“Is this seat taken?” The man’s voice was low enough and gravelly enough to start a shiver deep inside Amy.
She looked up to find none other than Mr. Hot standing behind the seat diagonal to hers, sandwich and book in hand. (It was the newest Patterson.) In the common area and food court, the seats were bolted to tables in fours. She had claimed her customary seat by the fountain, where she could see a patch of sky through the atrium overhead. The other three seats were available, as usual.
She was astonished to find him not only addressing her but waiting for her to answer. She pushed up her glasses and cleared her throat. The food court was really full. He just needed somewhere to sit. It wasn’t personal.
Of course not.
“No. Go ahead.” Amy gestured, trying to make it look like a casual invitation. She thought her move looked clumsy or, worse, indifferent.
“That’s what I get for being late,” he said with an easy smile, then sat down. He had a great voice, just growly enough to make her tingle, even when he said something pedestrian. He could read the telephone book to her and she’d be transfixed. Amy decided to imagine him saying other things later, when she couldn’t give herself away. He put down his book, gave the sandwich a skeptical glance, then started to unwrap it. The corner of his mouth tightened in a way that made her want to reach out and touch him.
Gotta flog that mansion staff, spank a few maids, get lunch made on time.
She’d get his lunch packed on time.
Or maybe she wouldn’t, just to be naughty and get disciplined.
Amy fought her urge to giggle.
He cracked open his book, conversation over, and Amy returned to the torment of Melissa. Thank God for book covers. My master has such powerful hands, Melissa thought, stealing a glance, and nearly swooning…
Amy took a covert look at his hands. They were excellent, as men’s hands went. Strong, slightly tanned, long-fingered. No rings.
Maybe he was the kind who didn’t wear one.
He couldn’t be single, could he?
It would be criminal if he was gay.
Her gaze slid over the same sentence seven times but she had no comprehension of what she was reading. His cell phone rang, and Amy gripped her book as if she hadn’t noticed.
Of course, she was listening. Any human would have done the same.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, his patient tone making Amy smile. “No, Mom, I’m not busy.” He sat back to listen, his gaze fixed on the distance, a study in tolerance.
Control. Oh, he had it, that was for sure.
Amy could hear his mom’s chatter coming through the phone. Even without being able to discern the words, she could tell that his mother was wound up about something.
“I think it will be fine, Mom,” he said firmly.
Mom clearly disagreed, her voice rising a little higher.
“I’m sure Katelyn doesn’t expect any different, Mom.” His tone became soothing. “You’ve done it three times now and beautifully. The fourth will be easy.”
Mom declined to be convinced. Her voice rose another notch, although Amy couldn’t make out the words. Who was Katelyn? His wife? His girlfriend? His mom knew her, so she had to be close.
As “Mom” continued, Amy’s lunch companion straightened ever so slightly. He’d had this conversation before. Maybe a lot of times.
He was becoming vexed.
What was he going to do about it? His eyes flashed a little and his lips tightened. Amy crossed her ankles tightly.
“I don’t want to talk about that, Mom.”
Mom clearly did. She was talking faster.
Mr. Yum inhaled sharply and frowned a little.
Amy could have eaten him up with a spoon.
She stared at her book, but had no idea what Melissa was enduring.
And didn’t much care.
To her surprise, her companion picked up the cellophane from his sandwich and began to crush it in his hand, making a crinkling noise. Amy peeked to find him holding it close to the phone. “Lots of static all of a sudden, Mom,” he said, sounding concerned. “Can you still hear me?”
Amy gasped that he would lie like this to his mother.
Although she could totally understand it. Her aunt was infuriating when she was worried about something and wouldn’t abandon the issue.
Maybe she’d steal this trick.
“I can’t hear you,” he said, holding the phone away from his mouth. Their gazes met for an instant and she saw the wicked twinkle in his eyes. Something quivered deep in Amy’s belly at just the implication that they were co-conspirators. “Look, if we get cut off, Mom, I’ll call you back tonight.”
Green eyes. He had green eyes. Thick dark lashes. A little gold halo around the iris. They looked awesome with his chestnut hair. Amy swallowed and forced herself to look down at her book again. She had a full body blush going on and hoped he didn’t notice.
He also had firm lips, the kind that look like sculpture when one corner lifts in laughter. Like his was doing right now. Bite-able, sexy, kissable lips. God, she was a sucker for crooked smiles.
Amy stared at her book, her palms damp.
Even though she wasn’t looking, she was aware that he frowned, mostly because he crackled the cellophane louder and simultaneously dropped his voice. “Yes, yes, I know why you’re worried…”
Then he abruptly ended the call, turned off his cell phone, and dropped it into his pocket. He looked at his sandwich as if he’d rather eat road kill, then picked up his book with a sigh.
Acting like he hadn’t just hung up on his mom.
Amy couldn’t keep silent. “You did that to your mom?”
“An act of desperation,” he confided with a grimace. “Don’t worry. I’ll pay for it later.”
“But she’s your mom!”
“She’s also driving me insane.” He looked exasperated, which was both unexpected and cute.
