And he would spend the rest of his life being thrilled, if it continued paying off like it did last night. The sex had been spectacular. And even more. Something had changed in the way Letty looked at him. He loved the mixture of gratitude and shy hope he saw in her eyes.
He kissed Letty’s temple tenderly. She yawned, stretching like a cat.
“What time is it?” she murmured, her eyes still closed.
“Late,” he said, amused. “Almost noon.”
Her eyes flew open. “Oh, no! I’m late for—” Then she seemed to remember how much had changed in the last twenty-four hours, and that being late for work was no longer an issue. “Oh. Right.” She bit her lip, blushing and looking so adorable that he was tempted to keep her in bed another hour.
It was incredible how much he still wanted her, when they’d made love four times last night—on the rooftop terrace, here in bed, and in the shower when they decided to wash off. Only to promptly get all sweaty again when they returned to bed.
Letty was meant to be his, Darius marveled. He’d never felt so sexually satisfied in his life.
And yet already he wanted more. How was it possible?
He smiled down at her. “Hungry?”
“Starving,” she admitted. “And thirsty.”
“I can solve that.” Rising from the bed, he got a white terry cloth robe and handed her one, too. “Come out to the kitchen.”
She gave a sudden scowl, and even that was adorable. “You didn’t tell me you had staff staying at the penthouse. What if they heard us last night? What if they—”
“There are no live-in staff. I have a housekeeper who comes in four times a week, that’s it.”
She blinked in confusion. “Then who’s going to cook?”
“I’m not totally useless.”
She looked at him with unflattering shock in her eyes. “You can’t cook, Darius.”
“No?” His smile widened to a grin. “Come see.”
She ate her words shortly afterward, sitting in the brightly lit kitchen at the counter, as he served her an omelet to order with tomatoes, bacon and five kinds of cheese, along with orange juice over ice. When she took the first bite of the omelet, her eyes went wide.
“Good, huh?” he said smugly, sitting beside her with his own enormous omelet of ham and cheese, drenched in salsa. Being a sexual hero all night definitely had built his appetite.
And hers, as well. If he felt like a hero, Letty was a sex goddess, he thought. Even now, he felt aware of her, just sitting companionably beside her at the counter with its dazzling view of the city through floor-to-ceiling windows. But he wasn’t looking at the view. He was watching her.
“Delicious,” she moaned softly as she gobbled it down, bite after bite. “We should serve omelets at our wedding.”
He gave a low laugh. “I appreciate the compliment, but I don’t see myself whipping up omelets for a thousand.”
She froze. “A thousand? Guests?”
Gulping black coffee, he shrugged. “Our wedding will be the social event of the year, as you deserve. All of New York society will come and grovel at your feet.”
She didn’t look thrilled. She took another bite of omelet. “That’s not what I want.”
“No?” he said lazily, tucking back a tendril of her dark hair. His eyes traced the creamy skin of her neck, down to the smooth temptation of her clavicle and swell of her breasts above the luxurious white cotton robe. He glanced down to her belt, tied loosely between her breasts and pregnant belly. He had the sudden impulse to sweep all the dishes to the floor, tug open her robe and lean her back naked against the counter.
“A wedding should be a happy occasion.” She shook her head. “Those society people aren’t my friends. They never really were. Why would I invite them?”
“To rub your new status in their faces? I thought you’d glory in your return to status as the queen of it all.”
“Me?” Letty snorted. “I was never queen of anything. As a teenager I never knew the right clothes to wear or understood how to play the society game. I was a total nerd.”
He frowned. “I never saw you that way. I just assumed…”
“That I was a spoiled princess?” She gave him a funny smile. “I was spoiled, though not the way you mean. I always knew I was loved.” Her face was wistful. “My parents loved each other and they loved me.”
Revenge wasn’t Letty’s style, Darius realized. She never showed off or tried to make others feel bad. Even when she was younger, she’d always been most comfortable reading the dusty leather-bound books in Fairholme’s oak-paneled library, baking cakes with the cook in the kitchen or playing with the gardener’s kittens in the yard. Letty never wanted to be the center of attention. She was always more worried about other people’s feelings than her own.
In this respect, Darius thought, the two of them were very different.
“And I had a real home,” she whispered.
Memories of that beautiful gray stone manor on the edge of the sea, surrounded by roses, came to his mind. He said gruffly, “You still miss Fairholme after all this time?”
She gave him a sad smile. “I know it’s gone for good. But I still dream about it. My mother was born there. Four generations of my family.”
“What happened to it?”
She looked down at her plate. “A tech billionaire bought it at a cut-rate price. I heard he changed everything, added zebra-print shag carpeting and neon lights, and turned the nursery into his own private disco. Of course that was his right. But he wouldn’t let me take a picture of my great-grandmother’s fresco before he destroyed it with his sandblaster.”
A low growl came from Darius’s throat. He remembered the nursery fresco, a charming monstrosity picturing a sad-eyed little goose girl leading ducks and geese through what looked like a Bavarian village. Not his cup of tea, but it was part of the house’s history. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up with a bright, fake smile. “It’s fine. Of course it couldn’t last. Good things never do.”
“Neither do bad things,” he said quietly. “Nothing lasts, good or bad.”
“I guess you’re right.” She wrapped her arms around her pregnant belly. “But I don’t want a big society wedding, Darius. I think I’d just like you and me, and our closest family and friends. I don’t need ten bridesmaids. I just want one.”
“An old friend?”
She smiled. “A new one. Belle Langtry. A waitress at the diner. How about you? Who would you choose as your best man?”
“Ángel Velazquez.”
“Ángel?”
“It’s a nickname. His real first name is Santiago, but he hates it, because he was named after a man who refused to recognize him as his son.”
“How awful!”
Darius shrugged. “I call him by his last name. Velazquez hates weddings. He recently had to be the best man for a friend of ours, Kassius Black. He complained for months. All that tender love gave him a headache, he said.”
Letty was looking at him in dismay. “And you want him at our wedding?”
“He needs a little torture. When you meet him you’ll see what I mean. Completely arrogant, always sure he’s right.”
“Hard to imagine,” she said drily.
“So