Naked Love

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  “Mom, you know what the doctor said. A good diet can help you stay strong and healthy, but it’s not going to keep the cancer from coming back.”

  “I’m convinced it was all that coffee I drank. I never realized how toxic that stuff is. You aren’t still drinking lattes, are you? It’s basically poison.”

  I don’t bother arguing with her, because the poison that caused her cancer changes every week. It was whatever they put in the facials or the chlorine in the gym’s pool. I think in a weird way it helps her feel in control of what’s happening to her body, being able to place the blame on something specific.

  “No lattes,” I say, ignoring the empty coffee cups strewn around the hotel room.

  “Good. I never want you to go through this.”

  Worry is a hand around my chest, because mostly Mom doesn’t complain about how she’s feeling. She tuts and fusses and worries but she never just yells, this fucking hurts. I wish she would actually; it seems like that would be cathartic. This is the way she tries to help me, but the doctor was very clear on her chances for staying in remission. Which are high.

  “I actually need you to do me a favor,” I tell her, feeling guilty that I need this from her. There’s only so many times I can wear paint-splattered clothes to the office. “Can you throw some clothes in a box and overnight them to me? I didn’t pack enough.”

  “Oh,” she says, sounding relieved. She likes it when I need her. “I can do that. What do you need, more jeans? A few bras.”

  “Nicer things, if you can find them. Some evening clothes. And there’s this black skirt somewhere in the back. No pressure, don’t spend too much energy on it, okay?”

  “Evening clothes,” she says, proving her mind is just as sharp as ever even if her body has wasted away to half its size. She’s always been fashionably slender, but now she’s painfully skinny. “What are you doing with Christopher that you need evening clothes?”

  “I’m visiting Bea tomorrow night,” I say, glad to have some excuse. “You remember her? Beatrix Cartwright. The daughter of the famous concert pianist.”

  “Of course I remember her,” Mom says. “I’ll send you a few cute dresses to pick from. But Harper, remember to be careful.”

  “Beatrix doesn’t bite.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Men like Christopher, they can be charming when they want to be.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. He doesn’t want to be.”

  Which is probably the only reason I’m safe. In a weird way I’m almost grateful he’s such a pompous asshole. It would be so easy to fall for him again if he weren’t.

  6

  Penthouse

  Beatrix Cartwright lives in the penthouse of L’Etoile. We met a long time ago at some party where my pink tulle itched me like crazy and the children mostly tried to stay out of sight so we didn’t get roped into reciting our life goals. Then tragedy had fallen on her family, leaving her orphaned and absent from elite society.

  I found her years later on the online artist scene, where I recognized her voice and her hands and her inimitable talent with the piano. Despite her large platform and success, she had managed to stay anonymous—something that made me green with envy. There were memes about my untouchable fortune that I ended up tagged on with unnerving regularity. The Internet has a long memory.

  She’s since gone public and found true love in the strangest place. I’m a fan of her boyfriend, Hugo Bellmont, even though he was a high-priced escort when they met. Or maybe because of that.

  He’s the one who meets me when I arrive, devastating in his handsomeness, his hair in perfect disarray. It feels perfectly natural that he should kiss me on both cheeks and take my wine offering with a groan that sounds sexual. “Chateau Leoville,” he reads. “Nineteen eighty-nine. Merci infiniment. I love a great Bordeaux.”

  I breathe deep, taking in the scent of spices. “It smells delicious, and I haven’t eaten all day. Don’t tell me Bea has taken up cooking?”

  “Sometimes she helps me with the vegetables, where her fingers are as efficient with a knife as they are with the piano keys, but today she has been shut into her music room.”

  “A difficult piece?”

  “She plays it perfectly, again and again. It is the artist temperament,” he says, teasing because he knows I paint. “Never satisfied.”

  I stick out my tongue, which only makes him laugh. “Let’s call the temperamental artist to the table, because I’m ready to eat.”

