Stripped (Travesty Book 2)

by Lawson, Piper

  Nate didn’t once look down for a sheet of paper or waver in his delivery. I’d figured Nate would be smooth, but it was more than that. It was as if he were speaking from his heart to every person here.

  “Close your mouth.” A whisper sounded near my ear.

  Lex was right. I’d been watching with my mouth open wide enough the waiters could’ve flipped mini-quiches in from twenty feet.

  The way he spoke intimately, passionately, to a roomful of strangers made it harder to remember he was damaged goods. If I’d seen him tonight for the first time, I would’ve been on the superhighway to crushdom.

  When Nate finally, thankfully finished, the crowd applauded enthusiastically.

  “I need a break,” I whispered to Lex. The room was too hot. “When I get back I’ll smile and kiss any asses you want.”

  I ran to the bathroom, downing a shot on the way.

  Splashing some water on my neck helped me calm down. I braced my hands on the sides of the sink, wishing I had that check on the bulletin board to look at.

  After last winter I’d put Nate in a box. When we met he’d been magnetic, charismatic, intriguing. He was also scarred, argumentative, and a jerk.

  Alone in this bathroom I could admit it to myself: he wasn’t an entirely unattractive package. But every man had some redeeming qualities, and with him the good couldn’t be enough to outweigh the bad. I’d just ignore the way my heart had picked up when he’d spoken in that room.

  And definitely wouldn’t think about him naked.

  Sharing a lawsuit and a building, we were bound to cross paths. But there was no reason I couldn’t do it with grace.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror, lifting my chin. The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. I could be mature. Poised. Channel Jackie Kennedy or Princess Grace. When I saw him I’d nod, but not smile. Acknowledge him but not engage.

  “Mr. Townsend.” I tried it on. Weirdness.

  “Nathan.” Better.

  I was proud of my newfound resolve. I could totally handle being around Nate Townsend without my head or my girl-parts exploding.

  When I left the bathroom, people were milling around the art that covered the walls, the floor, and, in the case of one big installation, the ceiling. I took my time, wandering past sculptures and paintings. They were beautiful and diverse.

  I stopped in front of one particular painting that called to me. The giant canvas was splattered with grays and reds and titled Apart. Looking at it wrenched at me, like I was being ripped in two by invisible forces. What had the artist felt when she’d painted it? Had she set out to move people? To make them feel what I felt, or something else? Or just to put paint on a canvas because that’s what she got up every morning burning to do?

  I picked up her card and stashed it in my clutch.

  Chapter 7

  Nate

  By the time I escaped to the hall after my speech, I’d done a year’s worth of smiling. My face felt tight. So did my collar.

  Playing Big Man, even for something as important as this charity, still wore on me. I’d taken classes in public speaking in high school, honed it through college, but no matter how many speeches I gave or how much I practiced, I was on edge every second. Probably because when I looked around, I saw a room full of sharks waiting to say He’s not his father.

  I wove through the crowd, moving sightlessly past the art. A flash of dark chestnut stopped me in my tracks.

  Ava Cameron was standing alone in the hall admiring a painting.

  I watched her in profile, a voyeur. Her lips quirked like she and the painting shared some secret joke.

  Finally, Ava turned her head. Her pink mouth fell open and she stared up at me with wide green eyes, like I’d just caught her masturbating in public instead of appreciating art.

  This woman might’ve been tiny, but looking at her delivered a punch to the gut worthy of a heavyweight champ. No matter what she’d stolen from Bryson, there was no denying her eyes were more alive than anything I’d ever seen. It was impossible to look at her full lips without thinking of what they felt like. Tasted like. And Christ, the fitted, skin-colored dress reminded me of everything that was underneath.

  But it wasn’t just that. It was the defiant way she looked up at me once she recovered, like she was daring me to find fault with her. Ava reminded me of the peonies that used to stubbornly grow in the middle of my mother’s rose garden. Beautiful and unapologetically unique.

