Come and Get Me: The Magister Series, Book 2: A Billionaire Romance Read online

  The sweeping stairs took her into the marble foyer. During the party, it had been filled with guests nibbling hors d’oeuvres and sipping champagne while waiters orbited them. Today, the giant flower arrangement in the middle seemed a little lonely, since there was nobody here to enjoy it but her—and Charles, maybe. She blinked. Did Charles like flowers? She had no idea.

  There was so, so much she still didn’t know about him.

  She wandered across the foyer toward the dining room, where she half-thought he might be having breakfast or something. Nope. Not in the living room either.

  She hadn’t run into a single other soul so far. There had been only one maid on duty last night, and Charles had dismissed her after Sandra’s arrival. Were they really and truly alone? If so, this would be the first time. Even at the North Shore house, staff had been buzzing around in the background, and of course Warrick had shown his face at a couple of inopportune moments.

  The thought of being really alone with Charles practically had her squirming with delight. How silly. But it was something she was used to taking for granted, just being alone with a significant other.

  There was one realistic option left, before she had to resort to yelling. She headed toward the one part of the apartment she had yet to explore, which meant she was pretty sure it contained the kitchen.

  Boy, did it ever.

  Sandra walked down the gallery, opened the first side door she saw, and heard the soft sounds of music. Okay, that was a positive sign. She went through the door, took a couple of turns, and found herself in a kitchen that could have serviced a restaurant. Scratch that. It could have held a restaurant. Marble countertops surrounded four hooded stoves and three French-door refrigerators. There were three islands. Across the room, glass-paneled doors opened on to yet another terrace. This one looked out over East Seventieth.

  In the midst of all this, Charles stood at a counter in his own robe, making coffee. A Bose player sat on the island nearest to him, and Nina Simone crooned gently about a man named Mr. Bojangles.

  Sandra thought about creeping up on Charles, covering his eyes or something cute like that, the sort of thing lovers did in movies. But he didn’t even have to turn around when he said, “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  The warmth in his voice made her blush. “Hi.”

  He turned to see her in the silk robe. His eyebrows rose appreciatively. She blushed harder; for some reason, his admiration made her feel more self-conscious in the light of day than it had in the bedroom.

  “When did you get up?” she asked.

  “About an hour ago. Did you sleep well?”

  “Uh-huh,” Sandra lied as she walked toward him. The kitchen floors were made of tile that felt even colder than the marble. When she was close enough, he reached out and tugged her close enough for a kiss.

  The kiss kept going after that, as they both forgot all about coffee and Sandra stopped paying attention to her feet. Instead, she pressed close to Charles while he slid his hands up and down the slippery silk over her back. When their mouths parted, he sighed and said, “I woke up this morning...” He paused to kiss her cheek. “A very happy man.”

  The purr in his voice banished the last of her discomfort. She laughed softly. “Happy Halloween.”

  “Mmm.” He kissed her again. He felt so warm and wonderful next to her, and he smelled faintly of soap and aftershave. He was wearing silk too, his bathrobe and the pajamas beneath. And he’d had the foresight to put on bedroom slippers. She almost laughed at the idea of Charles rising from bed naked, showering, and then putting on pajamas instead of clothes.

  Nina Simone finished singing about Mr. Bojangles, and then informed them both that she wanted a little sugar in her bowl.

  “So we’re alone?” Sandra murmured.

  “Completely, until noon. Emilia will come back then, along with whichever girl she calls to work the afternoon shift.”

  “You don’t have live-in help?”

  “No. There are maid’s quarters, of course” —of course— “but it wouldn’t be right. Not with me living alone.”

  Huh. That was interesting. From what she could tell, people from Charles’s social class—including Charles—sometimes didn’t seem to think of their staff as being real people. It turned Sandra off something fierce. She was glad that Charles didn’t think that way all the time.

  “You could have male staff,” she pointed out. A thought occurred to her. “A valet, even. Like in Downton Abbey.” She was kidding. Mostly.

  He gave her a wry smile. “I survive just fine on my own overnight. Coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Sandra hopped up on a barstool next to the island.

