“Never worry about things like that. If we get to one and they can’t fit us in, I’ll pull the old don’t-you-know-who-I-am routine.”
She gaped at him. Now this was the St. Clair she remembered. “Are you serious?”
He chuckled. “No. If they can’t fit us in, we’ll find something else to do. Don’t you ever live life on impulse?”
“No.”
He blinked at the vehemence in her answer. And then laughed. “Then I am going to make it my mission to show you that impulsive, unplanned chaos can be amazing.”
She shuddered at the idea. “Good luck with—”
The doorbell chimed, sending Reaper barking and scurrying into the foyer on high alert.
“It’s okay, Reap.” Thomas crossed the living room into the foyer and scooped up his dog. “It’s only the driver.” Tossing her a smile, he opened the door.
A bulky man stood on the other side, dressed in a simple grey suit and sunglasses. “Your car, Mr. St. Clair.”
“Thanks, Javier. Think Mila and I might just go it alone today.”
Dark eyebrows rose above Javier’s sunglasses. “As you wish.”
Thomas laughed. “I’ll let Mila drive. What did you bring me?”
“The Jag.”
Mila couldn’t help but snort. The surreal life and conversations of the rich.
The Jag, as it turned out, was the most luxurious car she’d ever been in. And damn, it was a dream to drive, even in the busy Manhattan traffic.
“So once again,” he said, sitting in the passenger seat, “we’re back in a car.” She felt him studying her profile and fought with the desire to make eye contact with him. “Which means it’s Q and A time. I’ll go first. Did you have a nickname growing up?”
“Moose.”
He laughed at her answer. “Moose? Really? Why?”
She turned when he indicated she do so and then flicked him a quick look. “Because I was stubborn. My parents wanted me to study ballet when I was six, but I insisted I was born to be an archer instead. No matter how much they tried to bribe me with things I wanted, I refused to attend ballet classes. Finally, they conceded and allowed me to join a kids’ archery group.”
“What happened?”
“I shot the instructor on my first lesson. Sent the arrow straight through his calf muscle. As far as I know, he’s still walking with a limp.”
His laughter filled the car, far too infectious for her peace of mind. Why had she told him about that little moment in her life? It wasn’t like he needed to know. Few of her close friends knew about the archery incident, so why let him in on it?
“Did you go back?”
She smiled. “Of course. And I trained. And trained. Until I was the best archer in the group. I’ve been accused more than once of being a high achiever. When you set your mind to something, give yourself a goal, you achieve it, no matter the effort involved.”
Okay, that was way more than she’d intended to share. What was wrong with her?
“So you really do have issues with being impulsive?”
She let out a wry grunt. “I plan. And then I plan again.”
“And when plans don’t go the way you want them to? When life throws a brick in the works and you can’t achieve those plans?”
A lump filled her throat. Sitting beside her was the biggest brick of her life, and yet if it weren’t for him, she’d never have become a teacher, would never have discovered the simple, wonderful joy of seeing a kid blossoming, growing, learning, and knowing she’d helped.
“I adapt,” she answered. “And focus on the new plan.”
“I used to plan.” A wistful tone threaded through his statement. “I was a planner as a kid. Family vacations, weekend adventures. And then life threw the proverbial brick, and I realized the futility of it.”
She looked over at him. He was staring out the window, his focus on something she suspected wasn’t there. The digging she’d done on his family life had unearthed some truly disturbing things—accusations by his mother that his father had been molesting him since he was a baby, insinuations by his father that his mother had sex with his math tutor while he was in the next room, screaming matches in the street over whose place he was meant to be staying, and how many minutes had passed the allocated time of visits. Horrific behavior from two people who’d once loved each other, all to damage the other party, to hurt them as much as possible. What must it have been like, watching your parents wage war on each other at such a young age? And with no other siblings to go to for comfort?
A sour taste bubbled up at the back of her throat. She hadn’t been interested in the emotional damage the young Thomas had no doubt sustained when she’d been writing her article for the New York Times. Back then, all she’d been focused on was the writer who’d taken the world by storm and kept brushing her off every time they were meant to meet.
“Do you plan your books?”
It was a question asked of him in almost every interview he’d given since his first book hit the New York Times bestseller list. To the best of her knowledge, he’d yet to ever answer it seriously.
She risked another quick glance at him.
Dragging in a slow breath, he turned to her. “Only one. My second, Hell’s Cage. But I never finished it.”
“Why not?”
His chuckle was dry. Sardonic. “That journalist I mentioned last night? The article on me and my family was published while I was working on it. That…that messed me up a little. I couldn’t focus on Hell’s Cage anymore. So I wrote Still Water Creek instead. It just poured out of me. To this day, I think it’s the book I’m the most proud of…and most disturbed by.”
Mila swallowed. Her stomach churned. It seemed she’d been his muse once before. Why did she now feel so sick about it?
“Mila, I need to ask you a question.”
Her heart slammed into her throat. She couldn’t look at him. If she did, he’d see the guilt in her eyes. “Okay.”