  “Is this a lawyer art gallery too?” she asked. Her delicate gold earrings shimmered when she tilted her head, raising an arched brow to look at me.

  I got her reference to our run-in the previous week. “Sadly, no. But I can’t guarantee you won’t see any. We lawyers like to hide in plain sight.”

  I’d told myself I’d stay away from the girl who’d thrown me out of orbit last year with her big, unblinking green eyes and confident smile. That it’d be easiest, for me and for my career, to keep as much space between us as I could manage. It probably would’ve worked if she hadn’t rented Carl’s apartment. Now she was close enough to think about but not close enough to touch.

  “Are you here with someone?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Tall redhead, wicked hot. Answers to Lex. You?”

  “My date.” I gestured behind me toward the main hall where I’d left Abby talking with friends after my speech. Surprisingly, she was visible down the hall, talking with one of the charity’s donors.

  “Abby’s an old family friend,” I went on for no good reason. “We’ve known each other forever. You know how these things are.”

  “Is that like an arranged marriage? Does she come with goats? Or do you bring the goats?” Her eyebrows drew together like she was trying to figure it out.

  I swallowed a chuckle. “I’m not sure.”

  Ava’s eyes glinted up at me with mischief. “You can’t be a very good lawyer if you don’t know who brings the goats,” she replied lightly.

  Something had shifted in her tone. Not only was she not attacking me. If I hadn’t deemed it impossible, I would’ve thought she was flirting with me.

  I didn’t have the first clue what to do with that but I needed her eyes off me for a moment before I turned into a stuttering idiot.

  “Tell me about this.” I tilted my chin toward the canvas in front of us.

  Ava cocked a brow. “So you think that being a designer makes me an art expert.”

  “Something like that. And don’t tell me this painting doesn’t do anything for you. I saw the way you were looking at it.”

  “How was I looking at it?”

  I searched for the right words. “Like you wanted to crawl inside it and never leave.”

  Her eyes widened. “Huh,” was her only response before she turned toward the painting.

  Ava studied the canvas, her gaze running over the colors, shapes, textures. It was called Together Now and had big brushstrokes of pink and yellow.

  While she studied it, I studied her.

  “It’s incredible,” she said finally. “But what makes it art?”

  I had no clue where she was going. “Well, it’s a painting. Isn’t it?” I frowned.

  She turned back to me. “No, I mean is it art because it came from someone’s head? Does that make it special somehow? Or is it art when some lawyer is ready to defend it?”

  The question made me shift uncomfortably. I knew she was thinking about the case, but I didn’t want to get into it. I shouldn’t be talking with her at all, not to mention about the lawsuit.

  “Nate?” she prompted.

  My eyes locked on her mouth like a magnet. I was suddenly thinking about those lips again. Where they’d been. Where they could be.

  I cleared my throat, tried for cool. “Sorry, it’s just—you’ve never called me that.”

  Confusion clouded her expression. “It’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” I could hardly explain to her my sudden impulse to drag her into the b
athroom, kick everyone else out, and bury myself in her while she moaned my name with that pink mouth.

  Calm the hell down or you’ll be making small talk with New York’s best and brightest sporting a raging boner.

  I turned back to the painting. The longer I looked at it, the more I saw different things. The movement. The way the paint was clumped on the canvas. I suddenly wondered what it felt like.

  Without thinking, I stretched out a finger toward the canvas. Ava grabbed it in mid-air.

  “You can’t touch it,” she hissed, eyes wide. Her touch lit me up, the simplicity of her skin brushing mine sending waves of feeling rippling through me.

  “Why not?” I challenged, suddenly feeling more alive than I had all night. Plus, I couldn’t believe she was suddenly reprimanding me for my conduct.

  “I’m supposed to be on good behavior. And this is a really nice place.” She looked around furtively.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  My smile gradually pulled one out of her, and when she smiled, really relaxed into it, it completely stole my breath.

