by Amelia Wilde
“I can’t guarantee you anything long-term,” she’d said after a beat. “When the rest of the department shows up—”
“Sounds perfect,” I’d said, beaming.
Marilee North didn’t waste a second. She’d clapped her hands. “Okay, great. Help me corral these people before it turns into a disaster.” From the state of her hair, it already was a disaster, but that was neither here nor there.
She left me there on the sidewalk to direct the flow to her, then hurried into the main building via the loading dock to have people sort the crates and racks and boxes into a haphazard order.
It all happened so fast from there.
The bike.
The man.
He was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, eyes narrowed, radiating a kind of heat that seemed totally out of place. What was he doing there? He’s wealthy. He must be. His suit is impeccable. Expensive, by the looks of it.
His suit is next-level. But his face? His face is something to write home about. Penetrating green eyes, chiseled jaw, sandy hair . . . a shiver of pure delight quakes through me at the sight of him.
But the rest of that package? No way. I’m not in it for men who brood like this, who look at me with a fire in their eyes like I’ve done something wrong. I like laughter. I like furious, sexy romps in the nearest bed, love ‘em and leave ‘em. I love ‘em hard, don’t get me wrong, but men have an expiration date, too. Did I mention that? They’re like jobs.
I did not anticipate getting tackled by Expensive Suit. Feeling the warm weight of his muscular arms wrapped around my body, sturdy and sure, sent a thrill soaring through me so powerfully that, frankly, I don’t want to admit it to myself.
“I undoubtedly saved your life,” he shoots back. He glances up and down the sidewalk. Checking for more bikes? He looks me up and down then, and the angry heat in his eyes softens. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I give him my most winning smile. “The bike didn’t hit me, after all. You took the brunt of the impact.”
His jaw tightens at the words, and he draws himself up and away. “There wasn’t time to explain.”
“Oh, I’m not—” Those eyes. Those eyes are breathtaking. Green, shot through with sunflower yellow. “I’m not asking for an apology.”
“I’m not apologizing.” His words emerge as a low growl. Even as I bristle—he’s not apologizing? For manhandling me?—his voice awakens something buried deep in my gut, something dark and primal.
“Okay.” I take a big breath and let it out, trying to calm my jangling nerves.
When I open my mouth to speak again, he cuts me off. “If you’re all right, I’ll be going.” He starts to turn away.
His accent is different, somehow. It’s American but not quite. Something is different about him, and curiosity flares in my chest. This beautiful, uptight man is not my type, not my type at all, but I can’t help wanting to know more about him.
“Wait!” I call after him a bit too loudly, but it causes him to turn around. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” A curt nod, and then he’s gone. He might not be my type, but he is the type to fade back into the city. We’ll never cross paths again. The thought sends a bolt of sadness across the back of my neck. Why. Why?
I can’t let him leave without saying one last thing, and before I can stop myself, I’m chasing after him. He’s fast, taking long strides. “Hey. Wait.”
His eyes on me might as well be a spotlight. “We don’t need to do this,” he says sharply. “I didn’t want to witness a fatal accident. That’s all.”
He’s so serious that I can’t take it anymore. “You saved the day, for sure. I thought I should introduce myself. I’m Annabel Forester. I work for”—for Marilee, but the specifics escape me—“the show.”
He nods. “Don’t be so reckless out here.”
I can’t contain the peal of laughter that rings out from my chest. “Don’t be so serious.” Then, because I’m clearly having an out-of-body experience, I reach forward and tap the cut line of his cheek. “Turn that frown upside down, Mystery Man.”
Surprise lights up his face, and the barrier between us, his anger once tense in the air, dissipates. “You’re kidding,” he says, incredulous. “Nobody says things like that.”
“I do.”
“Nobody says things like that to me.”
Oh, so he’s a big dog. “Forgive me, my liege.”
His eyes twinkle, but he won’t allow himself to smile. “This once.”
What is the proper etiquette for this situation? I feel the strangest pressure to know, to do, but I have no idea how to repay a man who saved me from getting clobbered by a speeding bicyclist. I resent being saved, which complicates things. “Can I—buy you a coffee?” I blurt out the question like a buzzer somewhere is about to ring.
“No. Over here. Over here,” Marilee shouts from the top of the loading dock. “Annabel!”
“Repay me with a job well done,” he says. “And try not to attract any more disasters to my hotel.”
I turn away to wave at Marilee, to hold up a finger—one second—and when I turn back, he’s gone.
Chapter Four
Beau
I could have kissed her.
We were standing that close.
The chair behind my desk at Bennett Inc.’s offices—my offices—doesn’t creak when I lean back, though I almost wish it would. I’m counting on small things to keep me rooted to reality these days.
These days. It’s been two days since I saw her, and the nagging feeling won’t go away. It won’t go away no matter how many miles I run on the treadmill at the gym, or how many acquisitions reports I demand from my CEOs, or how many dinners I plan with the group. West always wants to go to the strip club. I’m normally the least interested in that kind of outing, but I agreed last night to keep my mind off her.
Off it. Off the hotel.
