Beauty & Her Billionaire Boss by Barbara Wallace

Author:Barbara Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

FREDERIC LISTENED AS Piper talked about how she could never tell the difference between an oak sauvignon blanc and a dry sauvignon blanc. “You’d think I could, being a cook and all, but wine is a whole different science,” she said.

For the second time this week, he appreciated how she knew when not to push. Perhaps because of her own touchy childhood subjects, she understood when a conversation stepped too close to a nerve. Whatever the reason, he was grateful she decided to let the news about his father’s blindness go by without comment.

Why he brought up the subject in the first place was beyond him. He certainly didn’t intend to. His childhood was something he never discussed. Sharing the past—sharing anything personal—implied intimacy, which could lead a person to believe the relationship had a future. The last thing he wanted to do was mislead someone like Piper.

But then, he thought about all the secrets she’d shared about her childhood, and he started to feel as if he owed her some measure of equality. A secret for a secret. And so he shared his.

Now he wished he hadn’t, because the memory was alive in his head. His father’s voice, broken and slurred, the ice in his tumbler rattling. I need you. I can’t do it on my own. “It” being so many things. Generations of being waited on by servants left their mark. His father had been left incapable of doing for himself. As a result, his neediness knew no bounds.

Frederic, on the other hand... He might have inherited his father’s fortune, but his life taught him how not to need. And so he forced the conversation back to superficial, happy conversation, and Piper, bless her heart, played along.

It helped that dinner turned out to be delicious. “See?” he said, setting his fork down. “I was right to trust your judgment. I enjoyed my fowl.”

“It wasn’t bad,” she replied. “Though I would have cut back on the thyme.”

“Would that make the dish thyme-less?”

The tinkle of her laugh left him wanting to hear more. It was disturbing how easy he found her company. She was fun, she was smart. And, her kisses aroused him in a way he hadn’t felt since his teenage years.

A hollow feeling started to spread behind his breastbone, causing him to squeeze his hand into a fist. Ninety-nine days out of one hundred, he accepted his future without complaint. Every so often, however, he would feel the ache for what he would miss. Unless he decided to be as selfish as his father...

I need you, Patrice. His father’s constant mantra.

Frederic would not need. Would never need.

He could, however, want, and at the moment, he wanted the woman seated across from him very much.

Piper gave a soft cough. She knew he was studying her. “I was cursing the poor lighting,” he said. “I want to be able to see you better.” Her cheeks were no doubt turning as crimson as the roses they passed on their walk.

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