After the Kiss

by Lauren Layne

  Oh, yes, he freaking could.

  And that wasn’t the only thing that was bothering her. This undercover-girlfriend plan had been toeing the line of decent-human-beings-don’t-do-this from its very inception. Now that she was actually in the midst of the operation, she could barely look the man in the eye without wanting to grovel and apologize.

  But she couldn’t call it off. Not yet. Not after Grace had overheard Kelli pitching a spin on the story to Camille. This was her story.

  She just wished she could do it without dragging Mitchell into it.

  Nothing was going as planned. She’d been expecting to merely tolerate him. She figured that as long as he didn’t violate anything on her “absolutely not” list, she’d be able to suffer through a month of playing the girlfriend. As expected, a man who knew his way around Wall Street didn’t have any major strikes against him. He wasn’t cruel to animals, women, or old people; he didn’t chew with his mouth open; and he didn’t use the word babe. There was nothing not to like.

  She just wished she didn’t like like him. Wished he didn’t make her laugh when she wasn’t expecting it. She liked the bizarre joy on his face in the middle of a run (although she still didn’t understand that one). Liked the fact that he stripped out of his suit and put on jeans and a T-shirt as soon as he was done with his workday. Liked that sometimes he let her strip off his suit.

  She liked the way he kissed. Liked the way he did other things. Really liked that part.

  However, none of that did squat for her story. The entire point of this little charade was to track the progress of dating to something more. Trouble was, it was turning out to be pretty freaking hard to see the forest for the trees when you were in the middle of the damned forest.

  Maybe it would all come together if she just kept at it.

  Or not.

  Julie set her computer aside and wandered over to the fridge. Nothing. Well, there was nonfat yogurt, but what good was yogurt against a story that wouldn’t write itself and a man she couldn’t figure out? It didn’t even have fruit on the bottom.

  She tapped her fingers and glanced around her apartment. Her eyes fell on the hot romantic suspense novel on the coffee table. She was halfway through. She should finish it. Except … she wasn’t in the mood.

  She glanced at the TV. She could catch up on her shows. It had been weeks, and there was bound to be something good. Nope. Not in the mood for that either.

  A walk? Nah.

  The gym? Hell, no.

  Nap? Not tired.

  She could call the girls, but Riley was in Florida visiting her parents, and Grace and Greg were staying with friends in the Hamptons for the weekend.

  Come on, Greene, it’s not like you don’t have a million errands you could run or a dozen friends to catch up with.

  Julie slumped against the refrigerator door and faced the truth. She wanted to see Mitchell. Not to enhance her story notes, not to study him, not to analyze anything. She just missed him.

  She growled and began prowling around her kitchen. This was so not how it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be cool, removed, observant, not panting for his phone call and itching for his company.

  And you just saw him last night, her single-girl self complained. One Italian meal should be more than enough to tide you over for the weekend at this stage in the relationship.

  Julie froze. There was that word again. Relationship.

  Her cellphone rang from where it was charging on her nightstand, and she nearly broke the sound barrier diving for it.

  She glanced at the incoming number and felt a goofy grin spread over her face.

  It was him.

  She picked up the phone and took a deep breath. Play it cool, play it cool. Pretend you’re busy doing something other than wasting oxygen.

  “Hi!” She rolled her eyes at her overexcited tone. Well done, Greene. Real cool.

  He gave a low, surprised laugh. “Were you expecting someone else? I don’t think anyone’s ever been that happy to get a phone call from me.”

  “I mean … I was waiting for the doctor to call, so I’m a little keyed up, but nice to hear from you too.”

  She smacked a hand over her face and she closed her eyes in despair. Who the hell gets that excited for a call from a doctor?

  “Who the hell gets that excited for a call from the doctor?”

  Her eyes popped open. There. That was something she could add to her article. Sign that things are moving along: you think in identical sentences.

  “Yeah, well … I’m awaiting some important results.”

