by Robyn Amos
After ten minutes of waiting out in the cold, Reggie and his friends were finally let into Monarch. As he and his crew were led to the VIP lounge, he couldn’t help stewing over the fact that his clout still wasn’t what he wanted it to be.
There she is!
Reggie’s eyes immediately went to the middle of the dance floor where the woman he’d seen earlier and her friend were dancing.
She moved like she owned the world, taking center stage while everyone else seemed to revolve around her.
Who was she?
He turned to his friend. “Jay, do you know who that girl is?”
His friend squinted at the dance floor. “Who?”
“That girl in the purple. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.”
Jay shrugged. “I don’t know her. She’s hot, though. Want me to bring her over?”
Reggie shook his head. “Not yet.”
She didn’t look like the groupie type who would jump at the chance to meet him. Shoot, the way his luck was going, she probably didn’t even know who he was.
Angie leaned down to speak into Lilah’s ear. “Don’t look now, but I think Reggie Martin just came in.”
Lilah froze. “Where?”
“Hey, I said don’t look. He’s to your left. Looks like his table is directly opposite ours across the dance floor.”
Lilah tried to sneak a peek, while she pretended to keep dancing. “What should I do?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Go over to him.”
Lilah’s heart was pounding in her chest. He was here. The man she’d been working overtime to get to since she’d arrived in New York City.
But for some reason, Lilah couldn’t get her feet to move. Lately she’d gotten it into her head that Tyler would be there when she and Reggie saw each other again. Without him around, it seemed really strange to approach his brother. He might get the wrong idea.
Then she’d have to explain that she’d been seeing Tyler and—
Lilah shook her head and walked off the dance floor. It was too confusing. She needed to talk to Tyler right away.
Lilah walked over to her sitting area and picked up her cell phone, but she didn’t have enough signal. She’d have to try again from a better location.
Angie sat next to her. “What’s going on?”
“I was trying to call Tyler, but I don’t have any signal.”
Her friend shrugged. “Okay, so you’ll catch him up later. Bear in mind that you’re about to miss a rare opportunity. Your birthday is in two days. You need to get this over with. Just go over there and offer to buy him a drink. Trust me. He’ll go for it.”
“No. I don’t have to.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because he’s already headed this way.”
The more Reggie looked over at the mystery woman, the more he was certain he knew her from somewhere. Was it another event or party? He wasn’t sure, but it was driving him crazy.
Finally he decided the only way to put himself out of his misery was to just go over and speak with her. He didn’t know why he felt strangely nervous. He could just feel that she was someone important.
It had nothing to do with the way she’d just strolled in here as though she owned the place. It was the way she moved, the way she wore that dress like it was made for her, the way she commanded the space around her.
As he reached them, both women stood. “Hi, I’m Reggie Martin. I saw the two of you sitting over here alone, and I wanted to introduce myself. Women as lovely as you should never be left alone.”
“Isn’t he a charmer,” the tall one said, with a hint of sarcasm.
But his mystery lady gave him a wide warm smile as she extended her hand. “Oh, we know who you are. No introduction necessary.”
He shook her hand with both of his. “Since you know who I am, can I assume you’re a fan?”
“Absolutely.” She looked him in the eye, searching for something. “This is my best friend, Angie Snow, and I guess you don’t recognize me. I’m Lilah. Lilah Banks?”
Reggie swallowed hard. He had met her before, and she expected him to know who she was. He had to play along until he figured it out. “Of course. You look gorgeous tonight.”
Lilah smiled up at him. “This is so crazy. We’ve been trying to catch up for over a week, and then we just happen to run into each other here.”
Now Reggie was beginning to sweat because he didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. Maybe she had the wrong guy.
He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to her ear. “I’m sorry, I have to confess. I don’t know what you’re talking about. When were we supposed to meet?”
Lilah’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Several different times over the last week. Didn’t Tyler tell you about me? I was your tutor in high school math, remember? Lilah Banks.”
Reggie drew in his breath in shock. The image of a quiet studious girl flashed in his mind. “Oh my God, Lilah!”
“Yes,” she laughed. “You remember me now?”
“Of course. I’m sorry about earlier. I meet so many people, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. But, in my defense, you’ve really grown up. You look fantastic.”
“Thank you.” A charming blush tinged her cheeks. “But seriously, hasn’t Tyler mentioned me? The List?”
Reggie shook his head absently, still focused on the fact that this woman standing before him was the same mousy young girl who’d tutored him. “List?”
By the look on her face, Reggie began to realize this was more than just a misunderstanding.
“Why don’t you refresh my memory?”
“Saturday is my thirtieth birthday. I came to New York to complete a list of fifty things I wanted to do before I turned thirty. I started it in high school.” She blushed profusely before she continued. “The first item on The List was ‘Date Reggie Martin.’”
Reggie couldn’t help grinning. “That can certainly be arranged.”
