Tell Me a Story (The Story Series Book 1) (9 page)

O
nly a handful
of people sat in the Orlando City Council chambers when I arrived Monday morning. The meeting was scheduled to begin in a few minutes, and I settled into a hard, wooden chair near the front and center, allowing the oppressive silence to surround me.

This was surely an exercise in futility. I was the only one of our group of business owners to attend because everyone else had to staff their stores and couldn’t afford to close. So I’d been nominated as the spokesperson. It had been a day and a half since my disastrous night with Caleb, and I’d tried to piece myself together, although I still felt the painful throb of a hangover. I wore a conservative gray dress and black heels, and my normally loose, wild hair was scraped back into a bun. I’d even worn my black-rimmed glasses instead of my contacts, hoping I looked serious and bookish.

The meeting started with some formalities, and I arranged my notes in a file folder. When I looked up, I caught a glint of gray in the corner of my eye.

It was a suit-clad Caleb, flanked by two lawyerly-looking men. We locked eyes, and I shot him a hard stare, then glared at the papers in my lap. Why was he here? I bit the inside of my cheek, my anger and despair growing by the second. I shuffled my notes and clicked my pen.

“Is this seat taken?” I glanced to my side and Caleb slid next to me.

I said nothing and stared straight ahead. The council began the meeting and ran through some boring details. Caleb leaned into me, and I tried to hold my breath because I didn’t want to be seduced by his scent.

“We need to talk.”

I refused to acknowledge him. I sipped a little breath through my mouth. Somehow I still smelled him and I whispered a curse.

“Emma,” he hissed. “Stop ignoring me. I didn’t know we were handling that property. Jesus, I didn’t even know we’d bought it for future development.”

Crossing my arms tight over my chest, I jerked my body to the side of my seat, away from him. My blood boiled with ire. Caleb now represented everything I hated about the alleged
progress
happening in my city.

“Let’s open the floor to public comment. I believe we have a local business owner, Emma Price. She’s here to address the council.”

Taking a deep breath, I walked to the microphone in the center of the floor. I was aware of Caleb’s eyes on me as I thanked the council.

“I’m here to talk about the proposed renovation of 436 West Orange Street. I’m representing a group of business owners in the building, some of whom have been there for ten years. Many couldn’t make it today because they couldn’t afford to close their stores to attend this meeting.”

I paused, scanning the eyes of the nine politicians. Most appeared bored and only a few looked at me. Anger rose in my chest.

“We’ve been told that we’ll have to leave the building within months to make way for condominiums. The only thing standing between our eviction and those condos is your decision on the zoning variance. By allowing this to happen, here’s how it will affect downtown Orlando. There will be no music store. There will be no vintage clothing store. There will be no independently owned café. And there will be no bookstore. Right now, my store, Chapter One, is the only bookshop in downtown Orlando. The others are in suburban areas. My bookstore serves the downtown workers, many who come in and browse on their lunch breaks and after work. We do a brisk business during the day, and during our nighttime as well, now that the restaurants nearby are staying open later. The people in the neighborhoods nearby love us. We host weekly community events and sponsor children’s literacy parties.”

My voice became clearer and louder, and I spoke for a few moments about how a hundred children came to the store recently for a read-a-thon. One of the council members, a woman, nodded thoughtfully.

“When I was growing up in Polk County, just west of here, my parents would take me to the nearest bookstore once a month. I’d save my allowance that my grandmother gave me—since my parents were too poor to give me an allowance—and buy books. I would read the books and love their feel and smell. I’d alphabetize them by author on my bookshelf, as if I were a librarian. One month, when I was ten, we made our monthly trip and the bookstore had closed for good. We weren’t sure why it closed—whether it was because rents were too high in the downtown core or because of the bigger chain bookstores—but I remember how devastated I was as a girl, that I could no longer buy books of my own. My parents tried to tell me that the library was as good, and sure, it was, but those books weren’t mine to keep and reread. And the bigger bookstores were miles away, and my parents simply didn’t have the time to make the trek. That bookstore sparked my imagination and led me to college for a writing degree.”

I inhaled sharply, steeling myself from tears. “So I know how important it is to have a thriving bookstore in a city center. People rely on us. I’m here to plead with you to do something, anything, to allow us to stay. We were blindsided by the purchase of the building and the secrecy surrounding the deal. I would like for the council to take a good, hard look at whether to grant the King Group a zoning permit. Is this what we want in Orlando? Another glass-and-concrete building? We need to do some soul-searching in this city. Let’s ask ourselves: why can’t we preserve the beauty that we have? Old Florida is beautiful. Why don’t we embrace it? Thank you.”