  “On a Saturday? Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, yah, just a routine test,” she lied. There was no test at all. She wasn’t even due for a routine doctor’s appointment for months. Julie glared at herself in the mirror in horror. Shut up already.

  “So whatcha up to?” she asked, praying he’d just let the inappropriate and vaguely disturbing doctor reference slide.

  “Not much, just got back from a run.” He paused. “I missed you.”

  Julie tried unsuccessfully to stifle the warm rush of pleasure at his words. She’d opted not to join him on the run this morning, mostly because she thought she should keep things moving slowly. Also because her hamstrings still hadn’t recovered from last week’s death jog.

  “Do you have plans tonight?” he asked.

  Tell him you’re busy. It’s too soon to be seeing each other every night of the week. Tell him—

  “Nope, no plans.” Idiot.

  “How do you feel about the opera?”

  Julie’s mind went completely blank. How did anyone under the age of sixty feel about the opera? Completely and utterly underwhelmed, that’s how.

  “Never been.”

  “Want to change that?”

  Not particularly.

  But if it meant a couple of hours sitting next to Mitchell?

  She flopped back on her bed, in the best mood she’d been in all day. “So, Wall Street, what exactly would a woman like myself wear to the opera?”

  * * *

  Julie had been in the opera house before. Rich, fancy people loved themselves some Met.

  But being at the opera house to watch an actual opera? Different story. For starters, opera was kind of nightmarish. Mitchell had warned her that it was an acquired taste, but he hadn’t warned her of the shock of it.

  Still, she had to admit that there was something to be said for this kind of stately, classy living.

  The gowns alone made the evening worth it. Yes, gowns. In the twenty-first century. It was wonderful.

  “I’ve never seen so many beautiful dresses,” she muttered at intermission as she leaned over the balcony to people-watch.

  His fingers skated over her exposed shoulder blades. “I like your dress best.”

  Julie glanced down. She did look pretty good. She hadn’t had anything worthy of Marie Antoinette in her closet, and there’d been no time for shopping, so she’d pulled out her old standby. The strapless emerald-green silk had always felt like it was made for her. She always felt pretty in it. But tonight she wasn’t sure if it was the dress that made her pretty or the way that Mitchell had spent the entire first half of the performance sneaking glances at her cleavage instead of watching the stage.

  “So what do you think of your first exposure to opera?” he asked, his arm going around the back of her seat.

  “Well, I can’t say I plan on becoming a season ticket holder anytime soon. It’s a little … intense. But I like the idea of it.”

  I like the company is what she wanted to say.

  He nodded. “It’s not my preferred entertainment either. But my boss offered me tickets with the kind of awed reluctance of a man being asked to hand over his firstborn, so I figured I’d better accept.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder from where she’d folded both arms on the railing. She gave him a slow, sexy smile. “Well, I’m glad you chose me.”

  He snorted. “There
you go again with your moves. I thought we were over that phase.”

  She smiled again, for real this time. “I can’t lose my touch, ya know? Gotta keep my flirting skills fresh for the next guy.”

  His smile slipped, and Julie wanted to slap a hand over her mouth. She knew better. Referencing your next boyfriend as though it was an inevitability was the mark of a fling, not a serious relationship. He pulled his arm back and she bit her lip in regret. Damn it.

  Wanting to avoid his piercing gaze, she turned back to people-watching. She made a low tsking noise. “Look at that couple wearing jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. Dirty sneakers. Don’t they know they’re missing the point of the evening?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure the point has nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the audience’s attire,” he said, leaning forward to see where she was looking. He glanced in the direction she indicated and froze.

  “You know them?” she asked.

  “Not them. The woman behind them,” he said.

  Julie’s eyes flew to his profile. That was a tone she hadn’t heard from him yet. Angry? Annoyed? Nervous?

  She followed his line of sight, trying to figure out who’d captured his attention. Just then a strawberry blonde in a long black dress turned and glanced up, as though sensing someone’s eyes boring into her back. Her lips parted when she saw Mitchell before breaking out into a wide smile. The woman’s eyes flicked to Julie and her smile slipped.

