Darius (Starkis Family #5) Read online

  Uh oh. I didn’t have a lot of experience meeting “the family,” but I got the feeling Kara was about to grill me. “Maybe I should just come back later. You probably have better things to do than entertain me, and it was silly of me to drop by unannounced and expect Darius to be here. I know how busy he is.”

  “Nonsense,” Kara said, gesturing to a guest chair opposite her desk. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you ever since Darius told me he was bringing you up here this weekend.”

  Kara seemed like a lovely person, warm and genuine. But I was too nervous thinking about how Darius would react to my unexpected visit to put my best foot forward with her.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, sitting next to me.

  I’d just met her. I wasn’t ready to open up to her, but if she was anything like her brother, she wouldn’t give up easily. “There are just some things Darius and I need to discuss.” I cleared my throat, forcing myself to look her directly in the eye. “We kind of had a misunderstanding last night, and I was hoping I could explain myself to him.”

  “You live in the city, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You drove all this way just to talk to him? Why not call?”

  “Some things need to be said in person.”

  Kara’s face fell. “Oh no. You’re not breaking up with him, are you?” She reached for my hand and bit her lip. “I know my brother can be a bit abrasive at times, domineering, opinionated…” She smiled. “Let’s just say I’m not blind to his faults.” She squeezed my hand. “But he’s a really great guy, and when we talked, I got the feeling he really likes you.”

  I wanted to ask when they’d talked about me and how she’d gotten the impression we were a couple when we weren’t. Were we? I didn’t know how I would define our relationship. I just knew the thought of him never touching me again made me feel sad. “I really like him too.”

  She released my hand, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m happy to hear that. So what’s the problem?” She clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks turning pink. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business, is it?”

  It wasn’t, but I could tell Kara’s heart was in the right place. I wouldn’t mind talking to someone who could give me some insight into what Darius was thinking and feeling. “I haven’t had a relationship in a long time. In fact, I’ve only ever had one serious relationship, and when it ended, I never considered the possibility of meeting someone else.”

  “I know what you mean,” Kara said, inching back in her seat. “I felt the same way when my husband and I broke up.” At my questioning look, she offered, “Oh, he wasn’t my husband then. He was my fiancé. We were apart for eight years before we finally had to admit we couldn’t live without each other.” She grinned, but her smile slipped a second later. “Is that the way it is with you and your ex? Do you still have feelings for him?”

  While I could see myself opening up to Kara when I got to know her better, I couldn’t tell her about Shaun until I’d told Darius the truth.

  “I crossed the line again, didn’t I?” Kara said, wrinkling her nose. Before I could respond, she raised her hand. “You can tell me to mind my own business, but Darius is my brother, which means it’s my job to look out for him. If I think he’s setting himself up to get hurt, it’s my obligation to tell him.”

  “It’s not what you think,” I said when I realized I couldn’t pacify her without some explanation. “My ex is no longer in the picture.” I considered how to tell her the truth without revealing more than I wanted to. “I can never get him back.”

  She frowned. “But you would want him back if you could?”

  For months after Shaun died, I’d prayed I would wake up in his arms to find it had all been a nightmare. During those dark and lonely days, I would have given anything to have him back, but I had time and perspective on my side now. And I had Darius. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” She frowned. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound very convincing. My brother is a great guy. He doesn’t deserve to be your second choice.”

  Now she sounded just like her brother. “With all due respect, this is between me and Darius.”

  I heard Darius’s voice in the outer office, asking the receptionist where Chase was because he’d seen his car in the lot.

  “Sounds like my brother,” Kara said, standing. She went to the door and crooked a finger, beckoning Darius closer. “You have a visitor.”

  I resisted the urge to cringe when he poked his head in the door and the look on his face was one of disbelief instead of a smile as I’d hoped.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Kara said. “I have to meet Dustin for lunch. Nice meeting you, Chelsea.”

  “You too.” I didn’t believe for a second she meant it. She was just being polite for Darius’s benefit.

  Once his sister left, he closed the door and took a few steps toward me. “How did you get here?”

  “Chase lent me his truck.” I twisted my purse strap in my hand while licking my lips.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I went to the comedy club to see if you were there. I told him I really needed to see you, so he suggested I come here and surprise you.”

  “Well, it worked. I’m surprised.”

  “Not the good kind though, huh?” When he didn’t respond, I jumped up. “I should go. This was a mistake.”

  He stepped in my path. “You’re not going until you tell me why you came.”

  I’d thought I was brave enough to do this. I’d rehearsed my speech in the car, imagined his reaction, pictured him understanding or even consoling me, but now that I was here, faced with his anger and confusion, I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  He stepped back, still looking wary. “What exactly are you sorry about?”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about what happened with Shaun.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he almost seemed to be holding his breath. “Are you saying you’re ready to tell me now?”

  “I think so.”

  After a sharp nod, he reached for my hand. “Fine, but we’re not doing this here. This is private.”

