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SUCH
A
Pretty Face
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SUCH
A
Pretty Face
by
Gabrielle Goldsby
2007
SUCH A PRETTY FACE
© 2007 BY GABRIELLE GOLDSBY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ISBN: 10-DIGIT 1-933110-84-8
13-DIGIT 978-1-933110-84-4
THIS TRADE PAPERBACK ORIGINAL IS PUBLISHED BY
BOLD STROKES BOOKS, INC.,
NEW YORK, USA
FIRST EDITION: JULY, 2007.
THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND
INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR
ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES
IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.
THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF, MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY
FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION.
CREDITS
EDITORS: JENNIFER KNIGHT AND STACIA SEAMAN
PRODUCTION DESIGN: STACIA SEAMAN
COVER DESIGN BY SHERI ([email protected]) Acknowledgments
My stories start with the nucleus of an idea, often years before I approach a publisher. Those ideas are Þ rst shopped by my good friend and conÞ dante Mecheal. I can’t thank her enough for all the time she’s given me over the years.
I have to thank Patty S. for her help with the early versions of this story and Linda for her willingness to put up with my last-minute beta requests.
Special thanks to Jennifer Knight and Stacia Seaman, my two editors. I have spent years requesting, begging, and plotting for an opportunity to work with the both of them. It was well worth the wait.
Their willingness to share their wealth of information about the craft will always be appreciated.
This paragraph has been edited, changed, and deleted several times in an attempt to Þ nd the right words to thank my publisher. I drag myself out of bed every morning, pour a cup of coffee, and head down to my ofÞ ce. Inevitably, as I sit down before my computer, I am struck by fear. Only for a second, though, because then I remember that I am not alone anymore, and I won’t be allowed to fail. I start to work. I start to do the very thing that I love doing. How do you even begin to thank someone for that?
Dedication
For Melissa, who always saw more than a pretty face
SUCH A PRETTY FACE
CHAPTER ONE
The moment she went down on me, I should have known that she was telling me good-bye. Spontaneity is not Brenda’s strong suit, but for the last few weeks she’s been acting like she can’t keep her hands off me.
“Why am I complaining? I’m complaining because I was wearing baby blue sweats, a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, and Marvin the Martian slippers. I’m complaining because I was bent over a box with my big ass in the air when she slammed into the house. I’m complaining because she dropped her bag on the ß oor, and without so much as a, ‘hey, hon, I’m home,’ rolled me over and set about making it impossible for me to think, let alone worry about where all of her energy came from. Then, to top it all off, two minutes into the sex, the phone rang and she left me on the ß oor to answer it.
“She comes back twenty minutes later and tells me she’s just accepted an assignment in the Fiji Islands to photograph fourteen swimsuit models for a new sports magazine. Oh, and she knew about the possibility of this assignment for at least a week before she decided to accept it.”
I stopped speaking because my sales assistant, Matthew “Goody”
Good, who was sitting on the edge of my desk, was now staring at me like I was a piece of three-layer, double chocolate cake.
“Mia, wait. Go back to the part where she was going down on you.”
“Goody, is that all you heard me say?”
“I was listening. You were just getting into some good sex when fourteen skinny bitches interrupted your fun.”
• 11 •
GABRIELLE GOLDSBY
I nodded; he had been listening.
“So when’s she leaving?” His voice held that tone that I hated; you know, the one that makes you want to cry.
“I take her—” I was interrupted by
a commotion so loud that it made my ears itch and the walls of my ofÞ ce quake. From past experience, I knew that anything I said would be impossible for Goody to hear, so I stood up and walked to the window.
The whole ofÞ ce had been warned that when construction began, it would be loud. I would have liked to complain; “loud” didn’t quite cover the ear-splitting, nerve-shattering, teeth-gnashing cacophony of sound coming from the room right next door. I would have liked to, but I couldn’t because the construction was for my new, larger ofÞ ce space, so I kept my mouth shut.