I could have gone with her for coffee after the intimacy of her body pressed against mine. What was I doing, turning her down like that? She might not be the kind of woman I’d want long-term, but even so . . .
“Linda,” I call out.
My secretary, Linda, a woman in her early fifties with elegantly coifed blonde hair that’s going gray and the smartest collection of skirt suits I’ve ever seen, appears almost instantly in the doorway to my office. “Mr. Bennett?”
“Tea, please.”
She gives a graceful nod and steps away. Linda understands me. She might be American, but she knows the value of respect. Of dignity. Of peace.
It had been a matter of inches. Seconds, really, to bend down and claim her mouth with mine.
I’m still dwelling on the particular sweeping blue of her eyes and the way her mouth turned upward into a smile when Linda returns with the tea. Not a big fake American smile. A real smile, with something behind it. A secret?
“Thank you,” I tell her.
“Is there anything else, Mr. Bennett?”
Yes. Find Annabel Forester, and bring her here. I want to know more about her. I want to know everything about her. I want to watch her push that ridiculous hair behind her ear and see that impish smile. Before lunch, if you would.
If remembering her causes me this much of a distraction, seeing her in person again would be even worse.
“No, Linda, that’ll be all.”
The phone on my desk rings. Linda turns on her heel and moves to the door. She steps through and pulls it closed behind her, all before the second ring has concluded. I look at the screen on the handset. Oh, thank God. Something to take my mind off all of this nonsense.
I snatch up the handset. “Bennett.”
“Mr. Bennett, what do you have planned for this afternoon?”
Edgar Sykes technically works for the Department of Foreign Affairs, but everyone at the White House and on Capitol Hill knows he has connections everywhere. The last three presidents have trusted him with more-than-sensitive tasks. There are some people y
ou can’t have parading down Pennsylvania Avenue in plain sight. There are others you need to protect at any cost, and often that involves hiding them in plain sight. Edgar Sykes has been managing to do that for years, and this year is no exception.
He’s calling me because in order to have secure places for people, whether it’s the president or any number of foreign dignitaries with classified information, you need property.
Not a bad position to be in.
I focus all of my attention on Edgar, pushing Annabel Forester out of my mind completely. I cannot afford to be imagining the curve of her hips underneath that gray blazer she wore the other day or the way she smelled—clean and bright, like sunshine somehow—when she flung her arms around me. “I have meetings,” I tell Edgar. “But they can be rescheduled.”
“Good,” he booms. For a man who deals with the country’s most sensitive secrets, he’s exceedingly loud. “There’s a plane waiting for you at LaGuardia. It’ll take off as soon as you’re ready to go.”
There are no more questions to ask. Whatever Edgar wants to talk to me about, he’ll tell me in person. This is a secure line, but why take the risk?
“Two hours.”
“See you then.” There’s an abrupt click as he ends the call.
It’ll probably be an afternoon meeting. There’s probably no reason to stop by the Pearl to put my mind at ease about the state of the new renovations—
“No,” I say out loud. It’s enough to summon Linda.
The door swings open. “Did you call, Mr. Bennett?”
I breathe deep before I speak. “My afternoon meetings will need to be rescheduled.” That’s the first thing that needs to be done. “I have another engagement. Have my car sent around.” I bend to pull open the bottom drawer of my desk. It’s wide enough to fit my traveling briefcase. In case of a meeting going long, I keep a set of the essentials in the briefcase. A clean shirt and underthings. A book. I could send someone out for something, but my shirts are tailored by my family’s man in Britain, and even my best assistants have trouble choosing something at the local store I’d want to read.
I close the drawer and rise from my chair, still not allowing myself to think about Annabel. Not about the way the sunlight played over her hair and how much that shock of pink at the tips made me stifle a groan. Yet the more I looked at it, the more it made me want to ask her about it. Perhaps over dinner, or drinks at the club we belong to.
“Is there anything else, Mr. Bennett?” Linda is ready to spring to action. I can see it in the way she stands.
Find Annabel Forester, and tell her to meet me out front. I’ll take her with me on an afternoon trip to Washington, DC. She could accompany me to dinner at that restaurant I like—the one that overlooks the Potomac. At the very least, find her, because I want to know where she is.
I grab my phone from the desk and slip it into my pocket. “It seems like a shame to waste the tea. Put it in a to-go mug?”
Chapter Five
Annabel
The whirr of the costume shop’s sewing machine sticks with me for hours after I go home from the theater. If I go home from the theater’s shop. I didn’t go home last night. Last night, I slept on a prop couch covered in crushed velvet and woke up this morning with a snort. With those costumes in my face, it wasn’t a stretch to believe I’d gone back in time to some ultrasaturated version of Italy.
The musical is a reimagining, turns out. Marilee filled me in on the basic sketch of it yesterday afternoon while we sorted through miles and miles of fabric.
“Why don’t you start from scratch?” I’d asked her. Back in Arizona, my mother’s favorite part of making anything had been choosing the material. Not that the material had to be new. It was the choosing.
Marilee had raised her eyebrows. “And waste all this? This is thousands and thousands of dollars in our hands.” She’d thrust the dress she was holding toward my face. It was silk, a blue that makes the light refract like water. “No. For a reimagining, I’ll use some of my work over again.”