  Ah. So it’s like that then. Ex.

  The woman tapped the arm of her older companion, and he too glanced up and waved. Julie gaped when she got a good look at his face. “Isn’t that Senator Blake?”

  “Yup,” Mitchell said, looking more annoyed than surprised.

  The red-haired woman beckoned him with a fussy little wiggle of her fingers.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “I have to go say hello.”

  “Now?” Julie asked in surprise. “Isn’t the screeching, er, singing about to start again?”

  “No. These intermissions are tediously long. I have plenty of time. Unfortunately.”

  Julie didn’t miss that he’d said I and not we. “You want me to go with you?”

  His expression said it all: Not really. But then he glanced down at the redhead, who was staring up at him with a longing expression. Mitchell sighed. “Actually, maybe this will be easier if you do come.”

  “So you don’t get eaten alive?” she asked as he led her out of their box and toward the elaborately curved staircase.

  “Trust me, Evvy’s not the type to eat anyone alive.”

  “Evvy?”

  “Evelyn Blake. My ex. I may have forgotten to mention that she’s the senator’s daughter.”

  Julie whistled. “You dated the senator’s daughter? You must feel like you’re slumming it with me.”

  Mitchell gave her a quick glance. “I admit, Evelyn didn’t quite have your cooking skills.”

  “I’d be happy to offer her a couple of lessons, but from the looks of things, I’m not expecting a friendship bracelet from her anytime soon.”

  “What the hell is a friendship bracelet?” Mitchell muttered as he dragged her toward the spot where they’d seen Evelyn and the senator on the main level. She noticed that he knew exactly where he was going and exactly which set of closed curtains belonged to the Blakes’ box.

  Not your first time at this circus, is it?

  “Mitchell!” Evelyn breathed, coming forward with extended hands.

  Julie had the sudden urge to step closer to him, and the possessive impulse was so foreign and disconcerting that she overcorrected and took two giant steps in the opposite direction.

  She regretted her backward movement as soon as Evelyn stepped forward and wound her skinny arms around Mitchell’s neck, giving him a long, lingering hug.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she said in a soft, breathy voice.

  Julie almost winced at the expression on the other woman’s face. She might as well have screamed, Take me back and let me have your boring babies.

  Mitchell cleared his throat and cut a glance at Julie.

  “Ev, this is Julie Greene.”

  “Oh!” Evelyn said, as though she’d just now noticed Mitchell had entered with another woman. She turned slowly to face Julie. Her cornflower-blue eyes skimmed over Julie in a subtly condescending manner, the gesture so brief and well done that any man would have missed the bitchiness of it. But Julie didn’t.

  She returned the favor. If someone had asked her to sketch out the female version of Mitchell, it would have looked a lot like this. The floor-length, one-shouldered black gown was fashionable yet conservative. The long, wavy strawberry-blond hair was feminine but not overtly sexy. She had straight, even features and a thin, boyish body.

  The only thing interesting about her was her eyes, which had turned frosty when they fell on Julie.

  “Ms. Greene,” Evelyn said, extending a bony hand. She didn’t take the necessary step to close the gap between them, requiring Julie to do the moving to shake her hand.

  Instead, Julie matched Evelyn’s gesture, extending her own hand without moving her feet, so that there was a good foot of space between their extended fingers. Julie thought she heard Mitchell cough out a horrified laugh.

  Julie raised an eyebrow, and they had a silent pissing contest until Evelyn slowly lowered her hand and narrowed her eyes. “I’m familiar with your work, Ms. Greene. I have friends who are big fans, although I confess Stiletto’s not my usual reading unless I’m in the dentist’s waiting area and desperate,” she said with a little laugh.

  “Of course. Stiletto’s meant to be fun and enjoyable. Certainly not for everybody.”

  Evelyn’s eye twitched as though trying to figure out if she’d been insulted, but Julie pressed on. “I’m afraid you have me at the disadvantage in introductions. You are …?”

