by Alison Kent
“You two have no idea how great you’re going to look when I get this print ad’s mock-up put together for class,” Shandi said with a sigh, wishing she could find the last missing piece to her ad’s puzzle. It was a marketing campaign for hair color, and her girlfriends had agreed to model.
Still, she knew she needed something more, something…bigger. She’d just yet to pin it down. “Are we still on for Sunday’s photo shoot? I’ll buy lunch—or at least have Chef send it downstairs.” She’d managed, with Kit’s help, to arrange to use Exhibit A. “It’ll be fun.”
Kit nodded, tucking back her hair and exposing chic sapphire studs. “As long as I survive Saturday night in one piece. I have no idea how I got talked into working on the committee for this fund-raiser. I mean, seriously. Do we really need to save an art gallery when the AIDS epidemic in Africa is taking so many innocent lives?”
“Not to diminish that particular tragedy at all,” April said, reaching for her wineglass, her nails shimmering with a soft copper sheen that matched her silk shift and her eye shadow. “But you do realize you’re talking to two art students, don’t you? One who is planning to eventually open a gallery to showcase her own jewelry designs?”
“Of course I didn’t mean that as a slight to either of you,” Kit said with a wide-eyed gasp. She pressed a hand to her chest, toyed with a dainty platinum chain. “Shandi, please tell me you know that.”
Her simple lemon tank dress accessorized by nothing but a kiwi-and-melon-colored scarf, her nails not accessorized at all, Shandi grinned. “I know that. And April knows that. She’s just giving you a hard time because that’s what she’s good at doing lately.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” April asked, her brow arched as she returned her wineglass to the table. Sitting back, she folded her hands in her lap. “Is that some sort of dig at my fight with Evan?”
Kit glanced from one woman to the other, reached for her Kate Spade clutch and scooted back her chair. “Excuse me, will you both? I need to visit the ladies’ room.”
Smoothing the tablecloth next to her empty plate, Shandi waited until Kit was out of earshot before she pounced the way she’d been waiting to do since hauling a drunk Evan Harcourt out of Erotique the night before.
“I’m not going to get in the middle of it.” She dropped her voice to a pleading whisper. “C’mon, April. That’s not fair to any of us.”
April looked down and away, rubbing the pad of her index finger over the base of her wineglass. “He called me last night. We were in the middle of dinner, and he called and asked if I could come home.”
“So?” Shandi lifted her glass of water and took a sip. “I’d love to have a man who wanted to be with me badly enough that he’d do that.”
“You don’t understand. Neither of you understand.” April dramatically swept her hair back over her shoulders. “You don’t have the sort of family obligations I have.”
That was such bull Shandi wanted to plug up her nose. But she was a better friend than that. “Okay, then, explain them to me. What obligations keep you tied to Connecticut?”
April’s frown signaled true confusion, a youthful confusion, causing Shandi to suddenly feel so very old. “Everything, what do you mean?”
“Spell it out for me. What can’t you give up?” She turned her chair sideways and rested against the wall. “Dinner when your father is struck by a whim? Shopping with your mother? Walking the family dog?”
April glared. “That’s not funny.”
“Neither is me having to drag your boyfriend’s wasted ass out of Erotique at 1:00 a.m.” Shandi leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “I barely got him out of the taxi and up the stairs before he passed out. He was gone when I got up for class, but I know he slept on the sofa.”
“At least he slept,” April admitted softly. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I kept hearing that disconnect sound from his phone beeping in my ear.”
“Sweetie, you’ve got to talk to him about this. It’s not going to go away. He feels left out, and I can’t say I blame him.”
“So you blame me,” April said and tightened her gaze until Shandi felt the guilty pinch.
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s not my place to blame anyone. It’s not my relationship. You’re both my friends, and I don’t want either of you to get hurt. Thing is, the way this is going, if you two don’t talk, it’s going to happen.”
