“I already did,” I said and his eyebrows shot up.
“What am I having?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry. The phone at his elbow buzzed and he glanced at the screen, his body poised to stand up.
“You know, if you really want to convince people that we’re dating, you’d turn that thing off for an hour or two.”
“I don’t ever turn my phone off,” he said, staring at me as if I’d asked him to take off his clothes and dance the hula.
“Ever?”
“I turn the ringer off, but no, I never turn off my phone. I’m the mayor pro tempore of a major metropolitan city.”
I sat back, seeing Carter in a new way. A sad new way. “That’s not all you are,” I asked, “is it?”
He blinked, his eyes heavy and dark for just a moment, as if he understood the truth of what I’d said, and then he grabbed his phone. “This is my world, Zoe, and you’re only passing through. Don’t make judgments on things you don’t understand. I’ll be right back.”
My entire body flushed and buzzed with anger and embarrassment. I just got a dressing-down from my fake date.
“Well,” I muttered, grabbing another roll. “No wonder he’s alone.”
A few moments later he was back. He hesitated at my chair, his fingers brushing my shoulder and sending sparks down my body, straight to my breasts.
Down, girls, I thought, sternly. Those fingers are all wrong for you.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“Probably not,” I said. “If this were a real date, I would have left.”
His chuckle was dry. “It wouldn’t be the first time a date left me.”
I gaped at him. “And you’re okay with that?”
“I love my job, Zoe, and I’ve never met a woman that made me want to put my work second.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, wondering why that sounded noble. Sexy, even. As though he was just a hardworking man looking for the right kind of woman.
My hormones, absolutely out of control with baby power, really liked Carter in that light—as if he was the hero in a romance novel and I was the young virgin secretary there to change his life.
I crossed my legs and tried to think of smelly pointe shoes. Dancing on broken toes. Blisters. “What are all the phone calls about? Mayoral espionage? Is New Orleans trying to take our land?”
He laughed. “I wish. Actually, I don’t wish. I’m getting some personal funding for the Glenview Community Center debacle, and I think the deal is getting pretty close to going through.”
“Oh,” I said, my roll forgotten in my hands. He needed to stop doing that. Just when I’d convinced myself I didn’t like him, no matter how good he looked in a suit, he confessed to fixing a community center debacle. “That’s good.”
“It’s great,” he said, leaning back, his jacket sliding open to reveal his trim waist in a crisp white shirt.
Delicious, I thought, which was ridiculous but true nonetheless. I kind of wanted to dip him in cream cheese.
“With that community center being finished, hopefully we can get some more community support to repair the centers that need it. Get some much-needed programs up and running in underserviced neighborhoods.”
“The lights didn’t work in my room at Jimmie Simpson today,” I said. “I had my toddlers dancing outside in the ball diamond.”
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “If we want to cut down on crime and vandalism and increase our graduation rates, we need to give kids a place to go besides the street. It’s the only way to curb the total downward spiral our teenage population is currently experiencing. Without programs that interest kids and plug them into something positive—and without a place to have those programs—I don’t know how to turn things around.”
I stared at him, spellbound. Mesmerized by his passion.
Did I think Carter O’Neill was cold? Fool. He was fire under ice. He was crimson coals, waiting for the chance to ignite.
“Sorry,” he said, after a moment. The passion banked, vanished. Like it never was. It was quite a trick, as disarming as his smile. “I get carried away.”
“You’re right to,” I said. “We should all get carried away about this.”
“Why don’t you tell me about dance?” he asked.
I laughed. “What about it? The history? The modern movement? Teaching two-year-olds?”
“You,” he said, leaning forward, slicing away the rest of the world with the sharpness of his focus. “Tell me about dance and you. About Houston.”
“I was a part of the ballet company there,” I said. “For three years.”
“Did you like it?”
“Like it?” I smiled and then laughed. “I loved it. It was everything I had worked for since I was four. The artistic director was a genius, and fair-minded. The company had its drama but for the most part we believed in what we were doing. And the city loved us. It was a dream.”
“And now you teach two-year-olds.” I stiffened at his tone but chose to laugh it off. It might seem like I’d fallen down in the world, but this was a choice. Everything that led me to this moment and place in my life had been a choice.
And teaching dance was a choice I’d made at a young age. A greater calling than being on the stage. A passion far brighter than my star had been.
“Let’s not forget my seniors samba class.”
“How could I?” His smile took away the sting. “And is that what you want?” he asked, all joking aside. “To teach?”
“It’s all I want,” I said, surprised that I was telling him this. I hadn’t expressed this to my mother, or even Phillip, afraid that they would laugh at me or think I was lying to save face. But Carter just leaned in, his eyes alive with interest, and I found myself unleashing my plans, my dreams. “I love it. Even more than I love dancing myself and when…well, hopefully, in a few years I can get the money together, and I plan to start an academy.”
“The Zoe Madison School of Dance?”
