by Jade Kerrion
For now, for all that she despised the spotlight, she was still relevant. At some point, she would not be—female models had notoriously short careers—and then what would she do? The flicker of panic over an undefined future grew stronger every day.
Maggie stopped in front of her door and turned to face Leon. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in? A nightcap, or something more?”
“I have an early morning shoot tomorrow.”
“Just a quick drink, then, to round out the evening.”
“I’m not in the mood for it, Leon. Thank you for bringing me home. Your chauffeur is waiting.”
“Hang the chauffeur.” Leon waved a hand at the front of the building. “The paparazzi’s camping out there—not just the tabloids, but mainstream media too. I walk out now, and they’ll know I didn’t bed you.”
Maggie’s eyes widened. “Is that what’s bothering you? You want people to think you slept with me?”
“Of course. How many hits do you think my reputation can take? I haven’t done a movie in a year. I’m fading out of the spotlight, Marguerite. If people learn that you turned me down, it’s going to make the headline news.”
She shook her head wearily. “No, not really. No one cares that much who I sleep with.”
“Yes, they do. If you don’t think so, then you haven’t been reading the news enough. Let me in. I insist. You owe me.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Dinner doesn’t buy you access to my apartment or to my body.”
Leon’s eyes narrowed, and then he inhaled sharply and seemed to relax. His tone came out wheedling instead of belligerent. “You can’t send me away. Those piranhas out there will eat me alive.”
He did have a point. Maggie walked down the corridor and peeked out of the window overlooking the front entrance. The paparazzi showed no inclination of leaving. Darn. She thought hard for a moment, and then reached for her smartphone and dialed a number.
Vera Rios picked up the phone on the other end moments later. “Hello?”
“Hi, Vera. It’s Maggie Ferrara.”
“Hey, Maggie.” Vera’s voice warmed. “You’ve called my cell phone. Did you want to talk to Rowan? He’s in the living room—”
“No, I wanted to talk to you. I need a favor.”
“Okay?”
“There’s a bunch of paparazzi camping outside my condo. I need to lure them away.”
“And you’re hoping Rowan will volunteer for the job?”
Maggie grinned. That Dr. Vera Rios was a smart cookie.
Vera continued. “You know he’s not fond of the paparazzi.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m calling you, not him. Do you think that maybe you could convince him to take a walk by the front of my condo? They’ll follow him. He’s hotter news than I am—supermodel, new baby, all that stuff.”
Vera laughed, a sparkling sound. “So now you want to use my daughter as bait too?”
“Babies are pretty bait. Please, Vera. I really need this favor.”
“Well, Brianna’s fussy tonight, and a walk usually settles her down. I suppose I can convince Rowan to take a stroll outside.”
“You won’t tell him, will you?”
“And now you want me to lie to my husband?” Vera’s tone had an edge of mock sternness. She laughed again. “No, of course I won’t tell him, but it won’t take him too long to figure out that you’ve sicced the paparazzi on him. Hang in there. We’re on our way.
Vera was as good as her word. Less than fifteen minutes later, the paparazzi in front of Maggie’s building scurried across the street to accost a couple pushing a stroller and the little girl skipping alongside them. The man swept the little girl into his arms, his stance protective. Maggie flinched guiltily. She could not hear the buzz of conversation from behind the glass, but as she had predicted, the reporters followed Rowan Forrester, no doubt peppering him with questions about his wife and his two daughters.
Maggie waited until the crowd vanished around the corner. She turned to Leon. “The front’s clear. You can leave now.”
He flashed a smile that had charmed thousands of women. “You’re not going to send me off now, are you? Not after you went to so much effort for me.”
That time she could not disguise the eye roll. He was missing the point. She went through all the effort to get rid of him, not keep him. “Please, go.”
Leon frowned. “You’re not serious, Marguerite.”
“Deadly serious. I want you to leave, Leon.”
He gripped her upper arm. “You can’t just send me away. You knew, when you accepted my dinner invitation, we would end up in bed.”
She gaped at him. “A dinner invitation is a dinner invitation. Did you think you could buy me with steak and wine?”
“Can’t I?” Leon stared at her through narrowed eyes. He slid close to her. His warmth stifled her; his cologne assaulted her senses. He caressed the back of his other hand against her cheek. “You take a different man home each night of the week. You’re such a tease.” His hand glided down along the length of her neck and traced the upper curve of her breast. His voice thickened; its husky edge reeked with lust.
Trembling with anger, she shoved him away. His vice-like grip on her arm gave way, but not without tugging painfully against her flesh. She clutched her handbag to her chest. “You will leave now or you’ll be in the headlines tomorrow, and it won’t be good.”
Like a petulant child deprived of a favorite toy, Leon’s handsome face twisted into a scowl. “Tease is too good for you.” He bared his teeth in a mocking grin. “You’re a slut. Can’t believe I wasted my time on you.”
He stalked away. Maggie did not turn her back on him until the elevator doors closed behind him. Her hand shook as she slid her key into the lock and pushed open the door to her condominium. Darkness, warm and comforting, enveloped her. She kicked off her high heels and sank down on the couch.
