He might be even more surprised by the information she’d agreed to impart.
She quelled a little uneasy flutter in her belly. Claire had assured Mia her eldest son was a reasonable man who would take the news well.
A mid-sized car pulled up the curb, a rideshare she guessed, and the back passenger door opened. A long leg poked out and the rest followed, a lanky figure in jeans and with a head of surfer-streaked dirty-blond hair. His blue T-shirt, advertising a brew pub in Redondo Beach, cinched his country of citizenship.
Could this be…? Her spine straightened, and another little flutter tickled her insides. The newcomer was undeniably attractive, even rumpled from travel and as he slung a large backpack over his shoulder. Maybe feeling her regard, he glanced over.
Unwilling to be caught staring, Mia shifted her gaze, but couldn’t miss the feel of his own boldly, slowly crawling over her body, head to toe. Then back again, just as bold and slow.
Yuck. Leeser, a familiar voice said in her head, using the term she and her best friend Nicolette Arsenau had come up with at sixteen for leering losers…leesers.
The man moved on then, heading up the sidewalk and relief made her relax. Not Trey Blackthorne. What a disappointment it would have been to find he was Claire’s son, despite his stepped-off-the-beach good looks.
Not that she was here for romance. Then that voice piped up again. But—
Far from it, she told the voice firmly. She had a mission to accomplish, despite how she might have avoided getting started on it. Why, she would have gone beyond the block today if not for the promise she’d made to Claire to welcome her son to the City of Light.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t also—
Mia firmly shut down the ghostly argument and people-watched to pass the time. The Parisians loved their dogs, all sorts, and she watched them prance and bounce and trot on the ends of their leashes. Maybe when she returned to Boston she’d get a pet to greet her when she came home each night, something to help alleviate the new loneliness that surely would descend with a vengeance when she finished her task here in France.
That’s why a man in your life—
Desperate to shut down another inner conversation, Mia glanced about for distraction and found it in a woman strolling along the sidewalk. Dressed in classic black and white, her pants, blouse, and jacket ensemble fit her petite figure as if tailored for her—it probably was—and a lovely pair of heels extended her height. Claire Blackthorne dressed much more casually but with the same élan, and Mia’s compliment on the older woman’s style had been the icebreaker that led to a friendship that led to this moment now…Mia watching as yet another car pulled up to the curb. A taxi this time, and she drew nearer to the trunk of her tree as a traveler climbed from the rear seat to the sidewalk, a hardshell suitcase in hand. His other held a phone and his head was bent over it, hiding his face.
Unlike the previous traveler, this one she couldn’t pin a nationality on with certainty. His charcoal suit—striped tie peeping from a side pocket—pale blue dress shirt opened at the throat, and steel watch strapped around his wrist weren’t conclusive. Neither the short, barbered cut of his glossy dark hair. They shouted successful businessman in any language, however, a breed Mia knew well from her years teaching art at a private middle school that catered to children who didn’t succeed in traditional educational environments. Turned out, though, that their parents often had highly traditional expectations for their progeny and not always appreciated or even accepted their childrens’ differences.
Most of the men who came into her classroom dressed like this one were autocratic, impatient, and difficult to get along with. Was this person just another stranger arriving in the neighborhood, or…?
Claire should have shared a photo of her son, Mia thought. Then she’d be sure not to mistake him.
The man shoved his phone in his pants pocket and lifted his head.
Mia’s heart stopped. His masculine features were all angles and straight lines, a face that would photograph best in black and white, light creating intriguing shadows that would catch the eye and keep it. He was approaching his midthirties, she supposed, and he could use his image to sell men’s designer cologne or luxury watches or cars that cost more than decades’ worth of her salary. Not clothes, though. While his tall body could be called lean, he had too much muscle mass for the gentleman catwalks.
She couldn’t imagine him strolling down a fashion runway anyway. As he strode toward the apartment building, he moved with a purpose and an air of can-do—if not let’s-do-it-now—that only a month away from the States Mia recognized as wholly American.
He pulled out his phone again, so as he passed her he didn’t appear to notice her presence half-hidden by the branches of the tree. But he was close enough that she smelled his soap…he was actually close enough to touch. Still, Mia waited until he approached the front door of the apartment building and he was staring at the names listed on the intercom system.
“Mr. Blackthorne?” she called.
He turned as she stepped away from the tree. His gaze fixed on her face and she twitched, her heart performing a half-skip in her chest.
He looks tired, she thought. Before, she’d noticed the outlines of him, what she’d first sketch with her charcoal on a page of her drawing pad. But at second glance, she saw the arc of fatigue beneath his lower lashes, the half-mast cast to his eyelids, and his full lips, turned down in a frown.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice raspy, again as if he was on the edge of exhaustion or had just awoken from sleep.
The sound of it skittered down her spine and she shoved her hands in the pockets of her pants instead of rubbing them against the new goose bumps rising on her upper arms. “I’m Mia Thomas,” she said, moving forward. “And it’s how I can help you.”
His gaze didn’t wander from her face.
