AFTER dinner and another lavish compliment about her talents, this one directed at her cooking accompanied by a promise to return the favor, they migrated to the music room. Neo was the only billionaire tycoon she could imagine making a promise of dinner and meaning he intended to cook, not having it catered.
He ran his hand along the Fazioli’s glossy top. “Play for me?” The request really pleased her, showing that he wasn’t afraid of invading her personal space like he had invited her into his.
She slid onto the bench, letting her fingers play gently across the keys as she always did when she sat down at a piano. “With pleasure.”
He turned to face her, his expression as serious as she’d ever seen it. “Is it?”
He couldn’t know how much that question meant to her. “It is. I want to play for you.”
“Do I have to sit in that chair over there?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” she said uncertainly. Did he want to stand?
Her unspoken question was answered when he joined her on the piano bench, filling her space in a way nothing had in her life except the music.
“Don’t hold any mistakes against me. I find your nearness distracting,” she admitted with a smile.
“Then we are even.”
“I distract you?”
“Near, or far. Yes, you do.” He sounded bemused by that fact.
She didn’t reply to what was a pretty shocking revelation to her as well. Instead, she started to play. It was a 1940s big band piece that sounded romantic on the piano. At least she thought so.
He listened in silence with a faint smile on his face for a minute before saying, “I like this, but I don’t recognize it.”
“It was popular in the forties.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I should expand my musical horizons.”
“I’m always for opening yourself to new styles of music, or new to you anyway.”
“You do know that I wouldn’t be aware of any mistakes you might make?”
She grinned up at him as her fingers moved over the keyboard in a well-memorized pattern. “Maybe that’s why I played it.”
“Maybe it’s time I upped the stakes.”
Before she could ask what he meant, his strong arm snaked around her waist and his thumb began to play a matching beat to the piano music against her stomach.
Her fingers fumbled on the keyboard like they hadn’t done since she was a small child. “That’s upping the stakes all right.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“Not at all.” She could play her music in her sleep. His nearness wasn’t going to get the best of her.
She concentrated on the song and tried to ignore the movements of his hand, but when a gentle kiss landed on her temple, she froze. “I thought you wanted me to play for you.”
“So did I, but I have discovered there are other things I want even more.”
“What things?”
“This.” He tipped her head up and kissed her, his lips molding hers with definite intent.
“Oh,” she breathed against his mouth.
That was all she got out before he deepened the kiss. They were upstairs and she was only marginally aware of how they’d gotten there. She had a vague sense that she’d been carried, but she was too busy touching him and reveling in his touches to think much about it.
“I wasn’t going to do this,” he said when he had her naked beneath him.
“Why not?”
“You need time to recover from last night.”
“I feel fine.” She had a few twinges of soreness, but not anything near enough to stop her from pursuing pleasure like she’d experienced the night before.
But the pleasure wasn’t like it had been the night before, it was bigger. She screamed his name when she climaxed and again moments later when he drew a second orgasm from her oversensitized body as he found his own completion.
Then he held her, helping her to come down from feelings so intense her body shook uncontrollably in the aftermath.
“If you ever get tired of being a big-shot tycoon, you’ve got another career as a gigolo waiting for you.”
He laughed, the sound large in her usually silent bedroom. “I’ll stick with unpaid pleasure, thank you.”
“I’m glad. I don’t think I could afford you.”
“You are a nut.”
“So I’ve been told,” she said more soberly than she meant to.
“That is not what I meant. I do not think you are crazy.”
Not yet anyway, but it always came. Sooner or later. That lack of comprehension when she could not make herself do something “normal” people took for granted. Regardless of what the future might hold, she was grateful for his attitude in the present.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
She grinned and shook her head. “Oh, I think that particular commodity is entirely mutual.”
“Yes.”
“Seriously. If I had known sex was this wonderful, I would have taken up with one of the groupies that showed interest,” she joked, only half-kidding.
“It would not have been like this.”
“Because none of them were the great Neo Stamos?”
“Because no one has ever given me anything approaching the pleasure I find with you. What we have here, Cassandra, it is very special.”
She could think of nothing to say in response to those words that would not reveal the depth of her feeling, so she remained mute, but placed a tender kiss filled with the love she could not give voice onto his shoulder.
He smiled and returned the kiss, on her mouth. “I should not spend the night.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “I have to be at the office at six a.m. for a phone call.”
“Why so early?”