The heavy pressure against her chest caused her eyes to sting.
Damn it. She pressed her lips together to hold back the tears.
Drew Jackson’s familiar face flashed through her mind. Her pulse jolted. Her heartbeat raced. She clung to the image—his unyielding expression, his firm, unsmiling mouth, and the kindness in his brown eyes that made a lie of his stern façade.
At least he doesn’t know. That thought gave her comfort.
Or care.
That thought wrecked her.
CHAPTER TWO
The smartphone on the bedside table rang a distinctive tune that combined the persistency of a toothache with the intensity of a migraine. Drew Jackson snapped awake and lunged for the phone. He swiped across the screen to turn off the sound before it woke Felicity. He stared at the screen and stifled a sigh; it was another Google search alert on Marguerite Ferrara. Between Maggie’s predictable behavior and Google’s ability to report on it with unerring punctuality at six forty-five each morning, he no longer needed his alarm clock.
Careful not to jostle his sleeping lover, Drew sat up in bed and scrolled through the linked article in the Google search alert. His jaw tensed, and his fingers tightened in the bedsheets. Marguerite Ferrara and Leon Kinrath’s date had concluded in her condominium.
Drew dragged in a deep breath. He was losing count; Leon was Maggie’s eighth…no, ninth guy this month, and it was only the middle of the month. At least Maggie had excellent and expensive taste in men, he reflected ironically. She did not date anyone who wasn’t good looking, famous, and rich.
Scratch me out on all three counts.
He flung the blanket aside and swung his legs to the side. He extended his left leg and tested its strength before placing any weight on it. His crippling injury was ten years in the past, but his leg still ached, and some days he felt it more than others.
A vicious spasm tugged along the length of his leg. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he leaned down to massage his thigh. Today, he could tell, would be one of those
days; he would need an ice pack and a heat pack by the end of the day.
By the time he got out of the shower, Felicity was awake and dressed in the clothes she had worn to his apartment last night. Her beige blouse was rumpled, as was her dove-gray skirt; both had been hastily discarded as they tumbled into bed together. She draped her matching jacket over her arm, looked up at him, and flashed a smile. “I’ll see you on Friday, as usual?”
Forcing Maggie from his mind, he nodded.
“Is it your turn to pick the restaurant or mine?” she asked.
“Yours, I think.”
“Okay. I’ll e-mail you.” She brushed a kiss over his lips and darted to the door, pausing long enough to pick up the high heels she had kicked aside last night.
Drew followed her to the door to wave goodbye. She headed to the stairwell; walking two flights of the stairs to her fourteenth-floor apartment was faster than waiting for the elevator. Felicity tossed an absentminded glance over her shoulder and smiled. He waved at her back.
For a moment, he stood in his open doorway, looking out upon an empty corridor filled with closed doors.
Darkness teased the periphery of his vision, encroaching in on him. He shoved it back. Focus on the future. Keep moving. He could not afford to get sucked into the downward spiral of depression. After all, Maggie was no longer around to pull him out of it.
~*~
Client meetings kept Drew occupied through the day. He discussed investment, retirement, and wealth transfer plans with people who earned more money in a month than he did in a year, but he enjoyed his job as a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley. He was good at managing other people’s money, including Maggie’s.
As the day wound to a close, Drew glanced at his watch. He had enough time for the hour-long round trip into Chinatown. His leg hurt like hell; if he tacked on another twenty minutes to compensate for his slower walk and more frequent pauses to rest, he would have just enough time to make it there and back in time for his final meeting of the day.
His mind mocked his idiocy and challenged him. Why are you doing this?
He refused to answer the question. He knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
Drew braced himself and set off. Five years into his relocation to the city, he had grown accustomed and resigned to the maddened swirl of activity bordering on chaos that was New York City. It did not mean he enjoyed it. The subway at rush hour was unquestionably the eighth level of hell. Chinatown, with its decibel-shattering chatter and the smell of pork lard greasing the air, had to be the ninth. Careful not to breathe too deeply, he stopped at the Jade Palace restaurant and purchased a half-dozen roast pork buns, before turning around for the return trip to his office.
The clock over the security desk showed seven thirty as he stepped into the lobby of the building. Just in time. Instead of taking the elevator to his office on the twentieth floor, he rode the elevator to the basement. The Green Café, tucked in a corner of the basement, served drinks, snacks, and light meals. The café bustled at noon, but in the evening, with most people dispersed home or to other entertainments, café traffic was minimal, which made it the perfect place to not be seen.
He had not been surprised when Maggie selected the café for their regular monthly meetings. She shunned the social spotlight when she was not working.
She was already waiting for him at a table for two outside the café. She did not wave, but a smile danced on her lips as he walked up to her. “Hello, Drew.” She looked delighted to see him.
Cynically, he reminded himself that her apparent pleasure had nothing to do with him. She was a model; it was her job to appear happy and social all the time. His gaze swept over her. Maggie looked beautiful—she always did—but she seemed especially fetching that day. The red silk dress draped over her slim, curvaceous body would have lured even an archangel into eternal damnation. For precisely that reason, he refused to acknowledge it.
