This was as close to heaven as Melanie had been in a long time. She poured her tea and settled in to choose which book she would read first, and thought of Joshua.
What had the man been writing? A novel, but he’d never said more. She’d never dated a writer; truth be told, she found them a little daunting. Her five new books—she’d managed to cut herself off at five—showed the diversity that could imply. The walls around her only reinforced that there was no way to guess.
Nor could she guess how he had seen through her careful walls. No one saw past the supermodel. Jo had only seen the model who had loved Russell. Russell could see something of her emotions, but no matter how protective of her he was—which was quite charming as she really didn’t need it, but it was so kind that she let him think so—he saw her only as a celebrity and former lover.
She and Perrin had designed a few dresses together, which had been an exciting and fascinating experience. Perrin’s creativity and her own knowledge of the industry had combined to make a truly special gown for the opera’s opening. Perrin had also shared Melanie’s own need to leave her past behind and start clean, something they’d easily recognized in each other. It made them compatible, but even Perrin didn’t see who she really was.
Only Joshua walked right past the supermodel and addressed Melanie directly. It didn’t make sense, but it was the only way she could describe the feeling.
She’d created a career based upon a chance crossing of genetics and an attitude she’d always known how to control and deliver. Those were the tools of the persona that she presented the world, and the world had paid her very handsomely for that. But the money had been paid to the exterior mask, not the woman within.
Her business-side skills, those she had created from scratch through intensely hard work and painful experience. It was the business person who felt most like her because she’d earned every single bit of that knowledge on her own.
Joshua had not only seen, but complimented the second woman. No man had ever seen past her beauty, not even Russell.
Instead of settling in with her books, she slipped out the folder of Perrin’s letters and read through them more carefully. It was an interesting problem. Design houses were often based upon a single person’s genius. It was a matter of developing a support system that both leveraged their skills and isolated them so that they could do whatever it was they did best. The finest designers possessed some kind of synaptic connections that were as unique as her own genes.
Designers could be wildcards like Karan, eccentrics like the reclusive Zoran, or born marketers like Hilfiger. They could lead their own companies, for better or worse, or turn it over to a CEO who understood and worked with them.
It was the shoestring years that were the problem. Perrin was trying to add the occasional seamstress, but she’d need to have a great deal of preparation in place to handle the requests now spread across the bookstore table. She’d been right to be afraid of these, but the opportunity nearly sizzled in Melanie’s fingers it was so hot. She could feel the potential radiating off them.
Melanie left her tea for a moment to return upstairs and purchase an attractive, leather-bound journal she’d spotted earlier by the cash register. Back to her book-lined corner downstairs, she began sketching out just what it might take for Perrin’s Glorious Garb to climb the next level. Her tea was long gone cold by the time she remembered it.
Josh had spent the afternoon doing a market run to stock the kitchen. There was nothing like it in New York City. The produce here should be on cooking shows, not sitting out for purchase. The freshness and unblemished quality was astonishing and he ended up buying far more than he needed.
What did supermodels eat anyway? Thinking of Melanie’s healthy look, he’d guess that she ate less, but very high quality. She had none of the gauntness so common in her profession, so he worried less about calories and more about being nutrient dense and flavorful.
He’d begin with a minestrone soup. He wandered Pike Place Market, selecting the root vegetables he’d need, spring spinach for iron, and fresh herbs. It was crowded with jostling shoppers browsing the stalls. He bought a fresh-orange gelato that tasted of California sunshine.
And the flowers were everywhere in the Market. Spring in Seattle meant buckets of flowers. The strange weather this year had crossed late tulips and irises with early dahlias. He’d gone certifiably nuts, buying more flowers than food and then had to cart them all down the ten blocks to the condo.
He didn’t know if Melanie was planning to be back for dinner or not, but he’d felt like cooking anyway. And he wanted to bring the Seattle spring indoors.
If he stuck around Seattle at all, he’d see if he could find some herb plants so that he could have them right in the kitchen. The mid-afternoon light shining in the condo’s south and west windows would make a windowsill garden easy to cultivate.
He built the soup and started it simmering as quickly as he could. Then he unloaded his car, stacking his meager collection of boxes along the wall. The new finish on the old wood floor shone in the spattered sunlight just begging for a few nice accent rugs and new furniture, especially a decent writing chair. He resisted the urge to unpack his boxes into the large bookcases Angelo had placed near the kitchen, obviously for a cookbook collection now probably in his high-rise home with Jo.
For the moment, he pulled the laptop out on the dining room table, but made no new progress on the novel. His attempts to distract himself with his e-mail totally failed after deleting the few messages “congratulating” him on making the leap into the unknown. An inbox he’d never caught up with in the last decade was empty in minutes. Not a single message from Constance. He slapped the cover closed before he could ask why he was expecting one. Five years of marriage and all he’d proven was that he was even stupider about women than writing novels.
He went to check on the soup, but it didn’t need anything other than more time.
