Beautiful Stranger

by Christina Lauren

  “You didn’t get much done. Really wasn’t the most efficient evening for you, was it?” I leaned forward, giving him my best skeptical eyebrow raise.

  He smiled, stared at my mouth. “You’ve caught me. I wanted you to come over tonight so I could remember how you looked naked on my couch. I’ve hired someone to pack up my office tomorrow morning before the painters arrive.” He closed the distance between us and kissed me once, sweetly. “Sometimes at work I wish I saw you more. I liked seeing you there.”

  I shifted in my seat, feeling a little like the world had been tipped on its end. “I didn’t really think there were men like you,” I said, without thinking. “Honest. Easy to be around.” I looked over at him.

  “I already told you. I like you.”

  He reached for me, slid me closer, and had his lips to mine for the rest of the drive. It could have been a minute, an hour, or a week. I had no idea. But when we arrived in Hell’s Kitchen I didn’t want to get out, and I most certainly didn’t care that I was half hoping Max would ask me to stay the night with him.

  The waitress put down a large platter in front of us, with wedges of assorted vegetarian dishes fanning across the plate.

  “Take the injera bread and scoop the food,” Max said, tearing a piece and demonstrating.

  I watched him lick his fingers, chew, and then smile at me.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Um . . . ,” I stammered, pointing. “Your mouth.”

  “You like my mouth?” His tongue slipped out again, sweeping across the corner of his lips, and then he lifted his glass and took a deep drink of wine.

  He made me feel more than drunk. He made me feel disoriented, reckless. I curled my hands into fists beneath the table, running through the fantasy of asking him to leave here, take me home, and touch me.

  Other than the kissing in the car, he’d barely touched me all night. Was that intentional? Was he trying to drive me crazy? Because seriously, mission accomplished.

  I blinked, looking down at the platter, and then did what he’d done: ripped off some bread, grabbed some lentils, and took a bite. The food was peppery, warm, and delicious. I closed my eyes and hummed. “So good.”

  I could feel him watching me, and when I looked up, he smiled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know what I do at work, that my mum works for the company, that I have at least one sister. You know about Cecily. All I really know about you—other than you’re a fantastic shag—is that you moved here from Chicago a bit over a month ago, left a real twat back there, and work with Ben and his fiancée.”

  Uneasiness nipped at my stomach, and I forced down the bite of food. “I don’t know, you seemed to know a bit more than that earlier.”

  “Oh, I have a library of observations. I’m talking about knowing you.”

  “You know where I live. Where I work and that I’m allergic to peanuts.”

  “It’s been a few weeks, Sara. It’s weird that you still hold me at arm’s length.” He blinked away. “I’m not sure I can forever be strangers.”

  “But we’re so good at being strangers,” I joked, and when his face fell, I relented. “What do you want to know?”

  He looked back at me, thick, dark lashes pressing to his cheeks as he closed his eyes, thinking. He was so gorgeous; my pulse took over my entire head, hammering inside my cranium like a drill.

  Opening his eyes, he asked, “Have you ever had a dog?”

  A laugh burst from my lips. “Yes. My father always had Dalmatians, but my mom is currently obsessed with labradoodles.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Labrador retriever and poodle mix.”

  He shook his head, grinning. “You Americans always messing with our canonical breeds.” I lifted my wine to my lips and took a sip just as he asked, “Why are you so scared of being with someone?”

  I stammered out a few unintelligible noises before he laughed, waving me off. “Just checking to see how far I could go. Do you have siblings?”

  I shook my head, relieved. “Only child. Crazy parents, so thank God they only had me. Another would have killed them.”

  “Why?”

  “My parents are . . . eccentric,” I explained, smiling as I thought about them.

  Eccentric almost didn’t cover it. I imagined Mom with her feather-wigs and jewelry. Dad with his thick glasses, short-sleeved dress shirts, and bow ties. They were from another time—almost another planet—but their eccentricities only made them easier to love.

  “My dad’s always worked a lot but when he’s not at work, he becomes obsessed with one thing or another. Mom likes to be busy but Dad never wanted her to work outside the house. She grew up in Texas and met Dad in college. She was a math major, but once they got married, she sold cosmetics from home, and then sold some crazy no-wrinkle cotton clothes. And most recently, skin stuff.”

  “What exactly does your dad do?”

  I hesitated, wondering, How can he ask this? Does he really not know anything about me?

  “So, my last name is Dillon, right?”

  He nodded, interested.

  Max is British. He’s probably never heard of Dillons.

  Telling him this felt like lifting a heavy iron chain. It was nice to think about being unburdened, but almost easier to leave it alone than try to lift it. My entire life people had looked at me differently after learning who my family was; I wondered if Max would be any different.

  I took a deep breath and looked at him. “My family owns a chain of department stores. They’re regional, like, in the Midwest? But they’re big there.”

  He paused, eyes narrowed. “Wait. Dillons? As in ‘You Should Love to Live,’ Dillons?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh. Wow. Your family owns Dillons. Okay then.” Max ran a hand over his face and laughed to himself, shaking his head. “Shit, Sara. I . . . I had no idea. I feel like a wanker.”