April’s eyes reddened but didn’t water. “I don’t know how to make a choice like this. Between Evan and my family? How can I do that?”
This is what Shandi didn’t get. What she’d never get. She toyed with the hem of the tablecloth draped in her lap. “Why does it have to be a choice? Why can’t you just include Evan in your family?”
“It’s not that simple,” April said, shaking her head.
“It is if you want it to be,” Shandi replied, because to her it couldn’t be more so.
Then again, her blood wasn’t as blue as April’s—though the Fosseys of Round-Up were just as rigid in their expectations as the Carters of Connecticut seemed to be.
Maybe April wasn’t ready to make the same self-interested break from her past as Shandi had. And honestly? She wouldn’t blame her friend. Not everyone shared her own consuming drive.
April huffed. “Tell Trevor that it’s simple. He brought Stefan Navarro to dinner.” She gave an affected roll of her eyes. “Or he tried. Daddy wasn’t having any of it.”
“So who won?”
“You say that like we’re at war,” April said, her gaze growing narrow.
Shandi simply shrugged. “If not a war, then at least a battle.”
“You don’t even talk to your family,” April snapped, tossing her napkin from her lap onto the table. “Why do you think you know so much about mine?”
“I don’t. But I do know you and I do know Evan.” Shandi paused, letting that sink in. “I also know that making a choice or a stand isn’t easy. I did it. It was either stay in Round-Up and live the life my family had chosen for me or come here and live my own.”
“It’s not the same,” April said, weakening.
“So says you,” Shandi responded, feeling even more a wise old crone in the making. But seeing her girlfriend’s dilemma made it easier to cement the decisions she’d made to get out on her own.
April offered a wry grin. “Yeah. I do. And thanks. You’re a good friend.”
Shandi chuckled as Kit rejoined them. “Man, the things we put ourselves through for love and money.”
“Tell me about it,” Kit practically huffed, settling into the conversation as if she’d never left. “And this fund-raiser isn’t even my money. Not to mention it’s all volunteer. I’m not getting a thing out of it.”
“Besides an awesome makeover, you mean?” Shandi reminded her.
“That, yes. And then there’s the good karma.” She waggled both brows. “Not to mention that I’m being escorted by the gallery owner’s son, who could easily be Orlando Bloom’s older and way sexier brother.”
Shandi pictured Orlando Bloom, quickly replaced him with Quentin, pictured Quentin standing between Kit and April and looking down, his ivory linen jacket hanging open, his skin bronzed, his eyes and hair all scotch and honey, a big golden cat on the prowl.
And that was it. Exactly what her ad campaign needed. Quentin was Kit’s blonde and April’s brunette combined. The tawny hybrid. The perfect blend of two palettes. She laughed to herself. “I can’t believe it.”
“What can’t you believe?” April asked.
Shandi shook her head, no longer hearing the buzz of conversation in the restaurant. “I have been racking my brain to come up with the angle I need for this class project.”
“You don’t need us anymore?” Kit asked.
“Oh, yes. You’re both on the hook.” She wasn’t about to let either of them off. “You’re both perfect for what I want to do. But I needed one more thing, and Kit’s Orlando Bloom comment triggered it.”
Would he do it if she asked? A Grammy-winning record producer stooping to help out a poor college kid? She laughed aloud at that. At the idea of Quentin stooping to do anything. But for her he might just pitch in.
All she had to do was make sure he understood she didn’t want to use that Quentin Marks—the one the world thought him to be. She wanted the man she knew. An anonymous symbol, the sexy epitome of what women looked for in a man.
“You’re going to use Orlando Bloom in your ad?” April asked, reaching for the thin strap of her purse on the back of her chair and counting out the cash to pay the bill.
“No,” Shandi replied. “Even better.”
Kit lifted a brow. “Better than Orlando Bloom? Now that I’ve got to see.”
“Oh, you will.” Shandi got to her feet, grabbed up her wallet, already eager to get Quentin to agree. “But you’re going to have to wait until Sunday.”