“Time differences.”
“I understand. You could leave early,” she suggested tentatively, unsure if she was reading his desire to stay right, or not.
“If you don’t mind me possibly waking you when I get up to go?”
“I don’t mind.” And if her agreement was offered with the speed of light, who could criticize?
“Then I can sleep here. Thank you.”
She was just very happy he wanted to stay. She’d only spent one night in his arms, but knew it was fast becoming one of her favorite things. Maybe even a necessity. It was the first time anyone had ever stayed overnight, and rather than make her feel anxious it made her feel excited.
Neo didn’t wake her getting out of bed. In fact, she barely woke when he kissed her goodbye and warned her he would be resetting the alarm.
He followed the pattern of the day before, calling her at random intervals to ask this or tell her that. At one point, she teased him, “Why don’t you just admit you called to hear my voice?”
“And if I did?”
“I’d be even more melted than I already am.”
“Then I had better not admit it.”
Did that mean he really did just call to hear her talk? She knew she loved listening to his voice. Adored it, really.
The trip to Napa Valley was incredible. The rental house Miss Parks found for them was nicer than Cass’s own house, with a truly decadent master suite complete with two-person Jacuzzi. The sunken living room was a romantic paradise and Neo took full advantage of the option for candlelight and low-heat gas fireplace.
Cass discovered that flying on a personal jet did not trigger any of her agoraphobic fears. She also discovered that lovemaking was as much fun in the living room as the bedroom and up against a wall as on the bed. She seduced Neo in the pool, but decided after nearly drowning that the Jacuzzi might be the better option.
She slept the entire flight home. Neo worked.
Over the following days, Neo showed no signs of getting bored with her, or frustrated by her limitations. He continued to call her randomly throughout the day and came over or cajoled her into coming to his penthouse almost nightly. She loved swimming in the pool, so she didn’t mind at all. He requested that she use the suit she had the first time and kept it in his private changing room so no one else could. In the event Zephyr had guests. Neo wasn’t seeing anyone else.
So, a couple of weeks later, when he suggested she try hypnotherapy as they lay in bed together after making love, she didn’t automatically assume he was like everyone else. Trying to fix her because she was not good enough the way she was.
“Bob suggested that a couple of years ago, but I wasn’t willing to consider it because I knew he just wanted me to get well enough to perform publicly.”
“I do not care if you ever perform for an audience. If you wanted it, I would do all in my power to help you achieve it, but you don’t. However, I know you feel the pain of the limits your fears put on your life.”
“I would like to go out to a restaurant with you without breaking into a sweat over it, or hyperventilating if someone recognizes me.” She’d done well at the wine-tasting in Napa Valley and they’d eaten out there as well, at a quiet, intimate restaurant where no one but the waitstaff would have considered speaking to her.
She knew she’d been able to enjoy those things because she’d been with Neo. Not only did his presence give her the courage to try new things, but he adroitly ran interference between her and others. And he never took her anywhere overly crowded, or that made her get that sick feeling she might not be able to get out.
He was so careful of her and with her. She felt cherished.
“I, too, would enjoy this.” But he said it with his arms wrapped firmly around her and she didn’t take that to mean he was getting sick of eating in with her.
“Did you have someone in mind?”
“Of course.”
She laughed and traced a shape over his chest, only realizing it was a heart when she finished. He didn’t seem to notice. “Of course. You never offer a suggestion without a full plan behind it.”
“Her name is Lark Corazon and she has had marked success treating agoraphobia and other phobias.”
“You’ve met her?”
He shrugged.
Cass leaned up to look down at him. “You did. You met with her. What was she like?”
“A normal person.”
“No crystal balls or colorful silks hanging from the ceiling.”
“I think you’re confusing a hypnotherapist with a fortune teller.”
“Maybe. I’m willing to meet her.” But only because it was Neo making the suggestion. She trusted him like she had never trusted anyone.
He gave her that look of approval she’d become fully addicted to. “I knew you would be. We have an appointment with her tomorrow.”
“We?”
“You do not think I would make you go alone, do you?”
She snuggled into him. “You’re too good to me, Neo.”
“What are friends for?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had one like you.”
“Ditto.”
“Hypnotism is…I don’t know.”
“Different?”
“Yes.”
“And a little scary,” he suggested.
“I’m afraid of enough in my life.” She didn’t want to be afraid of this, too.
