She was done with him. She had to be done with him.
It’s what she’d been telling herself since that day in his condo. She’d kept herself busy since then, working by day on the archives and then distracting herself in the evenings by visits with old friends. She’d even gritted her teeth and managed a dinner with her mother and then another with her father.
Thoughts of Baxter hadn’t bothered her at all.
At least not as much as his silent presence was bugging her, as he continued to stand just a few feet away. “What are you doing here?” she groused, her gaze still focused on her computer. “Your reputation as All Business Baxter is going to be downgraded if you keep escaping your office like this.”
Instead of answering, he moved into the room. From the corner of her eye, she saw him riffle through one of the boxes. She’d been sorting the paperwork, and had put what she termed the “numbers stuff” into its own carton. The ledgers were bound by olive-green, cloth-covered cardboard, and she’d barely spared them a glance before separating them from the business and personal letters that she hoped held clues to Sunrise’s demise as well as the truth of the relationship between Edith Essex and her husband.
She’d scanned the correspondence page by page into her computer so she could examine it as much as she liked without damaging the originals. That process now done, she’d entered them into a database, arranged them by date and was now reading through them one at a time.
Baxter moved to stand behind her. “Have you found anything interesting?”
“No,” she said, but continued on in hopes of quickly satisfying his curiosity. Perhaps then he’d go. “From what I can tell, Sunrise Pictures was fine financially—though I confess I’m not an expert at deciphering that side of things. But the letters between Sunrise and its various vendors and suppliers don’t hint at money problems.”
“What about the personal correspondence?”
That made her sigh. “There’s a dearth of it, actually. I hoped to find letters between Edith and her husband, but so far, nothing. There are a few dozen from some of the leading men and ladies of the day to Max Sunstrum, Sunrise’s president, and there’s a nugget or two there. In between discussions of schedules and salary and availability I’ve found references to parties they’d mutually attended. As time goes on, however, more than one correspondent questions where Edith has been and why she’s been absent from the Hollywood scene.”
“Because there was trouble in the marriage? The affair that’s rumored?”
Addy lifted a shoulder. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. That’s why I’m too busy for interruptions.” Now she glanced back to see if he got her unsubtle hint.
Damn. She shouldn’t have looked at him. Of course, he’d come right from the office. His hair was in those impeccable layers, as smooth and shiny as golden fish scales. He wore his summer-weight suit like most men wore T-shirts and jeans. The tie around his neck had been loosened.
The tie.
Oh, God. She stared at the navy-and-white stripes, remembering the one she’d secured around his eyes so she’d have the courage to go to bed with him. And she’d gone to bed with him to get him out of her life.
“Why are you still here?” she demanded, frowning.
He frowned right back. “Why did you leave the other night without saying goodbye?”
Addy shrugged again. Not for a million dollars would she admit she’d been grateful he’d dozed off afterward so she could escape. He’d been her first, though not her only lover. A time or two over the years she’d looked into the face of a man she’d been intimate with and managed to make clear there wasn’t going to be another encounter between the sheets.
So it shouldn’t have been hard—once she was back in her clothes—to have said so long to Baxter in a way that made clear she meant it as a permanent goodbye. Except she’d slipped out instead.
“Was that payback for what happened six years ago?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Because I essentially sneaked away, you figured you should have your chance to do the same?”
She glared at him. “I don’t know what—”
“Can the crap, Addy,” he said. “I’m not buying for a second your story that you don’t remember our night together then. You gasped in shock when I licked your nipple for the first time. I kissed the tears from your cheek when I entered you—your first time.”
She opened her mouth to emit some matching sort of answer, but nothing came out. He was the one with the confidence to be so blunt. Addy March had nowhere near that kind of self-assurance, and being with Baxter only made her feel the lack more.
“I want to see you again,” he said. “I want to find some way to make it up to you for—”
“Why?” she interrupted, exasperated. “I’m not expecting you to make anything up to me.”
“But—”
“I didn’t expect anything from you after that night six years ago.”
Baxter blinked. He rubbed his palm along the length of his tie, a gesture she might label as nervous if he didn’t always appear so annoyingly poised. “You really don’t remember that night.”
Addy rolled her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as intimidatingly smart as she’d always thought. “I just admitted I do, okay? I’d had a little crush on you for years, that’s the truth. When you asked me to dance, you’re lucky I didn’t keel over at your feet. My heart was going so fast when you took me in your arms that I thought I might pass out.”
“A crush?” He was smiling, the smug bastard. “I kind of knew the second half of that. Even with only those twinkling lights overhead, I could see the pulse at your throat. Racing. Your skin is so fragile there, so thin and sweet. It’s the first place I put my mouth.”
Addy swallowed, nonplussed again.
“It’s racing now, too,” he said quietly.
She spun back toward her laptop. “The thrill of near-discovery. I’m excited about unraveling the mystery of Edith, Max and Sunrise Pictures.”
Baxter put his hands on her shoulders and began to knead. “You’re so tense, Addy. I’m not going to let you down again. I don’t want it to be that way with us.”
“I told you, you didn’t ever let me down. Why do you keep insisting you did?”
