The Lady Vanishes
Page 11
She let her eyes run over his profile, the strong lines of his forehead and nose, the curve of his lips. His hair was messy again, standing up in thick, unruly patches, and she found herself wanting to smooth it down.
“You’re welcome,” she said finally, and looked away. She was very much afraid that if the goal of his little benefit was to get her into bed, he’d wasted his efforts. Sometime during the display, she’d decided she was going to sleep with him, anyway.
MILTON WAS HAPPY to see Nick and Blake arrive as the kids were petting the dog. Nick was carrying a cooler and a backpack, his face set in a calm mask. Blake was wearing jeans and a green sweater, her long hair braided. They were walking just far enough apart for Milton to think they were still annoyed with each other.
Milton gestured to a nearby table with orange plastic chairs. Nick set everything down on the table while Milton made the introductions. “Dr. Regina Burke, this is my business partner, Nick Cord, and one of our good friends, Blake Webster. They’ve both helped with the shows here at the hospital.”
“Hey, Nick.” Chuck broke off from petting the dog and wandered over. “How’s it going, man?” Man and boy performed a complicated series of hand gestures that seemed to take five minutes.
“Pretty good, Chuck. Have you been practicing your knots?”
“Yeah.” Chuck dug out several pieces of rope from the pocket of his green robe. “I practiced the French whipping on the frayed end, the double-loop, and the monkey’s fist.”
Milton watched Nick examine the ropes carefully, giving the effort 100 percent of his attention. Nick was good with kids, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Catching the fond look in Blake’s eye, Milton smiled.
“They look good, Chuck,” Nick pronounced finally. “We’ll have to go over a few more.” Nick then turned to Regina, who’d gotten distracted by the kids petting Simon.
“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Regina Burke,” he said, grabbing her attention. Holding out his hand for her to shake, he didn’t smile—Nick rarely smiled fully—but he was looking at her with approval.
Milton found himself grinning. He’d told Nick she was beautiful.
Blake did smile fully at Regina. “It’s nice to meet you finally. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Regina’s lips quirked and she shot Milton a glance. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
Milton hoped Blake didn’t mention the practice session with the bra—somehow he thought he would lose his cool factor if she knew he’d had to practice that one first. “Why don’t we sit down and we can talk about the plans?”
Regina looked at her watch. “Sorry, I have to get back to work, and the kids need to get back to their rooms soon,” she said loudly enough for the parents and a couple of the nurses to overhear.
There were protests—and whines—but within fifteen minutes, all the kids had been ushered back to their beds, and Regina was taking her leave. “I can stop back in three hours or so. Will you still be here?”
Milton nodded. Even if Nick and Blake had to leave, he would still be here.
“All right.” Regina hesitated, meeting his gaze. He was watching her carefully. Something was different. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“See you,” he replied, and wished the words didn’t feel completely inadequate.
He watched her leave, ass round and perfect in her scrubs, and didn’t realize that he was staring after her forlornly until Blake commented, “Jeez, I’ve never seen him this bad.”
Milton turned around to face the scrutiny of his two friends. “Isn’t she great?”
“She’s beautiful,” Blake agreed in her husky voice. “And she likes you, too.”
“What makes you say that?” Milton sat down at the table with them and leaned forward, ready to hear every detail of their thoughts on this particular subject.
Nick tapped blunt fingers on the table and shrugged slightly. “She fights it, but she follows you with her eyes.”
Blake nodded, looking sideways at Nick. “It’s like she can’t help but watch you.”
Milton wanted her to watch him. He wanted her to stare at him as much as she wanted, because he felt the same way about her—like his eyes couldn’t stop following her around.
“Good,” Milton said, rubbing his fingers together, “that’s good.”
“You think your plan is working?” Nick asked.
Milton shrugged and gave them both a rueful smile. “I have no idea, but things seem to be improving. She agreed to help with the show.”
Nick nodded, opening his backpack and pulling out Milton’s sketchpad and a Mac laptop. “You still thinking you want to do a version of the disappearing lady?”
Unable to help himself, Milton glanced back to the doors. He hoped he wasn’t cursing himself somehow, selecting that particular trick. He didn’t know why he had, except that she always seemed to be leaving—but he was the magician, not the audience, and he knew where she went, and how to get her back.
“Yeah.” Milton nodded, turning back to Nick and Blake. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Let’s get busy, then,” Nick said decisively, and turned on his laptop.