“But the idea of being hypnotized is overwhelming.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to stay through the session?”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
And he did, sitting in the corner, a solid presence that made her feel safe enough to answer all the hypnotherapist’s questions honestly and then relax as much as she was capable during the hypnotherapy.
A month later, Cass and Neo shared a table at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. She had always wanted to come, but had not been able to deal with the thought of the crowds, much less being trapped in a restaurant that could only be reached or exited via a very long elevator ride.
Happiness bubbled inside her like delicious French champagne. The real thing.
“Lark says there is so much trauma mixed in with my public performing, it could be months or years before it’s completely redirected.”
“That is all right. Performing is not something you ever have to do again.”
Cass’s joy just increased with Neo’s words. It was official, she was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with the billionaire Greek tycoon. Her Chinese scholar pen pal agreed, as did several of her online friends. The only one who didn’t know and probably wouldn’t agree was Neo himself.
She didn’t let that thought hamper her current pleasure. “I know, but I love being able to do this.”
“It is a joy to see you so happy.”
She laughed. “You convinced me that you would never have grown tired of our friendship regardless of my limitations. You don’t know how special that is.”
“What was to grow tired of? We went piano shopping. And to Napa Valley.”
“Yes, we did.” And he was taking her to Dubai for the grand opening of his complex. His contractor had come through and Neo had told Cass he wanted to wait to go until she could go with him…comfortably.
Was it any wonder hope that he might feel something for her besides friendship sprang eternal in her heart. Some days, she was even convinced he would welcome her words of love, but she always chickened out at the last minute.
“And now you will accompany me to that charity event,” he said.
“Tell me again why you are going to a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner to raise money for pet neutering? You don’t even have a dog.”
“And I don’t plan on getting one, but lots of business gets done at dinners like this.”
“Just like the golf course.”
“A tedious game, but one in which I am more than proficient.”
She shook her head. “Anything for business, hmm?”
“Perhaps that is why your friendship is so special to me. It is for me and me alone. Not the business. Not the next deal.”
His words warmed her even as they gave her heart a twinge.
She wanted so much more than friendship with benefits and sometimes she thought he did, too, but then he reiterated his stance on their relationship. And as wonderful as she found his friendship, it hurt to know one day he would fall for another woman and she would be relegated to the fringes of his life.
That night, she decided to expand her lovemaking repertoire and when her mouth first touched his hardness, his body jerked in shock.
“What are you doing?”
“I believe it is referred to as—”
His laughter was choked. “I know what it is, you imp,” he interrupted. “I am surprised you have decided to offer this gift to me.”
“Why?” She licked along the length of his shaft, thoroughly enjoying the flavor of his skin. “I’ve been wanting to for a while.”
“Why wait?”
“I was afraid of messing it up.”
“Trust me, there is no messing up.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure there is. I read up on it and I’ve got it on good authority that a lack of care with my teeth would be a bad, bad, bad thing.”
“There is that.” For once, he was the breathless one.
She took the flared head of his erection in her mouth and swirled her tongue around it. He tasted sweet and she liked it.
“You taste good.”
She closed her mouth over his throbbing flesh and sucked hard.
He shouted, canting his hips upward.
She’d been prepared for this reaction, her hand wrapped firmly around his big erection. It stopped him from thrusting too far into her mouth, but she loved this proof of how much he enjoyed what she was doing.
He’d used his mouth on her many times sending her into spasms of pleasure that seemed to last forever. She wanted to do the same for him.
She’d read about not letting him climax right away and intensifying the effect, so that was what she did.
She was unprepared for him grabbing her and dragging her up his body even as he flipped them, and then thrust into her. He stopped a moment later and swore. “I forgot the condom.”
“I’ve been on birth control for several weeks.”
“You did not tell me.”
“It isn’t something you discuss over dinner.”
“It is something you mention to your partner before he has a heart attack making love to you without protection.”
“I did tell you.”
He shook his head, but resumed moving, taking them both over the pinnacle more quickly than she would have thought possible.
Afterward, she curled up into his side like she always did and faded into sleep, a proud little smile curling her lips.
Neo sat with Zephyr on the side of the pool after swimming laps with his business partner. They hadn’t used the pool at the same time in months.
“How are things between you and Cass?” Zephyr asked. “I noticed you’re still taking piano lessons.”
“Yes.” Though he spent as many lessons in her bed as he did on the piano bench. He’d made it a personal competition to see how often he could sidetrack Teacher.
