Brothers Book 4) (21 page)

Stratton:
Finish what?

Val:
When I left tonight . . . you were trying to explain something.

Stratton:
Can I call you?

Val:
Not right now.

Stratton:
Okay. That’s fine.
Don’t go!

Stratton:
I’m slow at texting, but I’ll go as fast as I can.

Val:
I’ll wait.

Stratton:
My feelings for Amy are gone, finished, and they were over long before her engagement.
I knew I was falling for you weeks ago. Letting you leave my apartment that morning was the worst decision I ever made. I knew I cared far more for you than I did for Amy. Even as I watched you go, there was no comparison. But I felt a responsibility to see her and talk to her before I made my feelings known to you, and since she was in Tokyo until Friday, it took a while.

Val:
She’s marrying the boyfriend?

Stratton:
No. Someone else. Someone she met in Japan. But, Val, I realized I was in love with you before she came home. I promise. I told Fitz, so you could always ask him, and he’ll tell you it’s true. I wish you could trust me when I say that I had good reasons for feeling protective of Amy. I mixed up those feelings with feelings of love. But the truth is . . . I never knew what love felt like until I met you.

Stratton pressed send and stared at the words he’d just typed, his knee bouncing nervously as he waited for a reply. Unable to stand the wait, he stood up and crossed to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of Merlot as he kept glancing at the screen. As he took a sip, it buzzed in his palm.

Val:
You really hurt me that morning, Stratton. Bad. It still hurts.

Stratton winced, taking a sip of wine and trying to figure out what to say, how to fix this so she’d trust him enough to give him another chance.

Stratton:
I know. I’m sorry. I’ve thought about it over and over again, and I think my mind didn’t want me to give up on Amy. But not give up on *loving* her, because I wasn’t in love with her. It didn’t want me to give up on my commitment to protect her, to save her. It was trying to keep her from slipping too far away, because the truth is that she was being completely eclipsed. By you.

As he waited for her response, he walked back into the living room, kicking off his shoes before sitting back down in his chair. His phone buzzed again.

Valeria:
You thought you were in love with her, but you weren’t. How do you know that what you feel for me is the real thing?

His face softened, but his eyes burned as his fingers flew faster and faster over the letters.

Stratton:
I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop dreaming about you. There’s no moment left in my day that doesn’t belong to you. You are an endless loop in my head. My heart literally aches for you. It’s real because I press my hand to my chest to relieve the pain, but all I can do is stare up at the ceiling and remember what it felt like to wake up with you in my arms.

Valeria:
How did it feel, Stratton?

He had a sudden flashback to her saying,
Anything . . . Everything
, and raking her eyes up his body. It felt like that.

He thought about her nipples, erect and hard, straining against her leotard to rub against his chest as they danced. It felt like that.

He thought about the velvet sweetness of her tongue moving against his in the strange half-life between sleeping and waking. It felt like that.

His body responded immediately, his heart throbbing and his blood sluicing from every other area of his body to concentrate, thick and hot, between his legs.

Val:
Stratton?

Stratton:
I’m calling you.

He didn’t know if she’d pick up or not, but if they were going to have this kind of conversation, he wanted to hear her voice. He
needed
to hear her voice. Now.

“Stratton?”

“Yeah. It’s me,” he said, his breathing fast and deliberate, from nerves or arousal or love or all three. “Thanks for answering.”

“Mm-hm. So . . . how did it feel? Waking up next to me?”

“I wanted you,” he confessed softly. “So badly.”

“It seemed like you wanted someone else.”

He winced. “Val, I need to fix this. I need to—”

“Tell me more about that morning. About waking up next to me.”

“You were . . . pressed against me. All of you against all of me.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured.

“And I could feel your heart beating. When I kissed your throat, when I touched my lips to your skin, your pulse was racing.”

“It was,” she said.

“And you were soft where I was hard. And your mouth tasted like heaven. And . . .”

“And?” she whimpered.

“And we had way too many clothes on,” he said, closing his eyes as his body throbbed for hers.

“We did.” She sighed.

“
Please
give me another chance,” he begged her.

He heard her inhale raggedly. “Why’d you come to the restaurant tonight?”

“I came looking for you at the studio after your three o’clock class, and your aunt told me where I could find you.”

“I gathered that. But it seemed so out of character for you.”

“I follow a pattern in my life. I fall hard. I think I’m in love. It generally doesn’t work out. I eventually get over it.” He took off his glasses, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder as he rubbed his eyes.

She was silent, waiting for him to continue.

“But I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. It’s not some unrequited infatuation from a distance. You’re warm and real and present. And my life was more vibrant and more electric with you in it for four days than it’s ever been in twenty-seven years. I didn’t know it before I met you, Val . . . but I was
waiting
for you. I was
looking
for you. I was . . .” He paused, praying that his words were reaching her. “I was
hoping
for you. All along. But when you were standing right in front of me, I couldn’t
see
you, and I’m so sorry for that.”

“I think you did see me,” said Val, her voice breaking a little. “I think you saw me clearer than anyone else has for a very long time. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”

Stratton swallowed, profoundly grateful for the way his heart swelled with promise at her words.

