by Tracy Wolff
Damn it.
“So the bear was a Christmas present?” he asks after a moment.
“It was.” It takes every ounce of talent I have to keep my voice steady and unconcerned.
“From your parents?”
“No. My father wasn’t big on stuffed animals. Called them dust catchers. He had severe asthma as a child and I think he was afraid that if any dust got near me, I’d develop a similar condition.”
I wait, praying that I’ve said enough—and not too much. Praying that this glimpse of my past—and this small chance to probe into something very few people know about—will be enough to tear him away from the portrait of my younger self and knock him off this line of questioning.
“So, if it wasn’t your parents, who did get you the bear?”
Or not. I shrug, act baffled. “Does it really matter?”
For the first time he seems to figure out that I’m watching him as closely as he’s been watching me. I don’t know how he didn’t notice sooner…
I wonder what that feels like—to lose yourself so completely in your own head that you forget that you’re being watched. Studied.
I never forget.
After several long, tense seconds, he shrugs, too, smiles. A direct mirror of my previous lack of concern. “Of course it doesn’t matter. You just look so happy that I wondered if it was a friend or relative who had given you the bear.”
“It was my first real stuffed animal. I was very happy.” I make a face, shake my head. “But that was over two decades and many, many Christmas presents ago. I can’t remember whose name was on the tag.”
It’s a lie—a miserably crafted, total, and absolute falsehood—and there’s a part of me that expects him to call me on it like he has everything else. He doesn’t though. Instead, he just glances back and forth between me and the painting over and over again. I don’t know what he’s looking for, don’t know what he sees, but just the threat of him finding out is enough to have me walking out of the room. If he doesn’t follow, well, then, that’s on him. It’s not like I’m worried that he’ll take something…and if does, well, it’s not like there’s anything in that room I care about anyway.
This time he does follow me though, trailing me through my parents’ suite of rooms and into my own.
When we get there, I throw open the main doors with the flourish it deserves. It’s a suite meant for a princess, after all, impeccably decorated in silks and velvets, laces and tulles. I’d be embarrassed at the ridiculously excessive femininity of it all, except this is so totally the image I want him to have of me that I almost can’t contain my glee. Especially at the look on his face, the war between amusement and alarm playing out so plainly on his features as he takes his first steps into Wonderland, where nothing is quite what it seems.
“Wow,” he says after several long seconds. “It’s…wow. I mean, it’s beautiful. But, wow.” He turns around, his face turned up to the ceiling, which is painted a deep, dark, midnight blue. I walk over to the panel of light switches and flip the middle one. The ceiling comes alive with a series of inlaid lights in the patterns of my favorite constellations.
“Wow,” he says again, but for the first time it sounds like a compliment.
“My father had that done for me years ago. It was my sixteenth birthday present. Or, one of them, anyway.”
“You like to stargaze?”
It seems innocuous enough, so I answer it. “I do. Though the lights and the smog make it hard to see them most nights.”
If that’s not a metaphor for my life, then I don’t know what is.
He doesn’t pick it up and run with it, though, and I can’t help being grateful…at least until I realize it’s not sensitivity holding him back. It’s lack of attention.
He’s gone from studying my ceiling to studying my bookshelves, which line two of the sitting room’s walls. I should be uneasy—Ian may think it’s the room that tells a person’s secrets but I tend to think it’s their entertainment choices that do that. What they read, what they watch, who they listen to…you can learn a lot about people by the art they surround themselves with.
But the books here are old, read for the most part, in another lifetime. There’s nothing on those shelves that will spill my secrets to Ian. I’d culled those books out a long, long time ago.
“Do you mind?” he asks as he reaches for one of the books. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, it looks like.
“Not at all. Help yourself.”
“I will.” He shoots a grin over his shoulder. “I never have any control when I’m around someone’s personal library. I want to see and touch and hold every single book. It’s…”
He trails off and I’m more than happy to pick up where he left off. “Another one of your passions?” I ask, brow raised.
“Maybe. But it’s more intellectual curiosity than passion, I think. Side effect of being a writer.”
He picks out another book, his eyes going wide. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s a first edition from the very first print run ever of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, then yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.”
“Amazing.” He shakes his head in awe as he flips through it. “So are you a big fan or just a collector?”
“I may or may not own numerous props from the different Harry Potter movies.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the flying car and the pensieve. Hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course.” He replaces the book and moves on to another shelf where he picks out a copy of the collected poems of Allen Ginsberg in one hand and a copy of Alice in Wonderland in the other. “Your reading tastes are eclectic.”
“Yes. But those two fit together better than you might think. Especially”—I pull out a copy of The Bell Jar and hand it to him—“if you look at Sylvia Plath as a bridge between the two.”
“Is that what this feels like to you sometimes? Like you’re in the bell jar?”
“More like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. I have a couple of the props from that movie as well out in my garden.”
