by S. L. Naeole
Still, it stung to realize that he’d been telling her all about me, and I didn’t know a thing about her. Important things. Like her existence.
“It is lunchtime. Perhaps you would like to order in and have lunch with me in my office?”
Shaking my head, I moved to prepare the miniature for wrapping and transport, pulling out several sheets of acid-free paper to place on the painting’s face. “I’m gonna get this photographed and cataloged and then wrap it and schedule the pick-up for tomorrow evening. If we’re going to be doing City Hall’s artwork then I want to make sure that our schedules are as clear as varnish.”
A sad smile passed over Del’s mouth before he nodded and left. We hadn’t seen each other much since I returned to the catacombs, and I knew that lunch was his attempt to sit down and talk—really talk. I just wasn’t ready.
Moving to the desk where my computer was, I grabbed the digital camera that the department used for taking photos for our catalog. Removing the lens and turning the camera on, I set about taking six photos with the macro light ring turned on. Without its frame, and with only the raw canvas edges exposed, the photo would show all of the actual work done to the painting, without the edges being hidden behind a thick, ornate frame.
“You’re so sexy when you work,” a voice said from behind me as I took one extra shot for my own portfolio.
That voice moved through me like warm honey, sweet and thick and covering everything it touched. “I thought you were in Cali,” I said in response, struggling to keep my voice calm. I put the camera down and turned to face him.
“I was, but only for a few days. I had more important things to take care of here.”
“Oh? Like what?” Could he detect the hopefulness in my voice?
Stepping toward me, he reached out to take my hands in his. “Business things, personal things, financial things.”
“Business things,” I repeated, watching him as he moved our hands to his mouth.
“And personal things.” He licked the backs of my knuckles, sending a swift shimmer of need running through me.
“Personal things. They don’t have toiletries in Silicon Valley?” I joked, hating the way my voice vibrated with longing.
Tugging me into his arms, he nipped at my nose. “Silly girl. They don’t have you in Silicon Valley.” He kissed me then, all firm lips and hot sweeps of his tongue that melted away the past few days like candle wax. “God, I’ve missed you.”
My hands dove into his hair, my breasts smashing against his chest as I tried to touch every part of his body with mine. Damn my thick overalls. “I missed you, too.”
His hands swept over my back and down to my rear, cupping each cheek in a hungry palm and squeezing. The act pushed my hips harder into his, and I groaned at the feel of him, so hard, so full right where I knew it was meant to be. My blood sang at the feel of him, my heart raced at the smell of him, and my lungs ached for oxygen at my desire for him. Everything about Michael Alan Lachlan was everything that my body declared it needed.
“Sweetheart,” he breathed against my lips in hot, delicious pants. “I have an event tonight. I want you to come with me.”
My body tensed at his request, my hands falling to his shoulders. “I…I don’t do events, Mal. You know this.”
Pressing small kisses to my lips, he ignored my comment and continued. “It’s a charity event. We’ll show up, I’ll bid on a painting or two, and then we’ll go home. You won’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to, and press isn’t invited so there won’t be any cameras which means no pictures.”
“You want me at a charity event with you? Is this the financial business you came back to take care of?”
“Partly,” he said sheepishly. “The other is the finalization of the purchase of a house here.”
“Here? In Brooklyn?” I can’t hide my shock.
“Well, not exactly in Brooklyn, but close enough to visit.”
My mouth could barely form the word as I asked him why. “Because,” he replies with a sweet, loving smile, “I’m not leaving my heart in San Francisco or any other town. I’m coming home to it right here, where you are.”
“But-but…” Was he really saying he was giving up living in California to live here, in New York, because of me? The heaviness of that reality pushed down any joy that I might have felt as a result of his news. “Your headquarters are in California. You made plans for everything there. I’m just…I’m not that important, Mal! You don’t just give up on everything else for someone!”
Chuckling, he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Sweetheart, I’m not giving up on everything. I’m not giving up on anything. These plans were made before we officially met, yes, and nothing is going to stop them. The locations are sound, the money is good, and the plans are excellent. But they don’t need me in California to happen, just like my Chicago businesses don’t need me there to keep going, keep thriving.”
He shifted his hands so that one came to rest on my hip while the other moved to delicately embrace my cheek. “But you need me. Our relationship can’t thrive unless we’re together, and since asking you to come to California with me is out of the question, then obviously the next solution would be for me to be here with you.”
My breaths were coming out in rapid gusts as I realized what he was saying, and what that would mean. “We only just met. We don’t really know anything about each other. You’re leaving your home for something unknown. You’re gambling with your security,” I said, my body shaking with anxiety.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Concern tightened his features, making his eyes greener than usual, his jaw a hard line of disagreement. “I love you. I’ve never been in love with anyone. That alone is more than a good enough reason for me to put Cali in the rearview and be wherever you are. And as for gambling with my security, isn’t that what you did when you moved here? Didn’t you do the same thing when you left California and moved here?”
“No,” I cried. “What I did wasn’t gambling. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my new life would begin here and it would be better than anything California had to offer. But you…you’re buying a house here and changing things around with your businesses on something that might not even be a sure thing!”
