He caught them with one hand. “Now that’s just what I mean, about your character.” Shook them out and put his foot in. “Thoughtful. I appreciate it.” His polite smile made her want to slap him.
“Did you bring my Cheetos?”
“I did not.”
“I’m on a strict diet. Do you want me to blow up like a balloon again?”
“I want you to be strong and healthy. ‘Cheese food’ is not a balanced diet.” He zipped his pants. She tossed him the clean white shirt she’d brought, without paying any attention to his flat stomach.
She glanced down at her exercise ensemble, dark gray yoga pants with a stripe to match the short lime-green tank top. Now that she wasn’t high as a popped cork she felt more than a little self-conscious. At least neither of them was skintight. She’d cringed when she snatched down the skimpy two-piece she’d had on yesterday from the shower rail.
“Let’s go.” Con tucked his shirt into his pants, which as usual looked like they’d been custom cut to hug his… Never mind. He whipped out a comb and slicked his hair back, revealing the proud line of his cheekbones. He stroked his chin. “Mind if I shave?”
“Yes.” That’s all she needed. Chiseled perfection with smooth skin. “I’m hungry, let’s go.”
Con gathered up his stuff, loaded up the car and went to pay the motel bill. Lizzie deliberately climbed into the driver’s seat. It went against all her instincts, but she felt this display of bravado was necessary to establishing a certain balance of power.
Of course if she had any moxie at all she’d put the key in the ignition and drive away. But—as Con had pointed out—she wasn’t that kind of girl. Shame.
She rolled down the windows. No A/C from the looks of it.
When he returned, his brow darkened at the sight of her in his seat. She blinked innocently.
“I’ll drive,” he growled.
“No, actually I will. I’m sure I’m just as good at it as Frankie.” She shot him a menacing look.
Con silently walked around to the passenger seat and climbed in. Fastened his seat belt.
A stick shift? Uh, oh. She hadn’t noticed that when she got in. She turned the ignition and tried to remember which pedal was which. Left foot on the clutch, let it up slowly…
A horrible grinding sound rose from the engine as the car inched forward and then stalled.
“I’ll drive.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
“No, it’s okay, I’m just a little rusty. I’ll get it this time.”
She let out the clutch, applied gas and with only minor scraping sounds the car lurched forward. Thank goodness she didn’t have to reverse out. She drove to the lot entrance and stalled hard.
“Please…”
She ignored him. Started it up again, pulled out onto the highway and made sure to stay in first as long as possible to really drive up his blood pressure. Only when the engine sounded like it was about to catch fire did she shift into second with a smile. “Nothing to it.”
When she finally shifted into third after whizzing along in second at about fifty miles per hour, she could swear she heard him exhale. They drove for miles through featureless brown desert, her hair whipping about her face. The sky was painfully blue.
“There’s the diner,” he said, audibly relieved, as a glint of metal appeared on the horizon.
She downshifted and pulled into the dusty lot of the 1960s-era diner with maximum grinding of gears. Stalled to a halt diagonally poised across two parking spaces. This was fun.
Con wiped a bead of sweat from his upper lip.
Inside, Lizzie settled into an aqua booth, enjoying the air-conditioning.
“I’ll have a small fruit salad and a glass of water, please,” she said with a smile. Her stomach protested loudly, and she slammed the greasy menu shut to silence it.
Con glared at her for a moment. “I’ll have the blue-plate breakfast, with the eggs scrambled and a short stack. Whole-wheat toast.” He smiled at the waitress. “Two of those, please.”
“You have quite an appetite.” Lizzie arranged her napkin on her lap as the waitress moved away.
“How are you feeling?” He shook out his napkin.
“I’m not sure. How do you suppose a gong feels after it’s just been banged?”
“Need some aspirin?”
“No thanks. Pain can accelerate spiritual growth.”
“Is that the kind of thinking they feed you at Zen Mind?” He took a sip of his water.
“No. No pain at Zen Mind. Mostly manicures, shiatsu massage, hair ironing, that kind of thing. I’m not sure if there’s a connection between hair ironing and Zen Buddhism, but it’s very chic.”
“I don’t doubt it. Very expensive too, I bet.”
“It’s only money. When you owe two million dollars, really, what’s a few thousand more?”
A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “You’ll regret getting into debt.”
“Have some personal experience in that area, do you?”
“I learned everything the hard way. I just want to help you out so you don’t have to do the same.” His frank gaze threatened her defenses.
She steeled herself against it. “What makes you think I need help?”
“The stories I read about you on the Internet and in the papers.”
“You searched for me on the Internet?” She ignored the funny fluttery sensation that gave her. “I told you, they make up lies.”
“Do they? When I found you, you were drunk in the morning and living on Cheetos. That’s actually worse than what I read.”
“If we’re going to be blunt, let’s be blunt. No one gives a crap about me. I was just an easy pocket to pick, for my parents as well as you. It’s empty. So who cares what I do with my life?”
She expected him to protest, to say he cared. He didn’t. He just looked at her. A look so filled with pity it knocked her right off balance. She grabbed her glass and drank water and looked anywhere but at Con while the waitress put her fruit salad in front of her.
