Passion for Players

by Maggie Dallen

  But he knew what it looked like.

  That thought made him warm all over, which did not help the nervous, sweaty sensation going on beneath his suit.

  Her eyes widened at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?” Her sharp tone jarred him out of his nervous, tongue-tied stupor and with more force than charm he thrust the bouquet in her direction. “These are for you.”

  Her expression might have been comical if it wasn’t so upsetting. She was staring down at the flowers in her hand with something like a sneer. Her lip was twisted up in disgust and her nose wrinkled, like the smell of violets and daisies made her ill.

  “What are these?” she asked, and to his horror he heard a note of panic in her voice.

  Ah hell, he’d ruined everything by moving too quickly. He cleared his throat and stated the obvious. “They’re flowers. For you.”

  Her gaze lifted to meet his and the genuine confusion there was only marred by that terrible panic he’d heard in her voice. It was more than just panic, it was almost…terror. Like he was some vision from a nightmare come to life.

  He thrust a hand through his hair and tried to remember the speech he’d drafted the moment Kat had hung up the phone the day before. He’d rehearsed it countless times in the twelve hours since that conversation. And now, standing here on a bright, sunny Monday afternoon in December, the most incredible thing happened…he could not remember a single word.

  He would always remember this day as the day he officially lost his mind.

  Darren had a fantastic memory. It was one of the reasons he excelled at his job. To be standing there speechless, his mouth flapping open and closed like a guppy…this was highly unusual.

  And humiliating.

  The only upside was that his impression of a stunned bird that had just flown into a window seemed to put her at ease a bit.

  She laughed. Not meanly, but she was definitely amused by his current imbecilic state. So…that was something.

  With a shake of her head, she looked from him to the flowers and then back again as she repeated herself, her voice a tad less severe. “What are you doing here?”

  So, she hadn’t asked Kat to set this up. Well, that answered that. No wonder she was so stunned to see him on her doorstep. “I’m Darren,” he said.

  Yeah, that was so not the smooth speech he’d had planned.

  “Darren,” she repeated, as if trying out his name. Then her eyes widened and he saw it all click into place. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  She blinked rapidly. “You’re Darren?”

  “Yes.”

  Her face crumpled into something that was close to despair.

  He tried not to despair himself.

  “You’re the Darren who’s going to help me with my grant application?”

  “Yes.” Yeah, that was definitely despair in her eyes. Bleak, unutterably miserable despair.

  Fuck.

  He wasn’t sure how he’d expected her to react to his arrival on her doorstep, but even his worst-case scenarios weren’t this bad. A sensation he hadn’t experienced since junior high had him shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels in discomfort.

  “So,” he said slowly, for lack of anything else to say. He cleared his throat, hoping in vain that she might say something to ease this awkward silence between them. She didn’t.

  He cleared his throat again. “So, can I come in?”

  She blinked as if coming out of a trance. Then she opened the door wider and pasted on a smile so fake, he couldn’t imagine who it might possibly fool. “Yes, of course. Please come in.”

  The awkward silence followed them into the wide-open garage space that she used for her art. He came to a stop in the center of the room and for one blissful moment all of the awkwardness and the tension of the last few moments faded away as he was once more transported into the world she created. “Amazing,” he breathed.

  All around him were larger-than-life paintings that seemed to be close-up views of the world he’d seen snippets of at her last show.

  He felt her come to a stop beside him and he looked over to see her scrutinizing her own work with narrowed eyes, her head tilting to the side. “You like them?”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “I love them.”

  Wow. That had come out so serious. Too earnest. He swallowed thickly to keep from clearing his throat again, which was a nervous tic of sorts and not at all conducive to playing it cool.

  But when she looked up at him, her smile made him forget how nervous he was and how awkward. For a moment, at least.

  “Well,” she said with a sigh. “I guess we should get to this, huh?”

  For one second, he wasn’t sure what she meant. He rather hoped she meant they should talk, get to the heart of why she’d run, but as she spun around once more and handed him a file of paperwork, he realized that was not at all what she’d meant.

  She’d meant, let’s get to work.

  Since he was normally a “work more, talk less” type of guy by nature, this should have been a good thing. And in a way it was because it helped him to relax a bit more. As he opened the file and skimmed over the first page of paperwork which detailed all of the documents and financial statements she needed to provide, he felt himself settle into his element.

  Oddly enough, red tape and paperwork were kind of his jam. And financial statements? Forget about it. He was totally at one with the world.

  But, on the other hand, he’d rather hoped they could figure out what had gone wrong with this fledgling relationship before they delved into work.

  “Should we get started?” she asked, perching on a stool beside a makeshift work table, and pulling another beside her which was apparently for him.

  He joined her, taking a moment to think through how he should start this sensitive conversation.

  But before he could she was talking a mile a minute, telling him about the grant, about what she had planned if she got it, about the last art exhibit, about the slew of part-time freelance jobs she’d held over the course of the year that had made her financially able to afford this art space but unable to keep her tax forms straight.

  In short, she talked…a lot.