“Some people say it’s part of the job description.”
His smile was quick and genuine, a flash of perfect teeth that caught Amy by surprise. “There is that,” he admitted ruefully. Her heart skipped as he leaned closer. Amy was transfixed to be the focus of his attention, and that was before he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
It gave her shivers, that whisper.
“My sister is getting married,” he confessed.
“So’s my cousin,” Amy said. “Stressful times for moms.”
He held up four fingers. “My fourth sister is getting married.”
“Four?”
“All younger than me, one married every spring for the past three years. My mom has been in wedding preparation mode non-stop for more than four years.” He sighed, and she sympathized.
“Ouch,” Amy said, unable to imagine how she’d endure her own aunt’s agitation for any longer than the remaining three weeks until Brittany’s wedding.
Let alone Brittany. Her cousin had a serious Bridezilla infection.
“The thing is that it doesn’t take a psychic to know what comes after that.” He gave Amy a steady look, inviting her to guess.
She did. “You’re the last one.”
“And the oldest.” He shook his head and picked up his book. “I’ve had a crappy morning, and just don’t have any spare patience for unfounded concerns about the weather four Saturdays from now. It’ll be what it is, even if the plan is for the ceremony to be in the garden.” He flicked her a look. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll call her after lunch and apologize, then listen patiently to the whole monolog again.”
Amy liked that he told her that. “Perfect son?” she found herself teasing.
“Far from it.” That smile made a brief return appearance. “But since there’s only one son, she has to make do with my shortcomings.”
He started to read, no doubt finding Alex Cross’s adventures more intriguing than Amy found Melissa’s predicament to be in this particular moment. She was amazed that he’d not only talked to her but s
he’d been reasonably coherent.
She hadn’t talked to a lot of men in recent years, especially sexy ones. Doctors. Care facilitators. All conversations had been without sexual charge.
But she’d talked to him, the object of her fantasies, and even made him smile.
It had to be because he seemed nice, nicer than one would expect a billionaire book boyfriend to be. Unscarred. Not tormented beyond getting annoyed with his female relations in the last days before a wedding, which Amy could completely understand.
His interest in her had to be non-existent, so she could continue to employ him in her fantasies. He’d just needed to vent and she’d been convenient. He’d probably forget all about her as soon as he’d had his lunch.
That was a bit of a deflating realization.
The strange thing was that living vicariously through Melissa no longer held Amy’s interest. She was intrigued that Mr. Yum had sisters and family tensions, because that made him more real than the men in her books.
Of course, he was real.
Even more incredible, she and he had something in common. Weddings on the horizon, and mothers of brides knotted up with concern. But he was reading and the conversation was done, and Amy couldn’t think of a clever way to get it started again.
Her mom would have known exactly what to say, which just made Amy miss her even more. Social skills weren’t genetic, apparently. Amy would think of the perfect comment in about five hours or maybe in the middle of the night. She smiled a little, thinking of her mom teasing her about that, and felt more alone than ever.
She checked her watch, realized she was due back upstairs, and packed the last bit of her lunch away. Mr. Yum was so engrossed in his book that he didn’t even glance up as she did so, which proved all her predictions true.
That might have been the end of it, if Amy hadn’t dropped her book.
It slid out of the protective cover when she made a grab for it, as slippery as a fish, then landed face up, right on his expensive and polished shoe.
The cover image left no doubt of the contents.
He looked.
He stared.
Amy was sure she’d die of mortification.
But then he smiled.
* * *
Tyler had always known that you couldn’t really judge a book by its cover, but he never expected the Librarian to be reading something like the book on his shoe.
He’d never heard of it, or the author, but the handcuffs lined with pink fur dangling from the black stiletto shoe on the cover pretty much said it all. He’d noticed earlier that she was nearly done, so there couldn’t be any doubt in her mind what she was reading.
And here he’d imagined that she carefully wrapped her Jane Austen editions to keep them pristine while she read them over and over again.
She gasped when the book fell and then froze when the slipcover came off. All the blood left her face, leaving her pale and horrified, then she blushed redder than he might have believed possible.
Ty was right about the book’s content, then. He bit back the urge to laugh at her reaction, but knew that would only mortify her more.
It was cute how flustered she was. She had to be close to thirty, and he didn’t think there were that many virgins of that age in Manhattan. He would have expected her sexual appetites to be moderate, even predictable.
Which just proved the old adage of books and covers to be true.
Although he called her the Librarian in his thoughts, Ty had no idea what she did for a living. Chances were pretty good that she wasn’t a librarian as there weren’t any libraries in the vicinity. Her appearance just fit the stereotype. Those horn-rimmed glasses. That hair wound up tightly. The conservative separates in navy. Always a white blouse and minimal jewelry.
And the loafers. God, the loafers.
Her shoes were a crime against humanity, given the perfection of her legs. He’d noticed her in the first place because of her legs, then become intrigued by how voraciously she read. It had become a habit to check on her presence, to wonder what she was reading, to be reassured in a curious way that she was so constant. Always the same seat. Nearly the same outfit. Every Friday, she bought a coffee, but only on Friday and just one.
