Come As You Are

by Lauren Blakely

  It’s like a blind date fantasy come true.

  She’s even prettier now that I can look at all of her.

  The problem is, she doesn’t smile when she sees me.

  12

  Flynn

  * * *

  If I were offered ten emotions and asked to point to the one for her expression, it wouldn’t be excited, angry, annoyed, or thanking-her-lucky-stars-that-I’m-a-handsome-devil.

  Too bad.

  The word I’d pick would be vexed.

  Like she doesn’t remember me. Her brow narrows and she studies me. It’s like the moment when a record scratches and all the good vibrations come to a halt. This wasn’t entirely the greeting I imagined—honestly, I was hoping she’d saunter over, wrap her arms around my neck, and kiss the hell out of me—but I tell myself to go with the moment.

  I head to the bar.

  “Hi,” I say, tapping the wooden sign on the taps. “I think I deserve a lollipop. Do you?”

  Her lips part, but no sound comes. She blinks. Shit. She doesn’t like me in person. What the hell? I’m damn cute. I’m a hottie.

  “I didn’t think we were meeting yet.” There it is, that voice from last night. Sexy and throaty, with honey notes.

  But she’s talking nonsense. She’s supposed to say, “Hi, Duke. May I have another?”

  Or something like that.

  “You didn’t think we were getting together?” I rub my ear. Maybe I’m hearing things.

  She narrows her brow. “I thought our meeting was tomorrow?”

  Did I get the location wrong? The date wrong? I thought we were damn clear on both, but I’ve been preoccupied. “I thought it was tonight. Isn’t that what we agreed on?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m pretty sure we’re meeting tomorrow. I just set it up.” She peers around me, looking for something, or someone. “I’m waiting for someone else now, but . . .”

  My brain sputters, trying to make sense of her flummoxed face. Did she make another date tonight? “Who are you waiting for?”

  She laughs, an embarrassed sound. “Just someone.” She waves a hand across her face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be unprofessional. I’m really looking forward to interviewing you tomorrow.” She takes a beat and licks her lips. “And I can’t shake how much you look like someone else I know.” Standing up from the stool, she extends a hand and says, “I apologize for my confusion. I’m Sabrina Granger. Nice to meet you, Flynn. I can’t wait to chat with you for the story.”

  My brain clicks and whirs, and for a nanosecond, I think—or hope—I mixed up the names. Sabrina is the reporter interviewing me, but Sabrina can’t possibly be . . .

  Or can she?

  Those lips, that hair, those hazel eyes . . .

  The universe has just dropped an anvil on me, Acme-style, flattening my excitement. This is the whoopee cushion, the hand buzzer, the “kick me” sign on my back. That would be fitting, after all, in this gin joint. Perhaps the toy storefront was more of a promise of what’s to come for me—a game where I don’t win.

  This can’t fucking be.

  “You’re the reporter?” I ask heavily, still hoping against hope I’ve gotten it wrong somehow.

  She nods. “I’m Sabrina Granger.”

  All at once, awareness seems to dawn on her, and she gasps, “Oh, hell. You’re . . .” She points at me, like I have the plague. “You’re . . .” She gulps and doesn’t finish.

  I laugh incredulously, sketching air quotes. “Yes, I’m just someone.”

  Her eyes widen to moon pies. “I can’t believe,” she begins, her words coming out staccato. “I thought. My brain. Cognitive dissonance,” she says. She knew I was Flynn, but she also figured I couldn’t possibly be her mystery guy. Newsflash—I’m both the winner and the loser of the masquerade contest. “I thought you were . . . but I didn’t think you could be.”

  I sigh so damn heavily it’s going to require its own weight class. “I didn’t think you’d be the reporter, Angel.”

  She flaps her hands around. “I assumed I had the times wrong for my interview, rather than you were my . . .” She lets her voice trail off like she can’t bring herself to say what we are.

  I pick up the dropped words. “Your duke? Your dirty Prince Charming? The guy who made you forget where you were?” I toss out, repeating her request from last night. One I followed to the O.