“So you are a collector.”
“Only of things that matter to me.” I take the books from him, set them gently back on the shelf.
He watches my every move, head tilted and eyes narrowed. I expect him to reach for another book, but instead he asks, “What does matter to you?”
“World peace. Climate change. Immunizations and healthcare in developing nations.”
“You sound flippant when you say that, like it’s a pat answer. But the truth is, you fund and speak on behalf of organizations all the time that are working to combat those problems.”
“They’re important issues. Children die every day from conditions that are completely treatable. I’m not okay with that.”
“Is that why you started the Salvatore Romero Memorial Foundation?”
“Ending childhood hunger—in both developing and developed nations—was a cause close to my father’s heart. I started the foundation to continue his work, and to add to it.”
“You do a nice job of it.”
“Thank you.” I shift away from him, suddenly nervous with all this talk of philanthropy. I give back because I can, and because the world we live in needs as much help as it can get. And yes, sometimes I do use my name and my face to raise awareness and open doors for whatever cause I’m championing. But to be singled out for it in an interview…that’s not why I do it and I really, really wish he could just drop it.
Before I can say anything else or attempt to drive the conversation in a different direction, my phone beeps with a series of texts. I pull it out, barely succeed in not wincing when I see my mother’s name slide across the screen.
Fuck. She is the last thing I need to have to deal with right now.
Still, I open messages and read the seven texts she’s sent in quick succession.
How is the photo shoot going?
Are you okay?<
br />
I know how much these things bother you, but you have to just keep your head up.
Don’t let the photographer get to you. Remember you’re beautiful and that’s what matters.
And don’t worry about that article in OK. Nobody believes that trash. Focus on wowing them at the shoot. Awards season is getting ready to kick off.
Did you take a tranquilizer this morning like I suggested?
Do you need me to come over?
It’s a lot, but then my mother always is. I ignore most of the texts—including the one about the article in OK, whatever it was. I wish I could ignore them all, but it’s the last text that alarms me, that takes me from weary to worried in the blink of an eye. She is more than capable of crashing my interview and frankly, that’s the last thing I want right now.
I’m fine
Don’t worry
Don’t come over. I’ll call you later
The phone beeps with her answering texts, but this time I ignore them. Instead, I shove the phone deep into my pocket and try to get her well-meaning words out of my head. She’s not subtle—doesn’t know how to be—but her concern is genuine and that’s what matters. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.
As long as she doesn’t come over here and start babbling to Ian about whatever is running through her head, everything will be fine.
But the threat of her imminent appearance still hangs over me and I decide it might be best to hurry this along. Just in case she disregards my instructions not to come. After all, I can’t very well leave my mother standing on the front porch of the house that had once been hers, banging on the door to get in as I rush Ian out the back.
Vanity Fair would not be impressed.
“Is there anything else you want to see in here?” I ask him even as I move toward the door.
He puts down the book he’d picked up when I’d been texting—The Lover by Marguerite Duras—and says, “Actually, yes.”
I wait for the inevitable request to see my bedroom, for the inevitable innuendos and the lust he doesn’t even try to hide.
They don’t come. Instead he turns slowly, examining every nook and cranny of my over-the-top sitting room. His gaze lingers at the watercolors on the wall above the couch, and on the guitar resting drunkenly in the corner.
He’s so quiet in those moments, so self-possessed and reflective and not what I was expecting at all, that I can’t help wondering…can’t help thinking…what it would be like to be with him.
The soft touch of his hands on my skin.
The wet press of his mouth to my neck.
The silken glide of his hair across my lips, my breasts, my stomach.
Heat sparks deep inside of me, unfurls in my abdomen. My nipples tighten of their own volition and I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware of the feel of my clothes against my skin.
Is this what it feels like, then? Is this heightened awareness, this heightened sensitivity, what everyone is on about all the time?
Is this what real, true desire feels like?
His gaze meets mine, then, and the question—whatever it is—is still there. But with it is a sudden awareness, a knowledge of what I’m thinking. What I’m feeling. I can see it in the rapid rise and fall of his chest, can feel it in the wave of heat emanating from him. Can hear it in the sudden harsh intake of breath that shatters the silence of the room.
“Veronica.” My name is husky on his lips, dark, and as he takes a step toward me, I take two back.
I never retreat, never give up ground. Not in public and never, ever in private.
But this is different than my usual encounters. This is real and I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with that. With him.
“Veronica.” This time when he says my name, it’s a question mixed with some underlying thread of emotion I can’t quite identify.
He doesn’t come any closer and still I take another step back. Still I seek to put distance between us. He makes me nervous when for years I’ve made a point never to let a man matter enough to make me nervous. The fact that he does…I don’t know. Not what it means or what I’m supposed to do about it.
I lick my lips, force moisture into my too dry mouth. “What else do you want to see?”