Pasting on a smile, I turned and walked out. Tried to hold my head high. Tried not to look at Caleb. I shoved the front door open, hard, and saw a hand stop the door from flinging into the wall. The hand belonged to Caleb.

“When were you going to tell me all this, Emma?” His voice was brittle as we stepped into the bright sunshine. “Why didn’t you let me
fix
this?”

I sped up, my legs eating the distance and my heels striking hard on the asphalt. “Fix what? Tell you what?” I spat.

“Come here.” He reached out and grabbed for my arm, but missed because I was too quick. I stopped and whirled. What right did he have to demand anything of me?

“Don’t ever put your hands on me in anger.” We were next to my faded green Honda, and I reached into my purse for my keys. My legs quaked, I was so mad. I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but could only gulp air.

He jabbed his hands onto his hips and narrowed his eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

My only response was a glare. And a snort.

“Emma, I swear to God I didn’t know that my company had bought the building. You know how wrapped up I was in the Brazil project. Why didn’t you let me take care of this?”

Unreal. I thrust a finger in the direction of his chest. “Let you handle my life? My business? Really? I should turn all of that over to a man I just met weeks ago?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean it like that. Jesus. Why didn’t you share any of your problems with me? Trust me enough to let me in? Why didn’t you tell me what was going on with your business? I could have helped.
Help
, Emma—ever heard of asking for it? I want to protect you.”

I snorted and shook my head. “Share what? That my shop was in trouble? That I grew up poor? I get it, Caleb, you’re rich, and in your world, your money fixes everything. Well, I didn’t want your pity or your charity. I wanted to be with you as an equal. I didn’t know you were some real estate big-shot. I didn’t care, actually, what you did for a living. I knew you were well off, but that wasn’t important. And if I’d asked you to ‘protect me’—” I glared at him and made little quote marks with my fingers. “—I’d end up owing you. And that’s no way to start a relationship, in debt.”

Fumbling at the lock of my car, I got in and slammed the tinny, flimsy door, then roared off.

T
wo weeks went by
. I skipped Story Brothel and Color After Dark, leaving everything to Sarah so I could mope at home. She kept suggesting I call Caleb, but I refused. I didn’t ask her if she’d talked to Caleb’s sister because I didn’t want to know. She told me that Caleb showed up at Story Brothel, then left quickly after looking around.

I told myself I didn’t care.

I was living on coffee, Tums, and one meal a day. I cried myself to sleep and woke up drenched with sweat in the heat-haze of a sweltering Florida spring, wishing that Caleb’s hard body was next to mine. On a few nights, I had intense, sexual dreams about him, and those left me more despondent than ever.

At the end of one Saturday, when we were about to close, Sarah and I debated whether to order more books for the store. We still hadn’t gotten a formal eviction notice, and the city council had yet to make a final ruling on whether to grant the zoning permit for the condo building. Which left us in limbo.

“I don’t think we can handle a big order,” I said. “It doesn’t make financial sense if we have to close in a couple of months.”

“But what about ordering a few bestsellers? People have been asking for certain titles,” she reasoned.

If there was anything I hated, it was uncertainty. And financial uncertainty was the worst. It made me feel like a girl again, when we’d run out of food stamps at the end of the month and have to eat cornflakes a lot. I rubbed my stomach, which had been hurting recently. As if it was trying to digest ground metal shards.

The bells on the front door jingled, and we looked up. It was an older, familiar-looking guy. He introduced himself and said he was a lawyer for the King Group. My jaw involuntarily clenched when I remembered him from the council meeting.

“I’m here to give you a proposal. Mr. King asked me to bring it by. We’d like for you to present it to the other business owners and get their opinions.” The man opened his briefcase and took out a folder. “And you’ll probably want to seek your own counsel, but here’s the synopsis: Plans for the building have been redrawn. We’re submitting this to the council this week. Instead of knocking down the building and constructing a new one, the King Group wants to renovate floors two through six into luxury units.”

The man tapped on a copy of a blueprint and turned a page, revealing color renditions of luxury condos with historic architectural flourishes.

“So all of the businesses on the bottom floor can stay while the King Group turns the upstairs units into condos. Terms of the commercial leases are in section four. And we’re willing to renovate the stores at no cost to you, the business owners.”

He slid the open folder toward me.

“Whoa,” Sarah said, thumbing through the papers. “Em, he wants to keep the building. And reduce rent by five hundred dollars a month …for everyone.”

I rubbed my lips together nervously. “Thank you. We’ll take this under advisement.” I slapped the folder shut. “Have a nice day.”

The man walked out.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to say no to this.” Sarah glared at me. “Don’t let your goddamned pride screw this up. Caleb is giving you a gift. He’s giving all of us a gift—the whole damned city. You’re crazy if you don’t see that.”