Realizing her last words could be taken the wrong way—flirtatious or worse—she felt her cheeks heat. She withdrew keys for her pocket. “I mean I have keys to your mother’s apartment. She asked me to greet you and let you in.”
He blinked slowly, confirming her sense he was ready, in short order, to nod off.
“Let’s get you settled inside,” she said, bustling forward and opening the front door using one of the keys on the ring. “You can take a nap upstairs.”
“I don’t take naps,” he said, in near the same tone a child declared “I’m not cranky,” and she hid her smile as she gestured him into the foyer. The marble floor gleamed and a large arrangement of fresh flowers sat centered on a round table.
Mia pushed the button to open the elevator and only stepped inside once he had. In the small space, he stood behind her. “‘P’ for penthouse.” She touched that button next, and the car jerked, then lurched upward.
Mia’s balance faltered and she took a quick step to regain it. At the same time, Trey Blackthorne’s hand shot out, belying his fatigue, to grasp her shoulder. He pulled her back against his large frame to steady her.
Warm muscles, the hint of citrus and spice, a firm hold that made her own body want to melt. Swallowing, she sidestepped away, slipping from his hand, and braced against the elevator’s inner wall. “Thank you,” she said.
“It seems temperamental,” he responded mildly. “Does it always act this way?”
“I have the basement apartment,” she said, “so I only use the elevator when I visit your mother. And we usually meet at the café on the corner.”
The elevator halted, this time the movement smooth. Mia stepped out of the car, glad for more oxygen to share. On this level a hall runner covered the marble floor and she followed it to the entrance leading into the apartment. Then she slid the key into the lock and pushed the door fully open, giving him the full effect of the beautiful space.
He stepped around her, and his gaze roamed the many windows with their fantastic views of the surrounding city. Though the building wasn’t as tall as others, plenty of light poured thr
ough the glass and warmed the formal space with its gold-and-white carpets and pear-colored upholstery. On the walls not covered by windows hung an eclectic collection of frames, some holding oil paintings, some watercolor, some were shadow boxes displaying lovely objets d’art.
“This apartment, well, this entire building belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Caine,” Mia said.
Trey nodded. “Sterling and Isabelle? I know them. She’s president of the Friends of the Roger Belton Art Museum. My mother is one of the patrons.”
“Yes.” That’s how Mia knew the older couple as well—through the museum. Housed in Boston, it displayed an extensive collection of Asian, European, and American art.
“They let Mom borrow their personal apartment,” he said.
“Yes.” Not wanting to get into the why of Claire’s flight from Maine—not that Mia knew any details, actually—she gestured with her hand toward the hallway. “This way to the guest bedrooms.”
Opening another door, she indicated the space. “There’s an en suite attached.”
He brushed past her to set his case on the luggage rack near the closet door. “Thank you…miss…” Clearly exhaustion had descended as he crossed to a wing chair and dropped heavily into it, then scrubbed his face with his hand. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Mia.” She ventured closer, narrowing her eyes. “Are you coming down with something?”
He managed to look both affronted and about ready to keel over at the same time. “Of course not. I never get sick. And I have to return to Boston as soon as possible. Tomorrow, I hope.”
She hid her wince, because if his hope included seeing Claire, it was certain to be dashed. “Mr. Blackthorne, frankly, you don’t look well.”
“It’s Trey.” He scrubbed his hand over his face again. “And I’m fine. I just need to talk to my mother and my world will get a whole hell of a lot brighter. When did you say I can expect her back?”
Mia shoved her hands in her pockets again. “I didn’t say. I can’t say, not exactly. However, she told me to ask you to wait.”
He stared at Mia, a picture of privileged masculinity, the scion of the wealthy and powerful Blackthorne family, accustomed to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it. “What?” He cleared his throat. “Wait?” Clearly a foreign word to him.
“Yes, wait,” she affirmed. “Indefinitely.”
Chapter Two
Squinting, Trey tried turning his pounding head in the direction of a new sound. Someone was moving about his office. Though unlike him, he must have had one or two too many the night before when he’d been at the Vault. With…
He recalled Devlin and Brock, maybe another?
Light from an unknown source pierced the millimeter of space between his eyelids. He winced, and his hand crept up to cover them. “Jer,” he said, naming his assistant. “Why are you here so early? Have I forgotten a meeting?” Groping around for his phone, he found only soft fabric instead of the hard surface of his desk. What? Nothing made sense.
A cool palm pressed his forehead.
At the sensation, his body jackknifed, and only then did he realize he’d been flat on his back but now sat upright. He forced his eyes open and the room spun once, twice before settling. The facts of his current situation came into clear focus as well.
Paris.
He’d fallen asleep on a couch.
It was morning now and the sun shone through that bank of windows, its light a hundred recently sharpened knives. He closed his eyes again but not before taking in the feminine figure nearby, a silhouette against the painful brightness.
Mia.
That was her name.
She’d let him into the apartment the day before and then vanished like a genie after delivering the news that his mother wasn’t in the city and expected him to wait upon her return.
Genie. Instead of gnashing his teeth over the position his mother had put him in, his thoughts slid back to that—genie.
