by Katee Robert
Elle slammed open her bedroom door and rushed into the bathroom. Without waiting for the water to heat up, she stepped in and reached for her body wash and pouf. As quickly as possible, she lathered up and scrubbed her skin, desperate to remove every reminder of last night. No matter how hard she scrubbed, though, she couldn’t erase the memory of his fingers inside her, his lips on hers, his arms holding her close.As if she actually mattered to him.They were complete strangers. What a horrid joke.
She’d apologized to him, she realized. On her way out the door, she’d actually apologized. Indignation cut through the edges of her misery. Why had she apologized? This wasn’t her fault. He was the one who let her make a fool of herself. A man with any sort of morals—no matter how dangerously attractive— would’ve put a stop to her botched seduction the second she slipped into his bed.
Which was just further proof that Elle had awful taste in men.
She ducked her head under the spray and stayed like that for a long time, very carefully not thinking about anything but the way the water seemed to cleanse her, washing away the lingering panic. She refused to think about how good the man had made her feel. How her body still throbbed with latent desire.
Elle got out of the shower, dried off, and threw on an oversize shirt. There was only one thing that would make her even a little bit better right now.
She hurried into the spare bedroom that she’d converted into a studio and yanked out a spare canvas. Forcing herself to slow down, she picked up her palette and started with wide, sweeping strokes, laying the background that the final picture would ultimately emerge from. After picking out one of her favorite stock photos—a gorgeous shirtless man with washboard abs—she flipped on her favorite mix of classical music. Slowly, oh so slowly, the tension left her muscles as she started in on the subject itself.
Everything would be okay. It had to be. With a deep breath, Elle gave herself over to painting, letting herself relax into it. For a time, there were only the motions of dipping her brush, of stroking it over the canvas, of blending the colors together.
The painting evolved slowly, forming into a man’s bare chest. It was a nice chest, with wide shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist. Not a swimmer’s body like the man in her stock photo, though—there was too much bulk in the muscles for that kind of lean strength.
She blinked. Why did that chest look so familiar?
The realization dawned on her, nightmarishly slow. Oh God, it was him.
With a shriek, she flung her brush across the room. This was ridiculous. It was everything she could do not to haul the painting out back and take a blowtorch to the canvas. Elle grabbed one of the spare sheets she kept to cover the carpet. With careful, concise motions, she draped it over the canvas, turned, and walked out of the room, shutting the door softly behind her.
Last night happened. It was over. Soon, she’d have to face the consequences. But not yet. Tomorrow was another day and she’d deal with it then.
Despite her pep talk, the memories still swarmed on the edge of her consciousness, circling like sharks scenting blood in the water, waiting for one more misstep to tear her to pieces.
3
“You did what?”
Without looking up, Elle systematically shredded her napkin. It gave her something to focus on besides the incredulous brunette across the table. “You know—what we talked about.”
“You slept with—” Roxanne looked around and lowered her voice. “You slept with Nathan?”
She could have yelled it to the heavens—there was no one in the coffee shop but Marge, and the old woman was half deaf. Elle resumed her shredding, tearing the strips into neat little squares. “No.”
“Oh, thank God. For a second there I’d thought you’d lost your mind and actually gone through with it.”
Elle forced herself to meet Roxanne’s green eyes. She’d always thought they were so much prettier than her basic blue ones. And, yes, she was most definitely stalling. “I didn’t sleep with Nathan… I mean, I almost did. Except…whoever it was that I climbed into bed with, he wasn’t Nathan.”
Thinking about it again had anger curdling in her stomach. After her botched attempt to paint, an entire day spent scrubbing her house from top to bottom still hadn’t helped the knowledge sit any easier. Not only had she not recognized that the man she was intimate with wasn’t Nathan, she had enjoyed it. And that was just freaking unacceptable.