“Maggie.” He sat across from her and shrugged his messenger bag off his shoulders before sliding the bag of roast pork buns across the table.
Her eyes, bluer than an ocean, lit. Her smile widened as she opened the bag. Eyes closed, she inhaled deeply. He tried not to stare at the curve of her breasts as they rose and fell with the motion. Instead, he focused on her face, on the smile that transformed from happy to dreamy, hovering on the edge of ecstasy.
How could anyone look that stunning drooling over a bag of roast pork buns?
Her eyes opened and focused on his face. She tilted the bag toward him and arched her eyebrows. Drew shook his head. The taste of roast pork heavily seasoned in oyster sauce and ketchup turned his stomach as much as the smell nauseated him.
She reached into the bag, broke off a small piece of the bun, and popped it into her mouth. “This tastes as good as the buns from Jade Palace.” Her eyes closed once more. A breathy moan issued from her parted crimson lips; the expression on her face was pure rapture.
His groin stirred, and he sucked in his breath. Maggie looked like a woman on the verge of an orgasm, but how the hell would he know?
He reached for the mug of coffee she had ordered for him. It would not have sugar or cream; she knew his preferences. Drew gritted his teeth. “Are you ready to talk about your finances?”
~*~
And just like that, his question punctuated her bliss. Didn’t he know she had eaten salads for two whole days in anticipation of the roast pork buns she knew he would bring to their monthly appointment?
Her eyes popped open, and she pouted at him. That particular pout had secured her most recent six-figure fragrance contract. Her agent swore it made every man weak in the knees.
Except Drew, of course. He did not move. His lips did not even twitch.
Damn, he was going to make her work for a smile today, wasn’t he?
She had known from the moment he emerged from the elevator and walked toward her. His knee, she knew, tended to act up when he was tired, and she had picked the café in the basement of his office building to minimize his physical effort in getting to their appointment. How hard could an elevator ride be? The limp was barely perceptible in his long-legged stride, but his face was tight—the only evidence of the pain he was obviously keeping under wraps. He wouldn’t talk about his injury, of course. He hadn’t spoken about it for ten years; why would he start now?
It galled her that he didn’t trust her with his greatest weakness.
She did what she always did; she used nonchalant humor to disguise her concern and worry for him. “Fine, you party pooper.” She plucked off another morsel of bread and waved it under her nose—ah, the fragrance was heavenly—before popping it into her mouth. “What about my finances?”
Drew pulled his computer notebook from his bag, flipped open the screen, and began speaking. As she listened to his smooth baritone—she had always thought that his voice could make a woman believe anything—she stared at his hands as they moved across the keyboard and gestured at the screen. She had always thought his fingers, long and graceful, like the hands of an artist, oddly incongruous with the star quarterback he had been. Nothing about him screamed former athlete anymore. He had lost the muscular bulk of a football player. Although, the way his business suit fitted his body suggested he had replaced it with lean muscle instead. His symmetrical features were pleasant, but unremarkable. His brown hair was cut short in the no-nonsense style he had worn since college, and his dark eyes looked tired behind the rimless glasses he wore.
Surrounded as she frequently was by extraordinary beauty, Drew was decidedly ordinary.
Until he smiled, but then, he rarely did.
She stared into his face. Her pulse fluttered, as it always did when she was around him.
“Are you listening?” he asked, his tone sharp.
“Of course,” Maggie said. She parroted what she had heard. “My four investment funds are up 22.5 percent since last year. The transition to high-yield international stocks paid off. I suppose that means you’re spending
more time managing it too.”
He nodded, but did not elaborate.
How much more time, she wondered. He managed her accounts in his “off hours,” not officially taking her on as a client and therefore not reaping his usual financial advisor fees off her investment gains. She had asked him once why he did not roll her portfolio into his client accounts. He had shrugged, told her it wasn’t a problem, and then dropped the topic entirely. It was an annoying habit he had—not answering questions when he knew she wouldn’t like the answer.
“So everything’s fine?” she asked.
“Your investments are fine. Your budget, on the other hand—”
“What’s wrong with it?”
He turned the computer screen to share the spreadsheet with her.
She looked at the numbers and giggled.
He gave her a dirty look. “Not the response I was hoping for.”
“So I missed it.”
“‘Missed it’ is a ridiculously mild term for how badly you overshot your budget. What are these things?”
Maggie shrugged. “One-offs.” She pointed a perfectly manicured fingernail at the screen. “That was a sapphire necklace. And this one was an Armani dress.” The same one she was wearing at that moment; the one she had purchased for the express purpose of pleasing him; the one he had completely failed to notice.
“Maggie, almost by definition, regular monthly one-offs are no longer one-offs.”
She laughed. How could she not? She loved the tone of mild exasperation in his patient voice. No one else in New York really called her Maggie either—just Rowan and Vera, and of course, Drew. “Emergency funds, then?”
“Emergency funds are what you use to fix the roof after a hurricane blows it off. A sapphire necklace and an Armani dress don’t constitute emergencies.”
“In my world, they do.”
“Do we need to adjust the budget?”
“I guess we should. I can afford it, right?”