What If I Never

by Lisa Renee Jones

  My gaze shifts to find Tyler Hawk standing beside us. I straighten. “Mr. Hawk.”

  The man from the elevator, whose name I still don’t know, straightens as well and gives a slight incline of his chin to Tyler. “Tyler,” he greets.

  “Dash,” he replies dryly. “You’re here, I see.”

  Dash, I repeat in my head.

  The name is familiar, but before I can fully digest why, Tyler eyes me and says, “Please tell me he wasn’t boring you with ghost stories.”

  My brows dip, and I glance at Dash. “Ghost stories? What does that mean? Who are you?”

  “A dead man walking,” he says, his lips curving ever so slightly before he eyes Tyler and then backs up, walking away. Gone. And I don’t want him to be gone.

  “Pain in my ass, that one,” Tyler murmurs. “If he wasn’t a bestseller—”

  My brows furrow, and I glance at Tyler. “Wait. Bestseller?” Realization begins to hit me. “Is that—who is he?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” I say. “He didn’t get a chance.”

  “Dash Black. He’s the author of—”

  “The Ghost Assassin,” I supply, my heart fluttering excitedly. “Also known as The Dead Man Walking,” I add. “My God. He’s not just a bestseller. He’s an international phenomenon. There are two movies about his character, Ghost. And I—” I cut myself off before I admit that I edited one of his books. Granted, I was a junior editor at the time, doing a simple copy edit, but I binged his entire twelve-book series after doing so.

  Tyler arches an arrogant brow. “And you what?”

  “I—just don’t know why he didn’t tell me who he was.”

  “Because he’s Dash,” he says, whatever that means. He doesn’t explain. He moves on, and suddenly his full attention is fixed on me. And while Dash holds a rugged appeal, Tyler is refined, more classical in his good looks, but there is also something almost predatory about him, something that I find both familiar and uncomfortable.

  “What business did you have with Allison, Ms. Wright?” he asks, making it clear he knows exactly who I am and how I came to be here tonight. “I must tell you right off the bat that she’s taken a leave of absence and I’m afraid our December auction is in jeopardy.”

  This announcement jolts me to full attention. Allison is not here, nor will she be here, and I’m still in possession of her necklace. “Do you know how I can reach her?”

  “I’d rather you focus your attention on me, Ms. Wright.”

  And while I find no blatant invitation in his words, there’s a distinct shift in the energy between us that I can’t quite explain. But he’s also watching me a bit too intently, expectantly, I think.

  This is the moment when I could tell him about the package meant for Allison, but I hold back, tormented by the idea that this is a personal item that belongs to her and her alone. This man is her boss. Or, what if—what if he’s actually her lover? What if me telling him that I know about the note and the necklace has a negative impact on a Riptide partnership?

  And as guilty as I feel about my motives, I can’t help but consider my financial situation as well. Therefore, I stick to business, and business only. “I’d hoped to talk to Allison about your auction.”

  “Which you know about how?” he asks.

  I blink at the unexpected question that sends me into yet another mental scramble. “I found out from a friend of Allison’s,” I say quickly, telling myself it’s not a lie. I hate lies. I’ve lived with their bite and I don’t like how it feels. But Allison’s “friend” sent me the necklace and that led me here and technically to the auction. And because he could push for more, I quickly sidestep, ignoring his question. “As you might or might not know, the Riptide name alone pushes up price tags.”

  Thankfully he allows my diversion, staying on the current topic with, “I’m also aware that Riptide is neither fast nor cheap.”

  “We’ll make up our commission and then some,” I argue, certain I am correct. Riptide is the most elite of auction houses, as Dash Black is the most elite of suspenseful fiction.

  “This is our second annual holiday charity event,” Tyler states. “Not only have we committed to our donors and clients, we’ve committed to a charity that one of our clients was allowed to choose. Based on these things, we will not deviate from our timeline. If you can make that work, we can talk right now.”