  “Oh, but we’re waiting for one more guest.”

  “Really,” I say, flopping onto the antique couch with its bits of fluff peeking out. The penthouse is a curious mix of the old world and the new, much like the couple who inhabits it. Though Bea makes limited appearances in Tanglewood since they got together, they’re both very private. I’m curious who else has made their way into the inner circle.

  “It’s an old friend,” Hugo says as he stirs some kind of soup on the small freestanding stove. He sounds almost embarrassed, as if he should not have any friends. Or maybe not any old ones.

  “From Morocco?” I ask, knowing he was born there.

  “Non, he came to Tanglewood around the same time I did. We shared a one-bedroom apartment before either of us could afford anything more.”

  I refrain from asking whether this man also worked as a professional escort, but only barely. Maybe he still does that job. I could be persuaded to hire a ridiculously handsome man with nimble hands and an expressive mouth. Knowing Christopher would see the charge is a bonus.

  “You will be disappointed,” Hugo says, sounding rueful.

  “Can you always read women’s minds?”

  He dips a fresh spoon into the sauce and tastes it. “Ah, that’s perfect. Salt and pepper and enough heat that it feels warm going down. And in answer to your question, usually.”

  “That must have come in handy.”

  “It is…” He searches for a word, looking perplexed. “A curse.”

  I have to laugh. “It’s a great loss to the female kind that you’re now monogamous.”

  A small bell rings near the elevator, which I assume means someone is coming up. “Well, perhaps you will not be disappointed. Sometimes you remind me of my old friend. It is the way you both seem to be more alive than the average person, more… feeling.”

  “That’s also a curse,” I say, a little wry.

  The elevator door opens, and none other than Sutton Mayfair walks in. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his slacks a little rumpled. He clearly has spent a long day at work, maybe solved a great many problems related to economics and real estate and law. From my perch on the sofa I can watch him without him noticing me, not at first.

  Hugo greets him with one of those manly back slaps and a French expletive. “A nineteen eighty-five Chablis? It’s truly indecent the volume of great wine we’ll enjoy tonight.”

  Sutton takes a few steps into the penthouse and freezes. His expression is blank, which must be what surprise looks like on him. There’s no indication whether he’s happy to see me or whether he wishes he’d never come. No indication whether he likes this white gauzy evening gown, which was included with a few other dresses in the box that Avery sent.

  She’s thorough, that girl.

  I would have said I had no desire to see either Sutton or Christopher so soon after our country club confrontation, but I can’t deny the beat of pleasure in my veins. Colors seem more vibrant when Sutton’s in the room. The strains of piano through the door more bittersweet. This must be what Hugo meant, that he’s more alive than everyone else. More feeling.

  “Harper,” he says, cautious the way he might be around an animal. Careful not to spook me. Do I seem so wild to him? There’s definitely something inside me that wants to be soothed by his large hands. It’s too dangerous, though. He’s too close to Christopher to be safe.

  “You already know each other?” Hugo asks. “This is fortunate, then.”

  “Fortunate,” I agree, though my voice is f
aint.

  “She’s going to be working with us on the Tanglewood Library restoration.”

  “I thought it was going to be more of a teardown and rebuild?”

  “She’s changing that,” Sutton says, his voice warm with approval. And gratitude? Somehow I’ve gone from being the troublemaker to the guardian angel. “We’ll need the buy-in of the upper crust if we want to gentrify the west side.”

  That snaps me out of my Southern-drawl-induced haze. “The west side? I haven’t spent a long time in Tanglewood, but isn’t that a really dangerous part of town?”

  “You won’t be going there unescorted,” Sutton says.

  Even though I have no desire to stroll through dark back alleys, I don’t want Sutton to worry about protecting me. It’s too close to what Christopher has done. “I can take care of myself.”

  Sutton advances toward me, making my stomach clench. He leans over me, resting one hand on the back of the sofa. He’s not touching me, not anywhere, but I can feel the heat of him. I can scent the male essence of him. It’s an intimate position, his body hovering over mine.