I grabbed my purse. “Thanks. We’ll see.”

“Where are you going?” she called out.

I paused at the door. “Where do you think?”

It didn’t take me long to walk the handful of blocks to Caleb’s condo, even in my tall red heels.

I mulled Sarah’s words as I approached his building. Of course I had to accept his offer, if only to save my friends’ businesses and the historic building. It was what I’d wanted. I supposed this was a good thing, although I felt like a charity case. That was my hesitation. My pride was getting in the way.

He didn’t have to redo the entire project. He could have just thrown money at all of us and made our businesses fade away.

I wrenched open the heavy glass door to his building, refusing to use the too-slow revolving door. Mr. Wright, the older concierge, beamed when he saw me. We’d become friends after that first odd night I’d visited. Which seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Emma, long time, no see.”

“Hi, Mr. Wright. Do you know if Caleb’s home?”

“I saw him go up about an hour ago. Is he expecting you? Would you like me to call him? A week or so ago he told me that, if you came by, to let you in regardless of the time.”

I shook my head and mustered a smile. “I’d rather surprise him.”

The old man laughed softly and then led me to the elevator. “Have a good evening, Emma dear.”

I tapped my foot as I was whisked into the sky. The elevator bell dinged, and the doors slid open to the penthouse. There was Caleb, lying on his sofa, reading a book. Soft, soulful music played in the background.

My heart shattered when I saw the hopeful look in his eyes. God, he was more beautiful in real life than in my dreams. I took a deep breath and stood awkwardly in the middle of the living room.

“I don’t know whether to yell at you, thank you, or apologize.” I exhaled.

“Come here,” he said.

“No, I just wanted to tell you—”

“Come here.” His voice was sharper and he sat up.

My heart thumping against my ribs, I took a few steps, then wilted onto the sofa. I could feel the warmth of his body as he moved closer, and then his scent surrounded me.

And I dissolved.

My body drooped, as if the weight of the previous two weeks was too much to bear. We locked eyes. He bit his lip and a worried look crossed his face, and that’s when my desire to talk evaporated. So did my pride and my anger.

“I’m sorry, Emma. I—”

I didn’t let him finish. I simultaneously straddled him and hiked up my skirt, pressing my lips to his and kissing him hard. He brushed my hair back with both hands and groaned, the noise slicing through my body and cracking me open, making me want him all the more. Cupping my face in his hands, he paused from kissing me.

“You,” he whispered.

His hands grabbed my ass and possessively rocked my hips against his lap while I undid the side tie that held my wrap dress together. I fumbled because I was concentrating on kissing him, then wrangled the oppressive fabric off my body and flung it to the floor.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Emma. Beautiful and stubborn. But I’ll take beautiful and stubborn Emma over no Emma at all.” One of his hands went into my hair and pulled, so that my ear was near his mouth. His deep voice was all the foreplay I needed.

“Please don’t disappear on me like that again. Please? I need you more than you know. You’re so very special to me.”

He let up on my hair, and I stilled, staring at the lines and edges in his face. His expression was ravenous and vulnerable, and the awareness of being a part of something larger, something profound, seized me.

I needed to let go of all my fears if I wanted to be with him. Or else, I had to leave him, forever. But the deep blue of his eyes reflected my choice.

“I can’t resist you. I might never be able to resist you,” I whispered.

He unhooked my bra and his lips found my nipple, and now I was only wearing my red heels and my panties, feeling primal and a little dirty because he was still fully clothed.

“Dear God, I missed you,” I gasped, watching him suck and twirl the puckered flesh with his tongue.

Caleb looked up. “Not as much as I missed you.” He eased me onto my back and pushed my legs apart with his knees, exposing my black lace panties. When he slipped a hand down the front of my underwear and cupped me, all of my nerves sparkled. And when his fingers caressed my slick opening, parting me gently and moving back and forth against my clit, I cried out.

“Did you miss this, Emma?”

Oh God. Yes. Did I ever.

It didn’t take long for me to orgasm, explode,
shatter
. And it didn’t take long after that for him to shuck off my panties, pull his T-shirt over his head, and slip off his jeans and boxers. I reached for him, wanting to feel his cock in my hand, needing to feel his body on top of mine.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Condom. I’ll be right back.” I watched his long legs and firm ass as he walked out of the room and then it hit me:
Why am I lying here, waiting
?

I kicked off my shoes and practically ran to the bedroom. The curtains were open, and since it was sunset, the room was bathed in a blazing hue, as if pure liquid Florida sunshine was pouring into the room. He was opening the nightstand drawer when I walked in and looked at me with surprise.

“I couldn’t wait for you,” I said breathless.