It wasn’t her fault, though. She was sticking to her guns on that point. There’s no way she could have known it wasn’t Nathan touching her and setting her body on fire. She’d even whispered his name before crawling into bed and he’d answered, for God’s sake. Okay, she’d been really quiet and he’d kind of sighed in response, but she’d done her due diligence. He should’ve stopped her the second she touched him.
Yes, this was most definitely his fault.
As much as she liked this revelation, she hated that her treacherous body reacted every time she so much as pictured his face. It had all felt so good while she was doing it that she wondered how good actual sex would have been—which was, again, freaking unacceptable.
Roxanne paled beneath her perfect tan. “Honey, I think you’d better go back to the beginning and try that again.”
She really, really didn’t want to, but there was no arguing with the look on her friend’s face. “Nathan made a comment about working on a new design this weekend, so I figured it was the perfect time. I even went out and bought” —she lowered her voice— “lingerie.” That she’d left behind. Elle’s face heated. She was no better than Cinderella leaving her glass slipper at the ball like a calling card. There’d be no way to keep Nathan from finding out about this. Yet another unforgivable sin to lay at the stranger’s feet.
“Moving right along…”
Might as well get her humiliation out in the open. Elle took a gulp of her latte and nearly choked on the too-hot liquid. Okay, not the greatest idea she ever had. Then again, neither was Saturday night. “I… seduced him. Or something. Either way, we ended up in bed together. I thought it was Nathan.” And it’d been amazing. Beyond amazing. Her thighs clenched at the memory of how it felt when Nathan— But it wasn’t Nathan. “It was a freaking stranger and that… that…asshole almost let me sleep with him.”
Roxanne blinked. “Am I mistaken or did an honest-to-God curse word just come out of your mouth?”
But Elle was too focused on her problems to worry about swearing. How was she going to face Nathan? What if he brought it up? Oh lord. Today was going to be H-E-double-hockey-sticks. God, what if he already knew and fired her because of it? The gallery was her life. She couldn’t lose it. “I think I’m going to die of embarrassment. That’s possible, right? It’s got to be because it’s happening right now.”
“You’re just being dramatic. So, what happened? If it wasn’t Nathan, who did you get into bed with?” She frowned. “And just how did you manage to do it without realizing he was the wrong guy?”
“It was dark in the room.”
“Uh huh. There’s this neat little thing called a light switch. You should try it sometime.”
“It seemed easier that way.” It sounded stupid to say it aloud, but it was the truth. If Nathan was going to reject her, she didn’t want to see his face—or let him see her nearly naked—while he did it.
“It was so easy, you jumped the wrong guy.” She sat back when Elle flinched, covering her mouth with a hand. “Sorry. It just slipped out.”
“It’s okay. Maybe we can even laugh about this in like, oh, fifteen years.” Not right now, though. It was too soon. Heck, she could still feel the imprint of him against her body. What kind of man let a strange woman climb into his bed anyway? He should’ve stopped her!
Elle shook her head. Spending any more time obsessing over that night would get her nowhere. It was time to move on with her life—and figure out how she was going to do damage control. “Whoever the guy was, he’s probably just a friend who slep
t over. I’ve never seen him before.” And hopefully she’d never see him again.
“I’m sure you’re right.” Roxanne smiled, but it was her Party Planner Smile—brighter than the sun and fake as all get-out. “What are you going to do about Nathan?”
The question of the hour. Elle pictured the long lines of his face, completely arresting pale blue eyes, blondish hair just long enough to give him a rakish look without losing his cultured aura. The image blurred, replaced by the stranger from Saturday night. He wasn’t refined at all, between the tattoos, the muscles, and the nose that had obviously been broken more than once. He was exactly the opposite of everything she needed in a man—the type of man she’d already learned wasn’t the keeping kind. Hadn’t her mother said the very same thing when Elle confided in her about Jason? She’d been right then, and she was right now.
When Elle said as much, Roxanne rolled her eyes. “Oh please.Your mom likes the sound of her voice too much. She doesn’t know what you need.”
