Dear god.
“He’s a man, he’s gay,” she lamented, “and he’s standing over there Tweeting how boring this party is.”
“You can’t know that.”
She picked up her iPhone and showed me the screen. Terra Banks’ twitter feed.
Okay, that was bad.
Janine’s eyes opened up wide and she reached out and grabbed my arm. “You have to help me!”
Lord, take me now…
“I-I-I can’t.”
“You. Have. To.”
I shook my head emphatically. Raphael, silent until now, started to chortle in the background. I was going to kick him where it hurt if he started in on me. I swear to god!
“Just go over there and talk to him. Get him to sign with us.”
Really, just go over there and talk him into signing with Branded Publishing. When she, the CEO hadn’t been able to.
Sure…
“You’re part of the team here, Hope!” Her eyes shined with desperation. “We need her to join us. She’s the biggest name in Indie publishing.”
“I don’t know what I could say…”
“Sell her… him, on your covers.”
I sighed. “You said he already has a cover artist.” The amazing and much vaunted Poe.
She pulled me even closer. Her grip was tight enough I’d probably have bruises tomorrow. “Change her mind.”
“Okay, okay,” I said as I pried her fingers from my arm. “I’ll give it a try.”
“Hope,” she almost screamed, “we need her… him, you know what I mean! We have to get him to sign. This is a must. I need Terra Banks. The company needs him.” She lowered her voice to a hostile growl. “Don’t fail me.”
Shiiit…
I’d thought my job was secure. Should have known things were going down the toilet when she’d practically started panting when she mentioned Poe on the phone last week.
So now I had to wow the big time author, face to face, when my boss was too scared to even speak to him.
Perfect.
I felt kind of numb as I turned and started across the room to the buffet, Raphael by my side. This was so not the way I had hoped the evening would turn out.
I was hoping I’d just stand here for a little while and smile as Janine sang my praises and then maybe I’d answer some questions about my covers.
And then I’d go home.
I wanted to go home.
But so did Mr. Terra Banks.
I needed to make him want to stay.
Fat chance…
“I don’t like the way your boss talks to you,” Raphael said.
I looked up at him, and he looked genuinely ticked.
I shook my head. “She doesn’t usually… she’s just under a lot of pressure.”
He scowled, his dark eyes digging into me, making me feel as if I was about to spontaneously burst into flames.
“From what you and Bette have told me, and from what I just heard, she’s threatened your job three times in the last month.”
Okay, when he put it that way…
“I don’t think it’s acceptable for the CEO of the company to act like that to their employees. It’s very unprofessional.”
I stopped in my tracks. I’d never thought of it like that. I was just grateful to have a job I loved that paid the bills and then some. I’d never thought about the way I was being treated.
Not that Janine was a monster, or a boss from hell. But still…
The man had a point.
I turned and pulled him close, holding him by the front of his silk shirt, looking imploringly up into his dark brown eyes. “Maybe you’re right.”—He was completely right—“But I need to do this now… help me out?”
He sighed, his sweet breath tickling my nose. “Fine, I’m your man.”
It was my turn to sigh. Thank god. I didn’t think I could get though this if he was going to keep bringing up how much my life sucked.
We trekked the rest of the way to the buffet and I strode right up to Mr. Terra Banks. At first I thought he was staring at the six foot tall naked male ice sculpture, but then I realized he was gazing at the new Olivia Lovelace cover: the one with Jake on the cover.
I felt my get-up-and-go drain down to less than a half tank in a matter of seconds. What if he asked how I’d done it, taken such a great picture?
“So, you like my picture?”
He turned and blinked at me through stylish wire framed glasses. He was thin, tall, a coppery redhead with pale green eyes and peach freckles.
Just adorable…
“You’re Hope Jones?”
Okay, he knew my name… that was creepy. Well, maybe not. I was sure Janine had given all the potential clients my name.
“That’s me.”
He took out his impossibly thin smart phone and typed out a text.
If he was the type to text in the middle of a conversation… this was going to be much harder than I’d thought.
“So, you like the cover… Terra?”
He winced. “Name’s Michael.” He typed with his thumbs with inhuman speed. Then he hit send and slid his phone back in his jacket pocket like a gunslinger. “And yes, I do like your covers.”
Okay, cool. He liked them.
He turned and pointed to Jake’s cover. “But this one is different from your others.”
Yep, he was going there.
To lie or not to lie?
I took a deep breath and made my choice. “It was an accident. A fluke snapshot, and I ended up using it for a cover.”
He laughed on perfect ha, and then slid his eyes my way.
“An accidental shot, huh?” He waited for me to elaborate.
“Yeah, we were…” I couldn’t say it.
“Having sex?”
“Yes,” I said, “having sex.”
Raphael coughed uncomfortably.
“I… I regret it now.”
Michael, a.k.a Terra, raised an eyebrow. “He got mad when you asked permission?”
“He got furious when I didn’t.”