She bit her lip when she read. It was impossibly cute.
She crossed her legs repeatedly, presumably when she got to the good bits. He’d surreptitiously watched her legs more than once. Now that he’d seen the book cover, Ty could guess what those good bits might be and her agitation was even more sexy.
In fact, he could imagine her in a pair of shoes just like the ones on the book cover.
Maybe nothing else.
That was an exciting idea, one that he couldn’t dismiss as quickly as he should have.
In a way, it was funny. In his desperate need of a date, the Librarian seemed like a good and reliable choice. Safe. Predictable. But she was already anything but predictable.
When she’d first glanced up at him, Ty had been struck by her eyes. They were thickly lashed, like the eyes of a doe, and of a rich golden brown color. He could see that her hair was auburn, even with it tightly pulled back, and noticed that her complexion was creamy. She looked more exotic than he’d expected, and he realized it was because her eyes tipped up at the outer corners.
With a little eyeliner and a different hair style, she’d look like Sophia Loren.
She might not have been entirely comfortable in his presence, but she had warmed up quickly. She’d taken him to task over his treatment of his mom. She’d even given him the ideal reason to present his plan to her. He’d intended to mention it casually, just as she was leaving, in the hope that she might just quickly agree.
Too bad the book had fallen before he could open his mouth.
Ty wasn’t used to having his carefully laid plans unravel before his eyes, much less change into something else. That his scheme to get a date for his sister’s wedding had done just that, when he would never have expected otherwise, captured his interest and held it tight.
The book was still on his shoe.
She still looked horrified.
This had to be a moment that called for a gentlemanly touch. Ty picked up the book, as if unsurprised, and glanced at the back copy. “Is it good?”
She exhaled in a rush. “Not bad. I’ve read better and worse.”
Not a new genre for her then. Ty offered the book to her, unable to think of a good segue to what he wanted to ask her.
He wished he could put her at ease. She swallowed visibly, thanked him, and just about snatched the book from his hand. She jammed the book into the black purse she always carried, which was massive enough to be considered luggage. The slip cover was then smashed into the bag on top, then she turned to leave. She was so shaken that Ty had to try to make her smile before she left.
“You’re not going to tell me that you bought it by mistake?” he asked lightly. “Or that your sister insisted you read it?”
Her gaze met his, then she straightened slightly. “No. I don’t have a sister.”
“Lucky you,” he teased but she didn’t smile.
She looked away, then back at him, bristling. “It’s currently a very popular genre.”
“So I’ve heard.” Ty spoke slowly, drawing out the moment, hoping she felt compelled to linger, if only to be polite.
She flicked a suspicious look at him, the way one of his sisters might have done when thinking he meant to give her a hard time. “From your sisters?”
Ty nodded. It was true. “One of them reads those books, too. I don’t understand why, even though she convinced me to see that movie with her.”
“You saw the movie?”
“I hated it.” He gestured to her seat. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Why would I?” She was as suspicious as Paige on being invited to explain her taste in reading.
“Because women are the last great mystery,” he said because he believed it. “Unless it’s just about the sex.”
&nbs
p; The Librarian’s eyes flashed and he thought she might give him a piece of her mind. He was more than ready for it. Embarrassment and anger were doing great things for her.
“It’s not about the sex,” she said fiercely, then sat down hard. He wondered whether her indignation would fog up her glasses, then she leaned across the table. She dropped her voice to a murmur that he doubted she knew was sultry. He would have bet that she also didn’t know she was giving him a glimpse of her cleavage.
She had Ty’s undivided attention.
Now he was the one changing how he sat.
“It’s about the healing power of love,” she said with fervor. She tapped a fingertip on the table, conviction in her gaze. “It’s about someone who is ruined and scarred and tormented finally finding peace and salvation. It’s about a woman making a difference to a man because of her love.”
Ty thought of that movie. He braced his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist, leaning closer to her. “How is it sexy for a guy messed up enough to be a serial killer to be obsessed with a woman?”
“Because she can heal him.”
“You believe that?” Ty shook his head. “A guy like that belongs in jail.”
She exhaled. “You don’t get it.”
“No, I don’t. No means no. Unless all that garbage about no meaning yes is true.”
She frowned and pushed up her glasses. “It’s not.” She bit her lip, seeking a way to explain. “It’s because she’s the focus of his world, to the exclusion of everything else. It’s sexy that he can’t think of anything or anyone else, that he becomes obsessed.”
“There’s a justification for every stalker on the planet.”
“No!”
“What’s the difference?”
“She’s complicit. She wants it, that’s the difference.”
“That’s the rationalization of every stalker and rapist,” Ty felt compelled to note.
She eyed him. “You really don’t get it.”
“No, I don’t. Why would a woman with any self-respect want a stalker? Why would a woman want a guy to tie her up and ‘discipline’ her, or keep her as his sex slave? What kind of relationship is that?” Ty flung out a hand, his own protective instinct toward women feeding his exasperation. “Why would anyone fantasize about that?”
Simply Irresistible Page 2