He’d noticed the way Melanie had left much of the bread from her panino behind at lunch. She hadn’t made a show of it, but it was there. So carbs were an issue, but you couldn’t have minestrone without good bread. Rather than a big loaf, he’d purchased small ciabatta rolls. Also, he left out the handful of pasta that he’d normally have tossed in for Constance. Constance’s mom had always done it for her little girl and it was the key ingredient of minestrone, according to his wife.
No, his ex-wife.
He had to brace himself against the counter and let his head hang while trying to remember how to breathe past the pain. It was no longer a constant companion, but it did slap him when he least expected it.
“It smells wonderful in here.”
Josh almost strangled himself as a gasp for breath—far too close to a sob for his taste—jerked him upright to see Melanie relocking the door behind her. He couldn’t speak as the vision floated toward him. Again, that soft, unconscious sway of hip and the natural smile.
“I…” Get your act together Josh! “…didn’t know if you’d be around for dinner, but I made plenty. I do have to warn you, it’s disgustingly healthy.”
“As long as it smells the way it tastes, I’m all in.” She dropped her large, wood-handled, leather designer bag on a chair and came over to stare down into the pot and breathe in deeply, releasing it with a soft sigh.
This close, he could smell her despite the aromatic minestrone. She smelled of…if you’re going to be a writer, you can find the right word…hope. Of glorious possibility. Simply being in her presence made him feel as if the world was a better place. Standing so close that he could easily have run his hand over her long, lovely hair, the world was filled with promise.
He stepped back, “I’m such a mess.”
“You are, how?”
“I didn’t mean to say that aloud.”
“Too late!” She leaned back against the counter, crossed her arms comfortably and looked at him with the bluest eyes on the planet. “Give.”
Evade! “First le
t me say: this accentless New Yorker fits you better than the French.”
He shouldn’t have said that. She tensed up as if he was the one now wielding the Taser.
“The slightly French supermodel is strong, foreboding, unapproachable. I can see why you chose her; she is an exceptionally formidable woman positively radiating mystique. And I can see why you left behind the…other.” At least he had enough sense to not throw Paramus, New Jersey in her face.
She tensed more anyway; her arms clenched so tightly he wondered if she’d hurt herself.
“But this version of you, with the trace of Manhattan in your voice and leaning back comfortably—until I was dumb enough to start on your accent to avoid answering your question—is an equally wondrous and alarmingly attractive woman.”
“Alarmingly?” She didn’t sound angry. Okay, not only angry. Melanie also sounded intrigued, though she was keeping it off her face with that perfect control of hers suddenly clamped into place.
“Way!” was the only answer he felt safe giving before returning his attention to nursing along his soup. The silence stretched but he didn’t dare look up. He took a small taste of the rich broth and decided that a little salt…no, anchovy paste would bring it to life nicely.
Speaking truth to power was said to be a very dangerous action undertaken only by the brave or the foolhardy. Well, he’d just made a total fool of himself, for what greater power was there over man than beauty? Maybe he could work that into his book somehow. Who was he kidding? If he ever managed to write one.
“Alarmingly.”
He nodded at her choosing to make it a statement, but didn’t look up.
“And you think that by turning my own judgment of myself on its head is going to get you out of answering my question of how are you a mess?”
This time when he glanced up, he could see the humor showing on her face.
“I had kind of hoped.”
She flashed that killer smile that was never seen in any of her ads or photo spreads or runway shows, then told him he was a, “Sucker! Now give.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Something about her filled the world with a joy he’d forgotten existed.
“How am I such a mess?” he reframed the question.
“Yes.”
“Because three months ago, on the day I first met you as a matter of fact, I had a wife who loved me, living together in a condo that we’d decorated just right for us, and a great career as a food writer. Within twenty-four hours I was well on my way to losing all three.”
“I know the food reviewing part. I always read your articles and reviews first, just in case I didn’t have time to read the rest of the magazine. You write beautifully.”
“Okay, I’ll try not to grow wings and float about the room on a sheer burst of ego.”
She glanced at the heavy-beamed ceiling, then back down at him, her tone dead-flat serious. “Watch your head if you do.”
Melanie couldn’t think of the last time she’d had a conversation like this with a man, or a woman. It was easy, fun. Even if Joshua had just torn off her mask by… How had he done it? By being nicely normal and making her soup.
Men bought her sumptuous meals she didn’t want, hoping it would work in their favor—it never did. Men didn’t cook one of her favorite comfort soups from scratch or make a show of ducking their heads just in case they did sprout wings. No one understood her humor. But someone just had. How curious.
So, he’d had a wife and a condo.
“What happened?”
“After five years together, Constance,” the poor man winced at merely saying her name aloud, “discovered she was more interested in members of her own sex. It was amicable, and yet I still—” He turned away, not even pretending to fuss at the stove. He braced both hands on the sink and bowed his head, much as he’d been standing when she entered.
