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Sometimes you need to hear the words themselves.
“Ces.”
I looked up, expecting to see shame or disgust. Maybe a bit of pity.
Instead, I met a wall of blue fire.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
I couldn’t look away. Really, he wouldn’t let me look away. “I—”
“For me to take you, right there on the street? In front of cars or cameras or anyone else who wants to watch like fucking vultures?”
“It didn’t matter before at the library. Or outside it, for that matter.”
“Well, it matters here. They know where I live, Ces.”
The vitriol in his voice had me back against the wall. Suddenly, Xavier seemed to fill the entire car. I wasn’t riding up with my boyfriend. I was trapped in a box with a feral animal.
“I—I didn’t mean—”
In a few short movements, my arm was pinned to the small of my back, and I was snapped back into Xavier’s arms, lifted off my feet, and shoved against the elevator wall.
“Your kisses are for me,” he growled. “Not the fucking papers.”
Then his mouth crashed into mine, daring me to resist a thorough, breath-stealing, mouth-plundering kiss that I swore shook the car itself. It certainly erased every doubt I had.
When at last, he released me back to my feet, I was gasping. Xavier just coolly adjusted his collar and offered that characteristically sharkish grin of his.
“Next time, just ask,” he said as the elevator door opened. “Come on, then. I want to show you one last thing.”
So focused was I on the way my mouth was tingling, I didn’t realize until we were totally outside that we hadn’t returned to the apartment, but instead were walking into one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.
I gasped. “Oh…wow.”
It was the last thing I expected to be atop a restaurant mogul’s bachelor pad. In theory, I’d known it existed—he had mentioned a rooftop garden when giving me the tour earlier. But I’d imagined the sort of place that would host glamorous parties. A collage of chrome furniture to match the interior, a garish barbecue area, perhaps. Maybe an infinity pool or a jacuzzi.
This was a sanctuary.
The entire roof was sheltered by carefully organized greenery. Full-grown trees in car-sized clay pots lined the periphery, more than a few already heavy with fruit. Apples, some of them. Cherries, maybe. Others looked like some kind of nuts. Across carefully raked pea gravel, multiple trellises held the remnants of summer blooms, wisteria and hydrangea among them, waving in the breeze as if to say hello. Smaller plots held a variety of flowers and edible plants.
Of course, I thought. What world-famous chef wouldn’t cultivate his own food, London be damned?
“This is my favorite spot in the whole city.” Xavier released my hand, allowing me to explore on my own. “It’s where I come to think.”
As I floated my fingers over a planter of fragrant mint, I could certainly see why.
It was a Zen garden in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. Tranquility permeated the entire space, seeping into my pores, my mind, my heart.
“Camellias,” I murmured, as I found another familiar flower. I touched their light pink petals, velvet soft under my fingertips, as I was transported back to our walk last December.
“You remember?” Xavier asked.
I smiled, thinking of our snowy walk after he chased me out of that party. It seemed like kismet now, running into each other like that after five years. The odds of it happening were so infinitesimal.
And along the way, of course, we’d encountered a few camellias, just like these, and he’d told me about their connection to his mother. And their meaning.
“Of course I remember,” I said. “Red for passion. White for waiting. Pink for…longing, you said.”
