by Nicki Elson
He gritted his teeth and raised his top lip in a half snarl. “Whoops. Busted.”
“Busted?” Lyssa took a step back, but he stopped her by laying his hand over hers on the railing.
“No, it’s not … I’m not a stalker. At least I don’t think I am. I just … when I arrived in town a few days ago, I asked Chuck for the lowdown on the single ladies who’d be at the wedding, and you were one of them. Amy was more than happy to indulge my curiosity by pulling up her photos, and I noticed you wore pants in pretty much all of them.”
“Oh.” His explanation was only slightly less creepy than what she’d been thinking of him a few seconds ago.
“Please don’t look at me like that. I know my methods were sort of sketchy, but I only had limited time to work with and didn’t want to waste any of it trying to find out what Chuck and Amy could easily clue me in on. At least I’m being honest with you, right?”
She narrowed her eyes again and studied him. A bump along the ridge of his nose indicated that it might’ve been broken at one time, and he suddenly struck her as a tantalizing combination of rugged and sophisticated. “Honesty is good. I suppose as long as you promise to keep being honest with me I’ll stay and talk to you … but I’m taking back that point I gave you earlier.”
“Fair enough.” His intrigued smile went from his lips to his eyes, warming Lyssa in ways his jacket couldn’t. She was glad to give him a chance.
“Now that you’re being totally honest—what happened? Did the other girls in the lineup fail to fall for your tricks and that’s why you’re out here with me?”
“I don’t have tricks. And for the record, I had my preference narrowed down to you alone before the rehearsal dinner.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
“Honestly?”
“I think we’ve already established that.”
“Well, because you’re cute but not ridiculously so—I didn’t want to have to fight off a bunch of other guys. Then when Amy told me you’d just gotten out of a serious-ish relationship, I figured you’d be the least likely to be forming attachments to anyone else at the moment and the most likely to be feeling a void that only a rebound fling can fulfill. In other words, you seemed gettable.”
She let her jaw hang open for a moment before saying, “Y’know, there’s a difference between being honest and being brutal. Do you get your overture advice from Fitzwilliam Darcy?”
“Who?”
“Fitz— Mister Darcy. Pride and Prejudice? He gives Elizabeth that letter—”
He shook his head. “I don’t watch chick flicks. But listen, gettable is only part one of my requirements. Part two is worth getting.”
“I think I’ll like part two better.”
“You will.” He smiled, and her eyebrows pulled together in a doubtful scowl. She hoped she hadn’t invited a fresh round of insults. “Chuck told me you had a good job, so I know you’re smart—I like smart—and Amy said you were the independent sort, that you date a lot, but you’re not the type to perpetually need to have a boyfriend. I also like independence in a woman because I don’t want someone going out with me because she wants a man; I want her with me because she wants me. So I went back through the pictures, and then I noticed something else.” He stopped, wrinkling his nose in an almost shy gesture and setting aflame those sparks she’d admired in his pale green eyes at the rehearsal dinner.
She bit. “What?”
He waved his head slowly back and forth and let out a deep, inviting chuckle. “I don’t know. There was something about you—your smile, the self-deprecating roll of your eyes I can see even in still shots. I could see you were intelligent, funny, and down-to-earth. You seemed like someone I’d want to know. Then I met you last night … ” His eyes dropped to her mouth and slowly rose to capture her gaze with his. “I know we only talked for a few minutes, but Lyssa Bates … you are most definitely someone I want to know.” Each word had drawn her a centimeter closer to him. By the time he finished delivering his lines, their mouths were mere inches apart.
She tilted her chin up ever so slightly, giving him the permission he sought, and his lips were immediately on hers. It would’ve been a motion-picture-perfect kiss if he’d left it at a soft brush, but he didn’t. He went in for the kill way too soon, and Lyssa pushed back. “Whoa, cowboy. How about we have a few dances—and a lot of drinks—before we take it there?”
He laughed and ran his thumb across her jaw, pinching her chin. “See? Funny. So what shall we start with, the dancing or the drinks?”
“Drinks. Definitely drinks.”
The rest of the night passed in a swirl of drinks and dancing and more drinks and kisses … then a feverish taxi ride home and Sean pressing her up against a wall, slowly unzipping her dress, telling her how beautiful she looked in nothing but a push-up bra and bikini panties. His teeth nibbled and gnawed at her flesh. She moaned for more, and he had his way with her all over her small apartment: against the front door, on the kitchen counter, in the shower, at the open window with her bare torso hanging outside while he rammed into her from behind, and she screamed to all within hearing that he’d chosen her, and she was his.
When Lyssa woke the next morning, the greatest portion of the smile that spread across her face came from knowing that less than half of what she and Sean had done together had actually happened.
Chapter Eight
“You and Mister Upstate New York were getting pretty hot and heavy on the dance floor last night,” Trish said when she called early the next afternoon.
“Good wedding.” Lyssa smiled, dipping her tea bag up and down in her mug.
“You know you won’t get away with your coyness around me. Spill it—what happened? Is he still there?”
“He never even came in.”
“You went back to his hotel room?”
“Nope.”