I felt him stiffen. “What do you mean, something that might not even be a sure thing.”
“Us!” I replied, my voice panicky, shrill as I pushed away from him.
“Victoria,” he said calmly, his eyes leveled with mine and refusing to look away, “I don’t know what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, but whatever it is you need to talk to me about it. I’ve told you that I’m in love with you. I’ve told you my biggest secret. I’ve just bought a house for us—for us—because I want us to start a life together. So when you tell me that we—” he swung his hand back and forth, gesturing between us “—aren’t a sure thing, that has me worried, because that means you’re trying to pull away.”
He watched me as I tried to gather my words, tried to control my breathing, tried to slow down the hammering of my heart. I was panicked. I was terrified. He didn’t understand that it wouldn’t be me pulling away, but him. That was my greatest fear. He didn’t understand my neurosis. He didn’t understand my fear. He didn’t understand what it meant to be me, to live with not only what happened in that basement, but also everything that happened after it.
“I just don’t want you to discover somewhere down the road that all of this stuff with me, with the touching, with the lawsuit, with everything, is just too much and end up hating me for it,” I finally sobbed. “Because then you’ll leave me and I’ll be wrecked, Mal. Wrecked! You have so much power over me and I promised never to let any man ever take away my control like that again, but you have! Only now it’s worse because you control my heart!”
He stared at me. Through the hazy fog of tears, I could see that he was staring at me, his mouth agape, his hands meaty fists at his side. I expected him to walk away, to end things now before t
hey got even more involved. That’s what I would do if I were him. That’s what I think any rational person would have done. You don’t get involved that deep with someone whose baggage could supply a luggage company for years.
Instead, he approached me and wrapped his arms around me, pressing multiple kisses into my hair. “Oh you sweet, silly girl. That’s not how love works. I’m not going into this blind, Victoria, and neither are you.” He pulled away to look at me and to wipe away my fat, sticky tears. “Maybe we’re moving too fast for you. Would it be easier for you to accept all of this if we went slower?”
I nodded. He smiled softly. “Then we’ll take things more slowly.”
“What does slowly mean?”
“Well, for starters, I’ll ask you out on a real and proper date. There’s an art auction tonight that will benefit children’s cancer charities for all of New York. Will you come with me as my date? There’s no one else I know who is as knowledgeable on the subject of art as you are.”
His eyes were sparkling with hope, and his face was so handsome, so full of love that I couldn’t tell him no. There was no way, not after all the times he’d compromised and stepped back for me.
“Okay. I’ll go. What do I have to wear?”
Holly did some research on the event that Mal was taking me to and determined that it was a black tie affair that would require me to wear a gown. Within minutes of discovering this, she had me standing in her room, my body covered in fabric and pins as she worked muslin into the shapes she wanted. Satisfied, she then had me risk my life getting the damn things off without bleeding all over everything.
Lara and Kara trimmed my hair and shoved my feet into a bowl of foamy water they insisted would remove the years of “holy shit what the hell is that” from my heels and toes. Vonne supervised as between Holly, Lara, and Kara, I was somehow transformed from a pumpkin into a pumpkin spiced beverage.
“That dress is perfect,” Vonne said appreciatively as she took in the pleated burnt orange chiffon and bronze dress that Holly had magically stitched together in two hours. “It’s the perfect beginning of fall dress and the color brings out the red highlights in your hair.”
“And the pleats make your boobs look bigger,” Kara added with a grin.
Strapless, and with an empire waist, the dress did make me look like I had a more ample chest than I actually did. The skirt came to the floor, swirling and floating like copper smoke around my legs. There were two slits on either side of my legs that revealed just a hint of thigh when I walked, but would definitely show off more when I sat down.
Pairing the dress with a silver pair of strappy sandals and a silver clutch, I felt more dressed up than I had at prom, only this time I was certain that my date wasn’t going to stand me up.
Or hurt me…
“Thank god that hickey of death is gone,” Vonne grumbled, and immediately my hand flew to my shoulder as a monster blush turned my face shade similar in color to my dress. “Next time tell Michael that if he’s going to suck something purple, make sure it’s south of the border so we don’t have to see it.”
Gasping, I turned to gape at her but she just waved her hand and forced me to face Lara. “Stop being so upset. You were there when he was doing it so don’t act all innocent. Goddamn love bites looking like a rabid bear went HAM on your shoulder.”
“I thought that hickey was cute,” Kara murmured with a wistful smile.
“It’s a good thing it matched MOAT’s uniform,” Holly quipped before everyone started to laugh.
“You’re gorgeous,” Lara said as she dusted some powder across my cheeks and touched up the hint of lip gloss I’d agreed to put on. I wore no eyeliner, no eyeshadow, and only a swipe or two of mascara darkened my lashes, but it still did wonders to brighten my eyes and make them appear bigger, even sultrier. “Guys totally go for that no-makeup-makeup look.”