“After I type ‘the end’ on Blood Angel, will you let me take you to dinner? Not as author and muse, but as two consenting adults interested in each other?”
Had she thought her heart was thumping fast before? “I’m interested in you?”
He chuckled at her put-down. “Yes. You are.”
Heat filled her cheeks. “Let’s get to the-end part first and reassess the situation then.”
“What if I beat you at paintball?”
She arched an eyebrow at his question. “Do you remember what I said about being a high achiever?”
“Are you going to tell me you’re a paintball champion?”
“No. But you should be warned I don’t ever go into anything with the intent to lose.”
She flicked a glance at him, her breath catching at the intensity of his gaze. A smile curled his lips. “Neither do I.”
Oh God.
“Turn here.”
Jerking her attention back to the road, she frowned. Their destination loomed on the right.
“Well,” she murmured. “There you go.”
“You didn’t trust me?” He laughed. “Ouch.”
Pulling the sports car into an empty parking space, she drew a slow breath. “I should let you know, I’m not available tomorrow.”
Silence greeted her statement, all the more loud for the fact she’d turned the car engine off.
“Why?” Displeasure rumbled in his voice like distant thunder.
“I have other commitments. Every day this week, in fact.”
“Change them. Cancel them.”
“No.”
His jaw bunched.
She raised her eyebrows. “Tell me, do you always get what you want?”
His gaze dropped to her lips, lips she suddenly needed to lick more than she needed to draw breath.
“Yes,” he said without a hint of his usual flippant tone.
Every fiber of her body was far too aware of the energy sparking between them.
“I need to tell you some
thing. Clear something up.”
He frowned. A little. “Okay.”
A hot lump filled her throat. Oh boy. “I’m not who you think I am. Last night…arriving at your door… I wasn’t there as your date. No one arranged for me to go to dinner with you, to…do other things with you. I was on my way to a thing with my sister, which is why I looked the way I did, and Reaper ran out in front of my car. I stopped and found him in the bushes and your address was on his tag, so I brought him back to you. That’s why I came to your place; to give you back Reaper. Not to be your date.”
Tension fell over his face. “Why didn’t you correct my mistake last night?”
She sighed. Her cheeks grew hot. She couldn’t tell him her first instincts were to write a secret article on him. And honestly, the thought of doing so even then had seemed…wrong. Off. So why hadn’t she corrected his mistake?
Tell the truth.
“I…I got caught up in your energy.”
Well, that was one way of putting it.
The edges of his lips twitched. “Don’t you mean, you were instantly interested in me?”
“If that’s the way you want to interpret it, sure.”
He chuckled softly at her prickly comeback. “And you’re telling me this now because…”
“Because I don’t want you thinking I’m a…a…”
He waited, lips twitching again.
“A whatever you think I am. But I do need the money you’re offering.” She held up her hand when he opened his mouth. “For my own reasons that don’t concern you. Honest ones, nothing illegal or immoral, I assure you. So if you’d still like to pay me to be your muse…” Saying it aloud sounded so silly, and yet at the word, Thomas drew a slow breath. “I will…do that. Be that.”
“My muse.” His lips curled some more.
“Yes.” She swallowed, the lump in her throat thicker. “If that’s what you still want.”
He drew another breath, his gaze never leaving hers. “Mila, most writers tend to be a little superstitious. We tend to have…quirks. One of mine is I believe in fate. Make that Fate with a capital F. Fate brought you to me when I needed you. The writing gods brought you to me when I needed you. So, yeah, that’s very much what I still want.”
Something dangerously like relief rushed through her, pooling in her belly. She shouldn’t be this happy he’d asked her to stay. Not when their past history still shrouded them, even if he didn’t know it.
She shouldn’t be.
But she was. Damn it.
“Okay. Then let’s do this. But no sex.”
Even if I want to strip you naked and—
“No sex. I’m writing a horror story, after all.”
She forced out a dry laugh at his answer. “You are.”
He studied her, and it didn’t matter how much she tried, she couldn’t deny what she saw in his eyes. Couldn’t deny she felt the same way.
Honest feels good. So why don’t I tell him all of it?
Her stomach knotted. Her chest tightened. I’m M. E. Elderkin.
The words formed in her head. She had to tell him. It was the right thing to do. She had to tell him. Didn’t she?
“Thomas—”
“The last thing a horror writer should be thinking about,” he went on, “is slowly undressing the sexiest woman he’s ever seen.”
A shard of raw desire speared into her, made her dizzy. “The very last thing.”
His gaze dropped to her lips.
The urge to lick them crashed through her.
Instead, she flung open her door. “Let’s play paintball.”
His answering chuckle was as strained as her voice. “Let’s play paintball.”
Chapter Nine
He beat her. But only just.
She took him on with fierce determination and seriousness. At times, he wondered if her efforts to shoot him were less about having fun and more about proving something.
To herself or to him, he couldn’t decide.
“Three shots?” She removed the protective headgear provided by the center and shook her head. “You beat me by three shots.”
A very male part of him reacted to her auburn ponytail spilling over her shoulder. Another male part—the one controlled by a primitive, base lust—wanted nothing more than to snare it in a tight grip as he captured her mouth with his.