“Oh…”
I sucked in some air and tried to steady myself. I could still feel the guilt and hurt churning inside me. My eyes started to burn, ready to start tearing up.
“It was an amazingly effective way to get a guy to walk out on me.”
Raphael touched my back, his hand so warm and gentle.
“Yeah,” Michael said, “guys can be funny like that.”
I blinked back my tears. “So, Michael… you’re a dude?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “I couldn’t even giveaway my first novel as a man.” He picked his cell phone out of his breast pocket and looked at the screen, then stuffed it back in the pocket. “I did get a couple reviewers who fell all over themselves telling me that I, as a man, had no idea how to write women. That a woman would never think like that, or act like that, or do the things I had them doing.
“I’ve been working with women since I was sixteen. Most of my friends are women. And they most certainly talk and act like the women I write about.”
He leaned against the buffet table and stared off into space for a moment. “And then I decided to get a sex change, identity wise, and voila… I’ve never had one reviewer say a word about my not writing from a woman’s point of view correctly again.
“Hell, just last week I had a man email me that I didn’t understand men enough to write from their side of the story.”
I had to smile.
“I couldn’t stop laughing at that one.”
I groaned as I tried to broach the subject I’d come to talk to him about.
“Janine really wants to get you to sign with her.”
Michael’s eyelids lowered as he gave me a wily stare. “You mean the Janine who hasn’t said two words to me since I introduced myself?”
I sighed. “You noticed.”
We both laughed.
“What’s up with that?�
��
“Says she’s no good with… ah…”
His smile turned ruthless. “With gay guys?”
I shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“She did seem a lot more charming in her emails and texts.”
“She sent me to try and smooth things over, I guess.”
“I like your covers,” he said, “but I’m committed to my current cover artist. He has an eye like no one else.”
“I understand that.” Okay, this was where I was supposed to tell him that my covers were better, even when they weren’t. I was supposed to sell myself. “But I’m sure that if you sign with Branded, Janine would be happy to keep Poe as your personal cover artist.”
I could practically feel about two layers of skin peel off my back as I said it.
Michael looked at me and smiled, befuddled. “You are a most unusual woman.”
“You have no idea,” Raphael chimed in. “The first time I met her she threatened to take a shotgun to my balls.”
Oh dear god… “I’m going to kill you, you know?”
He shot me with his brilliant, lady killer smile. And then he aimed it at Michael.
Michael’s eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and his mouth slid open.
“Want to dance?” Raphael said, clearly flirting.
I stood there and stared in awe. I had no idea he was gay… or was he bi-sexual?
For crying out loud, I’d had a sex dream… no, two sex dreams, about a gay guy!
Michael closed his mouth with a click and gulped. But then he stepped back and gave Raphael a weary smile.
“You’re straight. I can practically smell it on you.”
Raphael grinned and ran a hand through his short Mohawk, tousling it.
“You’re right. But just for one song… you really don’t want to dance with me?”
I had to give him credit… the man was good.
“Okay…” Michael said. “One dance.”
Raphael reached out and took his hand, and pulled him behind him across the room and onto the dance floor. A remix of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody pumped and thumped as they started to dance.
I just shook my head, not able to quite wrap my head around how my night was going.
But just look at Raphael dance. I smiled, thinking about two men named after archangels getting their dance on in a Texas ballroom.
I looked over to the bar, and Greta and Janine looked back at me, Greta holding up her flute of champagne.
I hoped they didn’t think I’d gotten him to say yes. All I’d done so far was get him to talk to me, taken my services off the table—which wasn’t at all smart of me—and then watched as my date stole him off to the dance floor.
I glanced over to the dance floor and saw Michael had his damn cell phone out again and was texting.
Really! He was that close to Raphael and could think of something other than sex?
Okay, I so didn’t just think that. I was impartial. I was not going to start drooling over my arrogant, irritating, sexy-as-hell neighbor.
Shiiit… I was already flashing back to him shirtless in my side yard, that damn chainsaw in his hands—boy, that had really made his muscular arms stand out.
I practically jumped when I saw that Michael and Raphael were heading off the dance floor and right back to me.
I put up my hands pleadingly. “Really, boys… I don’t dance.”
Michael stopped right in front of me. “I have to confess something.”
Oh god, he used to be a woman? He’s my long lost brother? What?
“I didn’t come here to let Janine talk me into signing with her.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“I came to meet you.”
Okay, he went all creepy on me again. “But you said you want to keep your cover artist.” Where the hell was he going with this?
He looked at his cell phone again and thumbed in a text again.
That damn phone was going to make me have a stroke!
He looked up at me and grimace. “I came so Poe could come and see you.”
“Huh?” Poe wanted to meet me?
No… he’d said Poe wanted to see me.
“What do you mean see me? Do I already know him?”
“I sure hope you do,” a chillingly familiar male voice said from behind Michael and Raphael.
The two men parted and a tall, blond man with haunting hazel eyes and a crooked smile looked back at me.
