“Not as much as seeing her in the paper did.”
“Do you not see it’s exactly the story they wanted? The story of me and all my many women? They found hundreds of photos of me and you and yet they just post one? There is one image of another woman, and bam—it fits their gossip narrative. I told you I wasn’t with anyone else; why wasn’t that enough?”
“Because I’m used to men who say one thing and do another.”
“But you expected me to be better than that,” he said, eyes searching mine. “Otherwise why admit you love me? Why give me a night like that?”
“I guess when the photos came out . . . I didn’t think that night meant as much to you.”
“That’s absolute shite. You were there, too. You’re looking at the photos now. You know exactly how much it meant to me.”
I reached for him but reconsidered. He looked really pissed, and my frustration with myself and him and all of it just exploded. I still remembered the stab I felt in my chest when I saw the picture of the other woman.
“What was I supposed to think? It just seemed reasonable that you’d played me. Everything between us always seemed so easy for you.”
“It was easy. Falling absolutely in love with you was really fucking easy. Isn’t it supposed to be that way? Just because I haven’t been brokenhearted in recent years doesn’t mean I’m incapable of it. Fuck, Sara. I’ve been wrecked for the past two weeks. Positively smashed.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling like I needed to physically hold myself together. “Me, too.”
He sighed, stared down at his shoes, and didn’t say anything else. In my chest, my heart twisted tightly.
“I want to be with you,” I said.
He nodded once, but didn’t look back up, didn’t even say a word.
I stepped closer, stretched to kiss his cheek, and only made it to his jaw because he wouldn’t bend to meet me.
“Max, I miss you,” I told him. “I know I jumped to conclusions. I just . . . I thought . . .” I stopped, hating how still he remained.
Without looking back, I walked out of his dressing room, through his bedroom, and back to the party.
“I want to go home,” I said to Chloe, once I’d been able to discreetly—semi-discreetly—pull her away from a conversation with Bennett and Will.
The two men watched us in the obvious way men have where they don’t even bother trying to hide what they’re doing. We all stood in the recessed portion of the living room that looked exactly like the room in the club. The memories sent sharp pangs through my chest. I wanted to get out of this dress, wash my face, and curl up in a tub of cookie dough.
“Give us twenty?” she asked, eyes searching mine. “Or do you need to leave right this second?”
I groaned, looking around the room. Max still hadn’t emerged from his bedroom and I wanted to be gone when he did. I certainly didn’t want to be standing exactly where I was, remembering exactly how loving he’d been with me in Johnny’s club, and every second after. I was mortified, and confused, and most of all, I was wildly in love with him. The memory of the way he’d displayed the beauty in our photographs pulsed like a vivid echo in my mind.
“I just had the world’s most awkward conversation with Max. I feel like an asshole and he’s being obstinate and has every right to be because I’m an idiot and I just want to leave. I’ll get a cab outside.”
Will put his hand on my arm. “Don’t leave quite yet.”
I couldn’t help giving him a scolding look. “You’re kind of a piglet, Will. I can’t believe you did that. I would kill Max if he sent you a picture of me.”
He nodded, chastened. “I know.”
My attention was drawn up and over his shoulder to the hall to Max’s room. He’d come out without me seeing, and stood, leaning against the wall, sipping a scotch. He was staring directly at me. It was the same intense expression he wore the first night we met, as he watched me dance for him.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to him, eyes welling with tears. “I messed up.”
Will was saying something, but I had no idea what. I was too focused on the way Max licked his lips. And then his eyes turned up in the familiar smile and he mouthed the words, “You look beautiful.”
Will had asked me a question. What did he just say?
I nodded, and mumbled, “Yeah . . .”
But he laughed, shaking his head. “It wasn’t a yes-or-no question, lovely Sara.”
“I . . .” I tried to focus. But behind him, Max had set his drink down on a table and was headed straight for me. Tugging at my dress, I stood straighter, tried to keep my face impassive. “Could you repeat the question?”
“Max is walking over here, isn’t he?” Will asked, watching me with naked amusement.
I nodded again. “Um.”