  “Don’t mistake me for him,” Sutton says, his voice low.

  “Then don’t act like him. No one has to save me.”

  “Save you? No, sugar. I want to peel that sexy little dress away from your body and make love to you so hard and so long you’re going to beg. You can’t take anymore, that’s what you’ll say, and if I were a better man, one who wanted to protect you and keep you in a safe little box, I would stop. Except I won’t be done with you for a long time.”

  A sound escapes me. It should be a protest, an outrage, but instead it’s a moan. God, he’s making me want this. “You’re making Hugo uncomfortable.”

  Sutton gives a rough laugh. “He’s pretending he can’t see anything except his fancy French sauce, but if he thought you didn’t want me, he’d have already given me a black eye. And I’d have deserved it. Do you know why he hasn’t done that?”

  Because he always knows what women want. It really is a curse.

  I’m tired of having Sutton pursue, not because I don’t want this, but because I do. Why am I holding myself back from him on account of Christopher? It’s in this moment that I can admit that I still want him. Still love him. That’s the only reason I could be thinking about him when another man stands right in front of me. It hurts to admit that, even privately. My fortress of protection against men and their transience, torn down in an instant of self awareness.

  The heart is fickle. It doesn’t listen to reason.

  But I don’t have to obey my heart when I know it’s wrong. There’s no loyalty I owe Christopher Bardot, and none he would want from me anyway.

  I grasp the red silk tie in my hand and pull. A grunt of surprise, and then he’s falling forward. His lips meet mine without any semblance of softness. We’re all determination in this moment, which is more potent than a thousand sweet caresses. More real than a hundred whispered promises.

  He deepens the kiss with one arm beneath my head, his other hand against my cheek, angling my mouth to take him better. It’s consuming, this kiss… and public.

  A polite cough sounds from a few yards away.

  Distantly I realize the music has stopped. It’s almost painful to tear my gaze away from the burning blue eyes staring down at me, made hazy and harsh with desire.

  Bea stands just outside her music room, looking scandalized. “We really need to have more dinner parties, Hugo.”

  He crosses the room and greets her with a kiss. “Do you have a bit of the voyeur? They do make a beautiful couple.”

  “We’re not a couple,” I say quickly, but the objection loses some of the steam considering Sutton is still half over me, my leg draped over his from where I had pulled him close. Roughly I push him away and sit up, shame making my cheeks warm. “I just work for him.”

  “But of course,” Hugo says agreeably. “That’s how Bea and I met as well.”

  7

  Goodnight Kiss

  With any other couple I probably would have died of embarrassment, but Hugo and Bea have a way of putting me at ease. They share a few funny stories about their cooking mishaps. There are a stack of cookbooks from around the world on a tall shelf. Mostly Hugo is a brilliant cook, but when he encounters an ingredient that’s hard to get, he improvises with mixed results.

  “Did you cook for Sutton when you were roommates?” Bea asks.

  “I made many packages of cheap noodles.”

  Sutton smiles, looking a little distracted. “They were all we could afford at the time, but Hugo used to talk about food. About caviar and foie gras and other shit I’d never even tried back then.”

  “And what do you think now?” I ask, twirling the wineglass. A few pours of that Bordeaux, and I’m feeling downright pleased with my short public performance.

  Sutton’s blue gaze meets mine. “I’m a simple man.”

  “You know,” I say, drawing a little circle on the marble table, “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

  Hugo laughs. “She has you figured out.”

  “Not all the way,” I admit. I’m a little tipsy after helping finish two bottles of wine. Not drunk. Enough to lower my guard, that’s all. “Enough to know that good-old-boy act hides a lot underneath. Tell me something about you that I don’t already know. No, that’s too easy. Tell us something that Hugo doesn’t know about you.”

  Sutton looks away, a half smile on his face. Not quite refusing. “And what will I get in return?”

  “You’re always looking to make a deal.”

