The Guy Most Likely To...: Underneath It AllCan't Get You Out of My HeadA Moment Like This
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Heading back toward the elevator, he paused at her door, listening for any noise from inside her room. He heard nothing. She was either lying low, or was already gone. Either way, she obviously wasn’t ready to see him.
Cursing under his breath, he went downstairs and headed for the correct ballroom. It was already crowded, filled with guys in suits or tuxes and women in glittery dresses or gowns. Not exactly prom style, a little more mature, but with a familiar air of desperate longing to create a night worth remembering.
He stepped inside, and was swallowed by the crowd. He smiled and nodded, looking around every person he met, trying to find a familiar brunette with gold streaks in her hair.
Finally, just when he’d given up hope of finding her, he heard someone nearby gasp.
“Oh, my God, is that Lauren? What’s she doing?”
Spinning around, he saw the woman who’d spoken gaping toward the front of the room, where a stage had been set up for a few speakers and awards to be presented later. All around him, everyone else turned their attention there, too. A few people laughed, most smiled and almost every one turned to find Seth in the crowd.
Then that crowd melted away, parting to clear a space between him and the stage. A spotlight settled on it, landing on the woman who stood there, all alone.
“Lauren,” he breathed.
She wore a long gown, pink, the color appropriate for the girl she had been, but the slinky cut was all sexy, sultry woman. It clung to her, descended in a deep V over her breasts, skimmed over her hips, was slit high on the thigh and fell to the floor in a glimmering wave.
But that wasn’t all she wore.
On her head was a flimsy crown, like something a little girl would wear at a princess birthday party. It was silver, with a big jeweled heart on the front.
And over her dress, she wore a paper sash with the words Prom Queen: 2002 carefully stenciled on it. And in her hands, she held another crown…apparently, his.
Seth began to smile. Then to laugh.
His heart nearly bursting from his chest, he strode through the crowd, his eyes glued to her smiling face. Nearby, someone started to clap, then someone else. Applause rolled through the crowd, and the clapping was soon accompanied by whistles and cheers.
“Get her, Seth!”
“About damn time!”
He ignored them all, conscious of nothing but Lauren, who watched him approach, not moving, never shifting her gaze off his face. Love shone off every inch of her.
He got to the stage, put a hand on the edge and vaulted up onto it, ignoring the steps on the side. It would take too damn long to get to them.
“You came,” she said.
“I’m sorry I’m so late.”
“It’s never too late.”
She stepped closer, lifting the plastic crown. Seth tipped his head forward and let her place it on his head. Smiling, they turned to face the crowd, who whooped and cheered for their finally crowned together prom king and queen.
The applause was still thundering, but Seth needed to hold her close, to convince himself this was really happening. He swept her into his arms and their mouths came together in a warm, tender kiss. They made all the declarations, the apologies, the promises in silence. Then they drew apart and made them verbally.
“I love you, Seth,” she said, her voice unshaking and sure. “And I’m so happy you still love me.”
“You believe that now?”
She nodded, solemn, accepting what he’d been trying to tell her. She’d owned his heart for more than a decade. He’d never loved anyone else, and never would. It was Lauren or nobody.
“So, would you like to dance?” he asked, noting they were already swaying to some internal music only they could hear.
“I’d love to.”
“And would you like to come home with me to California?”
“That, too.”
He squeezed her, kissing the tip of her nose, and whispered, “One last thing…”
He lowered himself to one knee. Their former classmates went wild. Tears formed in Lauren’s blue eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
“Would you like to marry me?”
Lauren didn’t hesitate; she dropped to her knees in front of him. “Oh, God, yes, Seth, I’d like that very much.”
The roar was deafening, but he couldn’t hear anything except her voice, couldn’t see anything but her beautiful, smiling face, her mouth forming the word yes.
Maybe her family would object. Maybe they still had a lot of logistics to work out. Maybe they were crazy and impulsive.
But it didn’t matter. This was meant to happen. It always had been.
He had her now. And he was never letting her go.
* * * * *
Janelle Denison
Can’t Get You Out of My Head
To my Plotmonkey pals, Leslie Kelly and Julie Leto. I’m so happy that we were finally able to write this anthology together.
And to Don. It’s been thirty years this month since the day we met. I love you more now than ever!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
1
WILL BECKMAN STARED AT the e-invitation he’d received for his ten-year high school reunion, his finger hovering over the delete button as he considered just how great it would be if he could obliterate four painful, torturous years in high school as if they’d never happened just by erasing the email. Being an accredited computer geek, he ought to create an app for that, because he was pretty damn sure he wasn’t the only high school graduate who wanted to forget those awkward years.
The truth was, he had no desire to go back in time and revisit classmates who’d treated him like an outsider because he’d been a quiet nerd who’d been more interested in science and computers than sports and partying. The rich, cool kids had looked down their noses at him and talked behind his back about the out-of-date secondhand clothes he’d worn. And being a general misfit had made him the target for the jocks and bullies who thought it was cool to insult and intimidate the little guys who had more brains than brawn.