“Well he was all over you when you two headed out to get a cab. Something happened. Did you do him in the backseat and then send him on his merry way?”
“No!”
Trish laughed. “What then?”
“Pretending it’s any of your business … somewhere between walking out of the hotel and opening the cab door, I had an epiphany. I’m done with men.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Nothing. I mean nothing I didn’t want him to do to me. I’m just done with them. The whole lot of them.”
“For good?”
“For good.”
“Holy shit. You sound totally serious.”
“I am.”
“I’m coming over. Start brewing the coffee.”
Twenty minutes later, Trish was at Lyssa’s apartment with a greasy bag of freshly fried donuts, which she plopped onto the coffee table while she sank down to sit cross-legged on the rug. “Okay, lay it on me. What happened with Upstate that’s made you turn away from the entire race of men?”
Still in her flannel pajama pants with a messy ponytail tied at the top of her head, Lyssa brought over a full carafe, two mugs, and a container of flavored cream. She set them by the donuts and sat on the folded futon. “There’s not much to tell. He started to get in the cab with me, and my drunken mind played out how things would probably go—we’d make out in the cab; he’d want to come up to my place; I’d tell him I didn’t sleep with guys I’d just met; he’d say we could just talk; I’d call bullshit; he’d ask for my number and promise to call so we could get to know each other better and blah, blah, blah.”
Trish pursed her shimmery pink lips—even in sweats and a baseball hat she didn’t neglect her lip-wear. “Sounds about right. So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, it’s all an enormous waste of time. He wouldn’t call. Or maybe he would, and we’d hook up again at some point, and maybe we’d even start a real relationship, and then it would eventually end, and what would’ve been the point of all the awkwardness, compromise, and obsessing that happened along the way
?”
“You thought through all of this in the two seconds it takes to get into a cab?”
“I may have fleshed it out a bit more this morning. Last night, it was more like I really didn’t feel like dealing with the guy.” She frowned. “I don’t think I’m meant for romantic relationships. But you know what? I’m totally fine with that … especially when there are other options.” One corner of her lip curled, and she gave her friend a devilish look.
“Not the vibrator again. Lyssa!”
“Oh, stop. It may have been a drunken decision last night, but this morning I understand the true beauty of my new plan. Think about it—even if I’d invited him up here and we’d gone at it, there’s no way Real Sean could’ve been as good as Fantasy Sean. My imagination plus Vibrizzio is not only equal to but also greater than a real man. Why should I settle for second best?”
“Vibrizzio?”
Lyssa flinched at her slip.
“You named it! Okay, this isn’t even close to healthy. We’re going to throw it away right now. Where is it?”
Lyssa flew onto her knees in front of her side table and blocked the drawer. “That’s ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is how panicked you look. Now I know I’m doing the right thing.” Trish shuffled over on her knees and pressed her fingertips into Lyssa’s sides, tickling and causing her to bend and weaken so she was able to easily push her aside and open the drawer.
She reached in but stopped short when Lyssa shouted, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t wipe it off last night!”
“Ack!” Trish slammed the drawer shut and looked at her friend who now sat on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest.
Lyssa chewed her lip for a moment and then confessed, “It’s not only about sex. I’m done with real guys because I’m always half imagining what they are, anyhow, rather than accepting what they really are. No guy is ever going to live up to what I want him to be. It works in reverse too—like with me and Keith. He wanted a geeked-out girlfriend, so I went along with his shows and his movies, pretending to be what he wanted me to be. When you think about it, aren’t all relationships manufactured and make-believe to some extent?”
Trish was now on the futon, sitting forward with her elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her palms. Her silence and wrinkled forehead seemed to indicate that she wasn’t quite buying into Lyssa’s theory.
“Okay, another example,” Lyssa said. “Did you know Sean had been looking at pictures of me and interrogating Chuck and Amy ahead of time? He went to the wedding with a pre-conceived notion of who I am, who he wanted me to be, and his mind was going to fit me into that mold no matter what the truth was. He was pretending, which is apparently totally normal and acceptable in the dating world. All I intend to do is take the pretending to a whole new level by cutting out the middleman—or in my case, any man.”
Trish shook her head. “Sean was a douche, and your breakup with Keith is still too fresh. Of course you should take some more time before starting to date again, but don’t let those nimrods make you give up on real guys altogether. It’ll click for you one of these days.”
Lyssa exhaled. “Maybe.” She didn’t really believe that but saw she wouldn’t be able to convince her friend to endorse her new philosophy.
“And you’ll take it easy on your little friend in the drawer?”
“Sure. I’ll save him for special occasions.” She didn’t believe that either.
* * *
Lyssa and Hayden sat in yet another rectangular conference room around a long, polished table interrogating investment managers. This time, they were in Atlanta on the third morning of their journey. It was mid-October, and they were on a quest to do onsite visits with as many of Delicious Hawaii’s existing managers as possible before the November board meeting in Dallas. Several of the managers were in the Southeast, so they’d grouped them into one trip. Zinnia Management was their last visit before heading back to the Midwest.
