Dirty Bad Boy

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  7

  Laurel

  “No. Please, I’m begging you.” I reach across the corner table Jack and I are sharing at Belfast, planting my hand inches from his. “Tell me you’re joking. Our mothers are not out planning our wedding. Our fictional, not-actually-going-to-happen wedding.”

  Jack looks at me over the rim of his beer, laughs, and shakes his head. “Wish I could.”

  “That’s nuts. I mean, you talked to them both and they know”—I scan the area around us and lower my voice—“this thing between us isn’t real.”

  His expression is… flabbergasted. “Yep. They know. And I don’t want this to sound dickish, but when your mom brought it up, I didn’t worry too much about it. I figured she’d call my mother, who would gently suggest that was straight-up crazy talk. Turns out my mom’s pretty sure I’m never getting married and figured this would be her only chance.”

  Eyes wide, I reach for Jack’s phone, again bringing up the picture Audrey Hastings sent of the Wyse Hotel’s grand ballroom with the note that they could seat up to seven hundred and fifty guests, followed by two, two exclamation points. “They aren’t going to actually book a venue though, right?”

  “That would be crazy,” he says, with more of the head shaking he’s been doing for as long as I’ve been at the bar.

  I’m guessing that means he wouldn’t put it past her.

  Geez.

  Pushing the beer aside, he props himself on one elbow, hand beneath his chin. “You know what’s funny? My mom is the one I generally see eye to eye with. Our brains work the same way. But this? She’s off the island.”

  I snort, taking a sip of my beer. “I’m kind of surprised. I’d have assumed you and your dad were the most alike.”

  “Most people think that. Until they spend more than twenty minutes with us.” He smiles. “We butt heads.”

  He says it affectionately, without even a hint of the resentment I can’t seem to tamp down when the subject of my parents comes up, and another reluctant part of me warms to him.

  “Always or just since you started working together?”

  “Always. But even more when we work together.”

  I let out a surprised laugh. “What?”

  “Yep. We’ve always taken different approaches to getting things done. Generally get into it at least twice during your average deal… and one like Devenport?” He whistles through his teeth. “If he weren’t retiring, I have a feeling my phone would be blowing up with calls and texts from him instead of venues for a wedding we aren’t going to have.”

  As if on cue, another shot of the ballroom comes through. “Terrace,” Jack notes dispassionately. “Nice.”

  But I’m still caught on what he was saying before. “How is your dad doing? Law mentioned that he was in the hospital a couple of months back. Is that why he’s stepping back from the business?”

  “He’s doing much better now, thanks. And yeah, it is. My mom essentially threatened to divorce him if he didn’t slow down.”

  We keep talking, and Jack tells me about his father’s past with the Humphries family and the Devenport property. How close they were to having it and what it was like losing it each time. The costs involved, financial and otherwise.

  We talk about my job, the Grossmans, and the promotion I’m in line for. We talk like I haven’t talked to Jack in more than ten years, and instead of that realization making me defensive, I look across the table at the man he’s become and wonder if it might be possible he’s changed. If there’s a chance we might come out of this as friends.

  I wonder if maybe he’s thinking the same thing when he looks up and meets my eyes. “Laurel, I feel like maybe we should talk about what happened in high school. What I did—”

  “Jack, no,” I say, cutting him off with a dismissive laugh that’s, perhaps, a bit breezier than I feel. But I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to ruin this tentative peace between us. “It’s ancient history. We were kids. Forget about it.”

  He doesn’t look like he wants to, but then his phone lights up again, and then four times in quick succession.

  “Wow. Everything okay over there?”

  Scrubbing a hand over his face, he gives me an apologetic look. “No. Not really. Mom set up a session tomorrow afternoon to have our engagement picture taken for the paper.”

  Jack

  “I will never forgive you for this,” Laurel grumbles through a forced smile, and Ralph glares at us from the far side of his camera.