Milton cracked his knuckles and picked up his sketchpad and a pencil. Blake scooted closer to him, a devilish light in her eyes. “Now I know this is a kids show, but for ‘rehearsals,’ I know this lingerie shop that sells the most decadent, old-fashioned underwear. I bet your doctor would look perfect in it.”
Milton blinked at her. “What makes you think—”
She patted his hand. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it.”
Nick was studiously ignoring them. Milton thought about it, and the idea of Regina Burke in some old-fashioned lingerie sounded excellent actually. Beyond excellent. He just had to convince her to wear it.
WHEN REGINA MADE IT BACK to the entertainment room, the planning session had already wrapped up, and Milton was sitting alone, drawing furiously in a sketchbook. A half-empty water bottle and a muffin sat in front of him. Regina pulled back one of the hard plastic chairs and sat down. He looked up at her absently, his gaze blank, but then he recognized her and smiled. Regina took a long sip of water from the bottle on the table in front of her. She was alone with Milton Shaw.
“I think we worked out the details of the trick.” He waved to indicate the drawing in front of him.
“Why do you like magic so much?” She’d seen him with the kids, helping them with the simple tricks they’d performed for her, coaching them on the placement of their fingers, their gestures. He became absorbed in what he was doing, like every surgeon or artist she’d ever met.
He had begun to pull sheets of paper forward to show her, but now he hesitated. He flashed a glance at her, his blue eyes catching hers before he looked back down and finished the sketch.
“Maybe because of all the girls it gets me,” he said, and smiled a little ironically, lifting up the paper and blowing off bits of eraser before handing the page to her.
“I’ve heard that,” she agreed. She wouldn’t have thought that being a magician would be a turn-on. But there were magicians, and then there were magicians who looked like Milton Shaw.
“What do you think?”
She looked down at the images he’d created. He’d drawn her . . . in very tight scrubs, with her arms tied in front of her. She was about to step into what looked like an MRI machine.
“So the kids are going to force me in there, and then I disappear?”
He was watching her again. “Yes—like they’re pirates, and they’ve made you walk the plank.”
“Cool. And you’re still not sure whether to host the entire thing here at the hospital or somewhere else?”
“Well,” Milton said, ruffling his hair thoughtfully, “we’ll bring in more money if we host it somewhere elegant that serves dinner. No way are we fitting eno
ugh tables in here to serve anything, but most of the kids can’t be out of the hospital that long.”
“Didn’t you tell Nick that you could use video clips and have the show elsewhere?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “We’ll have to decide soon. A large benefit like that will take months, unlike a smaller one here at the hospital. I’d like something less formal and easier to pull together.”
“Why?” she asked.
This time he just looked at her . . . and looked at her, until she felt a small flush on her cheeks. “Listen, I don’t believe you that getting me into bed is the only reason you want to do this show.” She’d watched him all day. He did care about the kids. “So if we took that out of the equation, what would your decision be?”
He scowled. “I suppose I’d just have the benefit here and donate money myself. I’d rather not put on a big production.”
Clearing her throat, she asked, “Okay, so either way, are you going to hold the benefit as Milton Shaw or Shaw the Magician? I think you’ve outed yourself to the staff at this point. Somebody likely recognized you.”
“I know.” He ran a hand through his hair again and frowned. “I’d rather keep my coming here a secret. It’s not like I’m movie-star famous or anything, but I don’t want everyone knowing about it.”
Regina looked down at her hands, at the neatly filed nails and smooth pink beds. “I can understand that. In fact, I was going to propose something to you.” She looked up at him and nearly lost her nerve. This was a really stupid idea. Damn Celeste.
He turned to face her completely. “What? Anything you want. Seriously.”
Regina nearly grinned. “You really need to start saying what you mean. Don’t hold back.”
He snorted and took one of her hands, lifting it to his lips. “Seriously, I’ll beg. You want me to beg?”
He kissed the tips of her fingers, brushing them against his lower lip, and Regina gasped. He was good at this, clearly enjoying the feel of her fingers against his mouth. This wasn’t a man who counted the seconds of foreplay until he could get to the good stuff. He seemed to want to absorb her through his skin. Did he treat all women this way, with this raw fascination?
“I was thinking,” Regina said on a sharp breath, “that we could explore this . . . interest we have in each other—”
His eyes lit up and he gripped her hand a little harder. “Awesome. What made you change your mind? Wait, I don’t care. Let’s go.”
