His Princess: (A novella from the world of House of Payne) Read online

  “He didn’t value me. All of me,” she corrected fairly, swiveling around in her chair to face the other woman. “God, that actually hurt to say it out loud, but it’s true. He just wants the princess. Not the whole woman.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means that right from the beginning, it felt like Gus and I were made for each other, you know? I didn’t even get angry when he got called away to work, because I knew it was important to him. I respected that. Was it too much to ask for him to do the same for me? Is it because I’m a woman? Generally speaking, our culture has a bad habit of not valuing women and their work as much as men’s work. Is that it?”

  “Jo, stop.” Alice got up to sit on the couch’s armrest, her expression torn between bewilderment and exasperation. “I feel like I walked in on a movie halfway through, so do me a favor and start from the beginning. What the hell happened?”

  At last Joelle told her everything, and as she did she tried to look at the situation objectively. It hadn’t been cool of her to jump at the work opportunity that had popped up without at least giving Gus a heads-up. She knew that. As a matter of courtesy, she probably should have talked it over with him and explained how important this move could potentially be for her career, instead of letting her ambition get in the way.

  So, yes. That crap move was totally on her.

  But he had one helluva lot to answer for, too.

  “So, let me see if I have this straight,” Alice said when she finally wound down. “This is a lot of upset over what amounts to be an interrupted date, something couples the world over have experienced.”

  “Exactly. Of course, most dates don’t include private plane travel just to pick up a bottle of your favorite wine at a Napa Valley winery, but the point is clear. Gus blew this whole incident way out of proportion.” Feeling sick all the way to her soul, Joelle crossed her arms and hugged them tightly to her chest. “At least now I know how he really feels about me. I’m just a fluff-brained princess whose work—or life, for that matter—isn’t nearly as important as his.”

  Alice made a dubious sound. “I don’t know, Jo. Seems to me you both have kind of blown this way out of proportion.”

  That brought Joelle’s gaze snapping back to her. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Let’s try to be objective and not emotional for a moment,” Alice said, lacing her hands in front of her. “You don’t think that what you just said wasn’t a tiny bit of an overreaction?”

  “I’m not overreacting to anything. He told me to my face that my work, and therefore my ambition—and therefore me—isn’t nearly important enough to mess up his weekend getaway plans. For God’s sake, all I did was ask for two measly hours, and he refused even that. Don’t tell me you agree with him?”

  “I didn’t say anything like that, so don’t bite my head off. That Gus guy spouted some seriously stupid crap that belittled what’s important to you, and that would piss anyone off,” Alice nodded while Joelle glared at her. “I’m just trying to calmly point out that the way you’re reacting right now, to the point where you’re even lashing out me, is a tiny bit extreme.”

  Joelle hissed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “From the moment I picked you up at the airport, you’ve been acting like the end of the world has already happened, so now there’s nothing left to live for.”

  That explained her feelings in a nutshell. “So?”

  “So, let’s get a little perspective here, okay? The guy said some stupid shit in the heat of the moment. He then followed you to the airport, and apparently bought an airline ticket he didn’t even need just so he could catch up with you at the gate so he could straighten out the things he said.”

  “The horrible, stupid things he said. Things that no woman should ever put up with, I might add.”

  “Then,” Alice went on with a maddening calm that made Joelle want to punch her in the face, “he abandoned his own private jet in California so he could personally accompany you back to Chicago, even going so far as to walk you to my car so he could open the door for you. Which, in case you were wondering, was kind of confusing to watch,” she added, shaking her head. “You said something about how awful he was, so I’d expected him to, you know, actually be awful, instead of gentlemanly.”

  Joelle ran an impatient hand through her hair. “He crushed me, Al. He didn’t just hurt my feelings with some careless words. He crushed me.”

  “That’s exactly my point. You’ve handled far worse in the past. Emerson what’s-his-name dumped you after a solid month of dating because you weren’t swimming in cash, right? Yet you didn’t shed a tear over him. All you did was get mad. But on the flipside we’ve got this Gus guy, whom you’ve known for approximately five minutes, and he manages to crush you with a few words over something as trivial as an interrupted date. So what’s the difference between these two guys?”

  “The difference is that I didn’t fall in love with Emerson, okay? I didn’t love him.”

  Alice’s jaw dropped. “Does that mean you love Gus?”

  “I… yes.” There. She finally said it out loud. But it somehow only made her feel worse. “I told myself I was just starting to fall for him, or that it was just a crazy case of lust. But none of that is true. The moment Gus told me he’d been looking for me—like I was the missing piece to his life’s puzzle—that’s when it happened. In a heartbeat, I was lost.” She took a shuddering breath and raised miserable eyes to her foster sister. “I’m in love with a man who doesn’t value me, Al.”

  “Oh, honey.” Alice pushed off the couch’s armrest to rest a soothing hand on her slumped back. “Maybe love at first sight is actually a thing—I wouldn’t know. But I do know that having total knowledge of another person right out of the gate is impossible. You two haven’t known each other long enough for either one of you to know what’s in each other’s heads. You don’t know what’s important to him, and it’s obvious he has no clue what’s important to you. These are things that have to be learned.”