Melanie was unsure what to do, but she knew she couldn’t stand to witness such pain and do nothing. She moved up beside him and began rubbing her palm up and down his back. There was no fat on his frame. He wasn’t “built” like Russell or muscular from weight-lifting like Angelo. He was long, lean, handsome, and hurting.
“I’m okay. Sorry,” he forced himself upright. “I’m fine.”
“Oui,” she went back to her French accent hoping to elicit a small smile, but it didn’t work. “You look as fine as Caesar the day his best friend stabbed him.”
“No!” he faced her. “It’s not like that! She—”
“Shhh…” she brushed a hand down his smooth cheek. He was trying so hard to be fair and brave no matter how it tore him up inside.
“Shhh,” she stopped his next protest with her fingertips on his lips.
Quite how she came to be kissing him she would never be sure, no matter how often she thought about it. It was definitely her action to replace her fingertips with her lips, not his. And it hadn’t really lasted all that long. Not really. Just long enough for Joshua to return the kiss. Just long enough for her to moan briefly as their bodies slid together like a custom fit.
She took a half step back.
Joshua didn’t move to follow.
But when she went to step back farther, he reached out to stop her; just resting his fingertips on her arm, but it was enough.
“Just give me a moment.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
Joshua swallowed hard, then blinked. “First, let me say thank you.”
“And second?” There was a softness there she didn’t often allow into her own voice, but she really wanted to know what was second.
“Well, we can never do that again.”
“What?” That was about the last reaction she’d expected. What was it with the world that everyone was suddenly rejecting her? Why were—
“Wait! Stop!”
“Stop what?” She looked down at herself. She hadn’t moved an inch. They still stood close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, his fingers resting so lightly on her forearm still kept her in place as if glued. Close enough to see the obvious reaction his body was having to hers. “I haven’t moved.”
“No, but your brain just went somewhere nasty. Here,” Joshua turned down the burner under the soup and tossed a cover on the pot with an overloud clatter that made them both wince. Then he took her hand and, leading her over to the dining table, guided her into one of the chairs. Not releasing her hand, he sat in the next one after turning it to face hers.
She liked the way his hands felt. Clean, muscular. Not callused, but someone used to using his hands. He didn’t crush his grip down on hers. It was the lightness of his touch that held her in place far more surely than his grasp.
“Okay,” his voice was deep, husky, one she could easily melt into under different circumstances. “First—”
“You do like your lists, don’t you?”
“I do. First, a kiss like that could kill a man. Way more dangerous than a Taser. You know that, right?”
She could only shake her head. He wasn’t what she expected from even one sentence to the next.
“Well, it can. Melanie, that was amazing. But second, there is no way you want to waste that kind of amazing on me no matter how much I enjoyed it.”
“Why not?” The man wove words around her in circles more neatly than Donatella wrapped the latest Versace fashion.
“Remember the part where I’m a mess?”
“And I’m not?”
That rocked him back in his chair. He let go of her hand, more let it slip from his grasp than actually let go. She missed the contact.
He rubbed at his eyes for a moment. “Sorry. Wow. Told you I was a mess. You hit me with a kiss like that and you expect me to remember that you aren’t some fashion goddess for whom everything is perfect.”
Perfect. She was so many kinds of not perfect. She was sick of men thinking that because she was “oh so stunning” and had a successful career, that somehow made everything automatically okay.
Th
en he slid down a little in his chair, crossing his feet under the table—rather than outside her chair as if to cage her in—and catching his thumbs in his jeans pockets with just that exact amount of casual that men made look so easy and natural. He might be a mess, but he was a handsome one. He assessed her with those dark eyes. She’d worked with too many intense designers and photographers to fidget, but it was the first time in a long time she’d wanted to.
“You’re in Seattle. In a borrowed condo. What is the world’s best model doing hiding out in Seattle?”
“I’m not hiding. And I’m not the best.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he dismissed her second statement so lightly. “Yet still, you’re here.”
“Okay,” she had to admit, “maybe it looks like I’m hiding, but I’m not.” Then why was she sounding so defensive? “I’m helping Perrin.”
She could see that he wasn’t buying it. She could prove it, even if it wasn’t technically true. Reaching into her handbag, Melanie pulled out her newly-purchased journal and dropped it into his lap, forcing him to stop looking so smug and comfortable with himself in order to keep it from falling to the floor.
She went to the bath off her bedroom to let him look through her ideas. The first step away, she regretted exposing herself to him that way, but couldn’t very well take it back. She had to get some space, and rinse the city off her skin with cool water. Instead, she stood staring at herself in the mirror and tried to see how he saw what he did. Melanie looked at her reflection, and only saw herself.
That was the problem.
Joshua saw the same woman she did.
Josh flipped through the two dozen pages covered in Melanie’s sloppy cursive and some sketched charts that he’d have to ask her about, though two of them might have been a workload analysis. Then he went back to the first page and began reading.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 90