Over the course of four long years, he’d been pushed and shoved, taunted and teased mercilessly, and suffered physical and emotional abuse from a good percentage of his peers. The day he’d graduated, he felt as though he’d been released from prison, and the freedom had been liberating.
College, thank God, had been much easier to get through. In fact, it had even encouraged his interest in computer programming, HTML coding and software development. The one thing that had separated him from the cool kids back in high school had been his salvation, his lifeline and the road map to his success while attending the University of Illinois where he’d majored in computer science.
By the time he’d graduated at the age of twenty-two, he’d created a complex and sophisticated software program designed to encrypt and protect online data and block identify theft—all from a small desk and laptop in the corner of his dorm room. Now, he and over two dozen employees occupied an entire floor in a cushy Chicago high-rise where his security-based company, Sentinel, provided services to some of the biggest name brand businesses in the world. And their clientele was growing daily.
Still, for some strange reason, he wasn’t ready to completely discard the invitation to the reunion just yet. He leaned back in his plush leather chair and stared out the plate-glass window behind his desk, taking in the spectacular view of Lake Michigan.
He definitely felt a sense of satisfaction in what he’d accomplished in such a short period of time, and how much he’d changed along the way. Being the CEO of his own company had given his confidence a huge boost and elevated his personal status in the business world.
He was no longer the lanky, quiet kid who wore glasses and braces, the one who shied away from confrontation or difficult situations. Now, he was a multimillion-dollar business professional who gar
nered respect in the industry and had accumulated dozens of awards and accolades for his insight and ingenuity. He’d appeared in Forbes magazine, had been named as one of the top ten young entrepreneurs by Business Week and had landed on the top twenty-five list for the Fastest-Growing Tech Companies.
Life was good and far surpassed the impoverished way he and his three older sisters had grown up. He honestly couldn’t care less what his classmates thought of him now. He had absolutely nothing to prove to anyone. But there was one person he hadn’t been able to forget in the past ten years: pretty, blond-haired, green-eyed Ali Seaver, who had the face of an angel and a curvaceous body designed to drive a hormonal teenage boy crazy with lust. That explained his reluctance to hit the delete button on the invite.
Ali had been the captain of the cheerleading squad, homecoming queen and all-around social extrovert. She was his opposite in almost every way, and so far out of his league he was certain she’d never give a computer geek like him a chance. But that hadn’t stopped him from watching her from afar, thinking about her, and fantasizing about what it would be like to date a girl like her. Then one day fate had intervened.
When her wealthy parents had hired him to tutor Ali for an entire month in preparation of her senior final in calculus, the one class in which she struggled to maintain her grades, he’d been nervous and self-conscious. But unlike most of the popular girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day, Ali had been friendly and sweet. She’d treated him as an equal and made him feel comfortable. The awkwardness he’d been anticipating had been nonexistent between them and they just clicked.
Beyond the learning, beyond the studying, they’d gradually started talking about personal things and discovered they had a lot in common, such as their love of reading classic novels and watching old Hitchcock movies. He learned she had a weakness for cherry Life Savers, that her favorite place to explore was the Museum of Contemporary Art and that she hated how guys stared at her well-developed chest instead of looking her in the eye when she talked to them. Luckily for Will, he had three older sisters who’d trained him to treat women with respect. And yeah, that meant not staring at a girl’s breasts, no matter how instinctive that particular temptation was.
Ali had shyly admitted that she thought he was cute. She’d easily coaxed smiles and laughter out of him, and she’d made him feel hopeful. Of course, he’d fallen head over heels in love with her, though as an adult, he knew his emotions had been nothing more than infatuation. At the end of their last tutoring session he’d given in to the urge to kiss her, and to his shock, she’d kissed him back. Even now, ten years later, thinking about that moment between them made his stomach tighten with desire.
Feeling higher than a kite after that first kiss, he’d asked her out on a date, despite knowing that her friends thought he was beneath her socially. Much to his surprise, she’d gone against peer expectations and said yes.
Will’s excitement had been short-lived. Tim Delgado, the linebacker for the football team, threatened him with a whole lot of pain and humiliation if he didn’t break things off with Ali. Though he was mortified to admit it now, he’d been petrified, especially since he’d been on the receiving end of Tim’s brute strength before. Two hours before his date with Ali, he’d canceled, giving her no explanation beyond the fact that he’d changed his mind and was no longer interested in her. All lies.
Christ, he thought with a shake of his head. The cheerleader and homecoming queen had more guts than he had back then.
Will blew out a harsh, agonized breath and rubbed a hand along his jaw, remembering with too much clarity how obviously confused she’d been over his blatant rejection, how hurt she’d sounded on the phone. From that day on, he’d ignored Ali at school, avoided any kind of contact with her when she tried to approach him, and eventually she started ignoring him, too.