“Is it serious between you?”
“Serious? We are friends.”
“Who sleep together almost every night.”
“How do you know this?”
“Please, I’m not blind.”
He shrugged and repeated, “She is my friend.”
“Friends with benefits?”
“That’s what she calls it.”
“So, you wouldn’t mind if she shared similar benefits with other friends.”
“She does not have other friends she sees in person.” But now that she was overcoming her agoraphobia, that would change, a voice taunted in his brain.
“You haven’t hooked up with anyone else since you met her.”
“I grew tired of the one-night stands.”
“But you don’t want anything more than friends with benefits with Cass?”
“What else is there?”
“Marriage. Babies.”
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked his friend. “I do not have time for a wife and children. I barely have time for Cassandra. Besides, things are fine just the way they are.”
“Are they?”
“I don’t want anything else.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely.”
“That’s good I guess.”
That response shocked Neo. He’d been prepared for Lecture 101 on the benefits of married life and family. Not that Zephyr would ever succumb to the institution. “Why?”
“Because Cass apparently decided to go swimming and I think she overheard pretty much everything we just said. I can’t be sure, but the way she rushed out of here looking stricken spoke for itself, I think.”
Neo surged to his feet. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know she was there until too late, but hey. It wasn’t like you said anything she didn’t already know, right?”
No, but that didn’t matter. “You said she looked stricken.”
“Ohi, I’m not sure the whole friends-with-benefits thing is still working for her.”
“You were meddling,” Neo accused.
Zephyr gave him an innocent look he didn’t believe for a minute. “I was just talking to you.”
“Poking and prodding things best left alone.”
“Maybe Cass didn’t want them left alone.”
“Maybe you should have minded your own damn business.”
“Maybe instead of yelling at me, you should go fix this.”
“And how am I to do that?”
“Start by getting your head out of your ass and go from there.”
Neo barely restrained from punching his best friend right in the face. But damn it, Zee wasn’t the one he was angry at. It was himself.
He’d spent so many years eschewing love that when it found its way into his life, he’d done everything but stand on his head to pretend it wasn’t there. He’d denied any deeper feelings, denied the resurfaced yearnings he’d hadn’t allowed through time since he was too young to know better. Yearning for love. For a family. For what others had and he had never known.
Neither had Cassandra, not really. Her life had been almost as barren as his own and still, he had withheld his emotions from her. Why?
He was ashamed to admit it was because of fear. He, Neo Stamos, billionaire and all-around powerful guy, was terrified of not being worthy of his precious pianist’s heart.
Just as he had somehow not been worthy of his parents’ love. Only wasn’t that the thinking of his bruised child’s heart? Didn’t he realize as an adult, a rational thinker, that surely it was his parents’ deficiency—not his—that accounted for the lack of love in his life.
And didn’t he owe Cassandra something more than the residue of a painful childhood he’d left behind him long ago?
Silent tears rushed down Cass’s cheeks as she let herself into her house. She was furious with herself for crying, but couldn’t stop the emotional onslaught.
She knew Neo didn’t want her for anything but sex and friendship, only she hadn’t been able to help herself from hoping. She’d gone floating along in this little bubble of fantasy that their circumstances did nothing to pop.
He spent his off time with her. All of it. He called her several times a day just to talk. He was still learning to play the piano, though goodness knew he spent as much lesson time teaching her pleasure as she did teaching him music. They made love and spent the night together almost every day.
But the reality was, for him that was just friendship. Nothing more.
The problem was, she loved him and that love was burning a hole in her heart from staying hidden.
She wanted to get married. She wanted to have his babies and work with Dora to feed him healthy meals, but remind him that food wasn’t just fuel. It could be enjoyed.
Cass wanted so much she knew she could never have. As far as she’d come with her issues, she was no match for a billionaire tycoon that could have any woman he wanted. And should have one that could offer unrestrained ability to couple him to business dinners and parties, not be limited to an event or two every couple of weeks.
Even able to go in crowded public places, Cass was still horrifically shy and had a hard time putting herself out there for others to get to know. Neo acted like he didn’t mind, but that was because they were just friends. Anything more would be unthinkable.
She shied away from the music room and her bedroom was not where she wanted to be right now, either.
She stood in the hall and looked around her and wondered for the first time what she was doing living in her parents’ house. It wasn’t as if the memories of them all living here together were so good for her.