I’d taken the job not knowing what the show even was. “A reimagining . . .” I’d prompted.
“Of Romeo and Juliet,” Marilee had said, pulling a pair of reading glasses from her blouse pocket and putting them on. “It’s called The Lovers.” She’d waved a hand in the air. “Some boutique thing.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but curiosity is one thing. Too many questions, and you’ll get fired before the sweet spot has a chance to even materialize. I don’t want that.
Especially not now that the mystery man has piqued my attention.
So he owns the hotel, right? I’ve been lurking around this place for a week straight, taking on every scrap of work available for Marilee—and holy shit is there a lot of work—and taking every opportunity to run into him again.
That’s the truth. I’ve been trying to run into him again.
He could have been a trick of the light. A ghost, maybe. An over-the-top sexy ghost who saved me from a certain death, but a ghost nonetheless, because I haven’t seen him.
I splash water on my face in the cast bathroom. Even this has been stripped and plastered, painted to within an inch of its life. It’s nothing like the bathrooms in the theater my mom used to work at in Chicago, everything worn at the edges from hundreds of hands sliding over the railings. There are no amenities here, though, like toothpaste.
I should get some toothpaste.
I go back to the couch and dig through my purse for my phone.
Seven a.m.
Marilee and I haven’t discussed a schedule. Not an exact schedule, but she’s not here yet. I can afford a trip back to my warren.
It’s three stops away in the morning sunlight.
I think of him the entire time.
I’ve never met a man who smelled so good or had a body like that. It didn’t even matter that he was wearing a suit. I could tell.
Do not get hung up on him, I tell myself sternly as I get off the subway and climb the steps to street-level. Don’t get hung up on the job, either. I’m head over heels with the work. It’ll hurt when it ends. Maybe it doesn’t have to. No. They always do. This is temporary.
It’s another block to my apartment. On the way I force myself to notice everything. Revel in awareness, my mother used to say. She reveled herself into enough awareness for the both of us, I think, but even so. The guy with the flower cart on the corner has a new batch. The ones in the little bucket right in front are dewy and pink. I run my fingers across them as I walk by. Who can resist? The bakery has a new display out front. My stomach growls at the sight of it. Is there anything in the fridge at my place? I’m not even sure.
The front door sticks, so I shove at it using most of my weight. My roommate, Cynthia, is on the other side, squinting toward the postage stamp of a foyer when I finally get inside.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Good morning to you, too, my sweet roommate,” I sing.
“Oh God, Annabel. You’re too happy for this hour of the morning.” Cynthia’s dressed for work—she’s a bank teller at a branch five blocks down—but she loathes the morning.
“I’m not. I got a new job.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do you ever stick with anything?”
“I stick with you.” I open the fridge. Score—one of those bottled protein shakes from the bodega is still in here, and it’s not expired. “I’ve got to shower and get back.”
“I’ll be gone,” she calls after me.
“See you tomorrow, sweets.”
“Will I?” Cynthia laugh, then slurps at her coffee.
“I guess you never know.”
“Hey, wait.” Cynthia follows me to the edge of the narrow hallway leading to the bathroom. “They’re coming tomorrow to look at the ceiling. You’ll be working during the day, right?” Every so often a shower of plaster rains down onto our coffee table, a premium specimen from an international outlet known as IKEA. Cynthia spends a lot of time fretting abo
ut it.
“All day, every day.” She shakes her head and goes back into the kitchen, an early morning smile on her face.
Twenty minutes later I’m fresh and clean and ready to dig through more crates of costumes. What will I do when this gig ends? This occupies me through both train stops. It doesn’t matter. The sunshine on my shoulders is warm, I’m not in that office anymore, and I got out of another job right on the perfect side of the sweet spot.
I plug in my headphones and walk the last block to the Pearl, a new hit by Imagine Dragons turned up loud and ringing in my ears. It’s almost turned into a one-woman concert by the time I reach the front entrance.
“Make me a believer,” I’m lip-synching with all my might. Yes. Yes. Today is going to be a good day. Today I’m not going to look for Mystery Man at all. Today I’m going to—
I hit the last lyrics hard and yank out my headphones, heading for the steps of the Pearl.
“That was quite the performance.”
The voice comes from next to my elbow. I shriek at the closeness of it and spin to find myself facing him, blushing furiously. “Oh my God,” I say, gasping. “It’s you.”
Chapter Six
Beau
She looks fresh, hair swept up in a messy bun on top of her head, black clothing. Annabel Forester looks . . . comfortable. It’s not the kind of thing I’d wear to the office, but there’s no shame in her eyes. The pink in her cheeks makes me want to smile back at her, and so I do.
“Correct. It’s me.”
Annabel winds the cord of her headphones around her fingers and shoves them, along with her phone, into the purse dangling from her shoulder. I try to act like my heart isn’t beating out of my chest. Like I wasn’t hoping to see her here when I gave my driver, Winston, the morning off and stopped at the Pearl before I make the rounds at my offices. Why I care if Winston sees me with a woman, I don’t know, but I’m not going to dwell on it now.