  “Al, he basically laughed at my job, because it’s not as important as his—his view, not mine—and I don’t have to work to put food on my table. It’s cute and I love it, he said.”

  “Yes, and that was a dumbass, patronizing thing to say. From what I can tell, in that moment he wasn’t getting what he wanted—which was your undivided attention—so he slipped into total dick-mode and threw a verbal tantrum. As a fellow woman, I’m proud of you for walking out on him. That’s exactly what he deserved.”

  Joelle slanted her a leery glance. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a but at the end of that?”

  “I’m just not convinced he’s a total loss. If what I saw at the airport was any indication, that man knows he fucked up, and he’s desperate to make up for it.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” Joelle abruptly pushed to her feet to stalk her way across the room, so agitated she was ready to climb the walls. “Just forget what he said like it didn’t happen? Pretend he didn’t stomp all over what I told him was important to me?”

  “What I’m saying is that if a man abandons his private airplane in favor of following you halfway across a continent just so he can politely open a car door for you, maybe he’s not a complete waste of space. I know you’re feeling raw, but if you can, try to at least acknowledge that when someone fucks up, and they know it, they should at least be given a chance to say they’re sorry.”

  She opened her mouth to respond when the front doorbell suddenly sounded. They both froze, before Joelle glanced at the clock on her desk. “It’s not even seven.”

  “Gee, I wonder who it could be.” Alice raised her brows. “Do you want me to stay? I’ll stay if you need me.”

  She would. That was Alice all over. “You really think he should be given a chance to say sorry?”

  “No matter how this winds up, I think every person who fucks up should be given that chance. If they live through their fuck-up, that is.”
r />   Joelle didn’t bother hiding her wince. They both knew Alice’s father hadn’t lived through his ultimate fuck-up, so her foster sister clearly had a unique perspective on the subject. “Okay, Al. And don’t worry about standing guard over me. I can do this.”

  “I know you can, hon.”

  She walked Alice to the foyer, took a moment to steel herself, and opened the door. Gus, his concaved cheeks dark with a sexy five o’clock shadow and eyes burning with that heart-stopping intensity, stood in the doorway with an expression that would have scared the Devil himself.

  “Play nice, kids,” Alice mumbled to no one in particular, before disappearing faster than a Vegas magician.

  Right.

  Play nice.

  That meant starting off on a polite note. “Good morning, Gus. Please, come in. Would you like some coffee?”

  He barreled past her like he’d been shot out of a cannon and didn’t come to a stop until he was in the middle of the living room. “I don’t want coffee, and I don’t want any fucking niceties. The only thing I want is to clear up this shit that’s between us.”

  “Gus—”

  “You were right. You’re not a princess, you’re a goddamn queen. I should’ve listened to you when you told me that, but I didn’t. It took you beheading my stupid ass to finally get that—that I should respect the fucking queen and everything she does. But I can promise you that I get it now. You need to give me another chance so I can prove to you that I understand I was an asshole.” He finally came to stop near her workstation, and he looked at all the equipment covering the desk before he picked up a pair of headphones. “Did you finish that video your boss wanted?”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat so it wouldn’t close up. “Took only ninety minutes or so.”

  “Fuck me.” He rubbed a weary hand over his face before he set the headphones aside and faced her head-on. “I should’ve given you your two hours.”

  “Yes, you should have.” Then she remembered that she was supposed to play nice. “I should have talked it over with you first before grabbing at that work opportunity that came my way. You’d gone to all the trouble of making the perfect weekend getaway for us, but I didn’t even think about that when Heidi offered me a shot at that Monday slot. I just went for it.”

  “You got to grab at opportunities when they show up, because they almost never come around again. I swear I understand that when I’m not losing my fucking mind and trying to keep you all to myself.”

  “Is that what happened?” She ventured closer, though she still felt better with the room between them. If he touched her now when her feelings were all over the place, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t shatter. “Because it seemed to me that you simply didn’t see any value in what I do, and that my career—and my ambitions for it—are nothing but silly trivialities. FYI, they’re not. I know you don’t get this, but my job is just as important to me as yours is to you.”

  “I do get that, Joelle. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The moment you turned my own words back on me, I knew I’d fucked up big-time. What really shits me is that I didn’t even believe what I was saying when I was saying it.”

  “Then why did you say it?”

  “I was trying to downplay your job like a dumbass so you wouldn’t be distracted by it. I wanted all your attention focused on me, and I didn’t give a damn about how I kept it. I’m just as pissed off at myself as you are for acting like a horse’s ass, and I wish to Christ I could un-say every damn word.”

  “But you can’t.” She took a breath and tried to find that perspective Alice told her she needed to make sense of it all. “What you can do is find some way to convince me that you’re not just another misogynistic, master-of-the-universe blowhard bent on snagging an empty-headed armpiece that you think doesn’t have any value other than looking pretty in public. For the record, I will never be any man’s trophy, and I won’t allow anyone to diminish me into being that.”

