Looking Inside

by BETH KERY

  What if that text he got wasn’t really from his brother at all? What if he just needed an excuse to leave? What if he’d really just wanted to get away to reconnect with the gorgeous Alessandra?

  Okay, now you’re just being completely paranoid.

  Really? How many men do you know who would turn down a woman like Alessandra for you?

  One. Trey. He did it last night.

  Yeah, but the night was still young when he left . . .

  God, she hated that snide little bitch in her head.

  Besides, she didn’t even have a right to be concerned about him sleeping with someone else. She’d agreed with Trey that all she wanted was an unconditional agreement for mutual pleasure.

  Yeah, but when you made that agreement, you were in the midst of a performance, weren’t you? The adventurous little slut you were playing might not mind. But you’re sure as hell starting to.

  Those were the type of self-dialogues she longed to escape by the time she left her building at eleven that morning.

  She’d called Jimmy and they agreed to meet for an early lunch in Logan Square at a favorite cafe. She owed him another apology for her abrupt departure last night. Plus, she was dying to hear how Alessandra had reacted to her and Trey leaving within minutes of each another.

  It ashamed her a little, that she was so gratified when Jimmy told her the cool English beauty had abruptly altered into a snarling bitch when Trey had calmly stood, tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table, shook Jimmy’s hand and told Alessandra he hoped she had a safe flight back to London.

  “She calmed down after a bit, though,” Jimmy said after they’d been served their lunch.

  “Trey said there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d come on to you after she was rejected by him. Did she?”

  “No. But we did stay and have a couple drinks together. She’s not bad.”

  “I have a feeling there’s more to that story,” Eleanor said, studying the way Jimmy suddenly seemed completely focused on arranging his cheeseburger garnishes.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “That’s what I told Trey. But still . . . watch out, Jimmy. I’m serious. Trey says Alessandra is a handful.”

  “Just because she’s not right for Riordan doesn’t mean she’s not interesting.”

  “Not to mention disgustingly gorgeous,” Eleanor said sarcastically under her breath. Jimmy gave her a wry glance.

  “Enough about Alessandra. You’re the one with the big story. Give me dirt. What’s been happening with Riordan? Start from the beginning,” Jimmy insisted.

  She owed him some kind of story. As her closest friend, Jimmy had been in on her obsession with Trey ever since she’d discovered his name from her doorman. He’d been the one to tell her about Trey signing up for the reading event.

  She outlined some of the basics of what’d been happening with Trey and her, leaving out most of the details about her uncharacteristically bold exhibitionistic displays. Jimmy probably wouldn’t believe her if she told him the full story, anyway.

  “So after you guys left, you guys just went up to your place and had fantastic sex?” Jimmy asked for the third time after the plates had been cleared and they sipped their coffee.

  Eleanor rolled her eyes. “How many times do I have to say it? Why does everyone have to act so surprised when I do something sexy?” she complained. “Am I really that boring?”

  “No, it’s just . . . Trey Riordan. He’s quite a catch,” Jimmy said, raising his eyebrows in a lecherous gesture.

  “And to think,” she said drolly, “that I told Trey you were straight.” Jimmy laughed. “But seriously, you think it’s weird too, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “That Trey thinks I’m attractive. Sexy,” she added hesitantly.

  “Why would I think that?” Jimmy asked, frowning.

  “You don’t think of me that way. Almost no one does. I just don’t . . . wear sexy well, do I?”

  Jimmy set down his coffee cup with a clanging sound. “Are you serious? You’re beautiful, Eleanor. You’ve never been very obvious about it, but that’s just part of your charm. What is this? Are you fishing for compliments?”

  He looked so bemused, so incredulous—possibly even more so than when he’d asked her repeatedly about her and Trey having sex last night. Eleanor thought maybe she should just change the subject. Jimmy couldn’t understand.

  Especially when she wasn’t certain she understood it herself.

  Sure, she knew she cleaned up well, and could be attractive when she made the effort. It just wasn’t in her nature to choose to put a lot of energy and time on her looks.

  Although recently, she had to admit, she was starting to get why some women indulged in clothes and hair products and shoes. Maybe the beauty industry wasn’t exclusively, as she’d always thought in the past, a multibillion-dollar bandage to female low self-esteem. It was just like Caddy had said several times in the past. You should look good because it pleased you.

  “Eleanor?” Jimmy asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Is all this about Caddy?”

  “Huh?” she asked, stunned. How had he known she’d just been thinking about Caddy? Oh no. First Mom, now Jimmy. This topic made her practically writhe in her own skin with acute discomfort. Her heartbeat started to thrum uncomfortably loud in her ears.

  Jimmy must have noticed her panicked expression. “It’s just . . . ever since Caddy died, you’ve started doing your hair different once in a while, wearing makeup, dressing more . . . you know.”

  “Sexy?” she asked through a tight throat.

  “Yeah. And it looks great on you, it really does,” Jimmy said.

  “You don’t actually believe that. You don’t think it looks good on me, do you?” she asked hollowly, thinking about her mom saying, It’s not you, Eleanor. “You think I’m just pretending to be like Caddy?”