  “I was going to bring it up to you,” Charles said. “My grand romantic gesture for the morning.”

  She grinned. Aww. “Oh, well. At least this way I get to see your kitchen.”

  “I thought you didn’t cook,” he said as he poured the coffee into two fine china cups.

  “I don’t, much,” she said. “I mean, I can keep myself alive, but Kristen’s the one who really likes it.”

  “The socialist?” he asked as he headed toward the nearest refrigerator. “You take cream?”

  “Yes, and yes,” Sandra said. She idly swung her feet back and forth. “I don’t guess, um, anyone in your family ever went through a phase like that.”

  “They were too busy rebelling in other ways,” Charles said dryly. He opened the refrigerator doors and peered inside with a frown. “I think the dairy’s in this—ah, yes.” He reached inside. “Rosalie decided to explore being a grown-up with an irresponsible idiot and produced my idiot nephew in due time.” He pulled out a carton of half-and-half. “And Stephen…”

  He closed the door and returned to Sandra with a thoughtful look on his face. When he didn’t say anything else, she prompted, “Stephen?”

  Charles sighed. “I don’t know what he got up to. He’s never told me. I imagine it was hard on him—and he thought I didn’t know he was gay.”

  “Well, he doesn’t seem…you know, obvious,” Sandra said. “He looks as conservative as—” You. “I mean, conservative.”

  Charles looked almost amused. “Were you expecting pink feather boas?”

  “No,” Sandra said firmly. “Believe me, Pratt had all kinds of people into all kinds of things. But I can see how Stephen would have gone under the radar if he tried.”

  “Other people’s radar,” Charles said. He poured a judicious amount of half-and-half into Sandra’s cup. “Not mine.” For a second, he looked almost annoyed. “I don’t know why he thought I’d disapprove. I figured it out when he was fourteen. I never made a single gay joke after that. I even hit a kid at Andover who called him a name.”

  Sandra took her cup. Delicious at the first sip. “I can’t imagine you hitting anybody.” Charles was passionate in bed, but from what she had seen, his anger was a cold thing.

  “Good, because I don’t make a habit of it.” Charles leaned back against the counter in a surprisingly casual pose. He sipped and shrugged. “Circumstances demanded it. I was fifteen and Ronald Pryce called my little brother a faggot. Of course I hit him.”

  Sandra blinked. Before she could think better of it, she blurted, “Stephen thought you were offended.”

  Charles raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”

  “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but—if you hit someone for calling him a name, he might have thought it was because being a…gay guy was the problem, and not just being called one.”

  “I…” Charles’s eyes went very wide. How incredible that this had obviously never occurred to him. “My God.”

  He looked appalled. Sandra said quickly, “But uh, you’ve made up for it since then. I mean, his boyfriend comes to the dinner parties and everything. Right?”

  “Right,” he said, but scowled anyway. “Fucking hell, I’ll have to throw the biggest wedding on the East Coast.”

  “You’ll what? Oh!” Sandra sat up straight on the st
ool. “They’re engaged? I didn’t know that.”

  “Not yet,” Charles said. “I found out last night that Stephen intends to propose. Craig will say yes, of course.” He sipped his coffee, equanimity apparently restored.

  Sandra deepened her voice into a decent imitation of his. “If he knows what’s good for him,” she intoned.

  “Indeed.” Charles raised his eyebrows again. “I hope he’s ready to take our name.”

  Sandra grinned and then stopped grinning. “Wait. You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “Of course I’m not kidding. When he marries Stephen, he’ll be a Magister. I gather his own family has more or less turned their backs on him anyway.” Charles said this last as if it was of no consequence—which to him, Sandra guessed, it wasn’t. Who wouldn’t leap at the chance to be a Magister and leave another, inferior family behind? It must seem obvious to him.

  Still, she said, “That’s terrible. He must be so hurt.”

  Charles shrugged. “Stephen’s never told me how he feels about it. But no, I imagine it can’t be good.” He hesitated and gave Sandra a thoughtful look. Apparently arriving at a decision, he said, “I’m sure it’s how Stephen thought our father would react. He didn’t come out until after Father’s death.”