“What?” He sounds as dazed as I feel.
I swallow, ignoring the bowling ball in my stomach and the heat still sliding along right under my skin. “You said you had something else you wanted to see in here. What is it?”
“Something that matters.”
“I don’t understand.” Is this sudden onset of lust making me stupid or is he talking in riddles?
“I want you to pick one thing from this room—besides the ceiling your dad had made for you—that matters to you and I want you to tell me why. It can be anything.”
Fuck. No.
Fuck, no.
Fuck no.
In the seconds after his pronouncement, I run the gamut of emotions as I frantically try to figure out how to get out of this. Normally I’d flirt a little, distract him that way. But that’s not an option right now, not when he’s looking at me like that’s exactly what he expects me to do. And now when I’m feeling so unsteady. So…vulnerable.
I shudder at the word, at the lack of protection it implies. And at the knowledge that the feeling will only get worse if I tell him what he wants to know.
Because there’s only one thing in this room that matters to me, only one thing I give a damn about, and I would destroy it myself before I let him—before I let anyone—know about it.
Chapter 5
“Veronica?” I feel like a parrot as I say her name for the third time in as many minutes. But something’s going on here and I can’t quite figure out what it is.
I’ve been attracted to her since pretty much the minute she slid into the booth across from me at the café yesterday—pretty hard not to be when she looks the way she looks and is the way she is. And while there have been a few times through the last two days that I thought she might return the sentiment, she’s pretty hard to read and even harder to pin down.
Until right now.
Or, more specifically, until a couple minutes ago. Because at this moment she’s looking at me with a combination of horror and calculation that is as fascinating as it is concerning. I just wish I knew why.
When she’d worked so hard to break the sexual tension that stretched between us like a circus high wire, I’d gone along with it. Had even lobbed an easy question at her so that she could get her balance back. So we both could.
That isn’t what’s happening here, though. Instead, she’s freaking out.
Oh, she’s doing her best to hide it, and maybe—if I hadn’t just spent the last eight hours studying her every movement, her every expression and inflection—I wouldn’t notice. But I didn’t take my eyes off of her during the photo shoot today and if I know nothing else right now, I know that what I just asked shut her down completely.
My only question is Why?
Her phone rings before I can ask it though, and she grabs for it like a drowning woman grabs for an inner tube—with a kind of terrified disbelief and desperate joy that the ordeal is almost over.
Veronica glances at the caller ID on her phone and her face smooths out, her expression becoming totally unreadable. “I’m sorry. I need to take this.”
“Of course. I’ll head downstairs for that coffee you keep offering me.”
“Great.” She nods, already distracted by whomever is on the other line. “I’ll meet you down there in a couple minutes.”
“Take your time.”
I head out of the suite and she pulls the doors closed after me with a sharp crack that echoes through the empty halls. I’m curious, really curious, so for a moment I think about hanging around, just to watch her body language through the glass doors. But that feels like cheating, especially since I’m certain that whoever she’s talking to has absolutely nothing to do with Vargas or my research.
So instead of lingering in t
he hallway, I head down one more flight to the huge, state-of-the-art kitchen that boasts nearly every gadget known to man. The coordinator of the photo shoot had made this room the base of operations today, but as I walk into it now the only evidence that they had been here at all is the basket of snacks still resting on the counter and the full carafe of coffee in the coffeemaker.
There are still a few go-cups on the counter next to the machine, so I grab one. I fill it up, then reach for the non-dairy creamer sitting next to the sugar. The container is empty, though, and I’ve never been one who can drink his coffee black, no matter how much shit my father and brother have given me for it through the years.
I glance at the stairs, think about waiting until Veronica comes down to ask, but then figure, what the hell. She’s a lot of things but stingy doesn’t seem to be one of them. She won’t mind if I borrow a little milk or half-and-half to put in my coffee.
But when I pull open the fridge, there is no half-and-half or milk. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing in it at all. No food, no drinks, no half-used bottles of salad dressing or jars of jam. Nothing. She doesn’t even have a bottle of ketchup.
I know some people eat out every night and so they don’t keep many groceries, but this…this is something else entirely. Even the most die-hard restaurant goers have something in the fridge. A carton of eggs, some yogurt, leftovers from last week’s takeout, an apple. Something. Veronica has nothing.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
Knowing I’m invading her privacy, but too intrigued to care at this point, I head over to the large walk-in pantry and pull the door open. It’s empty, too. There’s not even a forgotten box of cereal.
What. The. Fuck?
I turn toward the cabinets, start opening them as well. And that’s when things get even weirder. Because they are fully stocked—with dishes and glasses, pots and pans, bowls and silverware. Even some heavy-duty appliances.
She’s got everything a fully functional kitchen needs, everything except food. And since I’ve seen her eat on three separate occasions during the last two days, I’m pretty sure it’s not anorexia I’m dealing with here. Which means—