  “No, it’s not that. I don’t think you’re pretending to be like Caddy.”

  “Really?” Eleanor asked, taken aback by his confident denial.

  “Yeah. I’m not lying. Your new style does look great on you. I’m sure most people would agree. Didn’t you notice the way all the men at Gold Coast were drooling over you last night? You probably didn’t, since Riordan was one of them, and you weren’t looking anywhere but at him.”

  She flushed, taken off guard at the very idea of Trey drooling over her.

  “Then . . . what’s the problem?”

  Jimmy shrugged and picked up his coffee cup. “The problem is you don’t seem to believe in your new look. Not completely.”

  “Okay. So I’m working on my self-confidence. So what? What’s that got to do with Caddy?”

  “This new look only appeared once Caddy passed.”

  She grimaced. “I told you why that was. She told me to live my life, step out of the shadows . . . stop being so afraid,” Eleanor added in a small voice.

  Jimmy nodded. “I know. And I’m glad Caddy did that. She was an amazing sister. She was amazing, period.”

  Eleanor just nodded, her throat feeling tight.

  “But the thing of it is, Eleanor, Caddy wasn’t telling you to be someone different.”

  “Oh no,” Eleanor exclaimed, a tear shooting out of her eyes unexpectedly. Jimmy started at her atypical reaction.

  “Jesus, Eleanor. I’m sorry, I didn’t know it’d—”

  “Have you been talking to my mother?” She wiped at her cheek irritably. “She thinks I’m grieving unnaturally, as well.”

  Jimmy reached across the table and grabbed one of her hands.

  “Eleanor.” She blinked away more tears at his abrupt gesture and met his stare reluctantly. “Of course I haven’t been talking to Catherine about you. Do you think I’d do that behind your back?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don�
�t think there’s anything unnatural about you or your grief or your new look. I think Caddy would have loved the fact that you’re giving her clothes a spin. I just think she’d want you to feel comfortable with what you’re doing. She’d want you to own it all.”

  “Versus playacting at it?” Eleanor sniffed. “Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither will Eleanor be.”

  Jimmy looked like he was about to say something else, but then he seemed to think better of it. He released her hand and sat back.

  “Maybe you’re right about that. Everything works itself out, in time,” he conceded. “So . . . when do you think you’ll see Riordan again?”

  Eleanor paused to compose herself. What was wrong with her, getting so emotional all of a sudden? It was this thing with Trey that was making her feel so frayed. Or maybe it was her worry that her mom was right, and this was all about Caddy. About grief.

  She didn’t understand her own motivations anymore.

  “I don’t know. Trey’s going to find out that I’m not being honest with him eventually,” she confessed miserably.

  “What are you talking about?” Jimmy asked. “What aren’t you being honest about?”

  Everything.

  She gave a bark of laughter. “I’ve led him to believe I’m as coldhearted as someone like Alessandra, for one. I’ve told him I’m fine with a no-strings-attached sexual relationship.”

  Jimmy gave her a sharp glance over his cup of coffee. “That is what you went into this wanting. Isn’t it? You wanted to climb Mount Riordan and plant your flag.”

  Mortification swept through her. “Don’t remind me. It sounds horrible hearing it. I was no better than a guy intent on one thing: sexual conquest.”

  “Hey, I resent that.”

  “Yeah, but you know it’s true. You’re the one who’s always warning me that I’m kidding myself if I don’t think men have sex as a primary motivation even for the simplest hello,” Eleanor countered. Jimmy shrugged sheepishly. She laughed. “And I was just as mercenary when it came to Trey,” she added, her amusement fading. “But all that was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “I actually knew him.”

  “You think he’s that special?” Jimmy asked her quietly.

  It suddenly hit her then, how far out of her depths she’d swam. She couldn’t even see the shore anymore.

  “I know he is,” she admitted with a hopeless sigh.

  “Don’t overthink it,” Jimmy murmured after a pause.

  She sat up straighter. “Is that what I’m doing?”

  Of course it’s what you’re doing. It’s what you always do.

  “I think that you’re very attracted to Riordan and he’s extremely attracted to you. You guys couldn’t take your eyes off each other last night. I think you should just take it one step at a time. And, Eleanor? Try not to get in the way of yourself having a good time.”

  —

  She and Jimmy went to a movie that afternoon and had coffee afterward. By the time she got back home it was dark. The condo seemed even larger and more shadowed than usual. As she got dressed in some workout clothes, she mentally acknowledged a fact she’d been trying like hell to avoid. This was the weekend she and Caddy would have usually put up their Christmas decorations in both of their apartments.

  A sharp pang of loss went through her. She sat down heavily on the bed in her room. It took her several minutes to catch her breath and gather herself.

  This year, she couldn’t bear to do it alone. She suddenly doubted she’d ever be able to put up a Christmas tree for herself again.

  She forced herself to rise out of her bout of grief and stand. It was a good thing she didn’t believe in ghosts, because otherwise, the empty condo and the ringing silence would have struck her as more than just oppressive.

