Bedazzled (The Beguiling Bachelors Book 1)

by Madison Michael

  It hit Keeli hard to admit that this man would always be out of her reach. They came from different worlds. On a whim, he bought a ring for this week’s date that cost more she would spend on July rent. He was not likely to ever give her a second thought. Clarice was right. It was time to let go of her dream man and start living in the real world.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Two weeks later, the scene was as different as night and day, or rather, rain and shine. This small downtown art festival was so wet and cold, more autumn weather than June. Many of the artists traveling from out of state had locked up their merchandise, tied down the flaps of their booths and given up hours ago. Keeli couldn’t blame them. Attendance was understandably low and she had waited until almost 4pm to pack it in too. Only a desperate need for funds had kept her shivering in place that long.

  Sales yesterday had been dismal, like the weather, so she stayed open for the intermittent opportunities that presented themselves, grateful when they came. Otherwise, she sat huddled in her cheap leather coat making a dent in “Crime and Punishment”.

  She stomped her feet regularly in an effort to keep them warm, but the Keds were soaked through and her jean legs had a two-inch hem of sopping material. Her hair was wild and frizzing, so that even pulled back in a band she had to keep moving it out of her face. There was no sign of a let up and it was so dark under the overcast sky that she had to squint to make out Dostoyevsky’s immortal words.

  All she had sold since lunch was two pairs of earrings, to two women from out of town that took her card with the promise to order more. She was fortunate to make that sale and their appreciation of her workmanship briefly cheered her up.

  At 4:00 p.m., Keeli resigned herself to the quiet. This fair was not large enough to attract Wyatt, even if the bad weather wasn’t discouraging enough. So, she was not watching for Wyatt at all. Instead, she began packing up. Clarice was here somewhere, trying to eke out those last few Sunday sales too. She was set up around the corner, down the entire length of tents, too far for a visit. They grabbed lunch together a few hours ago, but the warmth provided by the hearty chicken soup had worn off long ago.

  Keeli texted her to say she was giving up and going indoors, but Clarice, the traitor, had gone home more than an hour earlier. She locked her jewelry, made a plan with Clarice to come back with the van after 7 o’clock and promptly at 4 o’clock she pulled down the flap and made a run for it. She braved the downpour only as far as the Cultural Center across the street.

  Once inside the neoclassical building, she dropped into a metal chair in the lobby, grateful to find a seat with all the tourists coming and going. She took a moment to admire the mosaics and ceilings before watching dejectedly as her clothes left a large puddle on the tile floor. She would give it half an hour to let up and dry off a bit. She wished she had thought to run to Starbucks instead. Tea right now would have warded off a bit of her chill but she was not ready to head back outside. Instead, she hunched over her book.

  Minutes later, Keeli’s face was buried in her book, her hair dripping onto the table around it, when someone thrust a steaming Starbucks cup under her nose. The movement startled her and she knocked her book to the wet floor.

  “Damn it, I was trying to do something nice. I am so sorry.” His head was bent retrieving her book so she could not see his face. Although she had not heard that low mellow voice often, Keeli knew it was Wyatt by the reaction of her heart. She resisted reaching out to touch him before he rose back up to his full height and dropped into the seat next to her.

  “I brought a coffee, but I usually see you drinking iced tea at these things, so I brought a hot tea too.” He looked rugged and handsome. He was wearing a Patagonia raincoat, jeans and boots built to handle the rain. His hair was slicked back from his forehead with product but the curls sprung free near his neck.

  He knows I drink iced tea? He noticed me? Keeli was staggered, delighted and flustered.

  “You are an angel. Tea, I will take the tea.” She reached for the warm cup greedily. “Thank you so much.”

  He reached in a pocket to pull out sugar and Splenda, both a little soggy. She seized the Splenda, busied herself preparing the tea, removed the protective sleeve from the cup then wrapped her hands around it.

