A Year With the Millionaire Next Door Page 14

  “I know. I... It’ll be strange not seeing you, is all.”

  “I’m sure if you get bored, your friend Niles can entertain you.” Immediately, he regretted the childish remark. To make amends, he turned and offered her a half smile. “Have a nice time at dinner.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “KEEPING IT CASUAL. Nothing will change. I’m going to dinner with some bloke from work.” Scotch splashed the sides of his glass as he waved his arms widely. He was on his second Scotch and probably his second mile of pacing the living room.

  How could Stella go on a date with someone else? Sorry, dinner. It was ludicrous. They were sleeping together, for God’s sake. Had been for months. Didn’t that mean anything?

  Not for friends with benefits, it didn’t. The two of them were neighbors. They were keeping things casual.

  Casual, casual, casual. He was going to strangle the next person who said the word.

  He should have kissed her like he wanted to. Grabbed her and kissed her until she forgot all about what’s his name.

  He should have told her he didn’t want her seeing anyone else, because... Because...

  Suddenly the emotion that had been squeezing his chest for months had a name. “I love you,” he whispered, the words loud in the silence. He loved her. The more he repeated the words, the more certain he became. He, Linus Collier, had fallen in love with the American next door.

  And she didn’t love him back.

  Christ. He plopped down on his sofa. When irony hit, it hit hard, didn’t it?

  Appeared he’d finally learned what it was like to be just another shag. Was this how his former lovers felt? As if someone had plunged a knife in the center of their chests? He owed them all apologies, because damn, it hurt like hell.

  “You made your point, universe. You finally doled out your punishment.” He emptied his glass. That was the universe’s ultimate punishment.

  Just then he heard the elevator doors. Leaping up, Linus hurried to the front door. This was what his life had become. Standing with his ear pressed to a door trying to eavesdrop. On the other side were muffled voices. Stella and her date. He heard Stella’s keys. Imagined her opening the door, then leaning in for a good-night kiss. Linus squeezed the tumbler. That should be his good-night kiss. He should be leaning against her door frame waiting for an invitation to come inside.

  So help him, if she invited what’s his name inside...

  She didn’t. The elevator doors dinged, telling him as much. Linus breathed a sigh of relief, because he wasn’t sure how he would have ended the thought.

  What did he do now?

  Talk to her, you idiot. Tell her how you feel.

  If she knew how important she was to him—that he bloody loved her—then she’d realize this whole “casual lovers” thing was ridiculous.

  In the back of his mind, he wondered if he should wait until he had a clear head, but he pushed the thought aside and headed outside. He needed to talk with her tonight. Otherwise, it would eat at him all night long. Besides, he was declaring his love, not picking a fight.

  Now that he’d had a moment to get used to the idea, he was gobsmacked. Never in his life had he expected that he, Linus Collier, would fall in love and want to commit to a woman. Guess there was more of his father in him than he realized.

  Stella answered the door in her stocking feet. Since the summer, her hair had grown so that the bob skimmed the center of her neck. Tonight she wore her hair pulled back in a hairband to better show off her heart-shaped face. As happened whenever he saw her, she took his breath away.

  “Linus, what are you...?”

  He didn’t let her finish. Cradling her cheeks, he kissed her deeply. Instead of smiling her hands clutched at his shirt as she kissed him back.

  “Bet you didn’t kiss him like that,” he rasped when the kiss ended.

  Her brows drew together as she stood a step back and stared at him. “Were you spying on us?”

  “Don’t be sound so surprised. I live next door. Did you think I wouldn’t notice when you came home?”

  “That is possessive and creepy.”

  “Are you serious? After I let you go out with another man?”

  Stella glared at him. “You didn’t let me do anything.”

  “You asked for my permission.”

  “Hardly. I was keeping you informed out of courtesy. You didn’t have a say in it one way or another.”

  The conversation wasn’t going how he planned. Stella stomped away from him, into the living room, where she stopped in front of the fireplace. Toffee’s portrait stared down on them while the original wove around his legs. At least someone in the house was glad to see him. Linus obliged the cat and gathered her in his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I don’t own you and I shouldn’t have implied that I did.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now, why are you here?”

  “Because I...” I love you. Suddenly he was afraid to say the words. “I wanted to see how the evening went. Did you have a good time?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, I want to know. I’m curious.” She continued giving him a skeptical look. “All right,” he said after a few moments. “I’m jealous.”

  Stella blinked. “You are?”

  “Does that surprise you? We are sleeping together. I’m not one for sharing.”

  “Is that so?”

  Terrific. She thought him possessive again. Closing his eyes, he out a long breath. Everything was coming out wrong. They shouldn’t be fighting.

  Still holding Toffee, he turned and put some space between them. There was a cat perch near the terrace doors. He placed Toffee on the top level, then stared at their reflection in the glass. Behind him, Stella could be seen playing with the armchair piping.