No, his thoughts returned to her, Mia, who had struck him as something otherworldly at first glance. Maybe more of an urban mermaid, he decided, because of her rippling brown hair with its copper and gold highlights and her eyes that changed like brook water, from green to gold to a warm brown.
“Are you okay?” she asked, in a low, melodious voice. “Should I call a doctor?”
“Of course not,” he said, bracing before opening his eyes again. Trying not to wince, he let the flooding sunlight assault him once more. “I never get sick.”
She crossed by him to sit on the sofa. The movement didn’t stir him, the cushions were so stiff they had no bounce, but the unsettling of the air as she passed made his eyebrows ache. “In any case,” she said, “there’s pain reliever tablets and a glass of water on the table in front of you. Shall I put them in your hands?”
That’s when he realized his eyes had closed again. With effort, he forced his upper lids to lift and he carefully rolled his head to the side to look at her. The mermaid. Mia.
In different clothes than the first time—now sneakers, jeans, a white shirt that was plain except for the front buttons that might be actual seashells. Her heart-shaped face was framed by those cinnamon waves and he saw freckles now, a dash of more cinnamon across her nose and upper cheeks. Then she smiled, curving a pair of peach-colored lips. “Your hands?” she said.
He looked down at them, puzzled. Could she read even his muddled mind? Because sure, it might be really nice to frame her pretty face with them, holding her as he leaned down to—
“Do you want the water and the pain reliever?”
In your hands. It came back to him, what she’d said just moments ago. About helping him with the pain reliever. The idea of taking something for his discomfort appealed, but as he’d told her, he never got sick.
“I need more sleep,” he declared. But first he had to check with the office. How long had it been since his last contact? “Do you mind finding my phone?” He disliked asking for help, but at the moment, rousing himself from the couch seemed impossible. “It’s charging somewhere…”
The next time Trey woke, a mouthwatering smell filled the air. He breathed deep of it, his sense of time and place not yet kicking in. He opened his eyes, saw those windows but without the hurtful glare pouring through them. Across from where he lay on the couch, that young woman sat curled on a wide-cushioned chair.
His stirring seemed to catch her attention and she looked over. Smiled.
It pierced him as directly as the earlier sunbeams. Rattled by it, he looked down and noted he’d not changed since his plane flight and that he appeared as disheveled as he felt.
He hated not being at his best, especially in front of Miss Kind Smile. “Why are you here again?” he demanded.
She didn’t take offense at his testy tone or his rusty voice. “Your mother asked me to let you in yesterday afternoon and give you keys. Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember.” Yesterday afternoon? That meant twenty-four hours had passed since he arrived.
“And I was here this morning. I have my own key and when you didn’t answer the door, I was worried so I let myself in.” She uncurled her legs and leaned her elbows on her knees, her pose earnest.
His gaze studied the way her hair curtained over her shoulders. The stuff looked thick and healthy, and the color of it changed, like her eyes, with light and shadow. Right now it was a rich brown, those spectacular gilded highlights hidden for the moment.
“You should eat,” she said now. “I hoped to entice you with coffee and a croissant earlier, but you fell asleep again.”
“Jet lag.” Though he’d never suffered from it before. “I shouldn’t be keeping you…”
“Mia.”
He recalled her name, but it seemed more prudent to put a distance between them in this way because she’d seen him asleep and perhaps, just perhaps, slightly under the weather. It made him uneasy to think she’d witnessed him oblivious and vulnerable. It’s why he didn’t do sleepovers
with female companions and made it a rule to end evenings in their beds so he could make his way to his own home before dawn.
“I’m sure Mom didn’t want you to go to such trouble on my behalf, Mia,” he said now, then hesitated. “Taking time away from your husband and perhaps, uh, children.”
She grinned and held up the bare left hand that he’d already noted. “No man,” she said, wiggling her fingers. “No kids either, except for my students.”
That was conversational bait he refused to swallow. They were strangers, connected by the thinnest of threads, and he intended to keep it that way, because he was heading back to Boston in a matter of hours—he hoped. His parents’ marriage had cracked, and his intention to get a handle on what was going on with his mother and the “secret” she’d alluded to didn’t include getting sidetracked by a random neighbor, no matter how friendly and appealing.
Fine. She was gorgeous and under other circumstances, such as when he didn’t hold the weight of this current chaos on his shoulders, he’d be pulling charm from his back pocket and doing what he could to get to know her better. Though he usually moved more slowly, surely coming from the same DNA as his youngest brother, the female-pleasing Logan, Trey could beguile a beautiful woman to spend time with him without a lot of preliminary buildup.
But not today. Not with that uneasiness that had been swirling about the family—and, frankly, inside of him—since Mom had hinted at some shameful past mystery.
“You should go,” Trey said. It would be best for them both. She wouldn’t have to waste her time any longer and he wouldn’t have to pretend he didn’t want to fall over for another lengthy nap.
She gave him a dubious eye. “You still don’t look well.”
“I’m great. Perfect. Fine,” he countered, going for hearty. His energy continued to flag and he wanted her gone from the apartment before she got another glimpse of his weakness. Yeah, his ego was that big.
Trey Page 2