“IF YOU’RE NOT BUSY, HOW would you feel about helping me out this weekend? I’ve got a class project I’m working on, and with your input I think I can ace it,” Shandi said to Quentin Wednesday night.
The question came moments after he’d climbed onto the stool he’d claimed as his own at the far end of the bar and before he’d had a chance to tell her that she looked so good in those tight black tuxedo pants that getting her out of them had become his official fantasy.
She didn’t mention a word about Tuesday night in the library or the wee hours of Wednesday morning in his bed. She hadn’t said a word about how he’d put her off when she’d quizzed him about the state of his mind. Or about the way he hadn’t wanted to talk about himself at all.
All she’d done was grab a glass, pour his drink and smile at him as if she knew all of his secrets. It was enough to make a man go mad. To make him admit that it was useless to avoid a woman’s need to know, a lost cause to hide.
Even though he wasn’t talking, he liked it that Shandi was interested. “I knew it. You’re just like all the rest. Wanting me for all the ways I can help your career,” he teased.
She grinned, buzzed her lips and tongue in a raspberry, waved over his head at someone he didn’t turn to see. “It took you all this time to figure that out?”
Cheeky wench. He didn’t even know what to say to her amusing confession. “What sort of project?”
She hesitated, an empty drink shaker in one hand, a towel in the other, her head tilted to one side as she considered him. “You know what? I think I’ll wait and tell you about it later.”
He lifted his drink, studied her over the rim of the glass. “Why not tell me about it now?”
“Because I’m working and because you’ve had another long day of meetings. I can see it in your face.” She gestured toward him with the shaker. “You need to relax, take advantage of your bartender’s friendly ear.”
He shrugged. He was prepared. He wasn’t going to fall prey to her plentiful charms. But he did like the way she noticed his mood. The way she was more interested in hearing about his day than filling him in on her plans.
He swirled the melting ice in his glass. “I’ll worm it out of you sooner or later, you know.”
“I have no doubt. You do have your sneaky ways of getting to me,” she said, adding a wink. “But I should’ve waited to bring it up. I am way too busy tonight to get into the details anyway.”
“Busy, huh?” He swiveled his chair to glance around the near-empty room before glancing back at her. “Uh, yeah. I see that.”
She stuck out her tongue, leaving him alone while she checked with the rest of the bar’s patrons. He watched as she walked away, took in the length of her legs she’d yet to wrap around him. He’d had them tangled with his, bracketing his, warm and smooth as they’d rubbed against his.
What he wanted was to feel her heels digging hard and pulling him in. What he needed was to get his mind off bedding her or else he was going to be walking out of here with a baseball-bat-worthy wood.
Getting hard wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he couldn’t think of anything else when she was around. She consumed him, enchanted him.
He wanted more, wanted all of her, was certain that he’d never get enough.
A part of him wondered if she was truly as special as she appeared to be. Or if he was so desperate to be free of his cynicism that he was seeing what he wanted to see instead of what was there.
If he was indulging in this fantasy because he didn’t like the reality of his personal life. If he was looking for more ways than moving to Austin to bring about the change his sanity was demanding.
Once she’d finished drawing a beer for one customer, listening to another cry into his, she returned to where Quentin was waiting, wiping down the slick ebony surface where a third had left a sizable cash tip.
She tucked the bills into a snifter beneath the bar. “And that is why I’m standing here and you’re sitting there. This is my bread and butter. You’re just the cherry on top. So, now, tell me what went on today. Have you decided which lucky firm will be getting your business?”
Talking about cherries was dangerous conversation, but he was having hell tearing his mind away from the way she’d looked riding him. “I have, actually. The terms were all competitive, so it ended up being more about compatibility, vision and control.”
“Yours, no doubt.” When he nodded, she smiled, adding, “Good for you. I’m glad you got what you wanted.”