We fell onto the bed and had the sweetest, hottest sex of my life. When I had another orgasm, tears welled in my eyes, and I frowned, squeezing my eyes shut. I tried to bury my face in his neck, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead, he propped himself on his hands and fixed his eyes on me. He stilled, his cock filling me. The sun had set by now, and his eyes shimmered in the fading light and my breath caught, captivated by the angles of his face.

Captivated by the moment.

“Tell me what you need, Emma,” he purred. “Tell me.”

“You. You, Caleb. I need you.”

“And I need you. Only you.”

He cupped my jaw in his big hand and pressed his open mouth to my cheek when he came, gasping my name again and again. I’d never heard a sweeter sound.

W
e sprawled
in his big bed, sated.

“I’m sorry, Emma. I would have stepped in on the condo deal and made things right had I known. I was so caught up in Brazil, and…and in you. For the first time in years, I delegated some of my work so I could have some free time. To be with you. I don’t think you understand how you’ve opened up my life.”

I shuddered in a breath, on the verge of tears, and he kept talking.

“Emma, sweetheart, I hope you believe me. And I think the project’s better this way, if that’s any consolation. I think you’re right to want to preserve the history.” His voice had a pleading tone, and when I scrutinized his face, I saw the dark circles under his eyes.

“I do believe you. But I didn’t want to rely on you solve my problems for me. I started my business myself, and I wanted to fix things myself. It’s how I operate. I’ve had to do so much for myself, and I don’t like to rely on anyone else.”

He nodded slowly. “I get that. Really. I do.”

“So I should apologize. I shouldn’t have been so nasty to you. I’m sorry. Truly. And I wanted to say thank you for the offer, for letting all of us stay in the building. For saving the building. It’s a generous thing to do.” I buried my face in his side.

Caleb kissed my forehead. “I hope you know I’d do anything to help you. And you don’t owe me anything, okay?”

I bobbed my head up and down, shame churning in my gut.

“But if we’re going to continue this, Emma, if you
want
to be with me, all I ask is for honesty. Like that story you told at the meeting. Why didn’t you tell me about that during our conversations? Why won’t you let me into your life?”

I looked at him, wincing. “I grew up poor, in a trailer park next to an orange grove. Why would I ever, in a million years, tell someone like you about my childhood? You’d only look at me with pity.”

“Oh, Emma. No. No.” He wrapped his arms around me, and I repeated an old mantra to myself, one I used to say to myself all the time when I was in college and the rich sorority girls looked sideways at my Goodwill outfits.

Don’t cry. Have some pride. Don’t cry.

I started to sniffle and then maneuvered on top of him. His arms circled me and I sighed.

“Don’t you get it, Emma? I don’t care where you grew up or how you grew up. I want to know about your past because it’s shaped you. I care about here and now. I want you to share these details with me because I care. We’re equals—that’s how I see us. This isn’t just sex. Not for me. This is real. You make me think about something other than work. You make me want to experience life outside of my office. You make me think and laugh. You make me happy again. It’s been so long. So damned long.”

I folded onto him, my body boneless, and nodded into the hollow of his neck. His skin became wet from my tears, and I used my hand to wipe the moisture away.

“Remember how you said that you could fall for me?”

I leaned back so I could look in his eyes. “Yeah. I do. How could I forget?”

“If you’re falling, I’m falling faster. Which means I’ll be there to catch you at the bottom. Is that okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak because I was afraid I’d start sobbing after holding everything in for so long.

“What are you listening to?” I murmured, suddenly aware of the music that wafted from the other room. I’d been so focused on consuming him physically that I’d ignored everything else.

“Ella Fitzgerald.”

“I love it.”

How could I have been so angry with him?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

A smile tugged at his lips. “Don’t be. If this is the worst we face together, we’ll be the luckiest couple in the world.”

As my lips found his neck, he whisper-sung a few song lyrics into my ear.

I cupped his face in my hands and then kissed him until I couldn’t breathe.

A
fter we made love again
, snacked on frozen cheese pizza, and kissed some more, we lazed on the sofa, naked.

“You don’t seem like the frozen pizza type,” I said.

“I’m not. I’ve been eating like crap because I was upset about you.”

I sighed. “I’ve been trying to distract myself by working on a new story these past couple of weeks.”

“Oh, yeah? Did it work? Did you distract yourself?”

How I loved his smile…

I shook my head. “Nope. I realized after typing ten pages that I was really writing about you. About us.”

He planted a kiss on my temple and tickled my side. “Oh, yeah? Now I want to hear this. Will you read for me?”

I yelped and reached for my purse to get my tablet, then snuggled back into his body. I threw my legs over his, wanting as much flesh-to-flesh contact as possible. He smoothed back my hair, which was everywhere because he’d been playing with it all night.