“The things I said, the promises I made—”
“Not for one minute did I expect you to follow through on any of those.”
His hands stilled, then dropped away. “I didn’t think I could feel much worse about what happened, but you just proved me wrong.”
Surprised, she turned to face him again, the casters on the chair legs squeaking in the quiet room. It wasn’t something she’d said to hurt him, but the expression on his chiseled, nearly too-handsome face was pained. “Baxter...”
He threw himself into the seat beside her. It was wheeled, like hers, and he used the heel of one elegant leather shoe to push himself away from the table. “I guess I deserve that. Clearly I have an overinflated sense of my own integrity.”
“What?” Addy stared at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Despite what I did that night, I’ve always considered myself one of the good guys, okay? I’m ethical, I pay all my taxes, I always buy my mother her favorite candy on Valentine’s Day.”
Addy told herself not to be charmed. But he bought his mother candy on Valentine’s Day! “You are one of the good guys...at least I’ve always thought so.”
“But you say you disbelieved me that night...even before I had the chance to prove your distrust was well-founded.” He groaned, and ran his palms over his hair. “I am a jerk.”
“No, Baxter. I don’t think you’re a jerk. I didn’t put any credence into what you said because...because I’m me, and you’re you.”
“The jerk.”
“No.” It was frustrating and more than a little humiliating to clear this up. “You’re Baxter Smith,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the hair, the suit, the shiny shoes, “and I’m me.”
He frowned
. “I don’t get it.”
“You’re you, and I’m me. Pl—plain Addy.” She’d almost said “plump,” but no need to go into that. “Nose-in-a-book, eyes-on-a-screen, head-in-the-clouds Addy March.”
He just stared at her.
“You know Little Women, the book by Louisa May Alcott? The ‘little women’ are the March sisters. I used to pretend that I was one of them. They performed plays and told each other stories and had their loving Marmee and Father.” When Baxter continued to stare at her she thought she wasn’t making herself clear. “I pretended I was pretend people. I could pretend I was pretend people for days on end.”
He still looked puzzled. “If this is about swapping childhood stories, I should probably tell you about the BSLS.”
It wasn’t about swapping childhood stories, it was about why they were ill-suited for each other, but now she was intrigued. “All right, I’ll bite. BSLS?”
“The BSLS. The Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”
“Huh?”
“I’m a very, uh, goal-oriented person. Maybe a little obsessive-compulsive. Even as a kid, I made lists, developed agendas, tracked my progress on spreadsheets. The summer after eighth grade, I got into running. I had a target. In the twelve weeks before school started—and the high school cross country season began—I wanted to log five hundred miles.”
“That was very ambitious.” Not that she’d admit it, but that was the summer her crush had begun. She’d been waiting for fifth grade to start, dreading another school year where she’d be ignored, or worse, made fun of. Always a dreamer, she’d been ripe for falling for a teen heartthrob. The first time she’d seen him run by, it had been chance, but after that she’d sit in wait by her bedroom window, a box of Pop-Tarts and another of Cap’n Crunch beside her, munching and crunching until he passed her window as he left on his run. She’d be there on his return, too, a little sick on sugar and puppy love. “Five hundred miles.”
“They weren’t all logged on the road. My father and I assigned a mile value to other things—sets of tennis, a round of golf, laps in the pool.” He shrugged. “I think it was the next year that I developed the BSLS.”
“The Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”
“Yes. I’ve kept it all these years...kept to it. It’s a timetable of important dates and milestones. I listed my high school graduation date, college graduation. I already figured I wanted a year of work before getting my MBA. Then, after that degree, I’d go directly into a job with the family.”
She nodded. Baxter would be ordered that way. Precise in what he wanted, knowing it early, sticking to it like glue. It was the confidence thing again. That innate understanding of himself and his place in the world.
The golden boy.
Using the heel of his shoe, he rolled his chair closer to Addy’s. His left kneecap brushed her right one. She moved it quickly away.
“The BSLS didn’t just cover career plans,” Baxter continued. “I charted my future personal life, too, in a logical, sensible fashion. No serious dating until after business school graduation. No living with a woman until marriage. And no thought of matrimony, or even falling in love for that matter, until somewhere past my thirty-first birthday.”
Addy could think of nothing to say, though for the first time he seemed a little more human. Because only a man would come up with a prescribed system like that one.
“Oh, and that falling-in-love part? It would take six months, minimum, of dating before I’d even think of spilling those words.” Baxter slid his hand down his tie again. “So you see, what happened that night was just so...so antithetical to those plans of mine.”
“Off the Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”
He spread his hands. “Yes. And I’ve felt lousy about the way I handled things ever since I impetuously made those promises. I woke up the next morning, panicked, and for what it’s worth, I guessed and second-guessed myself over not calling you after promising I would. It’s eaten at me for the last six years.”
Addy turned back to her computer screen. “Well, don’t worry about it. I didn’t take you seriously. Like I said before, I didn’t pencil you into my life schedule then, not even for a moment. So we’re clear.”