  And he listened, charmed by her way of speaking and by the words themselves. Even the most mundane topic seemed riveting thanks to her innate humor and vivacity.

  He loved the way her eyes lit up when she was making herself laugh, and the way her lips automatically curved up into a smile when she talked, as if she had a secret joke going on that only she knew about. He loved the way her hands couldn’t seem to stay still…how nothing about her stayed still, actually.

  “Why did you run?” The words came out of his mouth without any preamble or forethought. He just had to know. Not knowing was killing him. He supposed what he really wanted to ask was, “don’t you feel it too?”

  But she had to, right? Wasn’t that how this whole love thing worked?

  Unless it wasn’t love and it was an infatuation. Or maybe even an obsession.

  But he sure as hell hoped not. He’d never felt anything like this before and if this new force of nature which felt equivalent to, if not greater than, gravity, was not the real deal then he didn’t know his head from his ass.

  Which might be true, emotionally speaking. He’d never been terribly in touch with his emotions. But all that had changed the day he saw her paintings, and then seen her picture. And life would never be the same now that he’d met her.

  So yeah, he wondered. How did she not feel it too?

  But he’d settled for the easier question—easier to ask and hopefully easier to answer. Why did you run?

  But she was acting like she hadn’t heard him as she pushed her stool back and headed over to a mini fridge to grab a can of flavored club soda. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked.

  She glanced over her shoulder when she’d offered the drink, and that was when he saw it. It was there again. The panic. The terror.r />
  Shit.

  Was he coming on too strong? He couldn’t imagine she was honestly scared of him. No one was scared of him. He might be tall but he wasn’t broad or beefy. And while he’d been told he could look a little too serious at times…okay, all the time…he’d been nothing but pleasant.

  Hell, he’d brought flowers.

  Unless he was being too nice? Maybe she thought he was a stalker or something.

  Deep breaths. He reminded himself to breathe and calmed himself by turning his attention back to the paperwork once more. For the first time he glanced at the very top, which she’d already filled in with the basics: name, address, etc.

  “Sarah?” he read aloud. “Who is Sarah Clark?”

  He heard her moving behind him. “Me.”

  When he turned in his seat, he saw her hovering in the middle of the room, looking uncertain about whether she was coming or going. Like a skittish colt, she seemed like she might burst off sprinting in the opposite direction if he handled this the wrong way.

  He pressed his lips together as he studied her and analyzed the situation. Too bad for him his brother, Brett, wasn’t here. Though they’d both been born and raised in Montana, Brett was the one with the knack for dealing with skittish colts. He was also the one who knew how to charm women and make them comfortable. Maybe the two qualities were related because Darren was just as useless around women as he was around skittish colts.

  In short, he had no idea how to put Yvette at ease around him. Or, was it Sarah?

  “Is Yvette your middle name?”

  Shockingly, that inane question seemed to help matters.

  She took a step toward him and grinned. “Nope. It was just a name I picked when I moved to New York.”

  He stared at her. “You changed your name?”

  She shrugged. “Not legally, but yeah. I wanted a fresh start when I came to college and a new name helped to cement the new me.”

  “Huh.” He had no idea what to say to that. When he’d gone to college, he’d bought himself a new backpack. That, he supposed, had been the extent of his new identity. “Why Yvette?”

  “Why not?” She was laughing softly as she came to lean against the table beside him. Almost as though he’d said something funny, which he was fairly certain he had not.

  “No, I mean, where did you get the name from? A famous artist or a family friend or—”

  “The maid from Clue.”

  He looked over to see if she was kidding.

  She was not. With a shrug, she added, “I don’t know, I used to love the movie and I always thought Yvette sounded so exotic and chic. You’ve got to admit, Yvette has more of an artistic flare than Sarah.”

  She looked wistful and he found himself gazing at her in wonderment. Who on earth changed her name because of a maid in an eighties movie? And on a whim?

  Only this woman. His woman.

  The better question was, why the hell did he find that so charming? She’d clearly woven some sort of spell on him because logically he knew her reasons made little sense but yet he was enchanted.

  This whole love thing was a study in insanity, of that he was certain. But there was no fighting it. All he could do was gaze in awe at her magical smile and her wistful expression.

  Her eyes shifted to him and the sudden transformation was startling. Her laughter faded and once again…yup, there it was. He could ignore it no longer. Wary as he was of pushing the issue, he needed to clear the air once and for all.

  She seemed to see the shift in him just as surely as he’d seen her freeze up at his gaze of adoration. He watched her back away from him as he came to stand.

  “Listen, Yvette.”

  “Yve,” she said with a far-too-brilliant smile. “You can call me Yve.” Her eyes widened with forced humor. “Or Sarah, I guess. Right? I mean, my secret is out so feel free to call me whatever you want.”

  “Yve, I think we should—”

  “You can even call me Al,” she joked as she walked backward so quickly he was certain she’d trip.

  Concern for her odd behavior made him more determined than ever to clear the air. He couldn’t go on with her being scared of him.

