Or whatever the hell had happened.
I locked the door, just in case he took it in his head to check on me or something. If he tried the knob and got offended that would fall into the realm of his own damn problem. I took my time, making the water uncomfortably hot to scour the too-recent memories of all we’d done and how I’d responded.
I could not believe I’d fucking cried.
Because I’d forgotten to tie it up and, hell, I needed the time, I went ahead and washed my hair, then blew it dry. I never carried makeup with me, since I was pretty much always either at home or at a place with piles of it, so no armor for me there. Oh well. The day had not come when I couldn’t face down one humiliating sexual encounter and brazen my way out of it.
He was waiting for me when I opened the door—no shocker there—leaning against the wall just outside the bathroom. He’d put on clothes, old jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I couldn’t tell if he’d tried the handle or not, but I kind of thought he hadn’t. Probably part of his peculiar code of honor or whatever drove him. Giving him my best sunny, I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anything smile, I smacked him lightly on the pec above his folded arms and delivered a fast smooch.
“See you, slick. This was great. I’m out of here.”
I wasn’t quite fast enough, because he caught my wrist, eyes dark. Oh wow, was he pissed.
“What’s going on?” He asked in a quiet, level tone that didn’t fool me for one hot second.
“Which part was unclear? I’m going home.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, yes. Seeing as how I’m a free human being and all that.” My temper rose up, a relief after those dangerously soft emotions that had threatened to carve me open. I tugged against his grip, but he held on.
“You’re not walking out of here at four in the goddam morning, taking the El all alone and leaving things between us this way.”
Was it that late? Er, early? He’d totally scrambled my brains. I needed to get clear in the worst way. “You’re going to want to knock off the Neanderthal shit.”
“Not until you agree to sit down and tell me what’s going on in your head. What did I do?”
“Nothing!” I turned up the wattage on my superstar smile. “You fucked me sideways, it was awesome, you’re the best I’ve ever had, your cock is bigger than anyone else’s, and I have other things to do.”
~ 11 ~
He actually growled, his jaw so tight I thought he might crack a tooth. Then he let go of me, very deliberate, opening his fingers wide and dropping his hands. I ducked around him and headed down the hall, resisting the urge to run for it.
“I’m calling a car for you,” he said from close behind me. I picked up the pace.
“Not necessary. I’m a big girl, slick.”
“Funny, because you’re acting like a spoiled teenager who’s running scared.”
Okay, that made the steam whistle in my ears. I stopped and turned to confront him, very slowly. All the emotions of the night boiled in a sizzling cloud pushing against the bones of my skull and I locked my own jaw to hold back the worst of it. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that.”
“Why not?” He put hands on hips, eyes sparking with frustration. “Afraid to hear the truth as much as you were afraid to face how you felt when we made love?”
“We fucked!” I screamed it at him. “That’s all it was. I got my rocks off and I sure as hell hope you did, too, because you’re never getting in my pants again.”
“Is that so? Is that one of your famous rules?” He spat the words at me, then blanched. It would have been comical except I had gone from enraged to incandescently pissed. Which, for me, means very quiet and still.
“What’s that about rules?” I asked softly, nearly vibrating with the effort to hold still.
He opened his mouth, tried to brush it off. “Just—you know. Rules. People have them, that kind of thing. That’s all I meant.”
“Oh no it wasn’t. You’re lying to me. What do you know about the Rules?”
Unable to take it—way too honest for his own good apparently—he flung up his hands. “Sue me. I heard some stuff about how you and your housemates have dating rules, so I made it my business to find out what I could and stacked the deck in my favor.”
“You ‘made it your business’ to find out about the Rules.” Unreal. Totally fucking unreal.
“Yes. Mea culpa. This was important to me. I can’t regret that it worked.”
“You ‘heard some stuff.’ That means you had to talk to one of my friends.”
He set his jaw. “Yes.”
“Marcia. That’s why she insisted on the Missed Connections ad. You planned this.” The treacherous bitch. I struggled with the wounded sense of betrayal. They’d played me and I’d gone right along with it.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “She works for one of our branches. I found that out and visited her at her office. She gave me some friendly advice.”
“Let me get clear on this—one of my closest friends helped you stalk me.”
“Helped me get to know you.”
“Because you were obsessed with me.”
“Because I am interested in you, yes.”
“That’s not how you put it before.”
He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Okay, yes. I fell for you without really knowing much about you. I couldn’t get you out of my head, so I did what I could to find out who you were, whether you were single, what might give me a shot at actually getting a fucking date with you.”
It made much more sense now. The pieces falling into place. “Before we danced at the club.”
He dropped his hands and held them out, as if offering me something. His weak-ass excuses. “I saw you in Wicked. That small role you had and you lit up the stage. The woman I’d taken to the show broke up with me on the way home, because I paid so little attention to her. I went back on my own, every night I could, just to watch you. And every other show I could find that you performed in.”
“That was months ago.”
“Nine weeks and three days. I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds pretty fucking bad, slick.”