  I could argue that it wasn’t my fault, but we both know it is. I let this ball start rolling between our mothers. And for that, Laurel and I are both paying.

  “Have you two even met?” Ralph demands, his two-pack-a-day voice booming through my apartment where we decided to do the shoot. “It’s like I’m looking at two strangers. Like this is some arranged marriage and you’re both being forced to leave a lover behind.” Head thrown back, the burly guy stares at the fixture my designer had imported from Venice and whispers, “How am I supposed to work like this?”

  That’s when I feel it. The quake in Laurel’s shoulders, the fracture in her picture-perfect—or according to Ralph, not quite perfect—façade. I turn to her, careful not to move the arm Ralph spent ten damn minutes positioning around her shoulders, and see the twitch at the corner of her mouth, the way her eyes screw up in a fight against what I’m quickly recognizing as inevitable.

  “Laurel,” I warn, but it’s too late. She doubles over laughing so hard that all I can do is rest a hand on her back and wait for her to come up for air.

  Ralph is gaping at her, a fury in his eyes I’d normally reserve for the douche at the Whole Foods who snags the last Alter Eco bar. Seriously?

  I wave the guy off and tell him to grab a coffee from the kitchen—because yeah, my mother was here and set up a service before the rest of us arrived. Nuts.

  And then I’ve got Laurel and her laughter all to myself, and I’m in no hurry to give it up. When she leans back into the couch and meets my eyes, I say, “I know.” And she starts all over again.

  Rising from the couch, I offer Laurel my hand and pull her up with me. “Come here.”

  I walk her over to the windows overlooking the city and tuck her in to me, back to front. I’ve still got her fingers in the loose hold of mine, and with my free hand I raise my phone and hold the burst-shots button.

  “She wants an engagement picture, we’ll give her an engagement picture.”

  Laurel peers up at me, laughter still lighting her eyes. “Jack, such a rebel.”

  “I know, it’s hot. But try to restrain yourself.” I’ve got the phone in front of us and I’m thumbing through the shots so she can see. “What about this one?”

  Laurel looks relaxed and happy. Beautiful with the afternoon sun shining in her hair.

  “That’s nice. I like your smile,” she says softly.

  And I like hers, in the picture. In real life. In the dreams I’ve started having and the memories I try to forget. She takes a deep breath, and I realize she’s still tucked against me, our fingers caught together at her shoulder, our bodies touching in too many places to count. It feels good. I look down at her, at her thick lashes, the tiny freckle beneath her right eye, and gentle lines of her profile as she continues to swipe through the pictures on my phone. This is the picture I wish I could take.

  Her lips part, and the tip of her tongue touches the corner.

  I need to stop staring at her. I need to stop thinking about what it was like that one time.

  “This one,” she says, smiling softly as she peers up at me. Our eyes meet and, Christ, something hot and possessive and wholly misplaced starts clawing at my chest, begging me to forget the past and pretend that—

  “Shall we try a few more shots?”

  Ralph’s croaky voice has me snapping back to reality and Laurel slipping her hand from mine as she puts a few feet of space between us, directing her attention to the photographer who looks ready to pack up his ge
ar.

  “Ralph, I think we’re good for now. But if we need anything else, we’ll be in touch.” Smoothing her hair behind her ear, she casts me a tentative smile. “I should get going too. I told them I’d be back in the office after we were done.”

  Shoving my hands into my pockets, I jut my chin her way. “We still good for cocktails Friday night?” A guy Hastings Development has been doing business with for about as long as I’ve been involved is turning forty, and Dad wanted to sit this one out. So Laurel and I are on.

  “You bet. See you then.” She’s headed out the door but stops to look back with a grin. “Let me know which picture you send to your mom.”

  She doesn’t ask me to send one to hers or mention doing it herself, but I’ll make sure Beverly gets one too.

  8

  Laurel

  “So you talked to him last night for how long?” Margo is stretched out on her belly across my couch, heels locked together in the air, hands stacked beneath her chin.