“And Amy?” she asked, her voice cooling a touch.

“I hope we remain friends. But my feelings for her will never venture beyond friendship.”

“Someday you’ll tell me why you almost jeopardized us for her.”

“I promise,” he answered, his heart stuttering when she said the word “us.”

“Where do we go from here? You say you’re in love with me, but we’ve never even been out on a date.”

“We could remedy that,” he answered quickly.

”Come over for dinner tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Tomorrow? Sunday?”

“Mm-hmm. Give me another Monday morning to prove that the only name in my heart—the only name that will ever pass through my lips when we’re together . . . is yours.”

Valeria’s breath caught as he said the words, her eyes widening as she understood his full meaning. “You’re just assuming I’ll stay over, huh?”

“I’m hoping.”

“We’ll see.”

“But you’ll come.”

She bit her lip, playing with the double entendre in her head. Finally, with cheeks on fire, she murmured, “I guess that’s up to you.”

There was a long silence before he groaned, “Jesus, Val.”

She smiled at the pain in his voice, pulling her lower lip into her mouth as she let a charged silence swell between them. But troubling thoughts preyed on Val in the quiet.

Yes, she was going to give him another chance. Hell, she’d been a goner the second she looked up from her family dinner to see him standing there with those stupid roses. Yes, she would go to his apartment tomorrow night, and yes, if he reached for her, she wouldn’t be able to pull away. But, because her heart was full of love for him, she would be vulnerable, exposed, and defenseless, and if he hurt her again, it could be life-altering this time. Short of trusting him, she wouldn’t trust herself anymore, and that scared her.

“Stratton?” she whispered.

“I’m here.”

“I have no threats left. I want to say, ‘If you hurt me again . . .’ and tell you there’s some dire consequence waiting for you if you do. But the only dire consequence is waiting for me. Because if you hurt me again, it will break my heart.”

“I can’t promise I won’t upset you,” he answered. “I’m clumsy. I blurt out things that could hurt your feelings. But I can promise you this . . .” He paused, sucking in a breath before saying the words aloud. “I meant what I said tonight. I love you. I want to be with you. And the last thing I ever want to do, as long as I live, is break your heart.”

She gasped softly, wanting so desperately to believe him, hoping beyond hope that it could be true.

“Tomorrow?” he nudged.

She swallowed, knowing her answer, but still worried about getting hurt. “Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up,” he said in a relieved rush. “Seven?”

Was it ridiculous that her heart sank? Seven o’clock tomorrow was almost twenty-four hours from now. She shook her head at herself, looking at the flowers on the coffee table.

“Seven’s good. Stratton . . . The flowers you sent. I love them.”

“They reminded me of you.”

“They’re my favorites,” she said. “And the note, n-notes . . .”

“You liked them?”

“I
loved
them,” she answered. “Don’t ever show up with red roses, wearing a dress suit for me again. That’s not us.”

“Us?” he whispered, like the word was new and precious to him, and she smiled at the cautious hope in his voice.

“The signature of every courtship is different—as unique as every person in the world, then doubled because the experience is shared. We’re
The Shining
and pizza, the foxtrot in old jeans, kisses in the snow, love letters and black calla lilies. We’re unconventional, but that’s what makes it good. That’s what makes it
us
. Don’t you see?”

“Yeah,” he said, wonder thick in his voice. “That’s . . .
us
.”

“The letter to George Sand. Where did you find it? How did you choose it?”

“When you were studying here that night? I checked out your course syllabus while you were in the bathroom. I memorized the list of letters. I’ve read them all.”

God, that is so romantic and so hot at the same time.

“You memorized the whole list while I was in the bathroom?

“The same way you memorize random lines from old Jack Nicholson movies.
Auspicious beginnings
,” he said just as she had that day in the lobby of English & Sons, and she warmed from the smile in his voice. “Great word, auspicious.”

        “Great word,” she agreed, feeling happy, feeling hopeful, feeling . . . understood.

“You know? I didn’t only memorize the letters. I learned something for you, too . . . listen:
Senza di te la mia vita non ha senso.”

My life makes no sense without you.

She started for a moment because Joe had essentially said the same thing earlier—about how he and Valeria made sense, and her whole body had rebelled against the thought because she and Joe
didn’t
make sense.

But this time, her heart opened like a flower, welcoming the words spoken in low-toned, beautiful Italian . . . and she agreed. They
did
make sense. Somehow curvy, outspoken, over-educated Valeria Campanile and devastatingly handsome, outrageously wealthy with his foot perennially stuck in the back of his mouth Stratton English made sense.

“Did you learn that just for me?” she asked, smiling at the vase of blooms on the table beside her bare feet.

“What do I get if I say yes?”

“You’ll have to wait and find out tomorrow.”

“God . . .” He sighed. “You’re killing me.”

The deep, unsatisfied groan in his voice made muscles hidden within her body come alive, contracting and releasing with want. Her heart skipped a beat and goose bumps lighted on her skin as she remembered the hard, thick bulge pressed against her backside when she woke up beside him. Tomorrow couldn’t come quickly enough.

“I don’t want to hang up,” said Stratton.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, feeling sexy and giddy and breathless. “Goodni—”