The room brightened as if on a dimmer switch, everything bathed in a retina burning glare. I felt my insides tremble, and my heart started beating like it wanted to pop right out of my chest.
The room dimmed back to normal, but I was still shaking like a leaf.
And my scar was burning. I had my hand clutched protectively around my wrist.
“Hi Hope.” His smile was as devastating and charming as ever. But all I could think was how could I get away? I could just start running. But that would raise too many eyebrows.
My scar burned even hotter, and I wanted to start scratching at it to get it to stop.
I swallowed and licked my suddenly parched lips. “Derrick… w-what are you doing here?”
He stepped forward and I stepped back, banging against the buffet table hard enough to make some of the plates and glasses clink.
Derrick stopped and held up his hands, as if he were trying to get a wild animal to come to him.
Suddenly a broad, tall wall of designer suit stood between us. I shuddered and fell forward against the man wearing said suit.
“I don’t think Hope wants to talk to you anymore,” Raphael practically growled.
“Man, I don’t have any beef with you, so why don’t you—”
I felt the muscles in Raphael’s back tighten as Derrick’s voice cut out.
“I said she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Raphael repeated. “Do I really have to explain it to you?”
I heard the scuffing of dress shoes on the floor, and then Raphael turned and looked down at me, his face grim and deadly looking. “You ready to go home?”
I nodded and he threw his arm over my shoulder, guiding me through the ballroom like a bodyguard extricating his charge from a melee.
I heard Janine call out my name, but I wouldn’t look back to save my own life. I wanted out of that room more than anything. I needed out of there. I wanted to go home and lock the doors and windows, and hole up in my bedroom with a baseball bat and a meat cleaver.
Most of all, I just wanted to dig a deep hole and crawl into it, and stay there, hidden for the next decade or two.
Before I knew it we were outside and a valet had Raphael’s car pulled up to the curb. Raphael deposited me in the passenger seat and then jogged over and slid behind the wheel. Seconds later we were gliding through the streets of Houston, and then roaring down the interstate back to San Antonio.
Thankfully, he didn’t ask what had just happened, or who that man had been. He just kept driving away from where we’d been, every once in a while looking over to take a look at me.
I was trying to keep the memories at bay. If I let one surface I’d fall apart, or I’d die… maybe I’d just start screaming.
“That was my boyfriend… my ex-boyfriend.” The words tasted like blood on my tongue. “When I was going to college in California.”
Raphael didn’t say anything; he just nodded.
I told him about Derrick. How we’d started off as friends at school, and then became more, moving in together—he’d been my first.
Everything was great… until he started coming home in the middle of the night, high on drugs.
“He said he could handle it, and I was too young to know better. I was going to leave him, but before I could…” Oh god, that night was so dark, so sticky with my fear and blood. That damned song by The Black Keys, Everlasting Light, playing so loud I hadn’t heard him.
“One night, when I came home after working at the diner where I waited tables, he dragged me into the bedroo
m and held me down. He was crazy… his eyes were.” I shook my head and gulped down some air. “He kept on screaming that I was cheating on him, and I wasn’t going to get away with it.”
He’d pulled out a chisel I used to open paint cans and to contour my brush strokes. It was clean and shining as he held it up to my face. I couldn’t breathe, his weight constricting my chest as he laid on me. He let go of my one wrist, using his free hand to hold my right hand pinned to the floor.
I struggled, tried to push his face away…
And then I felt the steel of the scraper dig into my wrist. It hurt. And it went in deeper and deeper.
I remember hearing my screams echoing in my ears. Like they were the screams of someone else…
He was going to kill me…
“How did you get away?”
I turned and looked at Raphael. The car was stopped and we were in the parking lot of an Olive Garden. When had we stopped?
How much had I really told him?
All of it; I’d told him all of it.
How had I gotten away?
“I head butted him.”
Raphael stared, stone faced, but a lazy smile started to pull at the side of his mouth. He started to laugh: slow, strangled laughter.
I smiled and felt tears stream down my face, hot and dripping.
“I have a really hard head,” I said.
“That I already know.” He leaned back, holding his six pack abs as he snorted.
“I once head butted my brother so hard he landed in the ER and needed stitches.” I laughed again. It felt good to laugh.
“So you head butted him. What did you do next?”
I shrugged. “That knocked him out, so I had to push him off me, and then I…” I still had my hand clutched around my wrist.
“You pulled the chisel out?”
“I didn’t know better.”
“You could have bled to death.”
And if I’d gone to the hospital maybe I wouldn’t have had the nerve damage I ended up with. I’ve never been able to paint since. The closest thing to art I had now was my photography.
“Fucking bastard…”
I looked over at Raphael, his eyes were like coal and his face looked carved out of stone.
“It was a long time ago,” I said dismissively. “I don’t know why I reacted like that.”
He looked at me incredulously. “Because he hurt you, Hope. You reacted that way because he freaking abused you and you were all alone and had to defend yourself against him. That’s why you started shaking.”
Love Him: A Love Him, Hate Him, Want Him Novel Page 24