“Something like that. A permanent building. I’ve got my eye on one off St. Louis Street, a nice storefront with lots of space and it’s central, right by bus stops and the highway. I can do all types of classes for all ages. Scholarship programs and maybe even ties to local gymnastic groups. I want it to be a dance community, for anyone interested in being a part of it. I can—” I stopped, my tongue suddenly too big for my mouth. I felt my cheeks incinerate with high heat. “Sorry,” I mumbled, echoing his words. “I get carried away.”
His smile was like booze—too much of it and I’d be drunk.
“Your passion is exciting,” he said and cleared his throat, glancing down at the tablecloth. “Infectious.”
He opened his mouth as if to ask something else, but shut it, second-guessing himself.
“What?” I laughed.
“I don’t want to pry—”
I tipped back my head and howled. “We’re fake-dating, Carter. Ask what you want, I won’t guarantee an answer, but let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be.”
“Fine. Why did you leave?” he asked. “Houston, I mean. You’re young. You obviously loved it. Why come back here?”
I blinked at him. “I’m pregnant.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure other ballerinas have had babies and kept dancing. And Houston has a bigger market for an academy like the one you dream about.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I was alone in that city. My mother, my real friends, the ones I could count on to help, were all here.”
“The father…?” He trailed off then held up his hand. “I know. None of my business.”
I smiled, toying with my water glass.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re the only person in my life who seems to respect that concept.”
“Well, reporters can be relentless.”
“Reporters have nothing on my mom.”
Now he blinked. “You haven’t told your mother?”
My anger spiked a
nd I pushed away my glass. “I don’t understand why this is so hard for people to get. The first person I’m going to tell is my baby. It’s our lives. I mean, am I crazy? Isn’t that what makes sense?”
He didn’t answer for a long time.
“It is crazy,” I muttered.
“I think it’s laudable,” he said and cleared his throat, fiddled with his tie. Carter was cute when he was uncomfortable. “Respectful. Of your child, of that relationship. It says a lot about you.”
“That I’m crazy.”
“Oh, you’re crazy,” he said with a laugh, and somehow it didn’t seem like such a bad thing when he said it that way. “But not for this.”
My body buzzed. My hormones did a long slow rumba through my veins.
“No one has said that,” I murmured.
And I wished, so badly, that they would. And now, here was this man I didn’t want to like—reaching into my head.
This dating business wasn’t going the way I thought it would. I thought a fake date would be business-like, that we’d talk about the weather or professional sports. Good God, I didn’t want to bond with the man.
“Tell me something,” I said.
“Oh, boy.”
“That blond woman?” I said, “who paid me all that money?” I pushed past the tension in his face, the chill in his eyes. “Who is she?”
“She’s no one,” he said. “Absolutely no one.”
“Porterhouses?” Our waiter arrived from nowhere and started to unload a giant tray of food.
“Holy…is this all ours?” Carter asked as the baked and scalloped potatoes hit the table.
“Welcome to my world,” I said.
And dug in.
CARTER
* * *
I walked Zoe up to her door, my hand cupping her elbow like I was holding a little fire in my palm.
“You know if teaching dance stops working for you, I think you could go cross-country and enter eating contests. You like pie, right? Hot dogs?”
She tried to look offended but I just laughed.
“I have never in my life seen someone eat like you just did.”
“I am going to choose to take that as a compliment,” she said, sticking her little nose in the air. It was cute. She was cute.
She was funny and opinionated and elegant and goofy.
A combination I hadn’t seen in a woman in years. This fake date, this task I’d had to take on, had begun to feel good. And my irritation with the elf had turned into something else entirely.
Maybe it was watching her put away all that steak.
I liked her. Was intrigued by her.
“Where are all the reporters?” she asked as we climbed the steps to her apartment building unbothered. “Maybe we’re already old news.”
“Don’t be too sure,” I said. “They might be lurking in the bushes.”
“I doubt it,” she said, pausing in front of the glass security door. “I think in terms of scandals we’re pretty tame these days.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, turning to face her.
The moonlight slashed through the courtyard, cutting ribbons of white out of the darkness and her eyes glimmered in the half-light.
She licked her lips, leaving them damp, and the moment melted into steam and heat.
“I didn’t tell you how beautiful you look,” I whispered.
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“I should have.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. The sounds of crickets deafening in the sudden silence. Her hands smoothed over her belly. God, my need to touch her. To grab her even—it was nuts. I’d never in my life felt this way. Compelled.
Like I wanted to open my mouth and inhale her.
And before I knew it, before I could stop it, I was leaning down to kiss her. My fingers slid from her elbow to the fine skin of her neck.
Velvet. Every inch of her was velvet.
“Carter,” she whispered, her lips inches from mine.
“Yes.”
“I don’t usually do this.”
“Me neither.”
“It’s the hormones,” she said. “The pregnancy. They’re making me crazy.”
I laughed and, oddly, it didn’t ruin the mood. “Okay.”
“And your suit. I love a man in a suit.”
“I have lots.”