  “That much is true. So what are you going to give me, in exchange for this secret you want?”

  “What do you want?” The question comes out more seductive than I meant it to, my voice low and thick with desire. He turns me into some other woman, one who doesn’t need to be rescued. One who rescues a man instead.

  “A goodnight kiss,” he says in that way that sounds simple but isn’t.

  “Only a kiss?”

  He smiles. “Only that.”

  “Then you have yourself a deal.”

  “Aren’t you going to shake on it?” Bea asks, her cheeks pink even though she’s the only one of us who didn’t touch the Bordeaux, her green eyes bright with mischief. “If the deal’s going to be official, you should shake hands.”

  Sutton appears solemn as he offers his hand over the table, on top of the empty platter of coq au vin and the brandy-sauce green beans. I grasp the warm strength of him, the rough calluses of him, and squeeze. He gives a gentle squeeze in return. Our bodies can speak a language more fluently than our mouths, communicating, negotiating.

  “A good secret,” I warn him, “or the deal is off.”

  He considers the final swallow of red wine in his glass, taking his time to come up with what he’s going to share. “There was a horse named Cinnamon,” he finally says.

  “That’s your secret?” I mean, it’s an adorable secret. But it’s not enough. “I’m going to blow you a kiss. That’s all you’re getting for that secret.”

  He holds up a finger, and I realize he’s tipsy too. “That’s not the end of it. Giving her a name was more wishful thinking. She was wild, that one. Unbreakable. My dad kept her because she was a beauty, hoping one day they’d tame her. But really it was shitty to keep her locked up when she wouldn’t let anyone near her. And then one day I went out to the stable, and she was gone. I checked everywhere—the whole stable and the pastures, but the latch had been moved from the outside, so she couldn’t have gotten out alone.”

  This suddenly strikes me as a tragedy, and I realize I should have been more specific. A funny secret. The kind that will make us laugh. Instead something terrible is going to happen.

  “Finally found her down by the lake, where the kid who worked as a farmhand in the summer was trying to coax her to keep going. She wasn’t budging.”

  “He was running away,” I whisper, recognizing the ache in my chest.

  T
here had been an unfortunate number of times I contemplated that action, not because the streets of LA would have been hospitable but out of pure desperation. But I worried about who would take care of my mother if I left. She would have blamed herself.

  Daddy would have blamed her, too.

  “His home life was pretty shit. Everyone knew that. Daddy drank too much. Mom worked to pay rent and to stay out of the way. He showed up with bruises that people pretended not to see. But he rode Cinnamon when no one else could go near her. Rode her bareback without getting thrown off and breaking his neck. If the beast weren’t nervous about crossing the stream at the border of the land, if he hadn’t been worried she’d break her leg, he would have been halfway across the county with her.”

  “What happened?” Bea asked, looking sick with worry.

  Hugo touches her hand, a caress that speaks volumes. “Do not worry. Even Sutton is not so careless that he would tell a tragedy over dinner conversation.”

  Then he gives Sutton a look that promises stark retribution if Sutton had really been so careless.

  Sutton grins. “Where I’m from, we had more tragedy than comedy. But this story does have a happy ending. I brought the boy and the horse back home, and my dad moved him up from shoveling hay to working with the horses. He tamed Cinnamon before he grew up and left.”

  There are tears in Bea’s eyes. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Hugo makes a clucking sound before pulling her into his arms, onto his lap, uncaring that he has an audience. I could paint them this way, the handsome charmer and the old-world beauty, both of them made hard by the world and soft again for each other.

  And then something clicks. “Oh my God.”

  “You see it?” Sutton asks, his voice low. “I thought it would just be me, pretending not to.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hugo says, a notch between his brows. “Ma belle, are you ill?”

  “No, but she does have a condition,” I say, trying to contain my excitement and failing. “Bea, why didn’t you tell me? I hate you! Okay, I’m over it. I love you again. This is so exciting!”