  She drops her face in her hands, moaning in frustration. “I can’t believe this,” she mutters, shaking her head. Her shoulders rise and fall. She raises her face like a cat poking its ears out from beneath a blanket. “Say you’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were. But nope, I’m Flynn Parker, the guy from last night. The guy from tomorrow. The guy who texted you. The guy who has your panties. And, evidently, the guy you’re interviewing.”

  She shushes me then leans her head back and sighs, raising her eyes to the ceiling, talking to the roof. “I came here to meet the guy from the party—the guy I had this crazy-amazing connection with—and it turns out he’s the man I’m interviewing for my first big break at a magazine I’m dying to work for. The universe seriously loves to laugh at me.”

  I nod, signaling the bartender for a drink. “And I can’t believe the first woman I had a crazy-amazing connection with is now off-limits since she’s writing a critical piece on my company during an important time in our market rollout.”

  Her lips quirk up into a delicious grin, as pink splashes across her cheeks. Her blush is magnificently alluring. It reminds me of how her skin flushes when she comes, how the color crawls up her chest when she nears the edge.

  The memory is like a serving of lust, and my response to it is instant and hard.

  “What can I get you?” the goateed bartender asks as he arrives.

  “Something strong,” I tell him, since I can’t very well ask for the drink I really need—The Boner Killer.

  “Coming right up.”

  “Do you want something?” I ask Sabrina.

  She shakes her head and points to her cup.

  When the bartender leaves, I gesture to Sabrina, unmasked. “If it’s any consolation, you’re even prettier like this.” My eyes roam her face, cataloging cheeks I held, eyes I stared into, lips I bruised.

  Her expression softens. A faint smile tugs at her mouth. “You too,” she whispers, and for a moment, I can see how this night would have unspooled. A drink, a conversation, a laugh. The laughter would have led to kissing, the kissing would have led to stumbling out of here, hailing a cab, making out as the city blurred by, then a hot, sweaty night at my place that went by far too fast.

  That can’t happen anymore, yet the promise of a night like that is powerful. I tap the bar, drumming my fingers as I soak in the ambiance of this quirky joint. “I’m not surprised you like this place. I bet you had a dollhouse when you were younger.”

  A faint smile plays on her lips. Those lush, sweet lips. “That’s how I learned to sew. For dolls.”

  I laugh, wishing this conversation was the prelude to our evening. “Yep. Pegged it.”

  “The first time I took needle to thread, I made a terrible frock for a four-inch-high blond toy woman.” She dips her hand into her purse, and fishes around. She grabs a swath of fabric and holds out her hand to show me a green paisley triangle. “Here it is. I keep it with me, like a good-luck charm.”

  “That is awful, and I say this as someone who made his first robot out of cardboard, so it was equally abysmal.”

  Tucking the dress away, she asks, “Do you make better robots now?”

  I shake my head. “I gave up the robot trade in high school. Decided to make radios instead.”

  She studies me. “Funny, I would have pegged you for model toys, airplanes, and RC cars.”

  I bring my hand to my heart, pretending to look affronted. “I’m offended that you don’t realize I’m weirdly practical. I have no interest in things that don’t do . . . anything. But I do love the radio.”

  “Do you have
your own radio?”

  “Of course. Built it from old parts. Listen to it at night. Works like a charm.”

  She shrugs playfully. “Maybe you can tune in to little green men on it.”

  I wiggle my eyebrows. “One can hope.”

  Hope. Just like a sad part of me is hoping this night can keep ticking along in the direction of paisley dresses, cardboard robots, little green men, and cabs hailed hastily. I want to turn on the radio, then turn her on, as sultry music plays and moonlight streams in through the penthouse windows.

  She laughs as she lifts her yellow teacup and takes a drink of her beverage. But when she sets it down, a lightning bolt of anger flashes across her eyes. “Wait,” she whispers sharply, and there goes the hope. “Did you know I was going to be covering you? Did Mr. Galloway tell you first?”