  Sandra’s breath caught. Warrick had told her never to ask about Charles’s father. Was this a newly opened door? She stuck her tongue in her cheek and weighed her next words. “Was he right to be worried?”

  “No.” Charles looked her steadily in the eye. “I wouldn’t have let that happen. Stephen knows it now. He didn’t have to hide for as long as he did.”

  Jesus. She loved Charles, but sometimes he was just unreal. Trying to be diplomatic, Sandra said, “He probably did know you’d protect him, but that wouldn’t make it hurt less if your dad didn’t approve. You couldn’t have changed that.”

  “Couldn’t I?” Charles cocked his head to the side. “I had a talk with Father not long after I got married. I never outed Stephen, but we both knew, and I was fed up with watching Father torture him.”

  Sandra’s eyes widened. “Torture?”

  Charles sighed. “Telling him he needed to find a woman and settle down. Making ‘casual’ homophobic remarks, as if he didn’t know the truth. He could never be direct about anything. It drove me crazy.”

  “I bet you were pretty direct,” Sandra said.

  He gave her a faint, bitter smile. “Yes, I was.” Then he shrugged, a shutter fell over his eyes, and she knew Story Hour was over. “But that was long ago.”

  Hiding her disappointment, Sandra raised her coffee cup in salute. “Well, congratulations in advance, Stephen and Craig.”

  “Yes. What about your family?” His tone was casual, but the look in his eyes was anything but. “You know all too much about mine. I know very little about yours.”

  There wasn’t much point to Charles knowing about her family, was there? Here in New York, and working for him, Sandra was far more likely to encounter members of the Magister clan. But Charles wasn’t likely to wander into the Adirondacks and bump into her mom and dad.

  Besides, compared to the Magisters, the Danes seemed pretty ordinary. “There’s not much to tell,” Sandra said. “Kristen and I are polar opposites. So are my parents, but they get along a lot better.” She laughed self-consciously. “My little brother is still in high school. I hardly ever talk to him, except when I visit home. He runs cross-country, and all the girls love him. That’s about it. We don’t have any big secrets or…” She almost said tragedies. “Or anything. Kind of boring.”

  Was it her imagination, or did Charles look a little disappointed? “How did your parents start the family business?” he asked.

  “Well, they both had office jobs,” Sandra said. She’d heard the story hundreds of times. It wasn’t all that remarkable. “They lived in our apartment in Brooklyn, and Mom hated it.”

  “Hated the apartment, or hated Brooklyn?”

  “All of it. Plus her job. She hated working for other people. And Dad just hated the city, period. Then one of his dad’s friends mentioned selling the lumber mill he owned and going into retirement…” She shrugged. “My grandparents loaned my parents the money, they moved upstate, and they’ve made a go of it.”

  “That’s admirable,” Charles said. He sounded like he meant it, and Sandra felt a flash of pride in her parents. He rubbed his thumb over her shoulder. “All that, and they had you. I’d call those big accomplishments.”

  Sandra blushed and looked down into her lap. “They’d love for me to move back home. But I’m kind of a city girl. I didn’t know I would be until I moved here for school.” Besides, it would be hard to get an interior design career off the ground in a place that was mostly trees and tiny towns.

  “Lucky for me.” He pulled his hand away. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not yet. Do you cook?” She remembered the answer as soon as she asked the question. Cooking was Bradley’s single undeniable talent. He’d told her that he’d learned because it was the one thing Uncle Charles could never beat him at.

  “Anyone in this city will deliver whatever you like,” Charles said by way of an answer. “I often don’t eat at home, anyway.” He gestured at the cavernous kitchen. “This mostly gets used when I entertain.”

  Charles sometimes threw parties for important people. Sandra had heard Bradley complain about them plenty of times. Stuffy and boring, he’d said, but the one Sandra had attended had been pretty interesting. Her immediate attraction to Charles had thrown her off, but she’d liked observing the other guests, learning about a lifestyle that was so different from her own.