Instead of just one window, I would have a wall of them to gaze out of once my new space was complete. I watched the ant-sized people milling below before my eye was drawn to Goody’s reß ection.
He was studying his Þ ngernails, his foot tapping in unison with the hammering that had begun after the drill quieted. Goody and I had been mistaken for brother and sister on more than one occasion. Our similar heritage meant we both had dark eyes and dark skin, but that’s where the resemblance ended, in my opinion.
Goody was an exceptionally handsome guy. Everything about his slim but athletic frame, thick dark hair, olive skin, and sharp brown eyes screamed sexy. At least, that’s what he wrote in his Yahoo Personals ad.
“I take her to the airport Sunday,” I said during a lull in the noise.
“Sunday? As in, the day after tomorrow?”
That was my reaction too. “Yeah, this Sunday.”
“And she’s just now telling you? How long is she gonna be gone?”
Goody was still looking at his nails, but his forehead was creased by a scowl. I would give him Þ ve seconds before he found a ß aw and started in with the emery board he always kept in his front pocket.
I turned around and said, “Five months,” just as he stood up and stuck his hand in his pocket. If he found the board, he didn’t pull it out.
Instead he stared at me, his perfectly chapsticked lips parted.
“What?”
“Five months. She’s going to be in the fucking Fiji Islands, with a bushel of swimsuit models, for Þ ve goddamn months.” I’m pretty sure I wailed the last few words.
• 12 •
SUCH A PRETTY FACE
“Damn. That’s nearly half a year.” Goody sat back down in his chair, the emery board temporarily forgotten. “And you’re okay with that?”
“Hell no, I’m not okay with it. We just moved into that house. In another two months we might have all the boxes unpacked.” I slumped back into my own chair. “We hardly see each other now, but—”
“At least you know where she sleeps at night, right?”
“Right.”
Goody, as usual, had gotten right to the point. I was already worried about the stability of our relationship. The truth of the matter was, I had been for well over a year. So the thought of being apart from her for so long made me want to Þ nd a dark corner and curl up with something buttery, sugary, and warm.
“I got to be honest with you, chica…”
“You think there’s more to it?” I was careful not to let the fear creep into my voice, but I could tell by the look in Goody’s eyes that my face gave me away.
“Yeah, I do. And so do you. That’s why you called me in here, isn’t it? You want me to conÞ rm that you’re not overreacting?”
“No, I called you in here to tell me I am overreacting.”
“Have you tried talking to her? Maybe ask her not to go?”
I shook my head. I had tried many times over the last few days to talk to her, but how could I when I was afraid of where the conversation might lead?
“Why not? Begging her not to leave is the Þ rst thing I would have done.” Goody was smiling, but the pain and embarrassment in that smile had nothing to do with my situation.
“Does begging work?” The question was, I hoped, a deterrent—an opportunity for Goody to segue into his own problems instead of mine.
The sad thing is, even if I were able to force myself to grovel I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Brenda had made up her mind to leave even before she told me she was.
“Didn’t work with Emil,” Goody said, with forced nonchalance.
“He left me two days after he proposed. He had the most gorgeous blond hair.”
I frowned, struggling to differentiate Emil from the other half dozen boyfriends Goody had fallen in lust with over the last two years.
“He was a librarian? Remember?”
“Oh yeah, Emil.” I barely kept myself from adding, “How could
• 13 •
GABRIELLE GOLDSBY
I forget him?” Emil, the long-haired librarian, would always stand out in my mind for all the wrong reasons. I knew within two seconds of meeting the guy that he was a player, a bisexual one. The Þ rst time I had caught him staring at my chest I Þ gured it was envy. When he invited me to dinner sans Goody I could no longer turn a blind eye. Goody claimed he was just trying to earn my approval, but the truth was in the ogling. I had learned to recognize that creepy feeling of being used as some guy’s sexual fantasy at far too young an age. “You swore off men after him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but then I met Paul about nine days later. He was a waste of time, great in bed though.” He paused. “Why are we talking about me?
What are you going to do?”
“It’s her career. I can’t ask her to give up an opportunity like that.”