  I wrench back, getting out of the way of her ambush. “Are you crazy?” I slash a hand through the air in certain denial. The interlude is over. Officially. “I had no idea who you were. I had no clue you were working on a story on me.”

  “I was literally just assigned the piece today. My editor told me you knew about it,” she says with narrowed eyes, as if she’s trying to catch me in a fib.

  “And you think that means I knew who you were at the party?”

  “Maybe you were feeling me out. Trying to get a sense of what I was like.”

  I scoff. “Angel, I’m not that nefarious nor so desperate that I need to conduct recon for a magazine article I agreed to do. And I don’t need to sleep with a reporter to try to sway her view of me.”

  “Then why did you say you were a VC last night? See? You were trying to throw me off then. I thought you were a venture capitalist. Were you just saying that so I wouldn’t know who you were?”

  I hold up my hands. “I didn’t say it. You assumed it.”

  “And you didn’t correct. Why?”

  I sigh, rubbing a hand across my neck. “Because I didn’t want you to know who I was. Because we were role-playing. Because it was part of the game. I thought you liked the game.”

  “I did,” she says, her tone vulnerable once again. “But why didn’t you want me to know who you were?”

  “Because I wanted you to like me for me.”

  She exhales deeply. “I guess I wanted the same.” She holds up a finger, a sign she has to ask another question. “But if you didn’t know who I was last night, if you truly didn’t know it was me, how did you recognize me as the girl from last night when you came in?”

  I furrow my brow as the bartender brings me a pink teacup. It’s a frilly-looking porcelain cup, meant for proper ladies sipping tea. I swear this drink better be as strong as steel.

  “This ought to do the trick,” he says, then whispers, tequila.

  I thank him and swallow a thirsty gulp of the fiery liquor from the prissy cup. The burn intensifies as it goes down, then it spreads through my lungs. I draw a deep breath, and when that cuts-like-a-knife sensation starts to fade, I say, “Seriously, Angel? Is that a serious question? You think I’d only recognize you if I had planned in advance to seduce the reporter assigned to cover me?”

  She lifts her chin, nodding, as if she believes that line of bullshit.

  I lean closer to her, raise a hand, and finger a curl of her hair. Her breath catches. “Angel, I recognized you because you’re wearing polka dots, because you said you make your clothes and something about polka dots seems uniquely you and uniquely DIY. I recognized you because your hair is the same gorgeous shade, because I had my lips on your face, on your earlobe, on these pink lips.” A shudder moves through her as I go on. “I knew your voice because it was the same husky, sexy voice that the woman used last night when she begged me to fuck her against a wall. To fuck her hard.” A tremble is her answer. “I knew it was you because you match my mystery girl, and you smell as delicious as she did.” I move back, letting my words linger. “But perhaps I didn’t make a memorable enough impression.”

  “You did,” she whispers, her voice wobbly. She doesn’t meet my eyes. She runs a hand over her skirt and crosses her legs. Taking a deep breath, she raises her face. “I swear you did.”

  I like her response. Hell, I needed her response. But once it’s voiced, a kernel of doubt wiggles insidiously through me, burrowing into my chest.

  What if she’s setting me up?

  I throw her question back at her. “But how can I be sure you didn’t know who I was?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Please. I already said I thought you were a VC.”

  But what if she’s lying? What if she knew who I was and seduced me to soften me up for the piece, like Annie came back to me to try to pry open my accounts? “How do I know?”

  She arches a brow and straightens her shoulders. “How do you know? I guess you don’t. You’ll have to take my word for it. All I knew was you were a guy I liked spending time with. I had no idea what you did for a living. I didn’t care. I liked dancing with you. I like talking to you. And I really liked kissing you. I liked that the best.”

  Dammit, she’s making my heart roll over, and there’s no time and space for that.

  “I liked it too,” I say, but I can’t let myself be fooled. I can’t be Annie-fished again. I need to zero in on boundaries. “But obviously we’re not going to do it again.”

  “Obviously.” She agrees almost too quickly. “I don’t sleep with sources, or people I interview.”