  “Riptide prefers time to hype the auction. If you’ll allow us—”

  “Another year.” His tone is absolute. “We’re committed to the timeline this year. And Allison has left me in a bad spot. What I need right now is someone to coordinate and manage the event. If Riptide can do that for me—”

  “We don’t rush,” I say. “That’s not how we operate.”

  “Then we’re done here,” he states. “Enjoy the party, Ms. Wright.” He starts to turn.

  My heart races and for reasons I can’t fully name, I’m not ready for us to be done at all. I can’t let it end here and I blurt, “Riptide won’t do it, but I will,” before I can even think through the offer.

  He pauses and turns to face me. “You will?”

  “I’m on an extended leave through January.”

  He arches that brow of his again, obviously asking a question. How am I here on leave, and representing Riptide?

  “My mother had cancer,” I explain. “She’s in remission, but I’m staying here through the holidays before I return to New York. My boss at Riptide has been generous with my time off, but he’s well aware I’m here tonight. He sent me the invitation.”

  “I need someone working on this full-time.”

  “I can do that,” I assure him. “I’ve trained under Riptide’s founder. I’ve learned about every aspect of the auction business. But if I do this, I’ll be filling in for Allison, on your payroll,” I add, surprising myself with my boldness, thank you, Queen Compton. “And I need to have the go-ahead to exploit any opportunity for Riptide.”

  “Only if run by me first,” he negotiates.

  “Fine. Done. I’ll see if I can get Riptide to sponsor the auction. That alone will bring in bidders and drive up prices. It can be a win-win for everyone. And I’m working at the art museum right now. I’ll need to give them two weeks’ notice.”

  “I’ll handle the museum.” That absoluteness is back in his tone.

  But I don’t accept his push. “They need me,” I argue.

  “I’ll make it worth their while to do whatever you do without you. I’m on their board. What else?”

  He’s on the board. Of course, he is. My chin lifts slightly. “I need to have my Riptide salary matched.”

  He doesn’t even ask the figure. He simply says, “Done.”

  We stare at each other, a push and pull of energy between us I don’t quite understand before he says. “You’re hired, Ms. Wright.”

  “Allison,” I say quickly.

  “Allison,” he says softly, almost too softly. “I’ll see you Monday morning.” With that, he turns and walks away.

  My mouth parts and I turn away from him, downing my champagne and setting my glass on a small table. What am I doing? I ask myself as my fingers close around the railing. I’ve just accepted another woman’s job while holding her necklace in my purse. It’s as if I want to be her and not myself, but I quickly swipe away that idea as silly. I’m not trying to live another woman’s life. I’m trying to live my own. As the Tim McGraw country song says, “Live Like You Were Dying.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I have to tell Mark Compton I took another job and still manage to keep my job at Riptide.

  I’m already holding my phone, preparing to spill the news to him, my finger hovering over his number when I recognize the urgency of approaching this smartly. This pitch needs to tell Mark Compton how this move benefits him and Riptide. And I can’t do that when I haven’t even had time to think this all through. Or when I’m still not fully convinced I’m actually taking the job at Hawk Legal.
It’s time to step back and think. In other words, it’s time to go home before I get myself into any more trouble.

  With that in mind, I hurry inside and across the room, weaving through random groups of mingling people. Fortunately, the receptionist who’s been playing hostess is chatting with someone and doesn’t notice me when I pass her by to head to the elevator. Once there, I quickly punch the elevator call button. Almost immediately the doors open, and I rush into the empty car, still holding my cellphone. Which would be all fine and wonderful if I didn’t fling my phone across the elevator.

  “Yes, wonderful, indeed,” I murmur.

  It’s in just that moment, that Dash steps into the car, snatches the phone from the floor, and steps close, right in front of me. “At least you weren’t throwing it at me,” he says, punching the lobby level button before he offers it to me.

  The air between us is charged and scented with his deliciously male cologne. My heart races and I reach for the phone. “Thank you,” I say, and our fingers collide.