“And the steak—”
“Zoe?”
“Yes?”
“Can I please kiss you?”
Her smile illuminated the darkness, a neon sign in the midnight sky. “Yes,” she sighed.
I’d never kissed a woman while smiling and it was a hot sweetness. Honey on my lips, fire on my tongue.
We were careful, the reality of “us” was a hard thing to overcome, but slowly we melted into each other. She let out a breath, her body softening against mine. I kissed her again. She opened her mouth, letting me in.
It was the kind of kiss other kisses wished they could be. We were perfect together and I felt her all along my body. Her arms around my neck pulled me closer. My brain wanted to remind me of all the reasons why this was a mistake and I leaned back, breaking the kiss.
But then she was beautiful in the shadows, her lips so pink and I leaned back in.
And then the night exploded in flashbulbs. The whirr and click of cameras. Zoe jerked away, stumbling slightly and I grabbed her to hold her steady, my palms melting into her skin.
“Give us a kiss, Zoe!” yelled the scum-sucking paparazzo standing in the shadows beside the bushes.
Zoe flinched, and even in the moonlight I could tell all the color had leeched from her skin.
Her eyes, vulnerable and angry, crushed me.
“I didn’t know that guy was there,” I said, but she pulled her elbows into herself, becoming tiny against the night as she slipped away from me.
“Come on, sweetie, don’t be mad!” the photographer yelled, and Zoe ducked her head, fumbled in her pea-green bag for her keys. Her fingers shook and tears poised themselves on the edge of her eyelashes.
“Zoe—”
The door cracked open and she was gone. A flash of pink, a long leg and I was alone in the night, my blood hammering hard through my body.
“Not your night, huh?” Jim Blackwell emerged from behind the bushes like the devil stepping into the light.
Don’t hit him. You can’t hit him.
Hitting him would only make things worse.
But the urge was a wild dog at my heels.
“No comment?” Jim asked.
“Go to hell, Jim,” I said and walked away, my night in ruins around me.
6
“Deputy Deadbeat Daddy Denied?” Amanda asked as she walked into the office on Monday morning. She tossed the paper onto my desk so I could see, once again, the photo on the front page.
There I was, in bright crisp and clear color, leaning in, eyes closed, lips pursed—puckered up, really, like a child. But that wasn’t even the best part of the photo—no, the look on Zoe’s face as she leaned away from me, as if I were made of stinky cheese—that was the best part of the photo.
“It gets worse,” Amanda said.
“USA Today?”
“No, YouTube. The photographer got video. Deputy Deadbeat Daddy Denied is worldwide right now.”
“Great,” I muttered, spinning in my chair to face the window. Outside it was a gorgeous day, blue skies, fluffy white clouds—everything mocked me.
Why did I kiss her? I wondered, feeling thick and heavy. This wasn’t supposed to be real.
She wasn’t supposed to be so damn real.
One of the most real things I’d experienced in a long time.
I had no idea what she was thinking about right now, and I hated that I wondered. That I cared.
“I’ll deal with it,” I said.
“How?”
I’m not sure yet, I admitted to myself.
“I have a meeting with Eric Lafayette in an hour about the Glenview—”
“You can’t just brush this off,” Amanda snapped. “Eleven months until elections, Carter. You want a life in public service, you need to handle this crap. Pretending it’s not happening isn’t going to make it go away.”
“I’m not. I said I’d deal with it, and I will.”
“Carter, I’m on your side. I can help.”
“You want to call Zoe and explain that the kiss wasn’t a promotional stunt?” I snapped. A promotional stunt gone so wrong.
“Er…no?”
“Then we’re done here.”
After a long moment Amanda got the point and left.
Zoe’s stink face stared up from the paper and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I pulled out my cell phone and faced the music.
ZOE
* * *
My cell phone rattled against the kitchen counter, and my heart did a similar dance against my rib cage.
I didn’t know why I was so nervous, or frankly, how I knew it was Carter calling.
But I was nervous and it was him.
“You want me to talk to him?” Penny asked, ready to rush to my defense, as though we were on the playground and Carter pushed me off the slide.
“I can handle this, Mom,” I said, though I was slightly afraid I couldn’t. I’d woken up this morning to Penny and the front page of the paper.
A combination that had me running for the ginger cookies and salsa and I didn’t care who saw.
It was bad, being kissed for a publicity stunt, but it was far worse to have that kiss all over the front page of the paper. And I wasn’t even the one that looked bad.
Poor Carter.
His pride must be sore this morning.
I scooped up the phone and answered it as I walked into my bedroom and some privacy.
“Hello,” I said, cool as a cucumber.
“Zoe, it’s Carter.”
“Good morning,” I said, channeling every aloof and distant receptionist I’d ever come across.
“Zoe.” He sighed, and I heard the frustration in his voice, a certain weariness that pulled at me.
Do not fall for that again, I told myself. This is a man you are fake dating. That’s it.
“You’ve seen the paper?” he asked.
The Saint Page 6