Lilah shook her head. “I thought that it was. Tyler said that he told you all about me, and that he would arrange a meeting with you. You don’t know anything about this?”
Reggie snapped his finger. “Oh yeah, there was something about a dinner Saturday before last. An old friend. That was you? Yeah, Tyler was pissed that I missed that. If I’d realized, believe me, I would have been there.” He turned on his most charming smile, expecting her to be placated.
Instead she seemed more upset. “Is that it? Just Saturday before last? What about last week?”
Reggie shrugged. “I was around last week.”
Lilah was clearly angry at this point, and Reggie knew that he’d made a mistake. He just wasn’t sure what it was. “Are you all right?”
“Sure. I’m fine.” She shook her head, muttering, “When am I going to learn,” under her breath.
Something had gone terribly wrong. There was more to this situation than he was seeing. Then the pieces began to come together. Last week, his brother didn’t ask him to meet an old friend. He’d asked him to meet his new girlfriend.
Lilah.
His brother had finally wanted something bad enough not to share. He obviously hadn’t wanted Reggie as competition.
But it was too late now. Lilah was angry with Tyler and Reggie was in the perfect position to use that to his advantage.
In the taxicab ride back to Reggie’s apartment, Lilah couldn’t stop fuming. All this time she’d thought Tyler was helping her, he’d really been lying to her.
What had he been thinking? That she’d be flattered when she found out? It wasn’t flattering that he hadn’t trusted her enough to know the difference between a high school crush and a shot at true love.
Love.
Ha. What did she know about it anyway? Lilah had thought she’d been in love with Chuck and look how that had turned out. Now once again she’d fallen for someone who didn’t think she could function on her own.
Lord save her from manipulative men. She was giving up. No more
men. Not for a very long time.
“Are you okay? You look tense,” Reggie said.
“I’m fine. I think I might be getting a headache.” What was she doing heading to the apartment of another man? She was taking care of her list, she told herself. This would qualify as a date, and it would probably also make Tyler very angry, she thought smugly.
She wouldn’t have to tell him that nothing happened. She could let him draw his own conclusions when he found out that she and Reggie had finally gotten together.
Reggie paid the taxi driver and guided her into his apartment building. They were quiet as they rode the elevator up to his place.
Lilah’s palms began to get clammy as he worked the lock. She shouldn’t be here. What if Reggie didn’t understand that she had no intentions of sleeping with him.
She’d made a mistake, she thought in a panic.
Just as Lilah was about to ask him to call her a cab home, he nudged her into the room and ducked out, closing the door behind him.
“What the—” She stared at the closed door in shock.
Lilah felt strange—like she was in a horror movie, and she’d just been locked in a room with a ferocious beast.
“Lilah.”
Her head snapped around to see Tyler waiting for her.
Chapter 22
Lilah turned around in a complete circle trying to process the circumstances. Reggie was gone. Tyler was here.
“What are you doing here?”
He stood and started toward her. “I need to talk to you. Reggie called. He said you seemed pretty upset with me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You think? Tonight I discovered that this entire time that I’ve been in the city, you’ve been pretending to help me, when actually you’ve been working against me.”
“Look, I know it seems that way on the surface, but that’s not really the case at all.”
Lilah’s entire body felt cold. Numb. Her emotions had completely shut off. She didn’t know who this man before her was at all. “I’m listening.”
“My brother really is pretty flaky. I asked him to meet us at Sapa for dinner and he blew us off. He resents how much he has to rely on me, so he can be passive aggressive at times.”
“And just what does that have to do with me?”
“When I got into the studio with him, I found out that he didn’t show up on purpose. We’d already established that there was an attraction between us. I started to think he’d never be able to appreciate a woman like you.”
Lilah’s anger sparked up again. “So what if he can’t? You knew from the start the ‘date’ had more to do with completing The List than any hopes for a real relationship.”
“No, I didn’t know that, Lilah. You forget that I was there when you were in high school and you had a huge crush on him. You, like so many women, were under his spell. Completely blind to his faults,” Tyler said.
“So what…you felt that you needed to protect me from him. You think I don’t have sense enough to make my own judgment calls? Did you honestly think that I hadn’t learned a thing or two between sixteen and twenty-nine?”
“To be honest with you, Lilah, it had more to do with what I wanted. I realized that I wanted you. And I didn’t want anything to stand between us.”
“You do realize that you sound like a stalker, don’t you?”
“I know my behavior was illogical, maybe even irrational. But that’s how love can be. It makes you do things and feel things that don’t make sense.”
Lilah shook her head. A wave of déjà vu washed over her. “You sound just like my ex-husband. He used to think that love was a good excuse for being needy and controlling. He was constantly jealous of any time I spent away from him. It didn’t matter if it was a coworker, my family or even my best friend. He thought all my time should be for him alone. I can’t believe I almost made the same mistake again.”
“Lilah, you know our relationship isn’t a mistake. This is just an argument. It’s not something that has to end things between us.”