  Mitchell stepped forward, attempting to ease the introductions, but Evelyn stopped him with a hand on his chest. Julie swallowed away the lump in her throat at the proprietary movement.

  “You don’t follow politics, Ms. Greene?”

  “Too busy shoe shopping, I guess. And hanging out with Mitchell.”

  Julie intentionally let her gaze drift to Mitchell’s crotch, and he gave her an exasperated look. Before Evelyn could swipe back, Senator Blake ended his conversation with a constituent in the neighboring box and headed their way.

  Julie was disappointed. Other than her ongoing feud with Kelli Kearns in the office, she rarely had a good catfight.

  “Mitchell, good to see you again, boy,” the senator said as he shook Mitchell’s hand.

  “You too, Senator.”

  Senator Blake grunted. “How many times have I told you to call me John?”

  “John,” Mitchell amended.

  The senator turned to Julie, his expression curious but more openly friendly than his daughter’s. “And who’s this?”

  “This is Julie Greene, Dad,” Evelyn cooed. “She’s a sex columnist.”

  It was intended as a barb, but Julie rolled with it. “Guilty. I hope I’m not sullying your box, Senator.”

  Senator Blake threw back his head and laughed. Already Julie liked him better than his daughter. He looked like the quintessential American senator: tall, broad-shouldered, salt-and-pepper hair, strong features, a big voice.

  His daughter, on the other hand, was the quintessential shrew: pinched face, snobbish, and currently all over Julie’s boyfriend. Julie tried to keep her eyes on the senator as he regaled her with some story about his pre-politics career in publishing, but her eyes kept flicking to where Evelyn—no, Evvy—had pulled Mitchell into the corner, his head bent down to listen to whatever she was whispering.

  Julie must have been doing a piss-poor job of faking interest in the senator because he turned slightly to see what—or whom—she was looking at. For a second his eyes went sad.

  “She thought he was going to propose,” he said, lowering his voice.

  �
�Oh?” Julie said, her heart in her throat.

  “We never did figure out what went wrong. I don’t know who was more upset to lose him, me or her,” he said with a small laugh. “He was like a son.”

  Suddenly Julie felt guilty for judging Evelyn so harshly. She might be a bit of a bitch, but she was a brokenhearted bitch. Losing a man like Mitchell Forbes was bound to bring out the worst in someone.

  She bit her lip. Where had that thought come from?

  “How long have you two been together?” the senator asked, resuming his friendly manner.

  “Oh, we’re not really together,” Julie said quickly. “Just sort of casually dating.”

  Mitchell and Evelyn chose that moment to rejoin them, and Evelyn’s satisfied expression revealed that she’d overheard Julie’s comment.

  Julie searched Mitchell’s face to gauge his reaction to her dismissal of their relationship, but his expression was even more placid and unreadable than ever.

  The lights flickered, indicating the end of intermission, and Julie breathed a sigh of relief. She was starting to get frostbite from Evelyn’s glare.

  “It was nice to meet you,” Evelyn said politely. “Mitchell, I’ll call you about what we discussed?”

  Julie’s fingers tightened on Mitchell’s arm, and he glanced quickly down at her. “I think we’re good, Ev,” he said in a kind voice.

  Evelyn’s eyes clouded over again, and Julie almost felt sorry for her again. Almost.

  Julie and Mitchell didn’t say a word as they made their way back toward their own box, and Julie resisted the urge to ask the clichéd woman’s question: What are you thinking about?

  On a professional level she hoped he wasn’t hung up on his ex-girlfriend. That would derail her story.

  On a personal level … well, on a personal level, she really hoped he wasn’t hung up on his ex-girlfriend.

  Julie almost smiled. The green had been an apt dress choice. She wondered absently if jealousy looked good on her, and was about to ask Mitchell when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into an empty box.

  “This isn’t ours,” she said, looking around in confusion.

  His lips nibbled her ear. “I know. It’s empty.”