Canned, with slippery radioactive peaches and a Dayglo cherry on top.
The waitress returned with two steaming plates loaded high with eggs, bacon, sausage and pancakes. She moved the fruit salad to the side and set one of the plates right in front of Lizzie with no prompting from Con. She returned with two plates of toast, butter and jam.
“God I’m starving.” Her confession was a relief.
Con smiled. “Good. Eat up.” He buttered some toast and took a bite.
She loaded a fork with eggs and sausage and almost had an oral orgasm as she chewed it. “I’d forgotten what actual food tastes like,” she murmured through her mouthful. Con beamed and took another bite of toast. “At Zen Mind it was either tofu teriyaki with wheatgrass juice, or contraband Cheetos and champagne. Hey, why are you eating toast when there’s all this other good stuff?”
“I like toast.” He took another neat bite. Chewed it with his lips closed. Dark lashes a girl would kill for hid his eyes.
“You know, it’s a damn shame you aren’t a moneyed aristocrat. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got everything it takes: You drive with the roof down at eighty miles an hour and don’t have a hair out of place; you hang around in custom-made Italian suits like you’re wearing sweats; and, last and most important, you’re an arrogant SOB who’s out to get his and screw everyone else. Maybe you were switched at birth or something? Where were you born, anyway?”
“Nowhere you’d know.” He popped the last of the toast triangle in his mouth and dusted his fingers over the plate.
“No, really, I want to know. You don’t have a Southern accent, now that I think about it.”
“We don’t all talk the same, you know.”
“Your accent almost does sound a little French. Maybe that’s why I cottoned onto the French aristocracy thing so easily. What’s the name of the town?”
“Like I said, you wouldn’t know it.” He picked up a jug of syrup and poured some on his panca
kes.
“So what’s the harm in telling me?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Good, I could use a laugh,” she muttered through a mouthful of eggs.
He hesitated. “Mudbug Flats, Louisiana.”
A snorting laugh did escape. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.” He kept a pleasant poker face. “Heart of Cajun country.”
“It sounds…lovely.” She snorted again. “I’m guessing it’s known mostly for mud and mosquitoes.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” He picked up another toast triangle and buttered it with deliberate elegance. “Mudbug is another word for crawdad.”
“Crayfish.”
“That’s right. Best eatin’ in the state of Louisiana. Millions of the little critters right there at your feet.” He winked, a gesture to match the phony backwoods accent. Took a bite of toast.
“This gets better all the time. Let me guess, you grew up in a trailer?”
Con held her gaze. “We couldn’t afford that kind of modern luxury, I’m afraid. Just the old shack, the flat-bottomed boat and the one hog.”
She couldn’t help smiling. Didn’t believe a word he said, but she was getting curious all the same. “Do you still have family back there?”
“Hell if I know.” He finally picked up his fork, speared some pancake and put it in his mouth.
“How long have you been gone?”
“A long, long, long, long, long time. Now stop dredging up the distant past and let me enjoy my meal.”
Lizzie watched the man across the table from her eat with careful precision. The more she learned about him, the less she knew.
She’d learned a lot about herself, though. She’d never trust her instincts again. He’d stolen something precious from her: trust, faith.
Hope.
He took a sip of his freshly topped-up coffee. Met her eyes for a minute with a cautious glance that made her catch her breath and look away.
What kind of heart really beat behind that carefully polished exterior?
And how could she drive a stake through it?
Tempted as she was to destroy Con’s most cherished possession, she let him drive the car after breakfast. She figured she’d play along with whatever he had planned, let him get relaxed, then as soon as they got to a decent-sized town she’d give him the slip and head… Where would she head?
Her head hurt.
“Scenic overlook. Let’s go do some sightseeing.” Con beamed with goodwill. Probably thought he was a knight in shining armor rescuing her from the dragon of strong drink.
Shame he was the one who’d thrown her to the dragon in the first place. She’d gotten pretty cozy with it too. Maybe those maidens in the old days didn’t want to be rescued either.
“I’ve never been to the Southwest before,” he said cheerily, downshifting as they approached what appeared to be the rim of a vast canyon. They were in the middle of nowhere, not a single person or car in sight.
“I have. It all looks the same. Lots of flat, treeless land and a mountain in the distance. There’s always a mountain in the distance.”
“A very metaphorical landscape.”
They climbed out of the car and approached the edge of the Canyon. Lizzie got a shiver of vertigo peering down at the dry river bed a hundred feet or more below.
“If you didn’t go to college, and spent your teen years in a reform school, then how come you sound so educated?”
“Books.” Con peered over the rim too. A breeze flicked his hair. “Always been a big reader. You can learn pretty much anything from books.”
“You’re smart too. I guess that’s how you managed to trick me.”
He didn’t try to defend himself.
“So if you’re so smart and you love books, then why didn’t you just go to college and get a high-paying job?”
He looked at her as if the question was some kind of joke, then stared up at the inevitable mountain range on the horizon, toothed peaks cutting into an indigo sky. “The world doesn’t work the way you think it does.”
“I’m from New York City. I’ve hardly grown up in a bubble.”