  She takes a drink from her yellow teacup then sets it down. Her drink has a sprig of mint in it. Mojito. Yeah, she obviously likes torturing the bartender, since those drinks are hard as hell to make. I tended bar briefly after college while working on my first start-up, and anyone who ordered that drink might as well have used me as a voodoo doll. It’s best that I learn now she’s an evil bartender-torturer.

  She pushes the teacup away and lifts her chin, her jaw set hard. “And I’m not going to recuse myself from the story.”

  “I don’t think you should recuse yourself.”

  “Good. Because I don’t need to. I didn’t know who you were when last night happened, so I wasn’t sleeping with a subject then. And now that I do know, we’ll proceed as if it’s business as usual. Plus, I could wind up covering your company or your sector on an ongoing basis for this magazine, or honestly, for any publication, so it’s best if we just move on.” Her tone is all-business, no flirting, and no soft underside.

  I nod in agreement because, hell yeah, do I agree. “Business as usual means I also don’t sleep with people I work with.” Though, to be fair, I’ve never confronted a situation where I considered sleeping with a reporter covering my company. Nonetheless, I get that it falls in the same Very Bad Idea category as sleeping with a business partner, investor, banker, or lawyer.

  I haven’t done those either.

  See? I do deserve a lollipop.

  “Besides,” she adds as she lifts her teacup, “I can’t risk this story. I have bills to pay, and I need this assignment . . .” Her voice trails off in a waft of desperation.

  And the red warning buzzer goes off.

  Money troubles.

  She needs money.

  Instinctively, my hand goes to my back pocket, covering my wallet. I’m a generous guy. I donate to charity, I’ve funded scholarships at my alma mater, and I have no problem sharing the wealth.

  But it’s good I’m learning her deal now. If she’s mentioning money this early, then how would I ever know going forward if she likes me for me? I wouldn’t. It’s good the universe is looking out for me, giving me this info before I fall harder for her. Last night was one night, one moment, and that’s all it’ll ever amount to. I need to be ruthless about who I let into my heart.

  “I have your halo still,” I say, cool and businesslike.

  She waves a hand dismissively. “I don’t really need it.”

  “So I’ll just toss it?”

  “Sure,” she answers, then furrows her brow. “But I do like the headband I used. Can you just hold on to it f
or me, and I’ll get it next time?”

  “I’ll bring you the headband.”

  “You can just toss the other parts.”

  That feels fitting. I’ll dismantle her halo, trash the fake money, and bring her the only part that matters. Just rip to pieces the thing she left behind.

  There’s one more item she discarded though.

  I finish off the tequila, then reach into my pocket. “Here are your panties.”

  She stuffs them into her purse.

  Like I said, I’m no Prince Charming.

  Dirty or clean.

  Prince Charming would have gotten the girl. Dirty Prince Charming would have found a way to take her home again, spread her out on the bed, and take her all night long.

  Me? I’ll be heading home alone to listen for little green men on the radio.

  Before I leave, she lifts her chin and taps the bar. “By the way, I like your glasses.”

  13

  Sabrina

  * * *

  If something is too good to be true, it usually is. That’s what I’ve always taught my brother.

  That’s why I’m not in the least bit surprised.

  Luck doesn’t twirl around in spectacular fashion, transforming the beast into the prince before the last enchanted petal falls. Nope. That’s the stuff of fairy tales. In real life, you don’t get the gig, the guy, and the great sex.

  You get one night with someone like Flynn Parker. The fairy tale ends when he returns your slipper. My panties are back, the story is over, and happily-ever-after is for fictional gals.

  This is what happens next. The after-the-glass-slipper moment, when real life, real bills, and real responsibilities trump fairy-sparkle magic.

  As I lock the door to my pipsqueak apartment, I sink against the wall, sliding to the floor on my butt.

  I groan in frustration. I wish he was anyone else. I wish he was the trash collector, the guy who runs the flower shop at the corner of my street, a product manager for an enterprise software company.

  Anyone but the man I have to cover.