Young, Allyson - Absolute Perfection [Aspire 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) (11 page)

“If you hadn’t met Georgios because I asked you to bear witness, you probably would never have discovered this part of you. If I could turn back time, maybe I wouldn’t ask you to save you this pain. But you’re alive somehow, Iris, in a way you’ve never been before despite the heartache. And I think you’re making a mistake, or at least a hasty decision. That’s all I’m going to say. But I’m here for you always, whenever, if ever, you want to talk.”

Iris pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. She replayed everything Haley had said. How was it Haley had known what she wanted at such a young age? She wanted to become a chef and pursued that with a single-minded purpose. She wanted the Lifestyle and immersed herself in it. She wanted
Warren
. At first she had made a mess of things because she loved
Warren
so much she’d tried to make herself over for him. Then he’d been an ass, but things worked out in the end. Haley had Gordon, too, who any blind person could see was deliriously happy with her and their ménage. Whereas she, Iris, had essentially run away under the guise of her career in tourism once Haley was established and their mom no longer in the role of single parent. It had been a huge relief not to be so depended upon although the job held similar pressure and responsibilities. It had been a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. Had she abandoned her little sister? And her mom? Had she ignored her own needs, sublimated them because she was so busy running?

She sighed and looked at Haley. “Okay. I’ll think on it. I’m a mess, Haley, but I’ll try to think on it.”

“No more a mess than I was when
Warren
got stabbed, Iris. Believe me. Gordon actually spanked me so hard to snap me out of it that I couldn’t sit down for days.”

Iris involuntarily clenched her thighs together at the thought. Georgios wouldn’t be happy with her for walking out, running out, and refusing to listen. Trust. God, she was conflicted. What did she want? Was she his wife’s clone? What? Her heavy thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. She stiffened. Maybe Georgios had come over to talk to her because men tended to stick together on these things and Doms probably did more so.

Haley interpreted her facial expression. “No, Iris. Doms don’t blindly support the other guy. The majority of them care about their subs too much to let bullshit or abuse slide. They don’t excuse it either.”

Crap. She needed to spend more time with her sister talking about this D/s thing. She should have done it earlier but had been trying to handle it herself. No excuse.

“A delivery for you, Iris.” Gordon advanced on her, bearing an enormous sheath of lilies. She could smell their fragrance from across the room. They were her favorite flowers, not roses but graceful, gently scented, fluted lilies. She’d told Georgios about her preference that night at dinner. Jane had held a bouquet of bloodred roses in the wedding picture. She accepted the bouquet with shaking hands and buried her face in them, after noting that the stamens had been carefully removed. The gorgeous aroma soothed her battered senses, and she heard Haley say something about a vase.

She arranged the flowers in the huge crystal container Haley provided and put them on the coffee table, then tried not to look at them, but they were always just on the edge of her vision and she could smell them. She agreed to stay another night and told Haley she would need her wedding outfit to go back to the hotel in, and some underwear. She managed to laugh with her sister when Haley chuckled, but she wasn’t wearing that dress and she couldn’t go home in the robe. They looked at baby names for the better part of an hour, laughing some more at some of the ridiculous combinations Haley came up with when the doorbell shrilled again. Iris nearly jumped out of her skin.

She accepted that she was waiting for Georgios to come over and make her listen to him, but she wasn’t ready for that. She needed some time to do something, if she could only figure out what. This time
Warren
came in with several large boxes, the kind clothing stores used. He was smiling, and she itched to wipe it off his face. He set the boxes down beside her on the floor, and Haley bounced on the seat cushion.

“Aren’t you going to look?”

“I already know what they are, Haley.” Her comment sounded bitter and mutinous to her ears, and Haley stuck out her tongue.

“It doesn’t matter. You won’t know exactly.”

Iris gestured at the pile. “Have at it then.”

