He then tucks my badge into his jacket pocket and takes my hand back into the crook of his arm. “Come,” he whispers in my ear, already leading me to the side of the room, to the doors that lead out onto a terrace overlooking a golf course. He steps out onto the terrace with me, and only then do I manage to pull my hand from the warm crook of his arm.
“I don’t think we should be here. Everybody saw that.”
“So?” He lifts his eyebrows, and I stand there, at a loss. His eyes gleam in the moonlight, and he looks succulent. Edible. Not just his lips, every part of him.
Slowly, his gaze slides downward. He radiates a vitality that draws me like a magnet. It unnerves me, but something in his voice soothes me. “Do you blame me for wanting you to myself for a few minutes, Rachel?” he asks, his voice husky.
I have a thousand pictures of him, but none like this. The face I see right now isn’t for any camera; it’s for nobody to see. Not even me. There is pure, organic, unfiltered emotion etched across his features, roiling in his eyes.
He squeezes my hand to keep me from backing away from him, and then he reels me closer to him, his lips pulling into a smile because I resist a little.
“Come here,” he coaxes, finally managing to make my body loosen up enough for me to go where he wants me. Close to him.
He’s so magnetic, so beautiful as he looks down at me and brings me close enough to smell him. I imagine reaching out to touch his hard jaw, running my tongue up his tan chest to that laughing mouth.
I’d give anything to know what he’s thinking. Why he’s smiling like that. There are smiles that just make you want to smile back, but this smile makes you want to kiss it so hard.
He’s the first to move instead, his hand lifting only a fraction to rest on my face. “You look gorgeous,” he murmurs, and he brushes my lips with the pad of his thumb. I shiver involuntarily. “I could feast on your mouth . . . even longer than last time.”
“No, no kissing,” I breathe, but for a second, I let myself absorb the feeling of being close to someone who’s so much bigger and harder.
He runs his hand through my hair, and the sensation is so sweet and so intoxicating, I stay there. We stay like that.
He obviously knows he affects me. But he looks affected too, his body stonelike and buzzing with tension. We’re both affected. He brushes the tips of his fingers along the bare back of my dress, the warmth of his hand sending shivers through my body. We’re in an alcove, and there’s this intense you-and-me vibe.
Intense you-and-me vibe . . .
“I never do this.” I try to unwind his arms from around me. “Give me back my badge, please.”
“What for?” he murmurs, scowling softly.
“I need my badge. I’m . . . this isn’t . . .”
“No,” he says softly.
“I feel naked without my badge.”
He grins. “It’s still no.”
I groan and turn away, and when I glance at him, he’s looking at me with perfect amusement.
“Can I ask you some questions?” I say, reaching out a fast hand, catching him off guard and pulling my badge out of his jacket.
He laughs when I quickly step back so he can’t recover it; then he falls sober and recovers the distance he lost, his steps slow and measured. “Do you want to talk about Interface?”
I feel like Do you want to talk about Interface? has become code for something else.
“Yes,” I say primly, clipping the badge to my dress.
He looks at me. “Ask.” He seems pretty content to be interviewed, so I breathe a sigh of relief at last.
“What are your goals for Interface?”
He tucks a loose hair behind my ear. My ear burns when he eases back his hand. “To be number one in the market, leave the competition behind.”
I see him, hear him, his ambition, his determination, and their effects only grow stronger in me.
“Do you . . .” I trail off when he lifts his hand, caressing my cheek with the knuckles of one hand.
“You never stop working, do you?” he interrupts, scowling a little. “In that sense, you’re like me.”
I scowl too. “You’re answering with a question.”
“You’re not asking the right questions.”
“God, Saint! Why do you like to tease me so much?”
Laughing, he leans closer, until his face is level with mine and I can smell the soap on his skin. He holds me by the chin with the pad of his thumb and forefinger. “Why do you blush every time I do?”