At the end of the school year when the yearbooks were released and the “Most Likely To” candidates were announced, Ali Seaver had been voted the Girl Most Likely to Become a Playboy Bunny. And in a cruel joke meant to demoralize Will, he’d been dubbed the Guy Most Likely to Date a Playboy Bunny…NOT. He had no doubt, then or now, who’d been responsible for the deliberate insult.
God, he still harbored so many regrets about what he’d done to Ali, when all she’d done was be nice to him. And he sure as hell harbored his share of “what-ifs.”
He wondered if she was attending the reunion. Once the thought was in his head, he couldn’t contain his curiosity. Turning his chair back around, he clicked on the link in the email invite that led to the RSVP site for the weekend get-together. He found Ali’s name and checked on her status. She’d clicked on Yes to attend and wasn’t bringing a guest.
His heart thudded in his chest. This was it, he thought. His one chance to see her again. Maybe he would even make amends, telling Ali the truth of what happened ten years ago—if she’d even talk to him. She might choose to ignore him, but he refused to allow it. He was no longer the quiet, insecure teenager he’d once been. He was confident of who he was as a man, self-assured enough to handle her reaction and have his say. And maybe have something more.
He’d felt something for Ali back then. He wondered if he’d feel something for her now. One way or another, he intended to find out.
Decision made, he checked Yes. This was going to be interesting… .
2
ALI SEAVER FOLLOWED her best friend, Renee Griffen, into their ten-year high school reunion’s welcome reception at the Celebrations resort. The two of them were fashionably late, and the cocktail party was already in full swing, their classmates mingling and getting reacquainted with drinks in hand.
She inhaled a deep, fortifying breath, unable to quell the nervous little quiver in her stomach. Not because she was about to connect with old friends she hadn’t talked to in nearly ten years, but because the one guy she thought she’d never see again had confirmed his attendance for the weekend.
She’d been more than a little shocked to see Will Beckman’s name on the reunion roster. Judging by the conversations they’d had during that short period when he’d tutored her, she knew that Will didn’t have a whole lot of warm and fuzzy high school memories he’d want to revisit ten years later. Having followed his huge success as an internet entrepreneur who had a personal net worth in the multimillions, she wondered if maybe he was returning to thumb his nose at all those people who’d made his high school years so miserable. Not that she’d blame him, after all the abuse he’d suffered.
But knowing that he was going to be here tonight, for the weekend possibly, stirred emotions in Ali that should no longer exist by now, along with that ten-year-old question she’d pondered way too often: What had she done to make Will reject her so completely?
Back then, she’d been ashamed to admit that a small part of her had been relieved when he’d ended things before she’d gotten any more attached to him. As soon as word had spread that the two of them were going on a date, she’d become the center of gossip, none of it pleasant. People she’d thought were her friends, including most of the girls on the cheerleading squad, had not only treated her like an outcast, but their catty, hurtful remarks and the rude way they’d deliberately whispered behind her back had given Ali a taste of the kind of torment Will dealt with on a regular basis.
It was ridiculous to let a teenage-girl-crush-gone-wrong be anything more than a blip on her radar, but she couldn’t deny that the entire incident still bothered her. She’d been raised not to judge people, to accept them at face value, and there had been so much about Will to like once she’d really got to know him. But for her, being so guileless and trusting had caused her a whole lot of pain and heartache. Will had burned her once, her ex-fiancé had burned her twice and now she was far more cautious when it came to guarding her emotions.
Standing on the fringes of the party with Renee, she recognized many faces, but had no desire to approach anyone in particular. After graduating high school, the people she’d hun
g out with had all gone their separate ways, to different colleges, working full-time and generally making new lives for themselves. Eventually, she’d lost touch with those classmates, all except for Renee, who’d been her very best friend since first grade, and had remained steadfast and true during that senior year debacle.
With the popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites, she’d reconnected with old classmates, but their interaction was all superficial. She’d gotten glimpses of their lives now, who was married with families, who was single and or divorced, and what line of work some had chosen. But she didn’t really know these people any longer, or what, if anything, they had in common except what had happened in the past.
Ali glanced at Renee, who was eagerly scanning the crowd for a certain someone. “Tell me again why I agreed to come to this shindig?” Because she was quickly regretting the decision.
“You’re my backup plan, just in case things don’t work out with my old flame,” Renee reminded her, flashing Ali one of her gregarious grins.
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot,” Ali replied with wry humor. “This weekend is all about you getting laid.”
Renee had spent the past few months hooking up long-distance via phone calls and Skype with Jake Copeland, the guy she’d lost her virginity to back in high school. The experience had been quick and totally unsatisfying. This weekend was all about a fun, sexy “do-over,” and if things didn’t work out with Jake, Renee knew she could use Ali as an excuse to end the encounter early.
Her friend was dressed to impress, in a skintight, strapless bandage dress that made Ali’s outfit—slim black pants and a loose boatneck blouse that was stylish, yet minimized her voluptuous breasts—look downright modest in comparison. The dark emerald color hugged Renee’s body, and complemented her green eyes and natural auburn-hued hair perfectly.