  She says she’s lonely and just wants to hang out, but she’s here to meet Jack.

  “How long?” I locate my missing stiletto and sit at the end of the couch, shoving her knees back to make room. “I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.” Fine, a half-hour.

  “Is that so?” There’s a cluck of her tongue and singsong quality to her voice that has me shaking my head.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” Because if she thinks it then I might start thinking it, and with Jack on his way to pick me up, I don’t need a bunch of nonsense mucking up my mind.

  Tucking her legs in, she kneels beside me, smiling like a fool. “I’m thinking you should do him. Totally. If you can talk for ten minutes without fighting, you could easily go twice that long if you were f—”

  “Enough!” I beg, my hands coming up between us in an X, like somehow it will ward off the words. “I am not going to sleep with Jack. What kind of friend are you?”

  She cocks her head, lashes fluttering. “The kind who’s horny on your behalf. The kind who notices that you’ve been more impassioned talking about Jack Hastings—a bona fide hottie of epic proportions—these past few days than I’ve heard you in years.”

  La la la la la. Don’t want to hear it.

  “I’ll admit, I’m not quite so aggressively cranky about him as I used to be. We’ve both changed over the years. Matured a little. And I might kind of like the man he’s become.” All true. “But interested? No way. I don’t feel that way about him.”

  At least, I don’t want to. Unfortunately, this butterfly business that’s started kicking in every time his name pops up on my phone or Margo mentions that sexy bottom lip of his says I might already. But that doesn’t mean I’ll act on it.

  “Hey, when’s he coming, anyway?” Margo says, strolling into the kitchen to check the fridge. She pulls out an apple and takes a bite so big, I can’t help but laugh. “I want to see if his scowl lives up to the hype. And I’m dying to get a read on the vibe between you.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but three loud knocks have me closing it again with a frown.

  Margo’s eyes go wide, and then she practically knocks me over, barreling past me for the door.

  “Coming!” she sings out, sliding to a stop. Shoulders back, hip thrown out to the side, she swings the door open and juts out her hand. “You must be Jackass.”

  Jack and I laugh at the same time, our eyes coming up to meet each other’s like it was synchronized. Cue the butterflies. Ugh.

  He gives her the grin that’s dropped a thousand panties. “And you must be Margo.”

  She’s clearly delighted. But now I’m wondering how the hell he knew who she was. I haven’t even mentioned Margo to him, deeming her too precious to be sullied by his imagination.

  “I’ve seen pictures of you on Law’s phone. Nice to meet the real deal.”

  I check my reflection in the mirror by the front door. “Forgot my earrings. Give me a second to grab them.”

  “Take your time, Elle.”

  I leave Margo pumping Jack for information about where we’re going and whether the moms have registered for us yet. I can’t bear to hear the answer and hustle back to my room.

  Rifling through one of my not-entirely-organized jewelry boxes and then another, I locate the elongated silver drops that go with my dress and slip them into my ears. Reflected in the mirror above my vanity, Jack steps into the open doorway behind me. “I’m just about ready.”

  He nods, but there’s a hard set to his jaw as he stares at me. Or at my dress, I think.

  “Everything okay?” I look myself over, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “This is your event—if my dress isn’t right, I’m happy to change. Just take a look in my closet and pick something out.”

  Jack takes a step back, shaking his head. “No, you’re fine. But we should get going if you’re about ready.”

  I’d take him at his word, except that his eyes are already dropping back to my dress, his brows pulling low.

  “Jack.”

  “You’re fine,” he bites out. “Let’s get this over with.”

  So much for the guy I was laughing with the other night on the phone.

  But really, when it comes to Jack Hastings, mixed messages are par for the course.