“I usually do,” he responded offhandedly. And then he winced. “Sorry. That was crass.”
“Actually it was honest.” She cleared his empty glass from the bar, added it to a tub of dirty glassware when he declined a refill. “Why apologize? I think your accomplishments have earned you a few rights.”
He leaned closer, his forearms braced on the edge of the bar. “Not the right to give up thinking before I open my mouth.”
“I don’t know about that.” She reached for her own bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and drank. “You obviously think too much since it’s hell prying anything good out of you.”
Tenacious. Focused. A dog with a bone. “That’s because there’s nothing to pry. I told you. I went from high school band to college band. Every day of my life since has been about music.”
“No.” Her tone dropped. She held the spout of the bottle in front of her lips. “You didn’t tell me. At least, not until now.”
“And see? It’s nothing.” He shrugged off the truth instead of letting her dig.
He didn’t want her to discover there wasn’t a damn thing to find beyond what she saw on the surface. He’d been on the same single-minded career track all of his life, and that was it. Who he was. What he was.
He was proud of all he’d accomplished, but he’d given up too much along the way. Going back to Austin was the first step in correcting that. In reclaiming the rest of his life from the public. He was starting over, and it felt so damn good that he smiled.
“I’m not buying it,” she finally said, screwing the cap back on the bottle and storing it away. “It’s not nothing. It’s huge. It’s outstanding. You’re only—what?—thirty-five? Thirty-seven? And you’ve done so much.”
He stared at her for a very long time, at the blue of her eyes that shimmered, at her smile that seemed to be a part of her soul.
Her adoration wasn’t that of a young fan who thought he could do no wrong. It wasn’t that of an aspiring musician seeking a word.
It was that of a woman interested in a man. And it hit him like a punch to the gut. “Do you have a break soon?”
She arched the long column of her neck as she studied the bar’s clock. He had to look away, to look down. Emotions rolled through him, untried and uncomfortable, sharp blades of an unfamiliar need.
“Actually yes. I can take one now.”
He didn’t respond. He was already headed for the door she’d pointed out yesterday. The one that opened from Erotique into the bar’s back room.
7
SHE MET HIM JUST INSIDE the doorway. He backed her into the
wall, pinned her wrists over her head with one hand, stared down into her eyes. “Do you know how much I want you?”
Her gaze crawled from his chest that heaved like a bellows up to his nostrils that flared. She pulled in a deep breath, blew it out slowly. “I have a pretty good idea.”
“God, Shandi.” He closed his eyes, opened them only after he’d gotten one last grasp on his control. “You’re the only woman who’s ever done this to me. You make me forget everything but being with you.”
“I do?” she whispered, her words barely audible.
He didn’t answer. He bent to nuzzle her neck, to kiss the hollow of her throat, the soft indentation beneath her ear. He inhaled her. She was fresh and sweet and everything he wasn’t, even while she was wiser than her years.
“Come back to my room.”
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, and he prayed she didn’t mean I won’t. “I only have fifteen minutes. We’d barely get the door locked by then.”
“I’m not leaving,” he growled into her hair.
“I didn’t say you had to.”
He raised his head; his gaze bored into hers. “Where?”
She pressed her lips together, glanced over his right shoulder, over his left, took him by the hand and ordered him to, “C’mon.”
He followed. She wound her way behind cases of beer, boxes of liquor and shelves of supplies—stir sticks, napkins, olives, peanuts, grenadine, mixers and salt.
The corner was dark, but he saw the sign for the employee restroom and urged her to hurry. The minute they were both inside, she closed the door behind him.
When she reached for the light, he stopped her, pulling her fingers to the front of his shirt. She chuckled softly under her breath, unbuttoning him as quickly as he struggled to unbutton her.
That done, she went to work unfastening his pants, sprinkling desperate kisses over the bare skin of his chest, her tongue circling a nipple, her teeth catching him there.
He groaned, loving the way she knew how to touch him, trembling when she did.