  “Yve, please listen to me. I’m sorry for how quickly I moved the other night. I should have waited and—”

  “No need for apologies,” she said, waving a hand as if to bat them out of the air. “Seriously. It’s forgotten.”

  He frowned. Forgotten? They’d slept together. Two nights ago. And it had been amazing. “What do you mean?”

  She brightened a bit at the question. “I mean, it was fun while it lasted but we can just forget it ever happened.” She gave him two thumbs up and a smile that was more of a grimace than a grin. “Deal? Okay, great.”

  Despite his best efforts to keep his demeanor calm and unflappable, he could feel his brows pulling together into a scowl. “Why are you afraid?”

  She jerked back as if he’d struck her and then she laughed far too loudly for the small enclosed space. “Afraid? I’m not afraid.”

  Before he could respond, she continued, pacing in front of him with a nervous energy. “I’m not afraid of anything—except rats. But I’m not afraid of any guys, and especially not you.” She turned to him with an apologetic grimace. “No offense, because you’re tall and all, but I’m pretty sure I could take you in a fight.”

  He studied her, seeing through her defensive joking. No, she was scared. Her protests proved it further. Something about him alarmed her, and he had no idea what.

  Direct questioning was not working. It was time to change tactics. Get to know her better and figure out how to get through to her.

  He looked down at her file once more. Damn. This would all be so much easier if she’d been hit with the same case of love at first sight. As it was, she didn’t even seem to like him.

  The words jumbled together for a moment as he fought off a wave of disappointment so acute it nearly paralyzed him. How did she not feel it too? Wasn’t love supposed to be a reciprocal thing?

  Unless this wasn’t love and it was something far more base, like lust. He glanced over at her and felt the same lava hot desire he felt every time he saw her or touched her or smelled her or thought of her. Yes, this was surely lust. But it was more than that, he’d bet his life on it.

  Infatuation, maybe?

  He tried to analyze what he was feeling as though it were a math problem and not a jumble of feelings so intense and complicated it made him lightheaded.

  Infatuation made sense. Wasn’t that just one-sided love? Unrequited love?

  Disappointment didn’t cover this feeling of his soul being crushed at the very thought that this, whatever this was, was unrequited.

  He rubbed his forehead as he stared at the meaningless words in front of him, trying to make sense of this turn of events. He’d been so certain it was the real deal. And he didn’t even believe in love. Well, he hadn’t until he’d met Yvette. Sarah. His woman, whatever her name was.

  He heard her moving around behind him but he kept his eyes on the paperwork, the safe, mundane, easy-to-understand paperwork. Shuffling through the papers, he found himself calming down, the emotions subsiding as his mind focused on the legal jargon and the list of forms required.

  He sorted through her bank statements and the random W-2s and 1099s that seemed to be thrown together with little thought to order. “Are these all from this year?”

  He lifted his head and saw her eyeing him warily from a safe distance. “Yes. Plus, there were a lot of freelance jobs that I don’t have forms for because they were sort of off the books.” She moved to stand beside him at the table and started sifting through a stack of stuff that seemed to include notebooks, loose papers, magazines, and a few photos. “Here, I have a list around here somewhere.”

  A list. More forms. This he could do. He watched her as she sifted through the pile with a small frown, enjoying the feeling of being once more on even footing. He didn’t like these overwhelming emoti
ons and the erratic mood swings they caused. He decided then and there that he’d rather not be in love. But if this was love, he needed to know it for certain. If it turned out to be just infatuation, he’d immediately take whatever steps necessary to move on.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what steps that included, but he’d figure it out. People dealt with these sort of soft science issues all the time; surely there were steps in place.

  He’d read a book on the subject.

  But, in the meantime, he had to be certain one way or the other.

  His gaze narrowed on Yvette, who seemed oblivious to his scrutiny. The deciding variable that would distinguish love from infatuation was her feelings. As of yet, all he’d been able to discern or her feelings was that she was wary of him, at best.

  He believed her when she’d said she wasn’t scared of him. He was hardly an intimidating man, despite his height. Bookish and quiet, he was more apt to bore a woman to death than intimidate her.

  So no, perhaps she wasn’t scared of him. But she was terrified of something, and it was somehow connected to him.

  His gaze once more flicked over the papers he’d been sorting and soon she thrust a list of even more odd jobs into his hands. And there it was. The answer did indeed lie in the paperwork.

  If there was one thing he could discern from this mess it was that—well, it was that she was disorganized. But, also... His heart started to pick up its pace as a new hypothesis began to emerge.

  She clearly had difficulty committing to a single job. Perhaps that was indicative of her behavior overall. What if she wasn’t scared of him, but of what he represented.

  Hope soared, making his chest expand and his heart threaten to thump its way out of his chest as adrenaline coursed through his veins.

  What if it wasn’t him that scared her, but the way she felt about him?

  She was eyeing him with that wary look again, but this time her wariness gave him a reason to hope. There was only one way to be sure, though.

  Her gaze seemed to be stuck on his lips. Yes, he was smiling, but surely a smile wasn’t so fascinating, not unless his theory was correct.