“Oh, I couldn’t, Iris. They’re yours.” But Haley couldn’t resist and pulled the largest box open. A pair of black athletic pants in Iris’s size reposed among the tissue paper. Haley lifted them out and handed them to her. The material was beautiful, but Iris realized they weren’t the top of the line. More her style and price range. He had listened and took notice of everything. There was a matching shirt and a light jacket to go with the shirt and pants. Two pairs of socks, a sports bra, and a pair of her favorite brand of sneakers completed the ensemble. It appeared Georgios had forgotten underwear, and Iris thought dark thoughts about his effrontery.

“Oh, here’s a little bag.” Haley pulled out a handful of fabric. Panties in all colors of the rainbow filled her hand, and she threw them onto Iris’s lap. “No bras though. You’re lucky Iris. You can get away without wearing one. I look like droopy Sue in my clothes if I go without.”

“There’s a sports bra.” Iris heard herself jump to Georgios’s defense and set her lips against it.

“Oh, right. But you wouldn’t wear that with your other clothes…” Haley stopped and grinned. “So that’s his expectation. He lets you away with panties, but a bra is a different story.”

“There is no story and no expectation,” Iris snapped. She gathered her new clothes up and stomped out of the room and up the stairs to the sound of Haley’s giggles. Her smart-ass sister could clean up the boxes and tissue paper. She wished she had some makeup and other essentials like deodorant, but was damned if she’d ask. She was angry at Haley. There was a rap at the door. She pulled it open, and Gordon offered her another bag, very obviously doing his best to keep a straight face. She nearly snatched it from him before she remembered her manners and thanked him graciously. She shut the door again with a snap and threw the bag on the bed, giving it a glare she would have preferred to bend on a live being.

When she opened it, she found toiletries and brushes and all the things a woman stranded away from home with no luggage could use. Damn him. Bless him. She threw up her hands and got on with the business of getting dressed and fixing her face. She wasn’t going to be too proud to take advantage of his gifts. She would enjoy the rest of the day with her sister and the guys, stay the night, and make some decisions in the morning. Regardless, she needed to get ready for work on Monday. Her love life might be a debacle, but her job was a constant and she owed Evelyn. She tried not to wonder what Georgios was doing at that very minute.

* * * *

Georgios was sitting in his car watching the front door of the house where his woman was recuperating. He hoped she was recuperating. None of his gifts had been hurled outside in any event. Surely Iris recognized how well he had come to know her already and how different she was from Jane, being as perceptive as she was. His cell rang, and he punched the talk button.

“George?
Warren
here. Iris is going to stay the night. She and Haley have been talking, and she’s far more settled. We aren’t as concerned as we were before, but she won’t talk about you yet.” The other man laughed. “I feel like a supporting actor in a bad movie, but damned if you don’t have style. I had no clue as to how to go about winning Haley back. I leaned heavily on Gordon.”

“I amaze even myself, Warren,” he replied dryly. “Thanks for the update. I’ll head home then, and catch you tomorrow. Call me when Iris is ready to head back to her hotel, if you would.”

George clicked off and started up the car to head home and get some sleep. He planned to offer Iris a ride to her hotel and, if she refused, wait there for her. He dared hope she would forgive him once she gave him a chance to explain. It was an amazing experience, joining the real world again. He could foresee family dinners and vacations, children playing together. He ignored the possibility that he wasn’t going to be able to make this right with Iris.

His house felt emptier than ever. He wandered the rooms and decided he was cutting all ties with his past. He’d have his secretary find a good real estate agent to unload it. He and Iris would find a home together. She didn’t have anywhere to live, and it made sense to find one immediately. Georgios again refused to consider any other possibility. It enabled him to put a sandwich together and wolf it down before crashing for the night. It had been a week for the history books, his and Iris’s history. He couldn’t shake the hint of unease, but had no further ideas on the subject.