“My skin is white, it’s almost translucent. I blush easily.”
“I only see you blush with me.”
His eyes are both comforting and disturbing, hot and cold, closed off at the same time they seem to be stripping me. “Do you think about me, Rachel?”
“At work, yes. I think about you in the office. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Partly, yes. I think about you in the office too, but I also think about you in bed.”
“Saint, the commissioner would like to speak with you. Miss Livingston, I’m Dean.”
I’m so hot right now, I’m mortified I get to meet Saint’s PR person like this, but I shake his hand nonetheless and try to act calm and collected, not in the least Saint-affected. “Dean, oh yes, so nice to meet you.”
Malcolm extracts the badge from my grip. “Press time is over,” he informs me. All the cold has fled his eyes; they look beyond warm, blazing like fireballs as he looks at me. “Take care of her, Dean.”
“I will.”
He goes inside.
Dean and I soon follow.
I ask Dean how long he’s worked at M4, how the hiring process was. We’re talking about his job, and how impressed I am with Interface, when I spot a familiar face across the room. I stiffen when the hawklike, tiny pointy nose and the long dark hair register in my brain. Victoria?
Her eyes widen from across the room, and she points at me, to my complete and utter horror. She starts charging over.
“Rachel?” she calls.
God, seeing a colleague from Edge, one whom I don’t trust and one who knows exactly what I am doing here, I did not expect to feel so small.
I brace myself for a second, then I stand to greet her.
Playing the perfect innocent, she seems absolutely delighted as I perform a quick, perfunctory introduction to Dean.
“Dean, wow, and you’re Saint’s PR person?”
“Victoria . . . meet me at the ladies’? Dean, will you excuse us?”
I try to appear calm and mermaid-like as I start in the direction of the restrooms, keeping my eyes ahead while Victoria walks smugly next to me.
Even the way she walks is like she’s having sex with the floor or something.
“Saint is absolutely eating you with his eyes. Why aren’t you clinging to him, chatting him up?” Victoria says when we’re finally in the ladies’.
I make sure that all the stalls are vacant, then go to the sink and open the water.
“It isn’t like that.”
“What? It isn’t like what? Like that dress isn’t begging to be peeled off—”
“Shhh!” I glance around at the stalls, checking a second time that they’re empty.
She follows and inspects every one of them herself. “Don’t worry, I’m not telling. Helen will kill me if this blows up.”
I rub my temples and sigh. “Can you explain to me what you’re doing here?”
“I called a few of my contacts when I heard you weren’t on the press list. I wanted to get the deets.”
“The deets on what, Victoria? I’m here. This is my . . . I’m here. And it’s all under control.”
She eyes me dubiously. “Okay. Well then.” She makes a ceremony out of washing her hands, taking forever to pat them dry. Then she checks her makeup. “I suggest you go out there and use your feminine wiles. You’re a woman, a pretty one. And in case you haven’t noticed, every other woman out there is giving Saint come-hither looks but
you.”
She leaves.
I stand there, looking at myself in the mirror. I’ve lost all semblance of color from my face. I feel physically ill. I’m certain that if I walk out there, Saint will see right through me. He’ll know what I want from him, that I want everything including his secrets, and he’ll know why I shouldn’t have kissed him the way I did at the Interface building. What we did there felt so intimate to me, so . . . so unprofessional on my part, considering what I have to do.
All my insecurities rising to the surface, I call for a cab with my cell. I wait a few minutes, then slip out of the bathroom and find one of the women from the press-badge table.
“Could you please tell Mr. Saint that the woman whose badge he has in his pocket had to leave, she wasn’t feeling well?” I ask her, grateful when she agrees.
Outside, my cab is waiting across the street, and I leap over a few puddles and climb inside, the bottom of the dress completely ruined. I thank the driver when I get home, then I pull off my dress and my shoes, slip into my Northwestern T-shirt, and sit on the bed, motionless, thinking and feeling blank and numb.