And yet she clung to the house as a link to the only people who had loved her, if only a little.
Neo found Cassandra in her small study when he finally reached her house. Red-rimmed eyes testified to the tears she had shed and his heart caught.
But far more alarming was what was on her computer screen. “You are looking to move?”
“Why not? There is nothing holding me here.”
Paralyzed by unexpected pain, for a moment Neo could not breathe. “I am here.”
She gave him a measuring look. “For how long?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll eventually tire of our benefits and start dating other women again.”
No way in hell, but he wasn’t ready to say that. He was still grappling with the feelings he’d forced himself to acknowledge. Like the debilitating fear the thought of losing her caused. “We would still be friends.”
“No.”
“No?” Sharp pain lanced through him.
“Maybe. I don’t know. You’ve done so much for me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You’ve been better to me than anyone in my life, including my parents. I wouldn’t just ditch your friendship, but I don’t know if I could handle watching you with other women.” The pain in her voice nearly brought him to his knees.
It was unthinkable. “I would not ask you to.”
She just gave him a look.
“Do you want more?” he asked her, marshalling his thoughts and arguments so he did not lose the most important person in his life.
“What difference would it make if I did? You don’t. You made that clear enough.”
“Maybe I was wrong.”
“The things I want need something a lot stronger than maybe.”
“What is love?”
Cass stared at Neo in shock. “What do you mean? You know what love is.”
“No, in fact, I do not.”
“But…”
“I have never been in love and no one has ever loved me.”
“Zephyr loves you like a brother.”
“I have no desire to marry Zephyr.”
“You don’t want to marry me, either.”
“I was wrong.”
“What?”
“I do want to marry you. I want everything, but I did not feel I had the right to ask for it.”
She started to cry again and swiped at her cheeks. “Why would you say that?”
“I understand business, but relationships are something else entirely.”
“You have been so good to me I don’t know how you could question your ability to maintain a relationship.”
“Do you think I have been good to you?”
“Yes!”
“Good.” He looked relieved. As if there could be any doubt. “That is good.”
“Neo, even though we are just friends, you treat me like a princess. You would make an amazing husband and father.”
“We are not just friends,” he said in a voice like shattered glass.
“We aren’t?” Oh, please, please convince her.
“No.”
“What are we then?”
“Everything. You are my everything and that is what I wish to be to you.”
“You already are.” She walked forward and reached up to put both her hands on either side of his handsome face. “How could you not know that? Neo, you are everything I have ever wanted, or ever could want. I love you, with everything that I am.”
He pulled her close, tilting his head until their eyes had no choice but to lock gazes. “I love you. I have never said that to another person, but I will never stop saying it to you. I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Not being worthy of your love.”
She didn’t ask him how he could think that. His formative years explained it all. “Your parents didn’t deserve you, not the other way around.”
“Intellectually, I know this.”
“I’m going to make sure you realize it deep in your heart as well. I love you, Neo, so much.”
“I adore you, yineka mou, and I always will.”
“Even with the hypnotherapy, I’ll probably always be shy. I won’t ever be a big society hostess.”
“It does not matter. I do not want a big society hostess. I want you. And I want a wife…a woman who will maybe one day help me make a family different than the ones either of us knew growing up.”
Oh, yes. “I can’t imagine anything better.”
“Neither can I.”
Then he kissed her, or she kissed him…she really wasn’t sure how their lips met, but meet they did and it was the most profound kiss in the history of kisses. It spoke of true love, and deep need and hopes and dreams deferred and almost lost, but found again leading to joy unimaginable.
She was in his lap when their lips finally parted. “What is yineka mou?”
“My woman, my wife.”
She pressed their foreheads together, her fears laid completely to rest. “Oh, Neo. There really was never any doubt, was there?” He’d been calling her his for a very long time.
“No, my very precious woman, there never was. I just had to face a truth that scared the hell out of me. There was someone in this world more important to me than my business, or anything or anyone else.”
“It is the same for me.”
“I know and I’m so glad.”
“Me, too.”
“Athens for our honeymoon?” he asked.
“Definitely. We can start working on some of those bebes Dora is so sure we are going to have.”
“That is one scary smart woman.” Neo’s laughter filled Cass’s world just like the rest of him.
Neither of them had much experience with love, but they would make up for lack of quantity with the quality of their love. They would never take it for granted as others might.
They were truly everything to each other.