Chapter Fourteen
APOLLO
It was a mad rush after texting with Lily to get everything ready but with a little begging, and push from Blue, Oliver delivered on my spoil-Lily list.
I might have gone too far here. Not so sure she's as interested as I thought... After she walked away from me the first time I made a move on her and then didn’t respond to my heavily suggestive text. But maybe… Just maybe, this will be a third-time’s-a-charm situation and not a three-strikes-you’re-out kind of thing.
The anticipation is totally worth the risk. This is what I’ve been missing. Why I was so bored with my work and my life in Hollywood. It was too easy. Too predictable. The women. The work. Everything.
Not Lily. Lily’s full of surprises. I never know what she’s going to do or how she’s going to react to the things I do and I love it.
Standing in the middle of the living room when her headlights make the sheer curtains glow as they pass, my heart beats faster imagining her face when she walks in that door.
My hand taps my thigh excitedly as the door knob turns and the cold air spills in as she pushes it open.
“Oh, no,” she says.
Fuck.
My heart shatters when Lily clamps both her hands over her mouth as she looks around her candle-lit living room sprinkled with rose petals.
“Don’t worry. I’ll have this cleaned up in no time.” I guess that’s strike three then.
“No no. Apollo, stop.” Lily takes hold of my wrists stopping me from scooping up a handful of rose petals off the coffee table. “Leave them, please.”
Following the tug of her hands around my wrists, I stand looking down at the saddest set of eyes I’ve ever seen. “You’re upset.”
“I just didn’t expect it and I…” Letting me go, she tears her eyes from mine to look at the floor between us.
I can guess. “You have to go.”
“I don’t want to. Apollo, please believe me. I want to stay…” She casts her eyes around the room again with a sad hope pushing her brows together.
“Tell me,” I say.
“It’s Mr. Davis. They’re going to take his home if he doesn’t do a lot of repairs he can’t afford and only three weeks to do them. I just feel awful.” She throws out her arms then lets them fall to land heavily at her sides. “I can’t help him. Charlie wrote me an insanely generous check I begged her not to write because there’s no way I can ever pay her back for it. And you…” She does the arm thing again and adds a heaving sigh and damn she’s adorable. Not just for the dramatics but because she’s faced with a problem she desperately wants to solve and it doesn’t ever cross her mind to ask for help. And when help is forced on her, she feels guilty for taking it. And fuck, I think I love her for it.
“Lilypop. Baby. Let me pay for the repairs.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—.”
“Let me put it a different way. I’m paying for the repairs.”
Her shoulders slack making me think she’s not going to fight me on it but then she says, “You can’t. Where will I tell him the money came from? It’s a small town, I can’t just say it was from people around here. The second the gossips get ahold of that they will dig and find out it was no one in town, other than Charlie, and then they’d wonder where I came up with that kind of money all of a sudden and—.”
“You can tell people it’s a late Christmas miracle for all I care. No one needs to know where the money came from. This is about doing something good for someone who deserves it. I assume.”
She nods emphatically. “No one deserves this more than Mr. Davis.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll call my agent tomorrow and have her wire the money to your account from an account that can’t be traced back to me. No harm done.” I barely finish that last sentence before Lily crashes into me. Throwing her arms around my shoulders and pulling our faces together.
Before I get a chance to savor the taste and touch of her lips on mine, she pulls away apologizing profusely. “I think it’s obvious, Lilypop, I planned to do a lot more than kiss you tonight,” I say pulling her back in to devour her mouth and commit her sweet lips to my memory.
The longer we explore each other, the more Lily molds to my body.
Finally coming up for air, Lily manages to remind me she has to go. “I need to ease Mr. Davis’ mind. Oh! And call Blake about doing the work.”
“Alright. I’ll let you go. On one condition.” I lean down and brush my lips on hers. “You promise that when you come home, we’ll finish what we started.”