I never thought I would ever do anything to hurt somebody. I always thought I was on the good guys’ side, on the side of rightness. Seeing Victoria today while I was both working and not working made me see what I am. What I’m doing.
I’m a hypocrite. I’m . . . a liar.
That little game bullies try to make you play when you’re a little kid—if you were forced to kill one to save the other, your mom or your dad, who would you choose? Sometimes in life you have to make a choice like that, a decision so hard you can’t make it, you would rather sacrifice yourself. But that still means Edge goes down.
I peer into Gina’s room, but she’s not back yet. I go back to my fetal position on the bed and I turn on a local gossip show on television, trying to distract myself.
“Tonight at the Interface inaugural, Malcolm Saint speaking . . .”
A snippet from a while ago appears, and my stomach tumbles as if I’ve just taken a steep drop on a roller coaster. The video cuts back to the news anchor and an image of us, Saint and me, as he took my hand and led me to the terrace.
OHMIGOD!
“A young lady’s early departure is causing confusion among the press; this is the image taken earlier of Saint with her, arousing much speculation as to whether Saint’s got his eye on her. Early word is that she’s a member of a small magazine in the area but wasn’t on the scene as press. First time ever Saint’s been linked to a reporter. It will be interesting to watch future developments.”
“Agreed,” the coanchor says.
“Ohmigod!” I turn off the TV, toss the remote aside, and cover my face in my hands. I’m breathing in and out, in and out, when my cell phone vibrates. It’s Helen.
You’re on the news. Vicky texted. Said he looks absolutely hooked? I’m impressed
I groan, “I’m going to throw up now.”
Sick with self-loathing over my disgusting duplicity, I grab a pillow and bury my head there. I don’t answer Helen. I delete her text instead, then I reach for my lifeline, the only thing that has kept me going when it’s gotten rough:
Love you, Momma
14
AFTER THE PARTY
My mother’s probably asleep. She hasn’t answered. I still feel like shit. Hell, I am shit. Groaning, I pull my T-shirt over my knees and wrap my arms around my legs; then I bury my face there. I’ve been here for a while when I hear the downstairs buzzer. I’m not answering. I really am not.
The third time it buzzes, I give up and go answer from the kitchen. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
Malcolm.
I glance frantically around the place I share with Gina. It’s in a Chicago factory-turned-apartment building. The doors to our bedrooms are both in a short hall, one on the right side, one to the left. Painted wooden bookcases and framed metal columns stand between the kitchen and living room. We have a hole in the wall between the dining room and the pantry, and the cheapest alternative we could think of at the time was to hang a huge whiteboard over it on the dining room side, where we write things when we get drunk or just feel like it. It used to be my idea board, but the girls hijacked it.
It’s . . . home. My home. What will he think of it?
This apartment is my pride, my little spot of peace, and now HE will be in it, and it will be intense. It’s been a while since my friends and I have had this conversation, but no man has crossed the sacred barrier of my apartment threshold. Ever. He’s the first. The very first.
I’m nervous about him seeing my place, my safe zone, my pride and joy, through eyes that have seen far too much of the world. Far more than me. What is pretty to me may be simple and uninteresting to him.
“C’mon up,” I murmur and buzz him in, then hurry back to my bedroom, slipping on some leggings and exchanging my T-shirt for a long blouse, checking my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Sighing in despair over my swollen eyelids, I scrub my face with soap and head to the door. He’s waiting outside when I open it, leaning against the wall, one hand in his pocket, staring down at his shoes, his eyebrows furrowed.
He looks up at me. My legs feel paralyzed, as if they’re not getting enough blood. He doesn’t know how monumental it is for me to step back and wave him inside. God, he looks so good—as good as he did minutes or hours ago—that I almost trip on the rug.
“Do you want coffee?”
He glances around my place with a nod.