“You were cushioned in a nice soft bubble on the Upper East Side. I’d give anything to have had the kind of upbringing you had.”
“Yeah? Look how well it’s worked out for me. Twenty-five years old, no money, no job, no family, no real friends and no freaking idea what to do with my life.”
“That’s why I’m here.” He extended a hand, and she flinched as if it might burn her. “I wasn’t going to run off and leave you that night.”
He took his untouched hand back.
“Yes, you were. You just wanted to marry me for my money. Without it you had no use for me. You didn’t love me.” She swallowed hard as the memories clouded her painfully clear mind.
He stared up at the mountains again. “I’m not capable of love. Maybe I was once, but that part of me is dead. I’m not really capable of anything other than survival.”
“My, how dramatic. If you’re such an emotional robot you hide it well. You did a bang-up job pretending to care about me.”
He looked at her. “I do care about you.”
She squinted at him. The sun hurt her eyes, and his words hurt her heart. She didn’t believe them.
Didn’t believe anything anymore.
He held out his hand again and she fought a mad urge to take it, just to steady herself.
“I’m here to teach you how to survive too.”
“Oh, great. Maybe you can show me how to change the oil in your car and I can get a job at Jiffy Lube. I have a college degree and three years of experience. I think I can take care of myself, thank you.”
“That’s the attitude I was hoping for.” He moved and sunlight hit his face, lighting up a smile. “When you took off, I didn’t plan to chase you down. I figured you wouldn’t want me to. But I kept close tabs on you and after a while I could see you needed a friend. How does your head feel?”
“Don’t keep asking about my head. I’m trying to forget it’s there.” It didn’t hurt any more, but the clarity was agonizing. Everything clear, crisp and sharp, the landscape, the cloudless sky, her sense of loss.
All that blue emptiness made her reckless. “So if you weren’t planning to leave, would you have…” She stopped herself. Took a deep breath. The chasm gaped, dark in front of her. She turned to stare at him. “Would you have married me that Friday, just like we planned?”
“Yes. I made a promise to you.”
The sun flashed and the sand seemed to shift under her feet. Did she hear him right? He grabbed her arm as she stumbled back, trying to figure out the meaning of what he said.
“You really would have married me?” The words drifted out of her mouth, toneless.
“Yes. I’ll marry you today, if that’s what you want.”
His strong hand held her arm fast. Reassuring. Kept her up while the world tilted under her. He held her gaze with resolute dark eyes and a hard-set jaw.
“That’s not what I want.” She managed to spit out the words. “Not at all.”
Something painful rose in her throat, and the next thing she knew Con’s arms were around her, her head on his chest as her tears wet his shirt.
He was willing to give up his freedom and marry her.
Not because he loved her.
Because he pitied her.
She couldn’t stop the choking sobs that hurt her throat or the tears that dripped from her chin. His hand rubbed her back, caressed her shoulders. “Shhh,” he whispered. But she couldn’t.
She looked at him through her tears and saw the face that was the embodiment of all her dreams of Happily Ever After. She’d had no doubts. No fears. He was perfect and they’d live an enchanted life.
The world doesn’t work the way you think it does.
Her chest hurt.
“Come on, you’ll feel much better if you…”
She never knew what he was
about to suggest because her mouth closed over his and silenced his tongue with hers. Their lips met with a breathtaking explosion of chemistry. Her hands roamed over his face, into his hair, along his powerful neck and into the collar of his shirt. The hot sun and the feral scent of his hot skin made thoughts evaporate before they could form. She untucked the back of his shirt and slid her fingers under it, traced the straight line of his spine and dug her fingertips into hard muscle.
He shifted his hips, pushed his body against hers so she could feel his arousal. Instant, like her own. She pressed her breasts to his chest, nipples straining her bra. His cupped hand on her buttock lifted her, deepened their kiss. He ground his hips against her, and she pushed back, harder.
She sat on top so he was the one lying in the dirt. She kept her eyes open, watched his face as she increased the rhythm and intensity and took them both to the quivering edge.
His hands explored her body with that familiar touch that felt like a celebration of every inch of skin, every curve. Soft groans tickled her ears as she leaned to lick his closed eyelids, graze his neck with her teeth. She had to struggle to keep her head, not go adrift in arms that felt so loving.
He never opened his eyes. Trust? Or because he didn’t want to see her? Wanted to imagine she was someone else the way he pretended he was?
She sensed his climax coming with a thrill of power. She’d never stayed so detached during sex. She discovered she could enjoy the pleasure but not lose herself in it. Keep emotion tightly buttoned down as sensation surged to her toes.
As Con came, hard, with a low animal sound and his eyes squeezed tight, she faked her own orgasm. Loud breathing, a high pitched moan. Her eyes open the whole time.
She’d never done that before. Could he tell? If so he didn’t say. This was the new Lizzie, the one she planned to forge herself into. The one who knew how the world worked and played it her way.
The one who could rip arrows out of her chest and throw them on the ground without feeling anything like the agony ripping through her right now.
She climbed off him, her hands trembling.
A Bad Boy is Good to Find Page 5