  “I like that you didn’t know who I was.” I felt my stomach drop, realizing that now that he knew I was someone, he probably would look me up. He’d learn about Andy, and realize what a fool I was to not know what an entire city had known all along.

  Max would know I’d been someone else’s doormat before I’d ever been his mystery.

  I looked away, feeling a little deflated. I didn’t want to talk about lives or histories or family. I searched wildly for a new topic.

  But he spoke before I could come up with anything. “You know what fascinates me about you?” he asked, pouring me another glass of honey wine.

  “What?”

  “The first night we met, and then our first night in the warehouse in Brooklyn: the things you let me do. And then tonight, you flush at the word cunt.”

  “I know!” I laughed, taking a sip of wine.

  “I like that about you. I like your internal conflict, your sweetness. I like that you have this insanely wealthy family but I’ve seen you wear the same dress a few times.” He licked his lips and gave me a predatory smile. “Mostly, I like that you’re so clearly good and yet have let me do such bad things to you.”

  “I don’t think they’re bad.”

  “Ah, but that’s the point. Most people would think you were mad to meet me at that warehouse. You’re an American heiress and you let some whorish Brit take pictures of you naked. Take video of you masturbating in my office tonight just for the thrill of knowing I’ll watch it. But it’s what you’ve asked me for.”

  He leaned back in his chair, watched me. He looked so serious, almost perplexed. “I’m a fucking bloke; I’m not going to say no to that. But I didn’t think women like you existed. So naïve in all these really obvious ways, yet so fucking sexual that a friendly, gentle little shag on a mattress would never be enough.”

  I lifted my glass, took a sip while he watched my mouth. Licking my lips, I smiled at him. “I think you’ll find most women aren’t always satisfied by a friendly, gentle little shag on a mattress.”

  Max laughed, murmuri
ng, “Touché.”

  “And that’s why the cameras and the women chase you,” I said, looking at him from over the top of my glass. “It’s more than the history with Cecily. If it were just that, they would have lost interest within a few weeks. But you’re the man from the paper with a different woman all the time. The one nobody can seem to catch. The man who obviously knows his way around a pussy.”

  Max’s eyes widened a little, pupils dilating like a drop of ink into the dusk sky. “I’m not with a different woman every night lately.”

  Ignoring him, I finished my thought. “Women don’t always want to be treated like we’re delicate, or rare, or somehow more precious. We want to be wanted. We want sex to be just as raw as you do. You’re the guy who knows that.”

  He leaned forward on his elbows, studying me. “But why do I feel like you’re the one giving me something special? Something you’ve never given anyone before?”

  “Because I am.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but then my phone rang, vibrating where I’d put it on the table. And as both Max and I looked down at it, I knew we saw the name at exactly the same time.

  ANDY CELL.

  Twelve

  I put Sara in a cab and watched as the taillights disappeared into the darkness.

  Fuck.

  She’d ignored the call at dinner, glancing at the screen before silencing it to vibrate against the table, but not before I saw who it was, and definitely not before I saw her try to hide her reaction.

  ANDY CELL.

  I’d never seen anyone shut down like that before; it was like someone flipped a switch and the light slowly drained from her face. She’d begun picking at her food and stopped talking, withdrawing into herself and answering in single-word sentences for the remainder of the meal. I’d tried to lighten the mood, told a few jokes and flirted with her shamelessly, but . . . nothing. After about ten minutes she’d put us both out of our misery, feigning a headache and insisting that she take a cab home. Alone.

  Fuck.

  I continued to stare off into the empty street as my car pulled up to the curb, idling quietly behind me. I waved off my driver, opening the door myself and climbing inside.

  “Where to, Mr. Stella?”

  “Let’s head home, Scott,” I said, slumping back into the seat. We pulled away and I watched the city rush by in a blur, my mood darkening with each block we passed.

  Things had been going so well. She’d finally started to open up, to let me into that vault of a mind of hers. I was still reeling from her admission that her parents owned one of the largest luxury department store chains in the country, and then “Andy cell.” Fucking Andy cell.

  Anger flared in my chest and for a brief moment I wondered how often they spoke. Six years was a long time and meant they had a history that would be hard to simply brush under the rug; I don’t know why I’d assumed he was completely out of her life. It made sense that she didn’t want to be in another relationship, but her forced distance always felt so much larger than that.

  Maybe he wanted her back.

  I frowned as I let that thought roll around in my head, hating the way it felt.

  Of course he wanted her back; how could he not? For the hundredth time I found myself wondering what exactly happened between them and why she was so against telling me.

  We drove through midtown and were almost to my building when my mobile vibrated in my pocket.

  Home safe. Thanks for dinner. xx

  Well, this night certainly went tits up.

  I reread her text and considered calling, knowing it’d be a lost cause. She was so fucking stubborn. I typed out at least ten different replies, deleting each one before sending.