Based on the exasperated look on Goody’s face, he didn’t agree. “So let’s say I tell her I don’t want her to go and she goes anyway?”
Realization followed by sympathy crossed Goody’s face. “You’re scared it’s already too late, aren’t you?” I shrugged my answer, but he went on as if I had agreed. “Then you have to Þ nd a way to start over.”
“Goody, Brenda isn’t just some chick I met online or picked up in a bar. She’s my wife. I don’t give a shit—” I cut myself off because I could see that he was taking what I said personally. I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“I know,” he said, but when he didn’t take my hand, I dropped it back in my lap.
See, that was Goody’s problem. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and every pretty boy in Portland had used that sleeve to wipe their asses—twice. He was a sucker for a pretty face; I wasn’t. I was in a committed relationship, the “until death do us part” kind of relationship, and Þ ve months in the Fiji Islands with swimsuit models just didn’t Þ t into that picture.
The wall behind my bookshelf shuddered as someone methodically hammered away with apparent disregard for anyone working within a two-mile radius.
“Damn it, I’m done dealing with this bullshit.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. As I walked around my desk I knocked my hip on a sharp corner and hissed in pain.
Goody winced in sympathy. “Ouch, I hate when that happens.”
I rubbed at the sore spot and kept walking. For once I was grateful
• 14 •
SUCH A PRETTY FACE
for the extra padding on my hips, but the pain wasn’t going away easily and it stoked my annoyance into full-blown pissed-off mode. It took me two angry seconds to stalk next door and yell, “Hey, I’m trying to get some work done over there!”
The hammering had stopped almost as soon as I walked in, so the words came out far louder than I’d intended. A muscular blond woman wearing goggles, blue jeans, and a white T-shirt turned to face me. “Sorry?” She straightened to her full height and pulled a piece of yellow foam from her ear.
I allowed myself a moment to take her in. Boots, long legs, slender hips, a small waist. She had obviously found that one elusive pair of jeans that Þ t its owner like a second skin. She wore no belt, and her white T-shirt had managed to avoid being spattered with plaster. The ß oor surrounding her hadn’t fared as well. I forced myself to meet her eyes. They were just blue, nothing special, so why was I having such a hard time looking away? “Uh, no…no, I’m sorry. I was just…”
“No, you’re Þ ne.” I heard Goody come up behind me. “I mean, if you don’t mind holding off on the power tools for a few minutes, we’ll be heading out to lunch soon.”
She gave me a small, closed-lipped smile, but said nothing. It was the kind of gesture I had seen the folks in the cage give other brokers. I, on the other hand, got everything from affectionate teasing to Christmas ornaments and invites to parties and housewarmings. It mattered to me that this woman hadn’t gotten the memo that I was one of the “cool ones.”
She had started to look uncomfortable before I realized that I had been staring much longer than appropriate. Heat crept up around my ears as I fumbled for something useful to say. “I should probably…
uh…”
“Mia, we should get back to that account we were discussing,”
Goody said quietly from behind me.
I turned and gave him a grateful smile. “I’ll be right there.” With a quick parting glance at her, I said, “I’m sorry for interrupting you.”
“I’ll try to be quieter,” she said, the closed-lip smile looking a little less forced.
I walked away thinking I should have said something smart and sassy, maybe left an opening for further conversation. I was back in my ofÞ ce staring owl-eyed at Goody when I realized that I should be grateful
• 15 •
GABRIELLE GOLDSBY
I’d made it back without tripping over my own feet. “I had nightmares all last night about supermodels, and now there’s one building my new ofÞ ce. Where the hell did she come from, anyway?”
“I don’t know, but did you hear that accent? Did you see those arms?” Goody was back to studying his nails.
“Yeah, I heard it. I was thinking Texas.”
“She’s gorgeous,” Goody said. “I wonder how she got that scar.”
“What scar?”
“You didn’t see the scar on her cheek? Hell, the way you were staring, I thought you knew her. Maybe had a tryst or something in the past.”
Such a Pretty Face Page 1
