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Time would tell with her. He had his doubts.
Lifting James up, he carried him downstairs to the kitchen to find Grace dropping marshmallows into cups.
“I have hot chocolate ready. Who wants a drink?” she asked.
After he sat James at the counter, they settled in and he watched as Grace licked off the top of her cream before taking a small sip.
“It’s hot, be careful.” She stopped James from drinking it up.
This woman, he didn’t know where she’d come from, not really. The paperwork gave him all the details in black and white, but it never told him of actual experiences. This woman was unlike anyone he knew.
She cared so much.
He watched her as she climbed off her chair, grabbed a spoon, and helped James eat his whipped cream. Once she got to the drink, she blew across the surface. Then she tried her own drink and smiled. “It’s good for you to drink now, sweetheart.”
James took a drink and closed his eyes.
Grace giggled. “I’m glad you like.”
James nodded.
The boy already looked sleepy.
After their hot chocolates were finished, he took James to go and nap while Grace prepared food.
James was fast asleep before he got to his room. Caleb gently placed him into the bed, making sure he was settled. Once he’d grabbed the monitor, he took it down to the kitchen to find Grace there, already preparing food.
“How is he?”
“Fast asleep. You know how to wear out that boy.”
She chuckled. “Not really. My parents would always take me out in the snow. It was always so much. I loved it. Snowball fights were the best, but it gave them peace for a couple of hours while I had a nap.”
“Do you miss your parents?” he asked.
“All the time.”
“I never had parents like yours,” he said. “Mine would rather beat you than take you out into the snow.”
“I’m so sorry, Caleb.”
Staring at her, he didn’t know why he said the next part, but it felt wrong to lie to her. “I didn’t inherit any of this. I earned every single cent to my name. I fought my way to this life, Grace. I’m not a good man.”
“I know.”
“All I’ve known is pain. No one made me hot chocolate. My sister, she tried to get me to see myself for what I was turning into, but I didn’t care.”
Grace stopped cutting the vegetables and moved toward him.
She cupped his cheeks. “Stop. You don’t have to feel guilty for your past, Caleb. What your parents did, they are the ones at fault. Not you.” She raised her lips to his.
“You could never love a man like me,” he said.
She sighed. “Caleb, you don’t know who or what I could love. There is far more to the beast than what meets the eye with you. I’m interested in the man behind all of this. The man who took his nephew in. The man who tries not to show that he’s mourning his sister’s death, but does so on a daily basis. There’s a good man inside you. You’ve just got to trust me enough to let me meet him.”
Chapter Eight
“What is this?” Grace asked.
“Get changed into the swimsuit.”
She looked at the bathing suit that wasn’t a one-piece at all. “This is a bikini.”
Caleb stood in the pool. She didn’t even know if he wore a pair of swimming trunks. “It still needs you to get changed into it.”
“I don’t need to get changed into it.”
“Grace, I don’t like the idea of you being frightened about anything. I’m willing to teach you how to swim.”
“I don’t need to learn how to swim,” she said. However, his naked body was far more tempting than the water.
“You’re being stubborn.”
“Don’t you have a lot more important things to do? Like, I don’t know, dominating the world?”
“My empire is so well-trained it can take on the world without my presence.”
“I bet.”
“Come on, Grace. Your parents never taught you, but one day, James is going to want to swim. Are you going to let him go without?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she wouldn’t be with him for a long term, but that was the last thing she wanted to bring up.
Caleb didn’t come to her bed at night. He gave her space, but her needs, they weren’t fading. She wanted him, and last night, she realized what game he intended to play with her. Sex wasn’t going to be used against her, but he intended to make her see her own needs and desires for what they were. It was sweet, but it also made her have to own up to what she wanted.
This sucked.
Big time.
She’d never asked for anything in her life. The first and only orgasm a man had given her, it had given her a taste, and now all she wanted was to learn more.