  I was grateful he seemed to understand I wasn’t comfortable spilling my guts with strangers milling just outside the door. “Where are we going?”

  “Have you had lunch?”

  “No, but…” I felt as though all he ever did was feed me. “I can grab something later.”

  “We’ll go back to my place. We can grab a quick bite there.”

  “Okay.” I appreciated that he wasn’t taking me to a restaurant, where I would have to worry about servers interrupting us or other patrons listening in on our conversation.

  He held the door of his truck for me and closed it before he moved to the driver’s side. I could tell he was tense by the way his hand curled around the steering wheel as he gunned it out of the parking lot.

  “Thanks for listening,” I said. “I know I’ve given you every reason to write me off by now.”

  “Chase must really like you to have lent you his car.”

  That was what he was upset about? “It’s you he likes. He was under the impression you would want to see me. That’s the only reason he let me borrow his car.”

  He glanced at me as he pulled up to a light, but since he’d slipped his shades in place, I couldn’t read his expression. I breathed a soft sigh of relief when he reached for my hand.

  “I am glad to see you. I barely slept last night, thinking about what went down between us. I know it’s way too soon for me to start making demands like that. If you’re not ready to tell me about your ex, I’ll back off.”

  “I am ready.” Being honest may have been one of the hardest things I’d have to do, but I wanted to come clean with Darius. Hiding the truth only made it feel like a shameful secret. “I just need you to understa
nd it won’t be easy for me. Forgive me if I have a hard time getting it out.”

  The last thing I wanted was to fall apart in front of him, but I hadn’t told anyone this story. My friends at the comedy club knew what had happened, but I hadn’t had to share the details with anyone.

  “Take all the time you need, Chels.” He brought my hand to his lips. “I have nowhere else to be.”

  I knew he was just being kind. He had to deal with dozens of issues every day, and since we’d started driving, he’d already ignored his buzzing cell phone twice. “I won’t keep you from your work for long, I promise.”

  His eyes swept over my body, taking in my fitted white cotton sundress and multi-colored flip-flops. “Believe me, work is the last thing on my mind right now.”

  His reaction lifted my spirits. He seemed still as interested in me as I was in him. “I told Chase I’d have his truck back to the club by six.”

  “I can drive it back for you if you want to stay a little longer? I keep another car in the city.” He grinned. “It’s my fun car.”

  “Your fun car?” I was almost afraid to ask. We were driving in a late model pick-up, which was dusty from taking a lot of back roads. This car made it easy to forget his family were billionaires, but I had a feeling the fun car would be a little—no, make that a lot—flashier.

  “Yeah, it’s a ‘69 Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1. There were only sixty-nine built. Believe me when I tell you she’s my pride and joy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Boys and their toys.” Even though his classic car was probably as expensive as any modern sports car, I liked his choice. It reinforced the fact he wasn’t flashy and didn’t feel the need to impress people with the symbols of wealth everyone would recognize.

  “You got it, baby.”

  I gasped when I caught sight of the Atlantic Ocean. It seemed crazy that, living so close, I’d never taken the time to truly admire it, but I’d always been too distracted by survival to appreciate the things other people took for granted.

  “It still takes my breath away every time,” he said, squeezing my hand.

  I loved that Darius appreciated the simple things even though his life had undoubtedly been filled with exotic vacations and dream homes worthy of television segments. We pulled onto a dead-end gravel street, and Darius made his way to the end, squeezing my hand whenever we went over another pothole. His street wasn’t at all what I’d expected. These weren’t homes; they were cottages. Some were run-down, others pristine, but all were fairly small judging by the exterior.

  “Here we are,” he said, pulling into a long straight drive. He cut the engine and set his hand on the back of my seat, slipping his glasses up on his head as he shifted to face me. “What do you think?”

  I gaped at the tiny white clapboard cottage of my dreams with the ocean and white sandy beach in the background and rose bushes and peonies flanking a flagstone path leading to a sky-blue door. I was speechless. “I love it.”

  “Really?” He smiled. “A little old lady lived here most of her life. Her family finally had to put her into a nursing home when she got dementia. They wanted to sell the place, but I asked if I could rent it for a year before I decided if I wanted to buy it.”

  If I’d had the money, I would buy this place tomorrow.

  “There’s about an acre, so my plan is to knock it down and—”

  “You can’t!” I blushed and lowered my head when I remembered I had no right to tell him what he could or couldn’t do. “I mean, it would be such a shame to knock this down. It’s so cute.”

  His lips curled. “Yeah, well, a single guy doesn’t really want a cute place, Chels.”

  I understood his point, but I could only imagine all of the wonderful family gatherings this place had seen. “Does the homeowner have children?”

  He seemed surprised by my question. “Yeah, three. There are only three bedrooms, so the two youngest had to bunk together from what I understand.”

  I looked at him, waiting to hear more. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to know the history of this place.