Hearing the knock at the door, Kara rushed over to answer it even as I toddled forward in Holly’s silver heels. Mal walked in carrying a single white rose and a small black box, the smile on his face as he was greeted by my friends falling the minute he saw me. My hands flew to my dress and my hair, even more self-conscious than I had been before he’d arrived. I knew he would think the dress was too plain, that my hair was too simply done, with only part of it twisted on the side and pulled back, while the rest fell onto my shoulders in loose waves. He was surrounded every day by women who’d perfected the look of beautiful, who excelled at being gorgeous and done up.
I was an amateur and we all knew it.
“Sweetheart,” he rasped, a meaty fist pressed against his lips. “I have never seen a more perfect woman in my life than you.”
He held out the rose to me and then the box, waiting until I had both clutched firmly in my hands before he pulled off the cover of the box, my gasp cutting through the silence in the apartment at the sight of the sparkling earrings he revealed.
“I figured you’d need a little frosting for your dress,” he said huskily as he pulled the earrings out and began pinning them into my ears. “Though honestly, nothing could make you more stunning than you are right now. Everything else is extra.”
“You shouldn’t have gotten me anything,” I told him, my hands shaking at the feel of his breath on my skin, his fingers brushing gently across the nape of my neck and the lobe of my ear.
Kissing the back of my ear, he chuckled. “Let me indulge once in a while, baby. If at the end of the night you still don’t want them, I’ll take them back. Okay?”
“Fine,” I said with a resigned sigh, his tone telling me plainly that he had no intention of returning them.
“Smile!” Kara shouted before a flash burned my eyes with bright white light.
“Kara!” I hissed as Kara laughed and shoved her phone into my face to show me what she’d captured. The breath left me, taking with it my complaint at the sight of Mal looking down at me, one hand gently clasped around my neck, his mouth pulled up in a smile, while I gazed up at him adoringly, my lips slightly parted, my eyes glittering with annoyance and love.
“You two are fucking gorgeous, okay? And I’m sending it to both of you because one of you has to use it for your wallpaper or profile pic.”
I opened my mouth to argue that I had no profile to use a photo for when Mal laughed and nodded. “I could always use more photos of us together.”
Jabbing him in the ribs, I groaned. “Don’t encourage her!” He laughed with a grunt before pulling me in for a kiss that sent my toes curling and my probably my hair, too.
With quick goodbyes, Mal and I left the apartment and headed down the stairs to the waiting Town Car. Only it wasn’t the Town Car that was sitting in my parking lot. Instead, it was a limo, stretched out lean and black and menacing. “We’re going in this?” I squeaked.
Chuckling, he ushered me toward Lyle, who looked at me intently before nodding his head in greeting. “If we had shown up in anything but, we’d have attracted loads of attention that you don’t want, Victoria. This is how we, how do you say, blend in with the crowd.”
The idea that we had to be in a limousine in order to blend in with Mal’s crowd didn’t sit well with me, but as he slid onto the bench seat next to me and took my hand in his, I let the concern die. I was going on a date with Mal. He was here, with me, beside me, and he was looking at me like I was a piece of cake and he had a voracious sweet-tooth.
God, yes. Eat me.
“I’m so glad you’re with me,” Mal whispered into my ear before he licked a long, wet line from my shoulder to the small valley between my breasts.
“Mal!” I shrieked, my eyes darting toward the front of the limo where a thick, black window faced us.
“Shh,” he chuckled. “No one can see us. And I’m not going to do anything that exposes you, sweetheart. I just want to kiss you and tell you how happy you’ve made me tonight. Just by stepping out of your comfort zone and being with me, you’ve made me the happiest man in all of New York.”
S
ighing at his words, I relaxed as he placed his hand firmly on my fluttering belly, the other behind my head, and brought my head to his. Our mouths met in the middle, and from the time we left my apartment to the time we arrived outside of the Plaza Hotel, my lips never left his.
“What do you think of the Gauguin?”
Mal was studying the small painting with interest, his hands clutched behind him as his eyes narrowed with his inspection.
“I think that if you’re going to bid on a Gauguin, it should at least be an authentic one,” I commented, before pointing out that the painting itself was done with a theme that prevailed in Gauguin’s work while he was living in Tahiti—two naked island girls kneeling by a stream—but the style of painting was decidedly Impressionist, which Gauguin had abandoned long before.
Gaping at me, Mal just stared. “Sweetheart, do you even realize what you’ve just done?”
“Revealed that the painting is a fake?” I replied dumbly.
He grinned. “That and saved some woeful bidder millions of dollars, as well as the charities from having to embarrassingly issue a statement when this is discovered later. My genius, warrior goddess. What would I ever do without you?”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. “Uh, show up alone and waste millions of dollars on a color-by-numbers oil painting?”
Laughing, he took my hand. “Come, let’s go and inform someone of this before the bidding begins.”
In the end, I only had to speak to four people. Two were the curators of the auction, who both exhibited understandable outrage at the idea of being given a fake painting to auction off. One was one of Mal’s executives from California—Indira—who had flown in specifically for the event at the request of Mal. And the last was a woman who had, Mal confessed, been a woman he’d dated a few times but who has now happily married with a child on the way. At my curious glance at her incredibly flat stomach, she laughed.