  “Good, because the last thing I want is some brainless trophy. If we ever have a daughter, I’m going to want her to know her own value—to have the strength to stand on her own and give the middle finger to anyone who might say otherwise. To be all that, all she’ll have to do is look to you to see what a strong woman actually is.”

  It was like a bomb went off in the room, yet somehow she was the only one who heard it. “What?”

  “I know.” He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as he wandered closer to where she stood. “We just met. You think I’m an asshole. Full disclosure—sometimes I am an asshole. All things being equal, I can’t blame you for looking at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind. But I’m crystal clear on what I see when I look at you, Joelle Fielding. What I see is a future I never thought a man like me could have—a real home. Kids. Being a rock-solid family man.”

  “What?” Had he really just said he wanted to be a rock-solid family man? With her?

  Maybe he was high.

  “It may not happen right away, but I’m good with that,” he went on while her jaw stubbornly remained unhinged. “After this weekend, it’s pretty frigging obvious we need to take our time and get to know each other before we take it to the next level. Here’s the thing, though—I’m not going to take it slow and easy when it comes to telling you where I’m coming from. I’m hoping that by laying all my cards on the table, there won’t be any more screw-ups on my part.”

  “Laying your cards on the table?” Her eyes widened, to the point where she wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d popped right out of her head. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m not going to hide my thoughts or feelings from you. I fucked up yesterday because of that, so the only way to handle life from now on is to be completely honest with you. I wouldn’t have lost your trust if I’d just told you what the hell was in my mind when you said you needed a couple hours away from me.”

  “Okay,” she managed, at last getting her mouth to close. “What was in your mind?”

  “That I couldn’t stand the thought of you working and not being with me,” he said so grimly she couldn’t decide if it was a beautiful moment or an alarming one. “Not for two hours, not for two minutes. No matter how unfair I was being, I didn’t want the real world to intrude on us for even a second.”

  “But that intrusion was going to happen eventually,” she pointed out, trying to understand. “From a rational perspective, you had to have known that.”

  “Being rational has nothing to do with me when it comes to you,” came the growling reply. “Understand this now, lady. I don’t just want your body. I want your mind and everything you are. I want to be your every thought, your every wish, your every dream. I want to occupy your every minute of every hour, and every day that you’re on this earth. And I want you to want the same when it comes to me.”

  “I… see,” she said faintly, stunned, and all she could think was that she needed a chair. “Wow. That’s a lot.”

  “Yeah, I get that. It’s a lot for me to wrap my mind around, too, but fuck it. It is what it is.”

  “Obsessive?”

  “I don’t care what you call it, though you should know I’ve never been the obsessive type. Hell, that crazy shit usually happens to me, not the other way around. That’s why I wasn’t completely honest with you back in California—I totally get how fucking whacked out I sound right now. But we wouldn’t be where we are now if I’d just straight-up copped to being out of my goddamn mind over you, so I’m done with fronting. You need to know what my truth is when it comes to you.”

  Seriously, if she didn’t sit down soon, she was going to fall down. “What is your truth?”

  “I’ve been crazy about you from the moment I came up the stairs and saw you standing there, a golden goddess among mere mortals,” he said, scowling at her like she was somehow at fault for where he was now. “One look, and I knew you were mine. No, it was more than that—I didn’t just know you were mine. I felt it, in every cell of my body and every
corner of my soul. From the time I knew how to dream, you were the one I dreamed about. And then suddenly, there you were. My dream woman.”

  No power on earth could have stopped her from pressing a hand to her wildly thundering heart. “Oh, Gus.”

  “I could barely believe you were real,” he went on, still grim-faced, still looking at her like he blamed her for his temporary madness. “Even when we danced for the first time and I held you in my arms, I couldn’t fucking believe you actually existed. I kept telling myself you couldn’t be as perfect as you were, and that love at first sight was just a damn fairy tale for moony-eyed suckers. But I was wrong. Honest to God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, much less feeling it, but… I’m in love with you, Joelle Fielding.”

  There went her knees. Thank heaven she was near the couch where Alice had sat only minutes earlier, or she would have sprawled all over the carpet.

  “I don’t expect you to feel the same way about me anytime soon, so don’t get in a twist about that,” he said quickly, stepping forward in apparent alarm at her sudden collapse. But he didn’t come any closer, as if he weren’t sure how to bridge the space that yawned between them. “I know springing this on you when we’ve only known each other a handful of days is messed up. And let’s face it—I seriously stepped in it yesterday by trying to downplay the importance of your job in the hope I could talk you into staying focused on me. Jesus, talk about shooting myself in the goddamn foot. You should know upfront that I don’t expect anything from you after I screwed up yesterday, all right? I’m just here to negotiate another chance with you, and I’m not leaving until you say yes on that.”

  “Negotiate another chance,” she repeated, putting a hand to her temple in the hope of getting her brain back in gear. Sadly, it didn’t work. “What does that mean? Do you want like a do-over? Start over from square one?”

  His chest heaved with a short—and probably impatient—breath. “If that’s what it takes to get back in your good graces, then yeah. Whatever you want.”

  Whatever you want.