  The problem was that I wanted to talk about this and she didn’t. The problem was also that I’d somehow misplaced my balls and my spine.

  “You mind driving around a bit, Scott?” I asked, and he shook his head, turning north past the park. I flipped through my contacts and pressed Will’s name. It rang twice before he answered.

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  “You got a few?” I asked, looking out over the passing streets.

  “Sure, give me a second.” There was some shuffling and the sound of a door closing before he was back. “Everything okay?”

  I leaned my head back against the seat, not sure where to start. I just knew I had to unload some confusion with someone, and, unfortunately for him right now, that someone in my life was Will. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, that was cryptic. I didn’t have an email telling me something is on fire, so I’m assuming this isn’t about work.”

  “I wish.”

  “Okay . . . Hey, didn’t you say something about having plans tonight?”

  “That’s sort of why I’m calling, actually.” I scrubbed a hand along my jaw. “Jesus. I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said. “I think I just need someone to . . . to listen. Like, if I say it out loud it’ll make more sense.”

  “Well, this should be good,” he said, chuckling into the phone. “Let me get comfortable.”

  “You know the woman I’ve been seeing.”

  “Fucking. The woman you’ve been fucking.”

  I closed my eyes. “Will.”

  “Yes, Max. Your amazing shag. The secret sex-only situation with the woman who does not want to be photographed and which will most definitely not go down in flames.”

  I sighed. “So, about that,” I mumbled. “I mean . . . this is just between us, yeah?”

  “Of course,” he said, sounding a bit offended. “I may be an asshole but I’m a trustworthy asshole. And shouldn’t you be over here so we can, like, I don’t know, do each other’s nails while we talk about our feelings?”

  “It’s Sara Dillon.”

  Silence. Well, that shut him up.

  “Will?”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “Sara Dillon. Sara Dillon of Ryan Media Group.”

  “The very one. It started before I even knew she worked with Ben.”

  “Wow. I mean, she’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but, she seems really . . . reserved? Who would’ve thought she had it in her. Nice.”

  And because it felt so good to just say it, I barreled on. “It started out as just a hookup. I could tell she was using me to play around, explore things.”

  “Things?”

  I scratched my jaw and winced as I admitted, “She likes to have sex in public.”

  “Uh?” he said, laughing. “That doesn’t sound like the Sara Dillon I’ve met.”

  “And she lets me take pictures of her.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “Photographs, sometimes more. Of us.”

  “Of you . . .”

  “Fucking.”

  The silence stretched for a few moments and I swear I could hear his rapid-fire blinking. He cleared his throat. “Okay, the sex in public is pretty awesome, but every guy I know has taken pictures while he’s fucking a girl.”

  “What’s your point, tosser?”

  “That you’re behind the trend, dick.”

  “Will, I’m being fucking serious here.”

  “Okay. So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is tonight was the first night I managed to get her to go to a restaurant. I find out her parents own fucking Dillons, Will. The department store? These are things I didn’t even know before yesterday.”

  He was quiet for a beat and then laughed quietly. “Yeah.”

  “So, like this, we’re actually talking for once, and then her twat of an ex calls.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And it’s obvious he did a right number on her but she just shut down and couldn’t get away fast enough after that. She’ll have sex with me until she can barely walk, but she won’t tell me why it took her over a month to agree to actually have a meal with me.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So her parents own a store and she g
rew up in Chicago. That’s it? I know nothing about her, really.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will, are you even listening to me?”

  “Of course I’m listening. You know nothing.”

  “Right.”

  “So . . . have you googled her?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I groaned. “I thought we had this conversation after the Cecily debacle. Nothing good comes from personal Google searches.”

  “But professionally, if you’re working with someone new, you look them up, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I googled Sara as soon as I knew she’d be one of my contacts at RMG. It sure was informative.”

  My throat grew tight, and I tugged uselessly at my collar. “Tell me what you saw.”

  He laughed. “Not a chance. Find some balls and strap them on while your laptop boots. And on that note, this little chat’s been great but I gotta go. Company.”

  I directed Scotty back to my building. Once upstairs, I made it all of five minutes before I was at the computer and typing the name “Sara Dillon” into the search engine.

  Holy shit.

  There wasn’t just the odd mention here and there; there were pages and pages of results, possibly more than I’d find on myself. I took a deep breath and went to the images first, scrolling through photos of her that had to span at least the last ten years of her life. She was so young in some of them, her butterscotch hair styled in a sleek pixie in some, a messy shag in others. In all of them, her smile was unguarded and naïve.

  And these weren’t just a collection of family snapshots or selfies; they were high-definition paparazzi photos taken with expensive zoom lenses, bought and sold to newspapers and magazines with exclamation-point-heavy titles, even video and archived news footage. There were parties and weddings, charity events and vacations, and almost always with the same man at her side.

  He was only a few inches taller than she was, with black hair and sharp, Roman features. His bright, toothy smile looked about as sincere as I imagined it would, which is to say not sincere in the slightest.