  “Mm mm, so good.” Keeli sighed with contentment, sipping the hot liquid. “Perfection.” She took a deep drink. Using just the tips of her thumb and forefinger, she removed the soggy book from the table where Wyatt had placed it and tried to compose herself.

  What was he doing here? Who cared? OMG, he is here, now, with me.

  “My pleasure,” Wyatt’s stormy blue eyes probed hers, seeming to ask a question, then the moment was gone. “I will replace your book. I feel terrible about it.”

  “Oh don’t, really. First, I bought it for, like nothing, at a used bookstore. Second, I really hate it. Don’t tell anyone though. I am trying to get some culture.” She said the last sarcastically, pronouncing with a thick Bronx accent so it sounded like “cul-ja”.

  They sat close together and shared a laugh. She had never been face to face like this with him. Never been this close before or since the day in the elevator. She leaned in surreptitiously, trying to get even closer. She caught his clean outdoor aroma and the heavy, underlying scent of rain that clung to them both.

  “Were you working today? I noticed you always have a pretty serious book at the art festivals. I wondered about that.” He didn’t ask her directly, instead leaving the observation hanging so she would explain. Wyatt seemed curious to know more about her but she avoided an explanation, answering question with question.

  “What are you doing out in this miserable weather? Only people who need to be out are braving it today. You don’t live around here.”

  “Oh, and you know that, do you? What else do you think you know about me?” His tone was accusatory, but his smile was indulgent.

  As the words left her mouth, Keeli knew she had given herself away.

  “I could go on for hours,” she teased, “but you will think I am a stalker. Seriously, what are you doing out in this horrid rain?”

  “Would you believe I came to bring you coffee?” There was a twinkle in his eye so that Keeli was not quite sure he was joking.

  “Of course, my knight in shining armor.” Wyatt leapt up, stepped back and dropped into a graceful bow, rising with a smile that sent her pulses racing. His flamboyant movement was as smooth as any musketeer’s and his insouciance charmed her

  “Seriously? I was at an appointment on the next block. I was cutting through to avoid the rain when I saw you shivering over here. So I went to grab some Starbucks and brought it back.”

  “Appointment on a Sunday?” Keeli was not going to slip up again. He did not need to learn that she Googled him almost daily and was well aware that he was working around the clock on a deal just two blocks south. His 23rd floor condo overlooking the lake was also less than a mile from here to the north, so he could have been cutting through on his way home.

  It made perfect sense. It was logical. Or was it fate? Keeli wanted to believe in fate, since that validated her desires, confirmed to her that they belonged together.

  Keeli followed Wyatt’s every move in the business pages. She knew he was working on the nearby deal. She read the gossip columns for pictures of a tuxedoed Wyatt at some black tie benefit, even watched the sports pages for pictures of him in tennis garb or hockey skates. She could almost predict his favorite foods since he repeatedly took his clients to the same restaurants for meetings. She found something about him on Google almost every day, but she didn’t mention that now.

  “Real estate business never sleeps.” Wyatt shrugged his shoulders with a little boy grin and a “what can you do” look. “What’s your excuse?”

  “Money,” she responded bluntly. “I needed the money, so I worked the Millennium festival. Not a good choice this year.”

  “Well, I guess that was honest. Why not do something a bit more predic
table than these fairs?”

  Since he seemed interested, she continued. “This is the second year I am doing these juried fairs. I do Etsy too, since it is more year round, but I quit working for a store to pursue my own designs. It’s been almost six months but, to be honest, I thought things would take off before now.”

  “Since they haven’t, I spend my weekends freezing or sweltering and catching up on some reading. Today I had to turn off a lot of the lights, to avoid electrocution,” she shrugged her shoulders in defeat, “so I gave up.”

  He said nothing but nodded his understanding and encouragement to continue. She found him surprisingly easy to talk to.

