Andrew paused with a cupcake halfway to his mouth. “Oh, yeah. Sure,” he said, looking at it longingly, as if we were keeping him from his dessert. “Sorry about that. Lots of crossover between work and personal life.” He nodded between us. “Liv, this is David. He’s the lead architect on our new office building in the Loop.”
For some reason, I dropped my eyes to David’s enormous hands. I could too easily picture them drafting blueprints, then bringing them to life.
Nice to meet you, I thought, but I stayed silent. Why? I was acting as if I’d done something wrong. I attempted to mimic David’s relaxed stance, loosening my shoulders and releasing my death grip on the counter.
“Anyway,” Andrew said, thumbing over his shoulder, “I’m hoping if I hang around this guy enough, some of his charm will rub off. The ladies in my office can’t get enough of him.” Andrew glanced around the kitchen before turning back to David. “Where’s your date?”
“I . . .” David crossed his arms, showing off brawny forearms that only confirmed my theory he was the hands-on kind of architect. “I didn’t bring one.”
Andrew pulled back. “No date?” He finally took a bite of cupcake, chewing. “That’s a first for you.”
David released a short laugh as he scratched his brow. “Not true.”
“Don’t be modest. You couldn’t pay me to be single again,” Andrew said, “but I’d love to spend a day in your shoes, women throwing themselves at me left and right.”
“I don’t . . .” David’s expression closed. He looked at me. “That’s not my life.”
I shot my tongue into my cheek as I returned his stare. He was downplaying what was surely true. No doubt women tripped over themselves to get to him. Someone that confident—who could relax on command, who was that smoldering—he knew what he was doing. How foolish of me to think he’d picked me out of a crowd. That draw between us? It was just the effect he had on women. The question was how many women?
And did he think I was one of them?
I wasn’t. Not even if I were single. I couldn’t believe I’d almost fallen for his act. Flavorful? Complex? He was desperate to know me? I couldn’t really blame myself, though. Apparently, the man had plenty of willing subjects on which to practice.
I stepped back, distancing myself. “Well, looks like I’m all cleaned up. I’d better go find Lucy.”
“Sorry Bill couldn’t make it,” Andrew said. “I should’ve had you put him on speakerphone for the announcement.”
The air in the room thinned. “Bill?” David asked.
Here was my chance to make it clear that David could take his desperation elsewhere. I was married. I swallowed, my instincts warring between pushing him away for good and spending just a few more innocent moments with him.
David’s gaze slowly traveled the length of my left arm until it came to rest on my hand. I only had a second to try to comprehend the way his face fell before he asked, “Who’s Bill?”
“Olivia’s husband,” Andrew said. “Great guy. You’ll meet him eventually.”
That was it. This was over, not that anything had even begun. I continued backing away as David watched. “David, was it?” I said. “Nice to meet you. Enjoy the party.”
I turned and strode into the next room, finding Lucy within a few steps.
“Hey,” she said, touching my arm as she noticed my expression. “Are you all right?”
My voice came out unnaturally high. “Fine,” I quipped. “Totally fine.”
“Found some champagne,” Gretchen cried over the crowd, squeezing her way toward us while juggling three flutes. She held two out as she approached. “We have to toast the bride-to-be.”
I followed Gretchen’s lead and raised a glass. Lucy was getting married, and that was more important than anything tonight. She’d memorized all the different types of veils before most girls had even thought about their wedding day. “To Lucy,” I said.
“And her fiancé,” Gretchen added.
“And to the best bridesmaids a girl could ask for,” Lucy finished.
I had a mouthful of fizz when Gretchen sucked in a breath. “Whoa. Who is that?”
I didn’t need to turn to know who she was referring to.
Lucy rose onto the balls of her feet and followed Gretchen’s gaze over my shoulder. “Ohh,” she said, nodding with a knowing look. “Yep. That, my friend, is the infamous David the architect. He’s doing work for Andrew’s firm. They’ve bonded over sailing.” Noticing Gretchen’s raised eyebrows she said, “I know. He’s absolutely dreamy.”