Hayden had done an onsite with Zinnia a few months earlier for another project, so Lyssa had suggested a meeting wasn’t necessary, but Hayden insisted that they should at least stop by while they were in the region. When Roni Wexman, one of Zinnia’s senior investment managers, glided into the room twenty minutes later than everyone else, Lyssa suspected that she was looking at the reason why her partner had been so adamant.
As explained in her bio, Roni had been with the firm for nearly a decade. She’d come to Zinnia with previous investment experience and had earned an MBA with honors from Emory. But Lyssa was pretty sure it wasn’t the woman’s pedigree that had Hayden sitting up straighter the moment the sleek brunette made her appearance. She was in her midforties, but she clearly never missed a monthly facial and could’ve passed for ten years younger. A fitted jacket and a pencil skirt hugged her tall, lean frame, revealing a tantalizing length of toned legs.
“Aha, you made it back earlier than expected,” Richard Zinnia said to the new arrival, then turned to Hayden and Lyssa to explain. “Roni’s become our international spy. With overseas operations becoming more and more important to a lot of the companies we invest in, we’ve decided to dedicate more resources to onsite visits.”
Lyssa stood when Roni stepped over.
“Wexman, Roni Wexman,” the older woman quipped as she shook Lyssa’s outstretched hand.
Lyssa only smiled, mesmerized by this exquisite creature.
”This is Lyssa Bates, my new partner,” Hayden said. “She does actually speak.”
“Yes, hello. Nice to meet you.” Lyssa pumped the portfolio manager’s hand a couple more times, then she and Hayden resumed their seats as Roni moved back to the head of the table and explained the kind of detective work she’d been doing and how it would impact investment decisions.
Her presentation ended, and Hayden and Lyssa went through their list of questions. After this had gone on for a while, Hayden pointed out, “We have a little over an hour before we need to catch MARTA to the airport, so we should probably get started on the tour. I know Lyssa would like a chance to talk to some of the analysts.”
After glancing at the clock, Lyssa noticed that Roni’s perfectly manicured fingernails tapped on the tabletop—notable because it was the first time the woman had looked anything but completely controlled and also because of the way it made the large diamond on her left hand glitter as it jumped.
“Hayden,” Roni said, “you’ve seen the operations enough times. I was hoping for a chance to show off the capabilities of my new analytical software. Could I steal you away from the others to show you a few things while your partner has a look around?”
A subtle smugness stole over Hayden’s face, and he slid his eyes over to Lyssa. “That all right with you?”
“Sure.”
“Okay then, I’m all yours.” He locked eyes with Roni, and it took effort for Lyssa to rip her focus away from the practically visible steam that sizzled between the two of them. The other investment professionals all stood, pushing their chairs back and wearing pleasant, oblivious expressions. Richard gestured toward the exit, and she wondered how she could be the only one to have caught the obvious innuendo.
On the MARTA train to the airport, she second-guessed her illicit conjectures. Hayden did indeed seem to have picked up quite a bit of information about Roni’s software … and yet, all the puns that could be made regarding the voluptuous vixen’s software wouldn’t quite leave Lyssa’s mind. It wasn’t until they were on the plane halfway to Indianapolis that her woman’s intuition was vindicated.
“So everything seemed pretty solid at Zinnia,” she said, thinking she saw an involuntary flicker at the corner of Hayden’s mouth.
“Sure did.”
“Roni Wexman is interesting.” She tried to act casual and turned her attention to the magazine she held, but Hayden’s direct stare cut through her peripheral vision.
“Interesting? That’s the best word you could come up with? Face it, Bates, you suck at beating around the b
ush; say what you’ve got to say.”
She folded the magazine shut and turned to him. “There’s something going on between you and her, isn’t there?”
“Nice observation skills. Yeah, a little something goes on between us—whenever we happen to be the same town.”
“Which you both made sure you were today.”
“Why do you sound so testy?”
Lyssa chuffed, opening her magazine again only to completely ignore it and give him a hard look. “I put in a good word for you with Sabine, and I don’t appreciate being made into a liar.”
“Whoa. In what way does what happens between me and Roni make you a liar?”
“I told Sabine you were a good guy.”
“And having a mutually pleasurable, quasi relationship with a gorgeous woman makes me not a good guy?”
“Not when the gorgeous woman is married.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you missed the rock.”
“Oh, that. She wears it for business purposes. It’s completely unnecessary if you ask me, but she claims men take a woman more seriously as a business person when they think she’s married.”
“And you buy that story?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Have you ever been to her place?”
His lips curled into a dirty grin. “Not our style. I don’t even know where she lives.”
“Mmmhmm. Ever seen the movie Up in the Air?”
“George Clooney?”
“Yep.”
“No. Why?”
She turned back to her magazine and flipped a page. “I won’t spoil it for you.”
He was quiet for a moment and shifted in his seat. “You’re not going to say anything about this to Sabine, are you?”
“About you cheating on her?” She kept her eyes on the page.
“Bates, seriously, you’re way overreacting. I’ve only been on one date with your friend. It’s hardly cheating.”
“Are you going to go out with her again?”
“I hope so, but future happenings with Sabine don’t apply to anything I did today.”