Forcing out a chuckle, he cast his lower body a look. “You still got your fair number of shots in.”
A smile began to form on her lips. “Perhaps, next time we can—”
His phone rang. Darth Vader’s theme. Shelby’s ringtone.
Damn it. Damn. It.
He yanked his phone from his back pocket and connected the call. “Your timing sucks, Shelby.”
“And yet you’re still talking to me.”
“That I am. What’s up?”
“Where are you? I came by to see how the writing was going, and you weren’t there.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You know I don’t like you dropping by.”
Mila continued to remove her protective paintball gear as he spoke, making it goddamn difficult to keep his attention on Shelby. Just the simple act of shucking off the paint-splattered coveralls to reveal her fully clothed body underneath was making his chest tight. And his groin tighter. It was all too easy to fantasize they were back at his place, and she was taking off her clothes for him…
“…listening to me?”
He blinked at Shelby’s raised voice. “What?”
Her exasperated sigh scraped at his ear. “I asked how you want to respond to the images of you and your date from last night popping up in the media and online?”
“Why do I need to? It’s no one’s business who she is but mine.”
Silence greeted his blunt answer. Mila drew still, watching him.
“Am I talking to Thomas St. Clair?” Stunned confusion filled Shelby’s voice. “The author who delights in milking public exposure?” She paused again. “Just where are you right now? And who are you with?”
“I’m with Mila.”
“Mila?”
Thomas frowned. “My date from last night.”
“The one you told me to cancel?”
“She’s off-limits. No using her for promotion or publicity. No capitalizing on any pap shots that might appear of me with her. Got it? This part of my life is private.”
Shelby laughed. “Sure. I hear you.”
“Shelby.” His gaze locked on Mila’s, his chest growing tighter at her unreadable expression. “I’m not playing around. She’s a no-go zone. Understand?”
Shelby whistled. “Understand. Do you want me to… I don’t know, check her out? Make sure there’s no skeletons in the closet?”
“No.”
Another whistle. “Okay. You’re the boss.”
Her incredulous tone filled her statement. Was it because he’d refused an action she normally organized whenever he was considering seeing a woman more than once on a social level? It was out of character for him. His public persona was the flippant joker. It was the perfect way to keep his private life just that, private. The other way was to make certain anyone he allowed into his life wasn’t out for fame or celebrity by association. Shelby took care of that so he didn’t have to think about anything but his work.
So why was he now saying no?
Because investigating Mila felt like an invasion of her privacy? A negative way to start…start…
Start what? A relationship? Is that what you want from her?
Swallowing the hot lump in his throat, he met Mila’s gaze. She was nothing like any woman he’d ever been interested in before—serious, short, with more curves than his normal model-slash-actress companions, and a wit sharper than a blade she had no issues with letting loose.
What would a relationship with her be like? A serious relationship?
“I’m hanging up now, Shelby. I’ll call you when I’ve finished the book.”
He ended the call without waiting for her
to answer.
Mila adjusted her glasses as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. “That sounded interesting.”
“Not as good as lunch sounds. What’s your preference?”
She studied him, her frown dipping deeper. “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
He laughed, a wave of warm happiness rushing through him. “The only person I answer to is me. So, no, you’re not getting me into trouble. Now, lunch? What are your thoughts on Thai?”
“I like Thai.”
Another rush of happiness. Mutual food likes. Good. This was good.
“Excuse me?” A hesitant male voice on his right drew Thomas’s smile from Mila. “Are you Thomas St. Clair?”
Thomas widened his smile at the boy, most likely no more than thirteen, going by the cracking voice and acne trying to gain ground on his nervous face. “Depends on who’s asking?”
The young boy blinked, cheeks glowing red. “A…a fan. But not a dangerous one, I promise.”
Thomas grinned. “Well, as long as you’re not dangerous. Yes, I’m Thomas St. Clair. You are?”
“Dmitri McDonald.” His whole face was glowing now as he shuffled on the spot. “But most of my friends call me Dee.”
“Dee it is.” Thomas held out his fist. “Pleased to meet you.”
Dmitri flicked a look at Thomas’s waiting fist.
Thomas chuckled and gave it a little jiggle. “Don’t leave me hanging, dude.”
“Really?” With a grin, Dmitri bumped his knuckles against Thomas’s. “Wow. Thank you.”
“What can I do for you, Dee?”
Feet shuffling more, gaze flicking all over the place, Dmitri held up his smartphone. “Can I take a selfie with you? I’ve read all your books and can’t wait for the next one.”
“Sure.”
“Really?” The boy gaped at him.
Thomas chuckled, wriggling his fingers at him. “You’ve caught me in a good mood. But don’t tell anyone. Give me your phone.”
Dmitri handed him his phone, grin stretching wider.
“Ready?” Lowering his head down closer to Dmitri, Thomas held up the phone and framed them both in its screen. “Say scary mother f—” He stopped. Cleared his throat. “Say Stephen King is my jam.”
The Mistaken Billionaire (the Muse series) Page 8