  The impact is electric—heat rushes up my arm and across my chest. My gaze collides with his, and there is awareness in the depths of his potent stare. He knows I reacted to his touch, he knows, and I know. What I can’t read is his own reaction. Maybe he felt what I felt. Or maybe I’ve entertained him or flattered him, but nothing more.

  Afraid I’ve just made myself look like a silly fangirl, I quickly cut my gaze and slide my phone inside my purse. I expect him to step away from me, but he doesn’t even pretend to move. He stays right where he is. Right in front of me.

  “I assume you’re leaving?” he asks, and just that easily, my gaze is drawn back to his, offering him a window view of each and every one of my reactions.

  “I’m not really a party person,” I say, trying to stay cool and collected when I feel hot all over, so very hot. “I don’t like mingling or drinking all that much. That leaves eating, and that’s not a good idea.”

  “Agreed,” he states, and his voice is warm as he adds, “I don’t like parties either, but I tolerate them for the right reasons.”

  I have no idea why that statement feels intimate, but it does. And yet, there is nothing intimate about the words, not really. The look in his eyes is another story, I decide, and this time I’m fairly certain that means something. Or not. I’m not good at the game of flirtation, which is probably why I choose now to say, “I know who you are.”

  “Then it seems only fair I know who you are,” he replies, and I swear he sways in my direction.

  “Allison Wright,” I say, offering him my hand by way of a habit, and just as soon as I do so, I wish I could pull it back. “I—ah—” I try to lower it before he takes it, but it’s too little, too late.

  His strong hand closes around mine, an intimacy to the touch that goes beyond casual communication, and I all but melt right there in the elevator as he says, “Nice to meet you, Allison Wright.”

  His voice is a low, masculine baritone that seduces me as easily as does his hand on my body, even if it’s just my hand. The elevator dings and halts on the lower level. Our ride is over, and reluctantly it seems, or perhaps that’s my wishful thinking, he releases me. Disappointment fills me at the certainty that soon he will be gone again. Perhaps forever this time and I cannot help but feel regret with this idea.

  He backs up, holding the door for me. I exit and automatically turn to face him. It is, after all, the polite thing to do.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he offers, pausing in front of me.

  “Since you’re going that way,” I tease, “I’ll let you.”

  He winks, and my stomach does a somersault, and yet, there’s no denying the comfortable banter between us or the ease with which we fall into step together. “You didn’t want me to know who you were, did you?” I accuse, casting him a sideways look.

  “I would have told you,” he assures me.

  And yet, somehow, I’m not sure he would have. I get that he’s a megastar, especially since the movies came out, and that affects people’s reactions to him. But I’m not that person for reasons I won’t share with him, one of which is my father. Instead, I stop, and we turn to each other again as I confess, “I edited one of your books. I worked for your publishing house for seven years.” Several people are headed toward us, and we move in unison to the side of the main walkway, near a sitting area.

  “How do I not know that?” he asks in earnest.

  “Ellen didn’t want you to know,” I say, referencing his editor. “She was out for three months with a medical issue. But bottom line, I edited your book. That made me judge the book, not the man. Liking or hating your book doesn’t make you a likable person. And to that point, I have edited several wildly successful authors who’ve sold millions of books. I don’t like a few of those authors, one in particular. But I like that author’s books.”

  “Do I dare guess who that is?”

  “You can ask, but I won’t answer. That would be rude and not the point,” I add. “The point is that the fact that you pen the Ghost Assassin books doesn’t change one single first impression I have of you,” I say. “And it doesn’t make me like you. That would be shallow of me. Nothing about my first impression of you has changed.”

  He studies me for several long beats and then asks, “And what, Allison, is your impression of me?”

  That charge is in the air between us again and my mouth goes dry. I could say so many things, but I don’t. I say, “You smell good, and I feel that’s a trick question, so that’s all I’m saying.”