Sure, her mom had been seriously misguided in some of her picks, but they were all respectable, upstanding citizens. Men who would take care of a woman and their future brood of children. Men who wouldn’t leave Elle crying and brokenhearted. “You’re wrong. This guy is bad news.” He’d have to be for Elle to want him so much.
A voice inside her whispered that Nathan wouldn’t let a drug kingpin spend the night in his loft, but Elle smothered it. She dredged up a fake smile of her own. “And, to answer your question, nothing happens with Nathan. Heck, he’s probably gay and that guy was his lover or something. I’m just going to forget it ever happened.”
“Be sure to let me know how that works out.” Roxanne gave her hand another pat and sipped her iced quad-shot mocha. How she managed to drink those without having a heart attack was a mystery. “You know, there’s part of me that wants to say ‘I told you so,’ but it seems in really bad taste.” She set down her cup and frowned. “Even I didn’t see it turning out like this. Well-played on that part.”
“Roxanne.”
“What? I’m actually impressed—horrified, but impressed. Nathan’s not gay, by the way. One of my friends—female friends—dated him a few years back. But that’s neither here nor there.” She leaned in again, tapping her perfectly manicured nails on the tabletop. “So…how far did you get before you realized he wasn’t Nathan?”
“Far enough.”
Roxanne’s green eyes lit up. “That sounds promising. Was he any good?”
Good didn’t begin to cover it. Elle had never felt so much, had never known it could be like that, but it was too embarrassing to admit aloud she’d actually enjoyed herself, even to Roxanne. “I’m not talking about this.”
Roxanne drummed her fingernails along the table again, drawing Elle back to the present. “How am I supposed to live vicariously through your mistakes if you don’t talk about it?”
“You aren’t.” Elle grabbed her purse and dug through it until she found her wallet. Tossing a ten on the table, she stood. “I have to get going if I don’t want to be late.” Even though she’d rather do anything other than go into work this morning.
“We will talk about this, even if I have to hog-tie you to do it.” Roxanne pushed to her feet. Impossible to imagine her hog-tying anyone in a pencil skirt, but Elle had seen how she was when she decided on a goal. Roxanne was unstoppable and God help anyone who got in her way.
“I just need time to process it all.” Hopefully if she stalled long enough, Roxanne would let it go.
Engulfing Elle in an ocean-scented hug, she laughed. “Stall all you like, but once I get a few martinis in you, you’ll share. Next Friday is girls’ night out, remember?”
Crap. The worst part was that she was right. Elle couldn’t hold her liquor. Last time they went out, Roxanne had dragged her to karaoke, promising that they were just going to grab a booth and watch. Two martinis in and Elle decided she was a rock star and sang “Take It Off.” She was still trying to live that down.
“Don’t worry, we won’t do karaoke this time.” Roxanne went on, a terrifyingly innocent smile on her face. “I’ll find somewhere nice and quiet where you can share all the juicy details.”
Elle resolved to keep herself to a one-martini limit, and to turn Friday night’s conversation to Roxanne’s party planning job. The woman was downright terrifying in her pursuit of making sure everything went off perfectly. “Sounds great.”
“You’re a terrible liar, but that’s okay. It’s part of the reason I adore you so much.” She air-kissed Elle’s cheeks and sailed out the door.
Shaking her head, Elle hiked her purse higher onto her shoulder and headed for the gallery a couple blocks away. Even so early in the morning, the sky was clear and a warm blue that only seemed to show up in the summer. She had half a mind to call in sick, head back to the parking garage, and drive out to one of the lakes in the area. Lying on a towel, listening to the boats cruise by, sounded significantly more attractive than facing Nathan.
But she refused to be a coward. Elle loved everything about her job. Nathan was a dream boss, and being surrounded by art she felt so passionately about was heaven. Maybe Roxanne was right and she shouldn’t have tried to mix business with pleasure, but there was no point in worrying about it now. Thanks to her screwup, she wouldn’t have to deal with balancing a potential relationship with work, because Nathan would never think of her as the kind of respectable woman he’d like to date once he found out.