I hadn’t realized how close I’d been standing against the wall until I was pressed against it, Max’s mouth warm and sliding over mine, whispering my name over and over. I wanted to say something, I wanted to tease him for kissing me like this in the middle of his own party, but I was so wrapped up in the intensity of my own relief that I just closed my eyes, opened my mouth, to let his tongue slide across mine.
He dragged his teeth down my jaw, sucked at my neck. Over his shoulder I saw that the entire room full of people had stopped talking and were watching us, wide-eyed. A few were leaning together, already discussing what they were seeing.
“Max,” I whispered, tugging his hair to pull his head back to mine. I couldn’t stop smiling; I felt like my face was going to crack in half. He looked at my lips, his eyes hooded as if he was drunk from me. “We have an audience.”
“Isn’t that your thing?” He leaned forward, kissed me once more.
“I like a little more anonymity.”
“Too bad. I thought we agreed this would be our coming-out party.”
I pulled away, searching his eyes as they grew more sober. “I’m really sorry.”
“I suppose it’s obvious that I want to be with you, too. I just . . . needed a moment to collect myself in there,” he said quietly.
I nodded. “Totally understandable.”
Max grinned and kissed my nose. “At least we got that out of the way. But I’ve earned the right to a fair trial. No more mistrustful Sara.”
“I promise.”
Collecting himself, he slipped my arm through his and turned back to his stunned party. Max announced to all near, “Sorry for the interruption, everyone. Haven’t seen my girlfriend in a couple of weeks.”
People nodded and smiled at us as if we were the most charming thing they’d ever seen. It was a familiar type of attention, the kind I’d received for years. But this time it was real. What I’d found with Max wasn’t about opinion polls and public perception. For the first time in my life, what happened behind closed doors was ten times better than what others saw from the outside looking in.
And he was mine.
Max was still out saying good night to the last of his guests to leave when I slipped back into his bedroom to look at the photos again. They were so revealing of our emotions, they almost made me feel bare all over.
I heard him come in behind me and quietly shut the door.
“How could you stand it?”
“Stand what?” He stepped behind me and bent to kiss the back of my neck.
“Seeing these pictures every day.” I pointed to his wall. “If they’d been on my wall while we were apart it would have hurt so much I would have gone fetal and subsisted entirely on Cap’n Crunch and self-pity.”
He laughed and turned me to face him. “I wasn’t ready to get over you yet. I was miserable, but would have been more miserable if I’d admitted it was over.”
And that’s what he gave me, a reminder that the glass wasn’t just half full, it was overflowing.
“It’ll exhaust you sometimes,” I said, “having to be the optimist for both of us.”
“Aaah, but eventually I’ll bring you over to t
he light side.” He reached behind me, unzipped my dress, and slipped it from my shoulders. It fell in a puddle at my feet and I stepped out of it, feeling the pleasure of his eyes on my skin.
When I glanced up at him, he looked so serious it made my stomach lurch. “What’s wrong?”
“You could break my heart. Just know that, yeah?”
I nodded, swallowing a thick lump in my throat. “I know.”
“When I say ‘I love you’ I don’t mean that I love what being with you does for my career, or I love how often you’re willing to shag. I mean I love you. I love making you laugh, and seeing how you react to things, and getting to know the little things about you. I love who I am with you, and I’m trusting you not to hurt me.”
Maybe because he was so tall, and broad, and constantly smiling and impossible to offend, Max seemed so formidable, as if nothing could actually break him. But he was only human, too.
“I understand,” I whispered. It was so strange to be on the other side of messing up, and to be the one who was given another chance.
He kissed me and then stepped back, slipping out of his jacket and hanging it on a coatrack in the corner. I spotted his camera on a shelf in the opposite corner of the room and walked over to pick it up. I stared down at it, found the ON button, raised the camera, and adjusted the lens.
I aimed it at where Max stood, watching me and tugging at his bow tie.
“I love you, too,” I said, zooming to take a close-up of his face. I clicked a few more pictures in rapid succession as he stared hungrily at me. “Undress.”
He pulled his tie away from his collar and dropped it, eyes growing darker, and began unbuttoning his shirt.
Click.