I lowered my glass as bubbles tickled my nose. I didn’t know what to say, but staying quiet made me feel strangely guilty. “Since when is Andrew a sailor?” I asked.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Lucy half-rolled her eyes. “Andrew wants to buy a boat.”
Gretchen’s eyes fixated behind me. She shook her head slowly. “David,” she repeated to herself. “My God. He is just so . . .”
As her eyes shifted and a deceptively innocent smile touched her lips, I realized he must be coming toward us. The hair on the nape of my neck rose, and I straightened my back, trying to think of something to say when he reached us. Something that wouldn’t give me away—something to dispel the electricity that passed between us whenever we were close.
But then, he breezed right by the three of us. Lucy and Gretchen turned to watch him go, making no secret of the fact that they were staring at him. I averted my eyes in case he looked back. The last thing I needed was for him to think I’d given him a second thought. The last thing he needed was another woman—especially a married one—fawning over him.
“Look at that ass,” Gretchen said, her mouth twisting into an appreciative smirk.
Lucy clucked. “Don’t be vulgar.”
“I’m just stating the obvious,” she said with a shrug. “Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the exact same thing, Lucille Marie.”
Lucy blushed crimson and looked away. “Don’t let Andrew hear that. He already has a complex about men like David.”
“Men like David?” I asked and bit my lip to shut myself up. I shouldn’t be inviting more on this topic.
“Well, true—I doubt very many like him exist,” she said with a laugh. “Maybe it just applies to David.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I was asking what Andrew’s complex is.”
“He thinks I’d leave him in a heartbeat for someone like David.” She tapped her chin. “Handsome as sin, wealthy, and a genuinely nice guy.”
Gretchen looked skeptical. “Nice?”
“He’s always been very polite to me,” Lucy said. “And as far as I know, he’s single.”
My fingertips cooled around my champagne glass. Just because David was single didn’t mean he wasn’t dating—yet the prospect of him unattached still gave me butterflies. Until, that is, I noticed Gretchen’s sharp eyes narrowed in his direction. For the first time in a long time, I missed the excitement born of possibility and anticipation that came from meeting someone new.
“Gretch,” Lucy said, “why don’t I intro—”
“I met him in the kitchen,” I blurted, panic descending at the thought of Gretchen luring him in. She was a female version of David—impossibly beautiful, impossible to resist, impossible to tie down. Just impossible—that’s what David was to me, and yet I found myself continuing, warning her off him. “I wouldn’t call him nice. He seemed like a jerk to me. Andrew practically said, flat out, that David’s a playboy. I wouldn’t bother.”
I wouldn’t bother with that arrestingly dark face, that smooth cleft chin, those milk-chocolate eyes. How many girls had he suckered in with just a look?
Gretchen gave me a curious glance, but she shrugged. “I’m not looking to marry the guy.”
Lucy waved down a passing cater waiter and handed us each a mini tuna tartare. “Well, Liv’s right. Andrew says since he’s met David, he’s seen him with several different women, and each one was more striking than the
last. Andrew actually said striking.”
“I can be striking,” Gretchen said and rejected the appetizer with a flick of her wrist. “I’m not eating any more tonight.”
“Don’t tell me you’re on another diet,” Lucy said.
I pivoted slightly to see David better. He gestured with purpose as he spoke to another man, his voice endlessly deep, vibrating in me, although I couldn’t make out what he was saying. His audience nodded along. Did David make every man and woman feel as if he or she were the only person in the room? That was how I’d felt the moment we’d locked eyes—as if he’d been looking for me all along. Craved me. Hungered for me.
“I’m desperate to know you.”
As I stared at him, it was all I heard—the grave rumble of his voice, and words I should never want from anyone but my husband.