  Still, even if he did throw parties, this was a hell of a lot of house for one man. Sandra knew he’d bought it just a couple of years before Eleanor died. They’d planned to have kids, too. She was sort of surprised that he’d kept the apartment after all of that. But it was the most prestigious address in the city, so maybe it would be shameful for a Magister to walk away.

  “So,” she said, turning her thoughts to the less-gloomy present, “squash at three? What else have you got on the schedule?”

  “I’ve always got work.” Charles finished his coffee and set it on the counter before stepping in front of Sandra. She automatically parted her legs so that he could stand between them and put his arms around her. “I’m sure I’ll get around to it any minute now.”

  Sandra slid her arms around his neck. “Any minute,” she agreed, and gave him a soft kiss. It turned into a few more kisses, and when they parted for air, Nina’s tune had changed yet again. When she heard the lyrics, Sandra laughed. Charles chuckled too.

  The strains of “Feeling Good” wafted through the air. Without a word, Charles tugged Sandra off the stool and into his arms. She molded to him, put one hand on his shoulder, and let him press the other one to his chest. They began to sway to the music. She moved on the balls of her feet, but now she really couldn’t feel the cold at all. Who cared about work, or schedules, or spying neighbors?

  Flying, she thought. She rested her head on Charles’s shoulder as they danced. She was flying, soaring, not falling at all. She’d been worried for nothing. She’d dream about this tonight.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Warrick was the most amazing butler ever.

  So Sandra thought, anyway. At first he looked a little comical with his bushy white eyebrows and portly figure. It didn’t help that he was about an inch shorter than she was. But after a few moments’ talk with him, you forgot about all of that and realized you were face-to-face with a man who efficiently ran one of the most important private homes in the state. It would be easy to say “in the country” if the Magisters ever opened up the North Shore house to outsiders, but as it was, the sprawling estate was mainly a family retreat.

  Personally, she thought it was a pity. The house and grounds were beautiful, perfectly suited for entertaining, just like Charles’s apartment. But since Eleanor Magister’s death, Long Island had become a place of refuge,
not celebration. If a Magister sibling wanted to party, he or she did it in the city.

  But Warrick didn’t seem to mind that his talents were languishing in isolation. As Sandra pulled up to the house’s massive portico in her rental car, he descended the steps with the same friendly smile he’d greeted her with last time. Although last time, she hadn’t yet started sleeping with the master of the house.

  Ronny, the in-house chauffeur, drove her car around the side of the house toward the garage while Warrick smiled with Sandra and she tried not to fidget. He’d been with the family for decades. And two weeks ago, when she’d stayed here with Charles, he’d seemed to approve—but with reservations.

  She couldn’t really blame him. Warrick had seen Charles grow up, and he knew the many griefs of the house and its inhabitants. He didn’t want some girl coming along and rocking the boat yet again. But he’d told her she seemed to make Charles happy, and if that was the case, then all might be well.

  “Good morning, Miss Sandra,” he said. The sun shone down on them today, here in the first week of November. The sky was pure blue, and it was a gorgeous, if chilly day. In about a month or so, the autumnal beauty would wither into winter, and the skies would turn more gray than azure.

  “Hi, Warrick,” Sandra said. “Is it all ready? Can I go and take a look?”

  “Not all of the pieces have arrived yet, but yes, it’s shaping up. I think you’ll be pleased.”

  “Well,” Sandra said, as she followed him into the house, “I hope so, but I’m not the one who really needs to be pleased.”

  Warrick raised his eyebrows skeptically but said nothing. He led the way to the second study, where Sandra proceeded to inspect everything with a gimlet eye.

  It was looking good. The hideous carpet had been removed to show the beautiful dark hardwood beneath. With minimal, rather disinterested input from Charles himself, she and Warrick had arranged to pack some of the knickknacks into storage. The awful peach-striped wallpaper had been torn down, replaced with a more pleasing, subtle pattern in a neutral shade. It would be dated in a decade too, of course—that’s just how it went—but for now, it gave the whole room new life.