  “You surprised me tonight,” Ava said after a moment. “Playing Robin Hood in there.”

  “I’m just doing what I can to help.” It’d always seemed like a small thing, but one I liked to do, and needed to.

  “That’s why I’m going to do you a favor and give you some advice. But this is a one-time thing,” she warned, squaring her body to mine.

  I matched her posture, ignoring the realization that if I took a step closer, or she did, we’d be pressed together. “Understood. Hit me with this great advice.”

  “Your date? Definitely looking to upgrade her label.”

  I shook my head, suddenly lost. “Come again. In English.”

  “It means you’ve got a bull’s-eye on your forehead and that girl—” she glanced toward Abby “—came ready for some big game hunting.”

  “No way.” Abby and I had been friends almost twenty years. But I glanced toward my date, suddenly less confident. An ex had accused me of understanding everything in the world better than I understood women. It was probably true. “Really?”

  Ava held up a hand like she was testifying. “That girl is ready to whip a ball and chain out of her clutch and hog-tie you with it.”

  I looked at Ava’s tiny bag in horror. “Do all women carry that around?”

  “I’m not in the market.” She smiled again, easy and genuine, her eyes sparking with laughter.

  My chest tightened involuntarily. I could get used to her smiling at me like that. But more than that, it surprised me to realize I was having a great time just talking with this girl. No expectations, no having to prove myself…

  We were interrupted when a friend of my father’s walked up to us. “Nathan, nice to see you here. Your father would be proud. That was a damn good speech.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Donnelly.” I shook the hand he reached out before he continued on his way along the hall.

  I turned back to Ava, who was watching with a raised brow. “How was the speech, really?” I half-whispered. “You may as well be honest. No one else here will be.”

  Uncertainty crossed her face for the first time.

  “Come on,” I coaxed. “Lashing out at me does you good. So let me have it.”

  Instead she just touched her earring, sending it shimmering again. Then shrugged a shoulder. “As much as I’d love to say you sucked and that I had to sing Beyoncé in my head to keep from falling asleep? You were … kind of terrific, Suit. I can tell you really care about the cause.”

  Somehow her praise sent blood pumping through my body, reawakening parts I’d been ignoring for at least … oh, five minutes.

  But more than that, I was grateful she’d noticed how much it mattered to me. I glanced around us. The well-dressed crowd. The tinkling laughter. The glamor. All of it had its place. But it obscured the real reason we were there: that people on the streets of this city were vulnerable, they needed help. They didn’t deserve to be stigmatized.

  “Your timing couldn’t be better,” I murmured, taking a step closer without deciding to. I wanted to put a hand over her heart. See if it was hammering like mine. “See, my ego’s been taking a beating lately. Something about tiny brunettes who eat lawyers for breakfast.”

  Just a breath away, her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t pull back. I realized the scent that had been gradually seeping into me for the past ten minutes was her. Like honey and roses.

  I couldn’t help it when my gaze dropped to her mouth.

  Ava realized it the same time I did and she lifted a hand between us like she was warding me off. “Don’t do that,” she said in a voice that didn’t match her words.

  “I didn’t move,” I reminded her softly. “You were the one doing your voodoo magic on me.” I couldn’t resist letting my eyes play over her heart-shaped face. Her flawless skin, that mouth that wouldn’t get out of my head.

  Her eyebrows drew together as she grasped for words. “Nate, you can’t flash that junk all over the place. You’ll hurt someone.”

  “I wasn’t … flashing my junk.” I glanced down to be sure. When I looked back up she was staring at me, perplexed and irritated and something I wanted to name but couldn’t.