  If this was going to work, he needed stop dancing around the words and tell her how he felt. “I know that night in Avebury, we said we would keep things light and noncommittal.” He refused to say that horrid word. “But I don’t think I can. I hated thinking of you being out with someone else tonight. Absolutely hated it.”

  As he spoke, he watched her reflection. Thus far, she hadn’t stopped studying the chair. “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “I don’t want us to see other people. What we’re doing isn’t a low-key thing for me anymore.” He spun around. It was important she see his face. See his sincerity when he bared his soul. “I love you.”

  “Wh-what?”

  He smiled at her stunned expression. “I don’t blame you for being shocked. I was shocked too when I realized it.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “No. I’m completely clearheaded right now, and I mean every word. I love you and I want us to be together.”

  Unable to stay separated a moment longer, he took her in his arms. “You’re trembling.” Like a leaf in a cold wind. He tightened his embrace.

  “I... I can’t believe it,” she said. “You can’t be in love with me.”

  “But I am.”

  “You don’t understand.” She pulled away, leaving his arms empty. “I mean you can’t be in love with me.”

  Linus looked like she’d slapped him. “What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means we had an agreement. We were going to keep this—us—casual.” For some reason, he grimaced when she said the word. “I have plans,” she said. “In New York.”

  “You’re not in New York now. You’re in London.”

  “I know where I am,” she snapped. What mattered wasn’t where she was, but where she was going. “My point is that I’m leaving in a few months.”

  “So?”

  “So, I don’t have time to fall in love.” Unable to face him and continue this argument, she headed to the mantel. “When I return home, I need to give
one hundred percent of my attention to building a career in finance.”

  “Right. Just like your father wants. So he can brag about you to the relatives.”

  “I’m not doing it so he can brag.” It was a good thing she’d turned her back to him. Kept her from snarling in his face. “This is about me, and proving that I’m—”

  “As good as your siblings. You shouldn’t have to prove anything.”

  Stella shook her head. He didn’t understand. Not really. How could he? He’d spent his life accepted. The born scientist, his role in the family predetermined, what did he have to prove?

  Linus’s hands came to rest on her shoulders. Without looking, she knew his expression was marked by softness, his eyes compassionate and heavy lidded. “I don’t care what you do or who you are,” he said. “I just want to love you.”

  And she wanted his love. Oh, but she wanted it. She closed her eyes. Her limbs were shaking. Just like that day on Fifty-Second Street, she was afraid to move. It was like she was holding on to a ledge by her fingertips. If she let go...

  You’ll be happy.

  You’ll forever be a disappointment.

  Her heart twisted in her chest. “I can’t...”

  “There’s nothing more to be said, then, is there?”

  His hands slipped away, leaving her standing by the fire, cold and alone, listening to his footsteps grow fainter.

  “Linus, wait!”

  She turned just as he reached the door. “I...” The words wouldn’t come. Not the ones he wanted to hear. They remained trapped in her chest, blocked by fear. “I’m sorry.”

  She could see the disappointment in his eyes from across the room. The sorrow reached across the distance and pierced her heart, where, she suspected, it would stay for a long time. “So am I,” he said. “I’d hoped... Never mind. Doesn’t matter now. Goodbye, Stella.”

  Goodbye? Was this it? She stumbled a few steps forward, only to stop and collapse on the sofa. From out of nowhere, Toffee leaped on the cushion beside her, meowing softly. “It’s for the best,” Stella told her. “We were getting too attached.”

  Forty-eight hours later, there was still a persistent lump in Stella’s throat that had her constantly feeling on the verge of tears.

  Thing was, crying would be welcome. Only she couldn’t. God knew she’d wanted to since Linus walked out the door, but tears refused to come. It was as if her body wanted to hold on to the sadness.

  I’ll be fine in a few more days.

  That had become her new mantra. She’d been repeating the words all morning. When she woke up in her empty bed. When she found Linus’s T-shirt in her laundry hamper. When she heard the elevator door sound as Linus left for work.

  I’ll be fine in a few days.

  This heavy, pervasive sadness was a normal reaction to the ending of a friendship. And that’s all it was—a friendship. A friendship with good sex.

  Make that great sex. Not to mention being the best friendship she’d ever had.

  Dammit! Why did Linus have to spoil everything by saying he loved her? Didn’t he realize that if she let her feelings go beyond casual she would be forced to rethink...?

  No, she wasn’t going down that road. She had to return to New York and focus on her career as expected. That was what she wanted.

  “You understand, don’t you, Toffee? I have to prove myself.”

  Toffee didn’t answer. The Angora had her back to Stella and was bathing. She hadn’t slept on the bed the past two nights, either. A paranoid person would think the cat was trying to punish her.

  She’d come around. Eventually the cat would need her chin scratched and Stella would once again be her best friend. In the meantime, she had a meeting to prepare for. The accountant was coming by to discuss the yearly expense budget.

  Numbers work was exactly what Stella needed. Forty-five minutes later, she was properly immersed in figures when there was a knock on the door. Stella’s breath caught. He’d come back.

  “I’ll get it, Mrs. Churchill!”