“Oh things are definitely over between us. They were over the second you started lying to me.”
“I may have misled you, but I don’t think I ever lied.”
“Really? What about that night at the country-western bar? I asked you point-blank if you had told your brother about me. You swore to me that I was mistaken. This wasn’t a situation that got out of hand. You set out to manipulate me so you could have what you wanted. Never mind that it might not be what I wanted.”
Tyler’s eyes went cold and hard in a way she’d never seen them. “Oh, it’s clear what you wanted. Reggie asks you to come home with him and you follow behind him without any hesitation. You think just because you’re hiding under the disguise of a schoolmate that it makes you anything other than what you really are…a groupie.”
“You have your nerve. I came here because I was angry, and I wasn’t thinking about anything other than how upset you’d be when you found out I’d been here. I never had any intentions of doing anything with Reggie.” She paused. “Why am I explaining myself to you?”
She spun around and headed for the door.
“Lilah, wait!”
She ignored him, closing the door behind him.
Tyler sank to the sofa, head in his hands. He’d been afraid of this. Now what was he going to do? Lilah was only in town for a couple more days, he didn’t have a lot of time to patch things up.
She thought he was like her ex-husband. It was possible she wouldn’t ever forgive him.
The door opened and his head snapped up. “Lilah?”
“Sorry, bro, it’s just me. I saw Lilah come through the lobby. She had the doorman call her a cab. I take it from the look on your face that things didn’t go well.”
“They couldn’t have gone worse.”
Reggie sat beside him. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you call me? You’ve barely spoken to me over the last week. This was your perfect opportunity to screw me over.”
Reggie squinted at him. “Why would I do that to you? I know I can be self-centered sometimes, but at the end of the day, I know you’ve always got my back. It took me a few minutes to fill in the gaps. If I’d pieced things together sooner, I would have been able to cover for you. As it was, all I could do was give you the chance to talk her down off the ledge.”
“Well, she jumped anyway. But thanks, kid. It’s nice to know I haven’t completely screwed up every relationship in my life.”
“No, I don’t have a right to be mad at you. I was actually kind of impressed that you finally decided to keep something for yourself. It wasn’t until tonight that I realized how much you’ve been sacrificing for me.”
Tyler waved it off, as he always did.
“No, seriously, man. I think it might be good for both of us if I go down to Atlanta for a while.”
“You’re still considering that? But Pernell Weathers—”
“It’s never left my mind. I need this. And I think you need it, too. You need time to figure what you would be doing if you hadn’t taken responsibility for my career. I need to be responsible for that from now on. All this glitz and glamour isn’t you.”
“Yeah, but it’s all I know anymore.”
“Now you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out. We can talk in the morning. Do you want to stay here tonight?”
Tyler’s first instinct was to say no, claim he was fine, and head back to his apartment. But the thought of the emptiness that waited for him there gave him pause. “Yeah, Reg. I think I would like to stay.”
Reggie clapped him on the back. “Then the couch is all yours.”
When Lilah got back to her hotel room, the first thing she did was call Angie. Now that the red haze that hung over her eyes had cleared, she realized she’d broken the girlfriend code. Never leave your friends to go home with a man.
After watching multiple
mishaps between other girls in college the two of them had devised some rules between them. Never leave a friend who’d had too much to drink unattended. Never date your friend’s ex. And most important, always leave with the girlfriend you came with—no matter how cute a guy might be.
Even if he’s Reggie Martin.
“Hello?” Angie’s groggy voice said into the phone.
“It’s me. Were you sleeping?”
“Not anymore, what happened?”
“I’m sorry to wake you. I just wanted to apologize for leaving you tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I know what you were thinking, you wanted to get back at Tyler.”
“The List—”
“Trust me, I saw the look in your eyes, and The List was the last thing on your mind.”
“Are you mad at me? Of course, you have a right to be.”
“No, I’m not mad. Of course, I thought I was going to be sleeping on satin sheets tonight in your penthouse suite, but other than that, due to extenuating circumstances, you’re pardoned for violating the girlfriend code.”
“Thanks.” Lilah sank down onto the satin sheets and let the tension out of her body like air escaping a balloon.
“You sound really sad. What happened after you left?”
“Reggie and I barely spoke on the cab ride back to his place, and I immediately started coming to my senses. You’re right, The List was an afterthought. Mainly, I just wanted it to get back to Tyler that I found his brother without his help.”
“Oh my God, you didn’t do anything crazy, did you?”
“I was angry—I wasn’t out of my head. Once we got outside his apartment, I was about to tell him I wanted to go home, but instead he unlocked the door and shoved me inside.”
“Oh no,” Angie shrieked.
“Relax, he didn’t come in after me because Tyler was there waiting for us. He must have called him. Clearly he figured out that I was mad because Tyler and I had been together.”
“Score points for Reggie. He did the decent thing. I didn’t want to upset you, but I thought he was a real pig for rushing you out of there so fast. So, you and Tyler?”