Chapter Eight

Iris woke early the next morning with a profound sense of loss. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked around the room to get her bearings. She remembered where she was and all that had gone before in the past week. Instead of resting, her poor brain had indeed thought on everything Haley posited, coupled with Warren and Gordon’s take on how she
didn’t
resemble Georgios’s dead wife. Now that the shock had dissipated somewhat, Iris wondered what her next step should be. She threw the covers back and quietly made her way to the bathroom. She showered and got dressed. It was difficult not to think about Georgios when everything she used to get ready and put on her body had been chosen by him. The sneakers were about half a size too big, and she took a certain amount of satisfaction that he wasn’t perfect after all. Close, but not quite.

She made a sudden decision. She’d take a cab back to her hotel, change her footwear, and go for a run. It had always cleared her head in the past. Iris stopped in front of her sister’s bedroom door and raised a hand to knock. She wasn’t going to walk out and just leave a note, but neither was she going to disrupt their entire weekend. She was going to be okay.

The sounds she detected behind the wooden panels made her back up and snatch her hand away. She just managed not to shove her fingers in her ears and stifled a giggle. A note it was then. There was no way she was disturbing the activity in that bedroom. Iris tiptoed downstairs and called for a cab before putting pen to paper and leaving it on the kitchen counter. She waited by the window in the foyer, and no one appeared on the stairs. She smiled to herself. Good for Haley. And now she had to take charge of her own life.

The taxi dropped her at the Hilton in short order. There wasn’t too much going on that early on a Sunday. Iris paid him with nearly the last of her cash and made a mental note to take her bank card with her on the run in order to replenish her reserves. She decided to jog to the little bistro down the street and grab an energy drink if they were open. The lobby had a number of people milling around, probably a tour, and Iris worked her away around them. She came to an abrupt halt and a little old lady wearing a lanyard around her neck advertising Ladies Theatre Fund crashed into her. Iris righted the other woman and looked again at the man leaning against the wall near the elevators. He raised a hand and she walked over, puzzled.

“Hello, Iris.”

“Hello, uh, Mr. Casey.” It was really strange, meeting him here.

“Jarrod, please, Iris. I guess you’re surprised to see me.”

“I am.” Iris glanced around the lobby and saw the clerk behind the desk watching them. She felt uncomfortable. What
was
he doing here?

“I had breakfast here with a friend and remembered you were staying here. I thought I’d look you up, but the front desk couldn’t get an answer in your room. I was just about to leave when I saw you.

“My company is putting together a vacation package as a bonus for some of our employees, and someone mentioned you head up a travel agency. So I thought we could talk about it over coffee. What do you say?” There was a definite
tone
in Jarrod’s voice. That confident certainty Georgios, Gordon, and Warren had. He really wasn’t asking. He was telling her, or at the very least felt certain she would comply.

Iris was amazed at the amount of information circulating about her in such a short period of time. That club was clearly a hotbed of gossip. A rush of blood suffused her face when she realized Jarrod would know about her and Georgios. Hopefully word hadn’t spread about what transpired since that night at the club, although she knew Georgios wouldn’t gossip. She thought quickly. She’d have coffee with Jarrod and land an account before she even started in Evelyn’s position tomorrow! It would be a confidence booster and maybe just what she needed to get her life straightened out. She pushed all thoughts of Georgios away and focused on her job.

“I was just about to go for a run but needed to change shoes.” That would hopefully explain why she wasn’t in her room, although why it should matter to him Iris didn’t know. She just didn’t want him to think she’d spent the weekend with Georgios. Jarrod didn’t like Georgios. She’d felt that clearly the first night she met him. “I’d like to discuss this with you over coffee.”

“That’ll work, Iris. I’ll escort you, and then we can have it here or go out.”

Iris opened her mouth to tell Jarrod she would just be a moment, that she didn’t need him to walk her to her room, but he’d taken her elbow and the elevator door opened as though summoned just for them. She felt surreptitiously in her jacket pocket for her little evening bag and extracted her card key. They rode in silence to her floor in the company of a few other guests, and true to his word, he escorted her to her door.