“I know.” He curled his fingers and stared at his hands. “I know. But it was—I had this crazy, intense, unrequited love thing and it wouldn’t let go of me. I finally had to do something, anything, to at least have a conversation with you. Find out if what I felt was real or…”
“Or what?” I felt coolly jagged. Instead of wrapping my arms around myself the way I wanted to, I folded them and stood tall, going for judgment. “A crazy obsession with someone who isn’t even real?”
“You are real. What I feel is just as real and so is what you feel. We have something, dammit.”
I laughed, relieved that it sounded mean and not hysterical. “I don’t even know you, slick.”
“Is that why you came apart in my arms? Why you wept? Because what’s between us is so huge, so fucking good that it’s like bathing in fire?”
“Fuck you,” I whispered. Horribly, the tears pushed up again and I ruthlessly shoved them down with every shred of skill I could muster. “Don’t you ever think you can use that against me.”
His face softened and he took a step closer, hands still spread as if he wanted to embrace me. “Charlotte,” his voice snagged. “Not against you. I want to be here for you, be with you. Every minute I spent with you just solidified how I felt. I know it’s crazy, but I think I’m in love with you, and I want to find out if that’s true. Give us some time to test it, that’s all I’m asking. Let us get to know each other. Let me prove myself. Just…” he dropped his hands, his face falling at whatever he saw in mine.
“Just what? Let you?” I hissed it at him. His catch phrase. “I don’t think so. Give me your phone.” Pressing his lips together, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and keyed in the pass code. I found our texts, erased them, then deleted my number—which he’d already labeled as “Char
lotte” because of course he knew my name before I told him—and I nuked the email exchange for good measure.
Resisting the urge to hurl the phone at him, I handed it back. Cool and composed. Greta Garbo, saying goodbye. “You know your self-imposed deal—that you wouldn’t seek me out?”
He nodded miserably.
“I’m holding you to it. Don’t seek me out. Don’t post ads—because I won’t look. Don’t come to my shows. If you see me in a club, you’re going to turn around and leave. Because if I catch the least whisper that you’re nearby, I’ll file a restraining order so fast the paper will burn.”
“Don’t do this. Please.”
The quiet words were worse than anything else he’d said and they seared me. I steeled myself against him, relying on my cold anger to kill the pain.
“It’s done.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. Blew it out. “I accept that I screwed this up. Maybe I should have gone backstage that first time and introduced myself. At the time, that seemed creepier. I thought about engineering an ‘accidental’ meeting—even worse. In retrospect…God! I don’t even know. I’m a driven person. I couldn’t not at least try to get your attention. If you condemn me, remember it’s because I wanted you more than I could bear. Any bad choices I made, I made for the best reasons.”
I clung to my righteous anger, unwilling to feel the least bit sorry for him. “Such a bullshit line. You lied to me.”
“By omission, yes. Never in fact.”
An incredulous laugh escaped me. “Fucking lawyer. You should have told me before you slept with me.”
“I was going to. I nearly did over dinner, but…” He rubbed his face. “I got caught up. We were clicking, just as I’d hoped—as we did from that first dance and you know it—and I thought, oh there will be time and one day we’ll laugh about this.”
“A story to tell our grandchildren?” I sneered.
He gave me a cold glare. “I accept your anger. Don’t laugh at me, though, for thinking that you might be the one for me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m going.”
“I’ll walk you down and pay your cab fare.”
“You don’t—”
“It’s that or I follow you home to make sure you’re okay and then you’ll have to file that restraining order.”
“Whatever.”
We rode down in the elevator in silence. He got the doorman to call a cab and we waited on the dark and silent sidewalk. Nothing like a couple of hours before dawn to empty out a city even as busy as Chicago. The cab arrived and Daniel gave him way too much money for the distance I needed to go, then opened the door for me to get in.
I tried to yank it shut but he held it.
“If you ever think you can forgive me, you know how to find me. We can go slow. I know you think I’m a crazy man, but I’m not. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“I can’t imagine how you thought it would turn out.”
“Not like this,” he said and let me go.
~ 12 ~
Not everyone in city was asleep. By the time the cab dropped me off, Amy was heading out the door on her morning run, blond ponytail bouncing with grating perkiness.
“Nice cab ride of shame!” She called out. “Still a five-pointer? I’m guessing yes and that you haven’t slept. So jelly.”
“Don’t be,” I replied. Okay, I snarled it, and her brown eyes widened.
“Whoa—what happened?”
“What happened is that I’m going to kill Marcia. You might want to stay out of the line of fire.”
“Uh, no. I think I’ll stick by and help mop up the blood.”
“Suit yourself. That’s apparently the M.O. in this house.”
I stalked up the stairs, not even trying to be quiet. Everyone would be awake soon regardless. Marcia’s door was open and she blinked sleepily at me, then smiled. “You just got home? That’s amazing. How was…” She trailed off, the smile crumpling. “What’s wrong?”
Down the hall, Amy told Julia to move faster and Ice’s irritated voice asked what the hell was going on.
“Traitor,” I hissed and Marcia paled.
“What’s this?” Julie put a hand on my arm. “Charley, you need to calm down.”
“Stay out of my way. Unless you were all in on this?”