  She hurried to the foyer, pausing to check her reflection in the mirror. Her face was peaked and her hair flat, but otherwise, she was presentable. She brushed the bangs from her face and, taking a deep breath, opened the door.

  It was Teddy Moreland.

  He wasn’t alone, either. Peter Singh was with him as well as another man she didn’t recognize. “Hello, Stella,” Peter said. His dour expression clashed with his red cashmere scarf.

  Seeing the three men together set Stella’s nerves on edge. She and Peter always met at his office. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’ll say there is.” Teddy pushed the door wider and barged inside. “I need you out of my apartment.”

  “Your apartment?” Stella squinted at the man in confusion.

  Peter took a deep breath. “Teddy. We agreed that I would handle the situation.”

  “What situation?” Stella asked.

  “Let’s sit down, shall we?” Peter said. He and the other man stepped into the living room. Teddy was already there, still wearing his overcoat and pacing in front of the fireplace. The other men shed their overcoats and draped them over the back of the sofa before making themselves comfortable.

  Stella opted to stand. She had a very bad feeling. “Would someone please tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

  Peter started. “Stella, this is Montgomery Armstrong.”

  “My attorney,” Teddy stated.

  “Nice to meet you.” It wasn’t really, but she didn’t know what else to say.

  “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call,” Armstrong replied. “My client has come to me with some very disturbing concerns about the estate and your management.”

  “What do you mean?” Stella asked.

  “It means you’re a thief,” Teddy said.

  “Teddy, we agreed.”

  “Well, she is.”

  A thief? Stella decided to sit down after all. “I don’t understand. Is this about the discrepancies in the inventory I gave Teddy? I’ve already told Peter about that. We’ve asked an investigator to look into the matter.”

  “Yes, I know,” Armstrong said.

  “Then what is the issue? Did the investigator find something?” And if so, what did his finding have to do with her?

  “Stella, it appears—”

  “What are you tiptoeing around for?” Teddy stopped his pacing to glare at her. “The truth is that those items were never missing. You only said they were so you could sell them online.”

  “What?” He was drunk; he had to be. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? I first got suspicious when I discovered a crystal figurine missing following your visit to the country house. At the time I thought I was imagining things, but then I read your inventory report and saw how many items you claimed couldn’t be accounted for, so out of curiosity, I decided to do a little investigating on the internet. Lo and behold, I found the very same crystal figurine being offered on an auction site.”

  Upon finishing, he smirked like a detective having announced the killer in the drawing room mystery.

  Feeling very much like an accused killer, Stella glared daggers at him. “I didn’t steal anything,” she said. If anyone was guilty of helping themselves at Agnes’s country house, it was him, the miserable liar. He was the one spending his weekends there.

  She turned her attention to Peter. “Are you certain it’s the same figurine?”

  “Yes.” Reaching into the briefcase he’d brought with him, the lawyer removed a tablet. “The same account was auctioning off several other items that have been listed as missing as well.”

  “And you think I’m the one responsible?”

  She wasn’t sure if she should scream or be sick to her stomach. How could they possibly think she would do something so blatantly dishonest?
Teddy seemed awfully confident, though. Taking the tablet from Peter’s hand, she studied the contents. Sure enough, there were Agnes’s belongings, on a page registered to a user named Expat92.

  “I had my tech people track the account,” Armstrong said. “It’s registered in your name.”

  “But that’s impossible! I didn’t open any account. I didn’t steal anything.” Stunned, she looked at the tablet screen again. The auction page listed a dozen items, all objects she’d listed as missing, including the crystal cat figurine. All posed in front of a backdrop of gray linen and described as having been owned by the late Dame Agnes Moreland.

  This was a nightmare. “I didn’t do this,” she said.

  “Then how do you explain the site being registered in your name?”

  “I... I don’t know.” Teddy had set her up somehow. Paid a hacker or something. Why, she wasn’t sure. Yet. “But it’s not my account. Why would I be so stupid as to sell items from the very estate I’m managing, and such benign items at that? A figurine? Garnet earrings?”

  “Obviously you figured the smaller objects wouldn’t attract attention,” Teddy said.

  “He’s right,” Peter said. “A few trinkets in an estate this size wouldn’t be missed.”

  Panic started rising in her throat. Her innocence wasn’t going to be enough to acquit her; she needed proof.

  If only Linus were here with her. His faith in her would have given her confidence. He always believed in her.

  Linus wasn’t here, though, so she had to go it alone. She looked down at the tablet screen. The first item for bidding was Agnes’s monogrammed lighter, which, Stella knew from reading, she had bought herself after getting her first acting paycheck. The auction had both the dates and the history incorrect.

  “Here,” she said, showing the tablet to Peter. “Read the description. It’s incorrect. Wouldn’t I list the correct anecdote?”

  “Not if you were looking to deflect?” Teddy was smirking again, like the cat who had eaten the canary. Stella did her best to ignore him.

  “And where would I take the photos or store the objects? They aren’t here in the apartment. Go ahead and search—you won’t find them.”