“A warning,” I murmured from behind the camera as he pulled his shirt open. “I’ll probably need to lick every inch of your chest tonight.”
A smile tilted his mouth. Click. “Fine by me. I might insist you lick a little lower, too.”
I took a picture of his hands at his belt, his pants on the floor, his feet as they stepped right in front of mine.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, reaching to take the camera away from me.
“Taking pictures for my bedroom.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Get on the bed, Petal. Apparently you need a reminder of how this works.”
I climbed back, feeling the cool sheets as the mattress dipped below me. He reached down, adjusted my leg, studied me.
Click.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
The light from the Manhattan skyline slipped across my body, illuminating a strip of skin on my ribs. His finger ran up the inside of my thigh as I looked up at his face, partially hidden by the camera.
Click.
I exhaled, closing my eyes and smiling.
New life. New love. New Sara.
Acknowledgments
Not a single word of this book could have been written without the support of our husbands, Blondie & Dr. Mister Shoes. We are constantly shocked by the coincidence that the two of us happened to find the two best men on the planet. Thank you for everything you do to support this crazy gig.
Our agent, Holly Root, is most likely made of magic and cupcakes and stardust and unicorn tears. We aren’t sure, of course, but it just seems impossible that someone so amazing could come from this humble planet.
Thank you to Adam Wilson, our hilarious editor and the name we most love to see in our margins. The list of our favorite Adamisms is getting so long we had to start a spreadsheet. Thanks for putting up with our ridiculousness, and for making us want to do it right the first time.
Thanks to Mary McCue and Kristin Dwyer, our publicists at Simon & Schuster Gallery. Your excitement and support already have buoyed us immensely and we kind of just want to sit across your desk and gaze at you adoringly. To everyone at Gallery: Jennifer Bergstrom, Ellen Chan, Natalie Ebel, Julia Fincher, Liz Psaltis: thank you for everything you’ve done to edit, promote and support Beautiful Bastard and Beautiful Stranger. Simon & Schuster must be a fantastic place to work because you are all gems.
To our writing buddies and readers: Erin, Martha, Kellie, Anne, Myra, Amy, Tonya, and Moi: thank goodness you loved it the first time around because we don’t think we could have rewritten it in a week. HA! HA! ::drinks:: We don’t love our books until we’ve fixed what you say is wrong with them.
Alison and Anya, many thanks for your help with NYC, even though it may horrify you to know what we’ve done with the information. (Who are we kidding—you’re aware.) Helen, thank you for taking the time to help with the Britishisms. And Ian: yay for getting drunk with Lo often enough that she can imagine every single curse word in your accent! Spangly, your help in the art world was invaluable because, if left to our own devices, we would have referred to only the Mona Lisa and imagined sculptures made from beakers and nail polish. Lauren Suero, thank you eternally for all your work on the promo side. You are a wealth of knowledge (and awesome shoes).
More love than we can express to our readers, both old and new. Thank you for cheering us on and for your continued support. We couldn’t do any of this without you. If you prefer to keep your panties intact, at the very least we hope you get ravished in a library.
And finally: Christina, you are the calm to my wild. Lo, you are the wild to my calm. Doing this together is the most fun. Let’s have cake.
CHRISTINA and LAUREN, a writing duo that has been swooning over romance novels for as long as they can remember, are the authors of Beautiful Bastard from Gallery Books. Separated by the pesky state of Nevada, these co-author besties speak several times a day, agree that Ruby Pumps is the best nail polish color ever, and would, if given the choice, spend all day staring at the ocean from the San Clemente pier. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com or at @seeCwrite and @lolashoes on Twitter.
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COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY © BART78 /SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGES
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY © ALYSSA MICHELLE 2013
ALSO BY CHRISTINA LAUREN
Beautiful Bastard
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Lauren Billings and Christina Hobbs
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition May 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lauren, Christina.
Beautiful stranger / Christina Lauren.—First Gallery Books trade paperback edition.
pages cm
I. Title.
PS3612.A9442273
[B47 2013]<
br />
813'.6—dc23
2013001432
ISBN 978-1-4767-3153-7
ISBN 978-1-4767-3154-4(ebook)
Beautiful Stranger Page 24