  Jack

  Why the hell didn’t I walk across her room and find some nice turtleneck tent for Laurel to change into? From the front, her dress is a stunner. Cut high at her neck and fitted down to just past her knees. I knew the second I saw her I was going to have to watch myself… to make sure I wasn’t watching her too carefully. But then she turned around, showing me her back. Or rather, the bare cutout circle of it.

  I’m pretty sure Margo was still talking when my tongue hit the floor and I followed Laurel back to her room. I told myself it was just a dress. It wasn’t that revealing. She’d selected perfectly for our plans… But then she shifted her weight, and the muscles along that stretch of spine caught my attention and I started thinking about how soft her skin was. How warm. What it would be like to touch her there. With my mouth.

  Fuck.

  So yeah, unreasonable or not, I should have picked something else for her to wear. Except then I would have had to think about that silky dress sliding over her curves, whispering past her hips, and pooling into a silky midnight puddle at the foot of her bed. I would have started wondering what kind of lingerie she was wearing—blue, black? What she’d look like standing there in those killer heels that matched her scantily cut bra-and-panty set… with tiny bows or maybe more cutouts.

  Fuuuck.

  Better to grin and bear it.

  Or so I thought up until the moment we get off the elevator at the swank bar and every head in the place turns, jaws dropping, eyes sharpening as their focus homes in on the woman at my side.

  “What’s the plan, Jack? I’m all for getting this over with, so what are we looking at—an hour, two?”

  The sharp edge in her voice is enough to cut through the bullshit in my head. What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Her fingers drum a slow beat on her crossed arms as she looks anywhere but at me.

  Hell. “I’m sorry.” The drumming stops. “It’s the dress. Or rather, it’s me being a douche and blaming it on your truly gorgeous dress like a total dick.”

  Her eyes tentatively meet mine, and I feel even worse. “That would be a pretty dickish thing to do. Care to explain what this dress did to you?”

  I swallow, letting my eyes move over the cuts and curves before owning it. “It’s giving me a pretty good idea of what every fucking guy in here is thinking when he sees you wearing it. And I’m not used to that sort of thing bothering me.”

  Her cheeks go pink and she gives me a bewildered look. “It’s just a dress, Jack.”

  That’s where she’s wrong.

  “Not on you, it’s not. And when I saw you in it— Laurel, I’m sorry. You look incredible, and whether it’s fake or not, I’m lucky to have you at my side.”

>   “At least we can agree on that.”

  Laurel.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  Her short laugh says no, but as we make our way across the bar to where a large area is sectioned off for the party, her softened eyes and pinkened cheeks tell me she’ll think about it. Maybe.

  I introduce Laurel around, both of us accepting congratulations and taking turns fielding questions about how we met. All the while, I keep my hand at the base of her spine.

  Yeah, it’s a claim. But we’re freshly engaged. We ought to be touching. I’m selling the fantasy.

  I listen as she chats with my associate about golf and laugh when she recounts a story about Law and how, even though they’re twins, to this day he still refers to her as his little sister—which is true. I’ve heard him do it too many times to count, but only once when those words really, really mattered.

  The night is going well. A few times she gets caught up enough in the conversation that she seems to forget who she’s standing with and actually leans back into me.

  She’s perfect.

  Everything is perfect, right up until my associate asks for a few words with me about a deal we’re considering going in on together down in the South Loop. Laurel is chatting with a couple in from Aspen and waves me off with a smile, not missing a beat with her own conversation.

  Barney and I end up over at the bar for maybe twenty minutes. Nineteen longer than I wanted to be gone. But each time I glance across to where everyone else is seated, Laurel is talking animatedly or giving that genuine laugh I’ve always wished I could score more often myself.

  Barney claps me on the shoulder, making a joke about getting in trouble with his wife for talking business during the party. I turn back to where Laurel was seated before, but her chair is occupied by a woman about Edith’s age. Another scan of the room and I find Laurel standing by the windows, getting talked up by some guy with a porn-stache and no concept of personal space. Or that the look on her face is practically screaming back off.