  She returned a phone call to her mother. Afterward, loud music and exercise seemed like a great way to eclipse her worrisome thoughts about her parents, about the absent Christmas tree, about what Jimmy had mentioned about Caddy . . .

  About what she’d realized at lunch about Trey being so special.

  Would she see him again before the reading event Monday night? About thirty seconds after she’d come out of the spell from his good-bye kiss yesterday, and the door had closed behind him, she realized they still hadn’t exchanged phone numbers.

  She’d just turned down the music from her aerobics and exercise routine when she heard the house phone ringing. She raced to pick it up.

  “Hello?” she said breathlessly into the receiver.

  “Eleanor, there you are.”

  “Hi, Harry,” Eleanor said, recognizing her doorman’s voice.

  “You’ve got a Trey Riordan here to see you. I saw that you’d filled out a permission form for him to enter for the next month, but you filled it out with Alan last night. I don’t trust that guy,” Harry stated bluntly, referring to his relatively new night replacement at the security desk.

  Excitement shot through her veins, but embarrassment chased quickly behind it. Trey was undoubtedly standing right there at the doorman’s station, listening to Harry on the phone. And Harry had just blabbed that Eleanor had checked the category “one month” on the permission to enter form, not “one time only.” For a second, mortification choked her. What was Trey thinking of her naïve, wishful impulsivity?

  “Eleanor? Is it okay if he comes up?” Harry prodded.

  She should make an excuse. She didn’t want Trey to see her all sweaty like this.

  “Uh . . . yeah, of course.”

  Great. Apparently, it wasn’t in her makeup to deny him.

  She hung up and stared around her kitchen wildly. Although she was typically a neat freak, the kitchen was a bit of a mess. Plus, she wore shorts and a perspiration-damp Northwestern T-shirt.

  And Trey was going to be there any second.

  Desperate, she lunged over to the sink and hastily washed her hands before splashing water on her face to cool herself. When his knock came on her door, she was tossing a few random items in a drawer to straighten the countertops and wiping her damp face off with a paper towel at the same time.

  Trey knocked again.

  “Damn,” she muttered heatedly and threw away the paper towel.

  THIRTEEN

  She flung the door open. For a few seconds, he just stood there, a little stunned by her abruptness. She wore a pair of gray shorts and a Northwestern T-shirt that was slightly damp around the collar and in the valley between her breasts. He jerked his gaze off the vision of her full breasts snugly encased in cotton. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and this time, it was gloriously obvious. She panted slightly, and her smooth, golden skin was dewy with perspiration. Her long brown hair was pulled into two pigtails.

  She looked adorable, not to mention sexy as hell.

  She also appeared worried.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked tensely.

  Her green gold eyes widened. “Nothing.”

  “I’m sorry for not calling first. I still don’t have your—”

  “Phone number. I know. It’s okay.”

  “I’m catching you at a bad time, aren’t I?’ he asked, regret and disappointment swooping through him. He pointed toward the elevator and started to edge toward it. “I should go.”

  “No.”

  He blinked and halted at her terse command. She flinched in embarrassment. “Why are you leaving? You just got here.”

  “I caught you in the middle of something.”

  She shook her head. “No you didn’t. I just finished exercising.”

  He waited two expectant beats, but she just stared at him with those big, expressive eyes.

  “And there’s also the fact that you haven’t asked me in yet,” he added pointedly.

  Her eyes widened and she started back. “I’m sorry, I was just a lit
tle surprised. Come in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” she insisted.

  As often was the case with her, he was getting the strangest mixed signals. How was it that she could be such a skillful seductress at times, and others, come off like she did right this second: like an awkward, adorably sexy Mouseketeer? She looked so innocent and undone. He felt a little guilty for leching after her at that moment just as much as he did when she seduced him so ruthlessly.

  He followed her down a short hallway to the kitchen. “Can I get you anything to drink? I was just going to have some water,” she said.

  “I’ll have the same, thanks.”

  He watched her while she moved around the kitchen, admiring her from the back. She kept pouring the water from the pitcher into the second glass when it reached the top. It overflowed and splashed onto the counter, making her jump back in surprise. He snapped a towel off the stove and went over to dry her off.

  “Here,” he said. She turned toward him. He grabbed her hand and wiped off her wrist. He slowed when he noticed her looking up at him anxiously. “Why are you so jumpy, Eleanor? You want me to go, don’t you?”

  “No,” she insisted, shaking her head forcefully and making her pigtails rustle against her shoulders.

  “Why are you acting so nervous, then?” he asked her quietly, enfolding her captive hand in both of his.

  “That’s what you do to me sometimes.”

  She bit her lip, like she’d regretted saying it.

  His nerves prickled in heightened awareness. Her admission interested him. It gratified. He couldn’t help but smile in relief. He’d been worried she didn’t want him there. “Not all the time though,” he murmured, stepping closer to her. He’d caught her scent: sweet sweat and fragrant Eleanor. He was drawn like a bee to honey. Something caught and flamed in her pretty eyes.

  “No,” she replied huskily. His head dipped toward her upturned face. “Not all the time.”

  “There’s no reason for you to act skittish around me.”