“In on what?” Ice demanded, pushing into the room, throwing sparks of light from her sequined bathrobe. “I was up until three studying for that goddamn practical, so this better be important.”
“They didn’t know,” Marcia said in a small voice. “It was only me.”
“I could kill you.” I meant it. Apparently Julie believed me, because her hand on my arm tightened.
“Explain.” Ice used her voice of reason, which I always imagined she’d one day use to inform her patients what they would and would not do, and propped her butt on Marcia’s pink and gold dresser.
“It turns out that Marcia here works with Mr. Mystery and—”
“For him,” she muttered.
“Does that excuse anything?”
“No.” She started crying and sniffled a little.
I had no mercy in me, especially for the weakness of tears. “I don’t think it excuses anything, either.”
“Charley,” Amy ventured, “maybe you should cool down a little and we—”
“Anyway,” I interrupted her, “he sees me in a show, freaking months ago, stalks me, finds out Marcia was my friend and she informed on me. She set up the whole damn thing.”
“He really likes you,” she pleaded. “I thought it was romantic and he’s an amazing guy. It wasn’t like he was some creep. He just wanted a chance to meet you, get to know you.”
“She told him about the Rules!”
Ice leveled a long look at me. “You’re conflating, darling. I agree with Amy that you need to take some time to chill.”
“I’m perfectly chill,” I shrieked. “She told him about the Rules so he could use them to seduce me.”
Amy and Julie exchanged a glance. “It’s not against the Rules to talk about them,” Julie said.
“Right,” Amy added with a weak laugh. “It’s not like Fight Club or something where the first rule is not to talk about the Rules.”
My nails cut into my palms. “It should be! I’m making that rule number one, effective immediately.”
Ice shook her head. “Charley, sweetheart, you might be a drama queen, but you don’t have executive authority. The Rules are something we all agree on and there are reasons for that, but you don’t get to impose martial law. That said,” she leveled a somber gaze on Marcia, “while we might all indulge in a bit of recreational matchmaking, no one likes being manipulated.”
“It wasn’t manipulation,” Marcia protested. “It was…” she trailed off, uncertain.
“Trickery,” Julie supplied.
“That’s a strong word.” Amy frowned. “I don’t see what Marcia did that was so terrible.”
“She played me! She conspired with this guy to help him seduce me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Because being seduced by a hot man who’s into you is a crime against humanity.”
“It’s sneaky and a betrayal of trust. You could have arranged an introduction.” I turned my wrath back on Marcia, who quailed.
“I did,” she squeaked out, then buried her face in her stuffed unicorn and sobbed.
What?
“See?” She clutched the tattered creature with its lopsided gold Lamé horn, white knuckling the thing. “You don’t even remember. When you came by my office to meet me for coffee I introduced you in the hall. You blew him off and said corporate drones automatically get no more than one point.” She glared at me through her tears.
“Oh, burn,” Amy whispered.
I vaguely remembered that, but not Daniel’s face. Or his name. Had I even paid attention?
“That does sound like you,” Ice observed and met my glare without backing off. “I’m not saying w
hat Marcia did was right. I’m validating the likelihood of that scenario, given the evidence at hand.”
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered, not liking the way my righteous anger was sputtering out. What would be left if it did? A weak female sobbing after sex. Next thing I’d be using the key he’d give me to let myself into his place and wait on his sofa for him to come home, watching TV and eating my emotions. Get a grip.
“It sounds to me like all Marcia did was help connect you with someone you’d overlooked.” Amy sounded tentative enough that I could grab onto that.
“She was underhanded,” I grated out.
“Agreed. Probably not the best way to handle it, but she meant well,” Julie offered.
Any bad choices I made, I made for the best reasons.
“I did mean well.” Marcia grabbed a tissue and wiped her face. “I’ll do dishes, clean the bathrooms for the rest of the year, whatever. Maybe I was living vicariously, but Daniel is seriously one of the good ones. He’s smart and successful. Hell, he’s one of the Holts, so he has money and—”
“I don’t give a fuck how rich he is!”
“Wait,” Julie clutched my arm. “Mr. Mystery is Daniel Holt? He’s been in the restaurant.”
“He was one of Chicago magazine’s fifty most eligible bachelors,” Amy said, her voice veering dangerously near a squeal, then wilted when I shot her a furious look. “Just saying.”
“So, what happened, honey?” Ice asked, much more gentle. Her cancer diagnosis voice. “You slept with him?”
“I don’t think there was any sleeping,” Amy inserted, recovering her cheer.
“Was he mean to you?” Ice continued, working up her ire. “Fuck you and kick you out? Did he hurt you? He better not have hurt you, because you know we’ll all help you kill him and dispose of the body.”
“The restaurant has those barrels for grease,” Julie pointed out.
“And I can get lime from the med lab,” Ice agreed.
“This is not a fucking joke!” I yelled at them, infuriated. It would be easier if he had hurt me. He did hurt me, only in this impossible, invisible way I could never explain to anyone. He’d broken me open and I’d never be the same. “I just had the worst, most horrible night of my life.”
Missed Connections Box Set Page 9