  “Her youngest daughter did the walkthrough with me when I rented the place,” he explained. “She bored me to death with stories of when her mother had planted the rose bushes and her father built the cabana.”

  “Why don’t they want to keep it?” If I’d had a family and a home full of the good memories we’d shared, I wouldn’t have let it go for anything.

  “None of them live in the area. The family is from Kansas, but they used to spend their summers here as kids. Apparently all three of the daughters are so busy with their own lives they just don’t have the time to travel back and forth to make use of the cottage.”

  “That’s a shame,” I whispered, rolling down my window so I could feel the ocean breeze on my face. I inhaled deeply, thinking I’d never tire of the fresh scent that made me feel as though I’d stepped into another world.

  “Let me show you around,” he said, reaching for his door handle.

  Taking in all the details, I waited for him to walk around the truck. The porch spanned the entire length of the small house and had two light-blue Adirondack chairs at either end. In front of the single door was a striped welcome mat with shades of blue and green. That was how this place made me feel—welcome.

  “We’ll take a little walk around outside first,” Darius said.

  I admired the myriad of perennials lining the path. I’d always loved flowers, even though fresh-cut flowers were a luxury I’d never been able to afford.

  Darius leaned over and pinched off a bright red rose in full bloom. “Be careful of the thorns.” He handed it to me.

  I placed my fingers carefully on the stem and brought it to my nose. “It smells wonderful. Thank you.”

  He watched me as though I were an anomaly.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

  “I’ve just never met someone so appreciative of the little things.”

  They may have seemed like little things to him, but to me, a single perfect bloom was a rare treat. “I guess it’s the way I grew up,” I said, shrugging. “You don’t take anything for granted when you have nothing.”

  He stepped into my path, stroking my cheek as he looked at me. “I can’t believe there weren’t dozens of people vying to take you home.”

  His kind words brought unexpected tears to my eyes, probably because there would always be an abandoned little girl inside me waiting for someone to tell her she was special and worthy of love. “They all wanted babies. The window for adoption is usually pretty short. Once it closes, you start to lose hope and eventually just accept your fate.”

  His large, calloused hands framed my face, and his soft lips felt like a brush of velvet against mine. I wrapped my arms around his waist as I tipped my head back, craving contact in a way I never had before. When he slipped past the barrier of my lips, I thrust my hands into his hair, pressing my body against his. Maybe it was our surroundings or the depth of emotion in his kiss, but I felt more at home than I ever had. Like I was exactly where I belonged.

  His breathing was slightly labored when he finally broke away and rested his forehead against mine. “I’m crazy about you, Chels. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  That was the ultimate compliment as far as I was concerned. Had he told me he wanted me, I would have stepped back, maybe reinforced my safeguard, but he’d parroted exactly what I’d been thinking about him, making me believe we were in the same place.

  I stood on my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Me too. I cried myself to sleep after you left last night.” Being honest was the only way to make him understand I wasn’t taking this lightly.

  He looked shocked. “I never meant to make you cry.”

  “I was crying because I was angry with myself. I thought I’d lost you because I couldn’t find the courage to open up about Shaun. That’s why I had to come here today. I didn’t know if it would be too late, if you’d already written me off, but I had to try.
”

  He reached around his neck to hold my hands then bring them to his lips. “When I saw you sitting in my sister’s office, I realized I don’t want to let you go. This is real for me, as real as it gets.”

  God help me, I was falling in love with this man. As terrifying as it was, I had no doubt that was what I was feeling, and while he seemed to be into me too, going from like to love was a huge leap.

  When I didn’t respond, disappointment crossed his face, but his smile quickly masked it. “Let’s walk around back. If you think you love this place now, wait ‘til you see the best part.”

  I stopped in my tracks as soon as we rounded the corner. I just wanted to take it all in. The white sandy beach that stretched for miles, the crystalline water melding with the cloudless blue sky, the white sails drifting in the breeze. “Wow.”

  It was hard for me to imagine that people got to live here every day, wake up to the sun rising over the water and fall asleep to the lull of waves outside their open window. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were. Looking at Darius, I wondered if he knew how blessed he was to have been dealt the hand he had in life.

  “Seeing this place through your eyes makes me realize how great it is.” He linked his hand through mine. “I love how appreciative you are… of everything.”

  I wondered if he had any idea how grateful I was that he’d come into my life when he had. We stood in silence for a few minutes as he stood behind me, closing his arms around me so I could rest my head against his shoulder. I couldn’t remember a more perfect moment in my life, with the steady beat of his heart against my back as the spicy scent of his cologne teased me before the breeze carried it away.

  If there was a line in the sand, I’d just crossed it. I was pretty sure my heart would agree that turning back would be difficult, if not impossible, now.

  Chapter Ten

  Darius

  As we walked into the small cottage with the casual seaside décor my sister had convinced me would be perfect, Chelsea’s excitement was infectious. From the slip-covered furniture to the old pine chest and collected shells, every new discovery lit her up. And she lit me up in a way I’d never anticipated.