“Olivia,” Lucy snapped, sounding exasperated. “What is with you? You’ve been acting strange all night.”
“What?” I asked, blinking back to reality. “What’d I do?”
“Gretchen and I are talking about having lunch at Park Grill on Monday. She asked you twice if that works for you.”
I swallowed, my throat dry as I tried to refocus on the conversation. “Lunch? Why?”
Gretchen scoffed. “So we need a reason to spend the afternoon with you?”
“We have a reason: bridal magazine bonanza,” Lucy said. “You have no idea the amount of work ahead of us just picking out a dress style alone.”
“Oh,” I said, tugging on my earring, still shamelessly trying to eavesdrop while also answering Lucy. “That should be fine, yes. Where?”
“Park Grill,” they said in unison, clearly growing frustrated with me.
“Right. Yes. Let’s do it.” What was wrong with me? I was letting a complete stranger get under my skin and interrupt an important night for Lucy. And it wasn’t even the first time David had invaded my private moments. The memory of stripping for my husband while I’d thought of David washed over me, followed by a flood of guilt.
David stopped speaking and looked directly at me. There wasn’t even a hint of uneasiness or surprise in his face, yet my body buzzed, as if coming to life just for him.
He had a fucking spell on me.
Me, and every other woman in the room.
I had to break it or escape it.
With a mumbled apology to my friends, I ducked away, keeping my gaze anywhere but on David as I forced myself away in search of fresh air.
Break it. Escape it.
Those were the only two options. They had to be.
4
I cooled my palms on the iron railing of Lucy and Andrew’s spacious eighth-floor balcony. Sharp-edged buildings of varying heights surrounded their downtown apartment, some towering, some short enough that I caught glimpses of the Chicago River.
A city full of people, and then me, looking in from the outside.
I wasn’t alone, though. Like at the theater weeks ago, I was surrounded by friends. Bill was just a phone call away. I’d met, at some point or another, many of the people in the apartment. But it didn’t seem to matter how many smiles and greetings I’d avoided as I’d made my way through the crowd. I was alone. I had been for a long time without giving it much thought, but the mysterious stranger—David—his presence heightened that feeling, as if he’d shown up to poke at old wounds.
His eyes on me made everything in my life feel like it belonged to another woman. As if I’d been playing a role, biding my time until he would come along. With him, there was a connection I couldn’t explain—the feeling of being wanted, loved, desired.
When we were in the same room, I was anything but alone.
And that was dangerous. I had every reason to be terrified.
I took a lungful of fresh air—and coughed as smoke filled my throat. I glanced over my shoulder. Two lit cigarettes floated in the opposite corner of the balcony. I recognized one smoker as Andrew’s receptionist and nodded at her. She looked about to speak, but I turned forward again.
Every time I took in the city, it was like the first time I’d visited as a girl. Holding my dad’s hand on the sidewalk outside our hotel while trying to soak in everything at once. The grandness of downtown Chicago had a way of humbling me, and that was oddly more comforting than trying to hide in a roomful of people. Out here, I was free. Nobody expected anything from me or disappointed me. Tiny blocks of light scattered randomly into the patterns of buildings, and I wondered about the inhabitants—what they were doing at that very moment.
Leaning over the barrier, I examined the people walking the streets below. It wasn’t a long drop from the eighth floor, but it was enough to accelerate my heartbeat and take me back to that first visit some twenty years ago.
“Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?” my mother screamed from inside the hotel room. On the balcony, I hid behind the stucco wall and peered through the glass door.
My father raised his hands in exasperation. “Leanore, you’re being ridiculous,” he said. “Do you have any idea how your accusations make me feel? Like you don’t trust me.”
“How can I when you’re flirting with every woman in the hotel lobby? And in front of your daughter.”
“Don’t bring Olivia into this,” he said, sticking his finger in her face. “This is your problem. You are ruining our vacation.”