  “I smell good,” he says, his eyes lighting with a boyish mischief I find quite charming.

  “Yes.” I dare to admit. “You do.”

  “So do you, Allison,” he replies, and I swear my name comes out a raspy suggestion. “Do you want to know my first impression of you?” he asks.

  That question jolts me, and I hold up my hands. “Please, no.” I turn and start walking.

  He laughs and falls into step with me again. “Chicken.”

  “Oh yes,” I agree as we reach the front doors of the building.

  He laughs, this low, sexy laugh that I feel in my sex, as silly as that probably sounds. That’s how affected I am by this man, which is crazy. I’ve been around powerful, rich, sexy men often. They don’t affect me like this one. He’s different. I’m different around him. We reach the automatic door and I go in first with him following, aware of him behind me—nervous about our goodbye which is about to follow.

  Once we’re outside, the cold washes over me, the reminder that I left my coat in the car oh so clear. I shiver and hug myself. Dash is right there almost immediately, handing off his ticket to the bellman. “Do you have a coat?” he asks. “We can give them our tickets and go back inside to wait.”

  “No ticket,” I say. “I parked down the road and stupidly left my coat in the car to avoid struggling with it.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he offers.

  “Not necessary,” I say quickly. “Thank you, though. I’ll be fine. I made sure I was under a streetlight, and this area is highly populated.”

  “I’m walking you,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket. “I’m wearing long sleeves. You can wear this.”

  Before I can object, he’s in front of me, sliding his jacket around me and pulling it closed, his wickedly wonderful scent all around me now. “Thank you,” I say, softly.

  “No thanks needed,” he assures me. “Let’s walk.”

  “What about your car?” I worry.

  “I tipped well enough when I arrived that they won’t mind waiting on me. Which way?”

  I motion to the left and then hold onto the jacket, and there’s no question now. Dash Black is walking me to my car and I’m wearing his jacket. I can’t help but feel a little thrill in the moment.

  CHAPTER NINE

  My car is parked on the east side of the museum where I’ve been working, and not far from the craziness of the strip of bars and restaurants off Broadway. As Dash
and I begin the walk, we pass a bus playing loud country music and filled with drunk people dancing and acting stupid.

  “Ever been on one of those?” he asks.

  “Oh gosh yes,” I admit. “I grew up here. I was happily stupid, drunk, and dancing many a time.”

  He laughs. “Would you do it now?”

  “You’d have to get me drunk first,” I promise him. “What about you?”

  “I’ve never been on one, nor do I want to be on one.”

  “Well, at least they’re not drinking and driving,” I say. “There’s always that.”

  “Yes,” he says, sobering on the reply, his gaze shifting forward, and there’s a distinctly sharper quality to his mood.

  We stop at the intersection and I turn to him. “Did I just say something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” he says, but the light changes, and he motions me forward, offering nothing more.

  I’m suddenly awkward with him for the first time ever, but fortunately, I don’t have to wallow in the weirdness. As soon as we cross the walkway, he seems to soften again in a palpable way before he asks, “Are you still in publishing?”

  “No. I left a little over a year ago.” A thought hits me and it’s not a good one. I stop dead in my track and rotate to face him. We’re in front of the museum now, a bench right beside us. Another party bus goes by, but I tune it out. “I’m not here for your publisher or any publisher. I work for Riptide Auction House now. I hope you don’t think I have an agenda. I didn’t know who you were. I wasn’t here for you.”

  “I didn’t think that, Allison,” he assures me and steps closer, towering over me, the stretch of his sweater over his chest fairly magnificent. “Why’d you leave publishing?” he asks. “You seem to love books. An auction house doesn’t exactly resemble publishing.”

  “Books and treasures, one and the same.”

  “Are they?”

  “More than you might think. And as for how it happened, I was in a weird place when I walked into a coffee shop at the same time as the founder of Riptide. We hit it off, and she offered me a job. I took it rather spontaneously, which really isn’t me. I’m not spontaneous.”