  “As for the books...” she went on, self-conscious again, “it’s hard to stay on your feet for 10 hours a day, especially when it’s also a set up or take down day.” Keeli explained that setting up or closing up her booth could take her a couple hours and involved a lot of loading, unloading and carrying. “My jewelry may be light,” she quipped, “but the packaging and the booth display weigh a ton.”

  “Anyway, I hate listening to people discuss my work. It’s as if they think I have no feelings,” she stopped short of whining, “So to camouflage my vulnerability, I learned to bring a book. Sometimes I read it, sometimes I just pretend, but it saves me from hearing a lot of the things I find demoralizing or hurtful.”

  Keeli took a deep breath, smoothed her furrowed brows and shook off the bad vibe, flashing him a bright smile. “Am I talking too much?

  “Not at all. I find it fascinating. I never thought about the toll on the artist of doing so many fairs.”

  “I get why people sell through stores and galleries. I compare it to the pain of a mother hearing someone call her baby ugly – weekend after weekend.”

  “So why do you do it?” He meant it sincerely. “It sounds brutal to me.”

  “And we come full circle,” she laughed freely again. “Money. This will all be worth it if I sell enough, or get a following or a commission.”

  She kept to herself that after six months of Etsy, art shows and knocking on the doors she had run out of time and options. Keeli didn’t share that she had burned through the last of the dollars she set aside to buy precious metals and gemstones and wondered if she could continue at all. She said none of this, but her smile faded, her expressive green eyes grew bluer as a worried expression moved across her solemn face. She lifted a hand to smooth back her disheveled hair. Her movements told the complete story.

  “Ah, demon money,” he lightened the tone. “At the root of all our problems, is it not?”

  “Like you have money problems,” she chided him, but stopped herself from taking it further because he had a sudden, stricken look and she felt him pull away, putting distance between them in an instant.

  What had she said to offend him?

  Trying to recapture that intimacy, she tried teasing him. "You can afford two Grande coffees at Starbucks, so how broke can you be, really?”

  “One is tea,” he corrected, with some of his light mood returning.

  “Yes, it was amazing that you knew I liked tea. I had no idea.”

  “Oh yes, I know a great deal about you, Keeli Larsen.” Wyatt was looking at her like he wanted to devour her, eyes scrutinizing her green gaze, staying there momentarily before slowly shifting toward her lips and locking there.

  He is going to kiss me! Please god, let him kiss me. Keeli felt that quick tightening in her belly, a tingling on her skin. The arousal was fast and fierce. If just a look got this reaction, what would the kiss do?

  Keeli felt a pull toward him that was all consuming. She did not care that they were in a public place, that she strongly resembled a drowned rat. She craved him, leaned toward him, longing to feel his arms come around her and pull her to his chest, crushing her there. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and watched his eyes flare with desire. She was being pulled to him with an invisible, unbreakable string. Her breath came fast between her lips, her heart threatened to explode in her chest.

  Wyatt’s cellphone rang at that moment, startling them both, breaking the spell that had descended. She hid her disappointment watching the heat leave his eyes. When he turned away to take the call privately, he was all business again. She knew the moment was lost.

  Catching just hints of the conversation, Keeli felt her heartbeat return to normal and the heat coursing through her body cool. She could tell he was talking about a property deal.

  “I gotta go,” he said first into the phone, then to her.

  “Thank you again for the tea. It was really thoughtful.”

  Really, that is all you can say?

  He took her hand in his warm, larger one. She leaned toward him, but then he dropped her hand and repeated, “I gotta go. See you soon?” As quickly as she could nod yes, he was gone.

  What had just happened? How had things gone south so fast?

  Keeli shivered with the cold that Wyatt had kept at bay. A warm shower could not come soon enough. Giving herself a mental shake, she replayed the last half hour in her brain. Maybe the kiss had all been her imagination? He left quickly enough, and with no plans to see her again. She reinforced her resolve to move on reminding herself again that a relationship with Wyatt was a fantasy.