  “I didn’t mean your— Dammit!” she said, dropping her voice as she realized we’d turned a few heads already. “I’m not some party girl looking for a story to tell her friends,” she said urgently. “Or some socialite lining up to get ‘Mrs. Nathan Townsend’ tattooed on her ass. Even if you are an epic lay. So take the tenth-generation inbred Prince Charming shit and save it for someone else.” She finally stopped, her chest heaving, fists balled at her sides, and cheeks pink against the light tan of her skin.

  Christ. Ava Cameron, you’ll be the death of me.

  A slow grin stretched across my face. It was going to earn me a beating, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe she’d repeat those words so I could record them. Listen to them on an endless loop. Remix them with my running playlist …

  “You think I’m that good, kitten?”

  Her eyes flared with awareness, and fuck. I knew she remembered.

  Ava shoved me with her hands. “That’s what you took from what I said? You are unbelievable.”

  The blood was still humming in my veins, testament to the effect her words had on me. “Yes, I listen,” I replied levelly. “When a girl’s telling me I’m an ‘epic lay.’”

  Well, that was adorable. I’d known I could make her shout, but apparently I could make her blush too.

  “Since I’ve clearly pumped up your ego to the size of a small country, my work here is done,” Ava bit out, drawing the attention of the people nearest to us. She ignored them, spinning around and stomping off.

  “I don’t think Junior League encourages tattoos,” I called after her.

  I was feeling better than I had in weeks. For whatever twisted reason, I loved getting a rise out of her.

  Which was a risky proposition. Because the craving to be around her was growing. And that was something neither of us was ready for.

  “There you are.” Abby’s voice near my ear a moment later made me turn. “I thought I’d lost track of you for the night.”

  “I ran into someone I didn’t expect.”

  What if Abby made my blood boil a fraction of the way Ava did? I wondered it as my long-time friend looked up at me, blue eyes shining as she tucked an invisible strand of blond hair behind her pearl-clad ear.

  Life would be a helluva lot less complicated.

  Chapter 8

  Ava

  “There you are,” Lex said when I found her in the main hall. She looked ready to bubble over. “Kirsten just introduced me to the director at Cosmo UK! Great, right? I tried to find you, but—”

  “That’s amazing, Lex, really. And no worries, I was looking at the art.” Which was true, even if it wasn’t the art that had made my pulse racing.

  “Nice. I think we’ve maxed out this eveni
ng. Want to get a drink somewhere where the average age is under sixty?”

  “Ohgodyesplease.”

  I was making a beeline for the coat check when I heard my name. Turning, I saw a tall guy with dirty-blond hair excuse himself from a conversation a few feet away. He looked at me, eyes warming. “Josh, remember?”

  Oh, I remember. I let my eyes run over him, his navy suit impeccably tailored.

  “I’m going to grab our coats,” Lex said to me. I handed over my ticket and she shot me a look that said Details later before turning to get in the line.

  “So is this a typical Friday night for you?” I asked teasingly.

  He leaned toward me and I could smell his cologne, warm and a little spicy. “Not really,” he confided in a low voice. “I’m here to cut holes in rich people’s pockets. See what falls out.” Josh flashed a self-deprecating smile.

  It was refreshing to hear someone say it.

  “Want to make a run for it?” I offered.

  “I wish I could, but I’m representing the firm. Rich septuagenarians are our favorite variety.”

  “I get it. You need to pay for all your nice law firm wood.” I was thinking of John’s offices.

  Josh barked out a laugh. “What about my nice firm wood?”

  “Because law offices always have this—” I finally realized how it’d sounded. “Never mind.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who brought up my wood.”

  I groaned at his bad joke. “I’m not even going to touch that.”

  That made it worse. “This is just a downward spiral.” We looked at one another for a moment before grinning at the same time. “Hey. Can I ask you something crazy?” he asked.

  “I invented crazy.”

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Well, I have to work, but after that … What are we doing tomorrow?”

  His face lit up. I was glad to be part of something good for a change.

  Who knows, I wondered as I caught up with Lex, shooting a look over my shoulder. Maybe Josh is just what I need.