I turned away from the door and grasped the bars until my knuckles whitened. Lifting onto the balls of my feet, I wondered what it might be like to fly. Had anyone ever tried? Perhaps it was possible and nobody knew it. We’d learned about evolution in school. Maybe we had secret wings that would know the difference between flying and falling.
“Olivia.” I jumped at the voice behind me. “Come inside. And fix your hair,” my dad said. “I’ll take you out for a milkshake, but not until you brush those tangles out.”
I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. My dad had made a career of handling and redeeming failing businesses and the men who ran them. It took a lot to get under his skin, but that was the power my mom possessed. She knew just how to get the reaction she wanted. Back then, I hadn’t understood why they yelled so much, but that naiveté hadn’t lasted long. In the years following that trip, I became familiar with my mom’s manipulations and came face to face with the dangers—and sometimes violence—of loving someone too much.
The sliding glass door opened behind me, and the hair on the back of my neck prickled, but not from the cold or harrowing memories. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was, but every second I resisted looking, his gaze grew hotter. More persistent. If I’d learned anything about the man from the theater, it was that his presence said more than words could.
He waited. I fought myself. I’d come out here to catch my breath, not to lose it again. To regain control when every glance, every word, felt like a submission to him. To break a spell that could only lead to the kinds of things that destroyed families and turned trust into a dirty word.
And yet I knew, David wasn’t going anywhere. The best way to get rid of him was to tell him to leave me alone. I turned my head over my shoulder. He filled the doorway to the balcony, his hands fixed against the jamb, his head cocked as he watched me.
The smokers had stopped talking to gawk at him. David stepped out onto the terrace. He wore an open, black pea coat over his sweater as if he’d been on his way out. I opened my mouth to tell him to go, but the thought that he’d actually leave, and that I’d never see him again, halted my words. It made me panicky.
As he walked toward me, I turned back to the skyline. My mouth dried, and my heart thumped. I couldn’t let him know how he affected me.
“You’re married,” he said to my back.
I drew a breath and with it, inhaled his spicy aftershave. “Happily.”
When he didn’t respond, I glanced back to find his expression solemn, pensive. Why? It’d been made clear to me that he could—and did—have any woman he wanted. Foolishly, I’d assumed for a few moments t
hat connection was unique to us. That it was different—special. That he and I had something special.
And here he was, pretending to be crestfallen over the fact that I was taken. Marveling at the believability of his act, I twisted, facing him as I squared my shoulders. I lifted my hands to the railing behind me, partly to steel myself while attempting to appear casual. “And you’re quite the playboy.”
He drew back at the comment, but then a small smile touched his lips. “You look cold. Take my jacket.”
“I’m fine.” I shook my head as he moved to take it off. Never mind that I was wearing a coat of goose bumps.
He paused before shrugging it back on. “Actually, being a playboy takes a lot of time,” he said, “and with my career, that’s something I don’t have much of. Maybe if I kept more regular hours, I could be a proper womanizer.”
Was he teasing me? I couldn’t tell if his tone was sarcastic, serious, or something else. I lifted a shoulder to show my indifference. “It’s not really my business.”
“I suppose it’s not, but . . .”
From my gut, I wished he’d finish his sentence—tell me why he thought it might be my business. The fact that I wanted him to meant he shouldn’t. “But nothing,” I said. “I don’t even know you.”
He sniffed, looking over the top of my head at the skyline. “I have to get going.”
My heart fell a millimeter before I stopped it. He had to go. He had to. Nothing good could come from spending more time with him. The women in the corner had resumed their conversation but kept glancing at us. Almost . . . accusingly? Could they see how badly I wanted this moment to last?
The next time Andrew’s secretary looked over, her eyes trailing David head to toe, I admitted her interest had nothing to do with me.
She wanted him.
And that was almost worse than feeling like I’d been caught.
“I’d like to see you again,” David said.
Cityscape Affair Series: The Complete Box Set Page 5