  He was friendly, maybe he tried to steal a kiss, but clearly, it meant nothing to him. But he knew I liked tea, he knew about me. I have to stop reading something into his every kind gesture. But he did say he would see me, I think that’s good. He didn’t ask me out, though, and I suspect that is very, very bad.

  And what about the elevator? How can he not remember me from the elevator? Or maybe he does remember, but then he should have said something. Or I should have said something. Damn, this is so confusing.

  The rain was letting up and it was almost time to meet Clarice and take down her display. Good thing too. With no book to read, Keeli was very grateful to be rescued from her thoughts.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Friday night at Gibson’s Steakhouse. The Frog Bar was packed on weekends, but the guys had been meeting here since graduate school. The bartenders and servers knew them and treated them well and frankly, the women were very hot.

  Wyatt tossed his keys to the young valet, Joe, knowing he would leave the Panamera right in front of the door. After all, a showy car attracted the “right” sort of people to the restaurant. Of course, a Maserati or Ferrari might bump him around the corner, but as a regular, he trusted Joe to keep his baby close and safe.

  Pushing through the doors, Wyatt sauntered in, flirting briefly with the hostess before heading in to find the boys waiting in their usual spot. The handsome trio was huddled around a high-top close enough to the bar for great service but far enough away to be relatively quiet, considering the din. Wyatt saw some stunning women in short skirts casually lingering nearby. He knew after a few drinks that the women would be clinging to the four of them, hoping for more as the night grew later. After the long week, Wyatt intended to hang with the guys for a while but be gone before the meat market was in full force.

  After a quick handshake-backslap combo with Tyler, Wyatt repeated the gesture with Randall and Alex who returned the backslap saying, “Hey, can we try to hold the girls at bay for a while? It’s been weeks and it would be great to catch up.” Since Wyatt agreed with Randall, he took it upon himself to address the women already moving in for the kill.

  “Ladies, aren’t we men the fortunate ones tonight? You all look amazing.” Wyatt was implementing management 101 skills - always preface bad news with good news. “Let us buy you a round of drinks and have them sent over to your table,” he smoothly herded them to the far side of the bar. “You understand we would love your company, but the fact is that we have business to conduct.”

  “How does he do that?“ Randall said to Tyler as he watched Wyatt lead the women away.

  “He reels them in, then throws them back and they never know what hit them,” Alex explained. Wyatt returned alone after signali
ng the server to send the women a round on him. The server headed over to the cluster of giggling woman and the men were left alone leaning their heads close together.

  It had been a few weeks since the four of them had been out like this. Wyatt, Tyler Winthrop, Randall Parker III and Alexander Gaines were fraternity brothers and the oldest and tightest of friends. Raised together in Lake Forest, they had played little league together, won the state tennis championship as members of the same high school team, and eventually pledged the same fraternity. Tyler and Wyatt forgave Randall for pledging Sigma Chi at Duke instead of Cornell, and Alex for doing the same at Stanford, but not until giving them both a major ration of shit. Tyler had impressed them all by going to Northwestern Law after getting his MBA. Now they called him “Professor” when he annoyed them.

  The four had converged again back in Chicago to finish in the top of their class at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business. That had been almost 10 years ago, and all had become highly successful and remained bachelors. Family pressures to wed and have children were suffocating, but the men still managed to get together regularly for sports, drinks, vacations in Aspen or Lake Tahoe and to play the field. More like brothers than friends, they each knew the others had their back, and always would.

  “What’s the word, boys?” Wyatt queried as if he had not seen them this morning at the prestigious East Bank Club. They were serious about fitness and rarely exchanged more than a few words when they passed each other running track or pumping iron so this was their chance to catch up.

  “That is what we want to know,” Tyler started right in; Wyatt knew there is no reprieve in sight. He had been expecting an interrogation and now he would get one.

  “Did you make a decision yet? Have you taken the VC offer?”

  “Have you told your father?” Alex probed before Wyatt could answer Tyler’s rapid-fire questions.