An odd sound echoed in the small room. From Baxter? She turned her head, stunned at the frustrated expression on his face and the tufts of hair sticking up on his head. As she watched, his fingers speared through the golden stuff again, creating more disorder. Baxter was never disordered.
“What’s the matter now?” she asked.
“I want to see you, Addy. You know, go out with you. Date you.”
“No—”
“We could take our time. As a matter of fact, that’s best, right? Get to know each other, figure things out...”
Break her heart, when he finally opened his eyes and figured out an Addy March was not a proper match for a Baxter Smith. “No,” she said again.
He shoved out of the chair and started pacing the small room. Slightly alarmed, Addy watched his quick strides, his lean figure moving past the movie posters for Country Caroline and The Ghost and the Girl and then the wall of framed movie stills of Edith Essex as an intrepid explorer, a rising nightclub star, a heartbroken lover. He stopped in front of this last, staring at it, she thought, without really seeing it.
“Look, Addy, I can explore long-term relationships now.”
“But I can’t.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. Then he spun to face her. “We deserve a chance to see where this could go, don’t you think? Look, you know I’ve never forgotten you. And we’re great together in bed.”
“Baxter—”
“I’ve got a business trip coming up the first week of August. Seattle. Come with me and we’ll make a weekend of it.”
“Baxter, I can’t.” When he made to protest again, she held up her hand. “I’m leaving the country—I’ll be spending the next year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne. I leave the first week in August, which means it’s better we say goodbye now.”
“Paris. For a year.” He looked staggered by the news. She supposed the Baxter Smiths of the world were rarely stymied.
But she knew well how to handle giving up her heart’s desire, so she merely said, “Yes,” then turned away from him and focused back on her laptop. Still, she was hyperaware of him as he started moving again. His sandalwood scent reached her and she suppressed the desperate urge to turn toward it, ignoring the yearning she had to bury her nose against his neck and warm her suddenly cold face against the heat at his throat.
Goodbye, she whispered in her mind. Live well. Be happy.
“This box of ledgers,” he said at length. “Can I take it with me? Page through them?”
“Sure,” she replied absently, hardly aware of the question as her own misery closed in on her. Think of the Seine, she told herself. Of studying in the City of Light. Of some future French lover, dark-haired and seductive, who would whisper to her, demanding a kiss. “Donne-moi un bisou.”
Except all seductive men in Addy’s fantasies were golden-haired Americans who whispered, “Dance with me.”
Desolate, she glanced over just as Baxter breached the exit. She’d wanted him gone, she reminded herself. Out of the archives room, out of her life. But then she noticed the box in his hands, the one she’d given him permission to take...and realized she’d also given him a reason to return.
CHAPTER TWELVE
VANCE FOLLOWED HIS NOSE across the parking lot of Captain Crow’s toward the Karma Cupcakes truck. The scent of baking made his mouth water. An ocean breeze plastered the back of his shirt to his spine, displacing sweetness with a briny smell, and he wondered if he’d ever breathe in one or the other of those two aromas without thinking of this summer. Without thinking of Layla.
As he drew nearer, Phil Parker climbed out of the truck. Vance paused, a wave of guilt slapping at him. He hadn’t considered having to face the older man this morning. With the single purpose of getting things back on track with
the niece, he hadn’t even remembered the uncle.
Phil glanced up as he seated himself at one of the bistro tables. He slid a dog-eared stack of travel guidebooks onto the tabletop. “Good morning,” he called with an easy smile. “Come join me.”
“I’ve come to collect Layla,” Vance replied. “I don’t really have the time.”
Phil pushed out the chair beside him with a sandal-clad foot. “I’m sure you can sit for a moment or two.”
Hell. Vance tried not to scowl as he lowered himself to the wrought-iron seat.
Phil smiled again. “So...how’re you two getting along?”
More guilt. Well, I got Layla to pretend to be my girlfriend. Worse, I ignored my scruples and listened to my inner horndog, Phil. I had wild monkey sex with your beautiful niece. Except wild monkey sex would have been less disturbing than what had really happened. He’d stroked her, enjoyed her, savored her. Even now he could feel the satin of her skin against his fingertips, hear the sweet need of her husky moans.
Instead of expressing any of that, though, he cleared his throat. “What does she say?”
“She’s been pretty quiet. I’m a little worried.”
His gut tightened. Disturbed by that visit from Fitz, Vance had kept clear of her for a couple days. That wasn’t exactly courteous behavior from a lover, no matter how temporary, how casual the hookup. But she hadn’t complained.
Instead, she’d just gone ahead with her usual routine without ever taking him to task for keeping to himself even more than usual.
No, until now he’d thought it was only him that was all messed up, still smelling her on his sheets, even though he’d changed them. Still remembering her pebbled nipple on his tongue, the rhythmic clasp of her body on his cock. The silk of her hair wound around his fingers. When she was in the same room with him he couldn’t think of anything but the taste of her.
That’s why he’d struck upon today’s plan. He was going to spin time backward, returning things to the way they were those first days at Beach House No. 9. They’d been two strangers then. On the forefront of his mind had been her father and fulfilling his promise to the man.
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