His tie is unfastened and hanging around his neck, the top buttons of his shirt undone. His hair curls at the collar of his shirt, and when he rumples it and keeps surveying my place, it sticks out all over his head, dark and lovely. I have to fight the urge to reach out and touch it. Instead, I bring us two cups to the coffee table. I take the couch and watch him lower himself into my favorite oversize reading chair, the one I do my best thinking in. I’m a little afraid now that I won’t ever use it again without remembering he was parked right there.
“I’m sorry I bailed,” I whisper, sliding a cup across the table and retrieving my hand before he can reach for it.
“I heard you weren’t feeling well.” He leans forward, ignoring the coffee. Ignoring my apartment and everything except me.
His dissecting look makes me lower my face and exhale. “Yeah, I guess,” I agree.
“Somebody hurt you, Rachel?”
“Maybe . . .” I raise my head at the protectiveness in his tone and cross my arms over my chest. A male figure has never been concerned over me, protective. I like it so much I smile a little in happy amusement. “Will you punch her for me?”
“Her?”
“Me,” I specify, shaking my head. “I’m referring to me, she’s the one who hurt me.” I tighten my arms because seeing him in my place makes my mind keep going elsewhere, to another time, at the top of the Interface building. I can’t believe I’ve kissed those lips. I can’t believe he kissed me for so long.
He laughs softly, runs a hand through his hair. “Then no, I won’t punch her.” A pause, a laden look.
Then kiss her again, I think recklessly.
Groaning inwardly at the thought, I put my face in my hand for a moment.
Saint seems to be beyond puzzled by me right now.
“Is this a girl thing?” His voice brings my head up, his tone a mix of confusion and amusement that, coming from such a hard and closed man, is unexpectedly sweet.
“It’s a me thing,” I admit. “I saw someone tonight—she works where I work. She’s always so spot-on. Everything she writes is absolute gold. Her topics, her metaphors, her similes!”
His chuckle fills the room—a rich, beautiful sound—and then he reclines farther back in the chair, the embodiment of a businessman relaxing.
“I’m personally a fan of your work, Rachel.”
My . . . what!?
“You always lay out your topics with refreshing honesty.”
&
nbsp; “You’ve been reading me?” I’m sure my voice and round eyes betray my surprise.
That small smile again, combined with a scowl this time. “You think I give interviews to just anyone?”
“Honest?” I ask.
When he nods, I dip my head low. “I thought you saw my boobs pushing out of that top on my profile picture and told Dean you’d see me.”
His eyes crinkle with humor, but then we stare for long, heavy minutes, and our smiles fade.
“I read your column before that interview was granted.”
“I must’ve been such a disappointment in person. That first interview? It’s the most embarrassing interview I’ve ever had,” I admit.
We stare again.
I want him to say something, so I wait.
“I thought you were lovely.”
I’m blushing red.
He’s not known to be big on compliments, or a big flatterer. He’s known to be blunt, his honesty close to making people uncomfortable.
I’m uncomfortable now because I feel him looking at me with new intensity, and when he speaks again, the girl inside me feels euphoric.
“It gave me great pleasure to watch you walk out with my shirt. It seems every single one of my employees who saw you knew that I wanted you. Everyone knew this except maybe me.”
My breath catches.
“Oh,” I say, when I manage to expel it.
“I didn’t know then,” he specifies, his stare unflinching.
The desire I feel is so absolute, so powerful, I cannot think of anything else but him and the fact that I cannot have him.
I’m acutely aware of the distance between us—of exactly how many feet lie between him and me in my living room. I turn on a lamp, and the room becomes more alive; all the light seems to make love to him, to the angles of his face.
“Why are you here, Saint? If it was because of what happened at Interface, I made a mistake.”
“Then let’s make another one. A bigger one.”
I laugh nervously. “What is this? Am I a challenge to you now?”
His lips quirk. “A challenge is something you stop wanting once you acquire it. I can’t know if you’re a challenge yet until I make you mine.”