Shoulders sagging, she pulled out her keys and stopped in front of the huge windows of the gallery. The muted underwater scenes had been replaced by a series she’d never seen before. Moving closer to the glass, she studied the paintings. They were startlingly bleak, depicting scenes she recognized from Dante’s Inferno. Elle had never liked that particular work, but she couldn’t deny that the pieces Nathan had picked were compelling even as they made her want to look away.
The door opened, and the man himself stepped onto the sidewalk. Elle tried to focus on Nathan, but her attention kept straying to the center painting— the one showing the second circle of hell. There was a couple in the forefront, both naked though it was hard to tell with the way the wind whipped their hair over their bodies. They reached for each other, desperation written over their entire beings, fingertips missing contact by a scant breath of distance.
It was one of the most heartbreaking things she’d ever seen.
“What do you think?” The same question Nathan always asked her when he purchased something new.
Elle swallowed and peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he knew what happened on Saturday night. Surely he’d say something? Because, as bad as it was that she’d almost had sex with one of his friends—or, God forbid, his lover—it’d be even worse if Nathan knew. There’d be no way to hide the fact she’d been trying to have sex with him.
But he was completely focused on the painting. Okay, she could do this. “I didn’t know you were picking up a new artist.”
“I didn’t know I was either.” He laughed. “But I stumbled across these at a local art show and couldn’t resist.”
She studied the tone of his voice and came up empty. Nothing he said could be construed as anything other than exactly what he’d said. But she couldn’t help continuing to examine him for any sign that he knew. When he only looked expectantly at her, obviously wanting her opinion on the paintings, she realized he had no idea what happened. There was no way he could know and still act so…Nathan.
Turning back to the painting, she said,“They’re…” Terrifying. Beautiful. So very, very dark. “…intensely compelling.”
His reflection in the glass met her gaze. “That’s a pretty high compliment coming from you.”
“You know I love everything you do.” She realized what she just said and blushed. Maybe a hole would open up beneath her feet and swallow her. “I mean—um, you know what I mean.”
“I do.” Nathan laughed and took her elbow, leading her toward
the door. “Come on. We have a lot to talk about with the gallery showing coming up.”
Elle had a moment to wonder if her breakfast was going to come crawling out of her throat before he towed her through the door and into the gallery. It was okay, though, because Nathan clearly didn’t know.
Her pulse quickened. If she got lucky, maybe he never would. Their cleaning service only came on Monday and Friday nights, so there was still time to sneak into the loft and grab her lingerie before they brought it to his attention tomorrow morning. She glanced at her watch. Only four hours to lunchtime— she’d sneak into the loft then. In the meantime, she could survive this morning.
Right?
4
Gabe sat in his car, staring out at the street, and wondered if he’d lost his damn mind. This woman— Elle—didn’t want anything to do with him. Hell, she’d practically run out of the room screaming when she realized he wasn’t Nathan.
That said, he couldn’t ignore how much he’d liked how it felt being with her. Elle was the polar opposite of the women he was used to. Her being so different should have turned him off—or at least just been a mild curiosity—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there could be more to this if he gave it a shot. Besides, Nathan thought ambushing her was a great idea.
He chose not to remember all of Nathan’s other shit ideas that hadn’t seemed so great once Gabe walked through the front door and into the gallery. There was a solid chance this one was shit as well.
Christ, what was he thinking? She wasn’t going to want to go out with him. He should just apologize and disappear from her life for good.
Yeah, that was a decent idea. Better than his first one. Plan in place, he meandered around the gallery. It’d been nearly six months since he’d been here last and Gabe was struck by his brother’s collection, just like always.Though he wasn’t an art snob by any means, there was no denying his brother had an eye for this stuff. Gabe still preferred the scrap-metal sculptures, but he could appreciate the chance Nathan gave to other artists whom he displayed in his galleries. No wonder the damn things sold for such insane prices.