He stood, but Regina dragged him back down. “Listen, will you? Jeez.”
He sat back down, his face set, but his eyes were dark, his body tense. She would think he was crazy, but she felt it, too, this tingle of heat throughout her body, almost like a magnetic pull drawing her closer to him. She’d watched him earlier, watched the way his T-shirt molded to the muscles of his chest, his flat stomach. He might have the brain of a software nerd, but he had the body of a ballet dancer or a martial artist. Lean, with no wasted fat or muscle, everything sculpted to perfection. She’d watched, and she’d wanted to touch.
“As I was saying . . .” she continued, tugging back her hand because he was making her crazy with those soft, slow brushes. “I think we could have some fun together, but”—she pointed a finger at him—“I do not want to date you. I don’t want my picture in the paper. I don’t want anyone to know you and I are . . . involved. Capisce?”
His hands, restless now, began to fiddle with the pencil he’d been using to draw, making it seem to appear and disappear between his palms.
“You don’t want anyone to know we’re—fucking. I’ll say it. We’ll just be fucking. Not dating.”
Regina hadn’t thought about it in quite those terms. She wasn’t really the type to have a fuck buddy, but she didn’t want a relationship, either. She was beginning to think that he may have a few principles, but when this went south—and it would—she didn’t want it public. She didn’t want any part of her life public ever again.
“I’m not saying I won’t share a meal with you, or sit at home and watch a movie. It’s just that I don’t want to share my private life with everyone who likes to chase you online. No tweets, no Facebook posts, no publicity. That’s what I’m asking.”
“No benefit dinners either, then?”
Regina studied him, wondering why it mattered. “You go out with women all the time. I’m sure there are plenty that would love to go anywhere with you.” Regina thought of Celeste, of all the Celestes out there, and knew it was true.
“I want you,” he said simply, making the pencil disappear with a finality that made her blink. He stood again and held out a hand. “I’m good with your terms, but I have a few of my own.”
Regina gathered from his tone that his terms had something to do with sex, and she looked around the room to make sure that no one else had come in.
“What are they? You get to keep my bras?”
There was a gleam in his eye that made her shiver and want to scoot back at the same time. “I’ll buy you more. I’ll tell you the rest somewhere a little more private.”
Wondering exactly what she’d gotten herself into, Regina placed her hand in his, and used it to pull herself up. She stepped closer to him, so close that his nostrils flared a little, breathing her in. “That sounds perfect,” she said breathily, and brushed by him, heading back toward her office and then the locker room to get her things.
She heard him following, his steps predatory, and began to hurry.
MILTON COULDN’T QUITE BELIEVE that she’d agreed. Just like that, she’d changed her mind and he was following that sweet little ass down the hallway. He felt like cheering and scooping her up, but restrained himself as he stalked behind her.
He didn’t let himself think too much about her conditions. He thought he understood where she was coming from, but part of him—the college-nerd part, maybe—hated that she didn’t want to be seen with him. It wasn’t going to stop him from tossing her in the limo, taking her home, and doing very, very bad things to her, but he thought maybe he could change her mind, maybe in a few weeks, once she realized that being involved with him publicly wouldn’t be the horrible experience she was expecting.
They walked past the nurses’ station and he caught Jackie’s eye. The chief nurse raised a questioning eyebrow at him above her dark red glasses.
He glanced at Regina and shrugged. He wasn’t sure what she was asking, but he didn’t have an answer regardless. Some of the nurses seemed to recognize him. He heard “Milton Shaw” whispered a couple times and faltered midstride. She wanted to keep it a secret.
Stopping in his tracks—he was making it pretty obvious that he was following her—he took out his phone and texted, “Meet you at the limo. Text me when you get outside.”
Scowling, he retraced his steps and went past the nurses’ station and to the exit. It wasn’t snowing, but it obviously had been. A thick crust of white covered the limo.
Milton hurried to get inside. “Shane, go around the block for a minute. We’re going to pick up Dr. Burke when she comes outside in a few minutes.”
Shane nodded and pulled away from the curb while Milton called his favorite five-star restaurant and ordered two meals, requesting that they be delivered to his brownstone as soon as possible. Then he called his housekeeper and asked her to light a fire in the library fireplace and wait for the food before she left for the day. As soon as he hung up the phone, Regina’s text appeared.
He snapped his head up, and said to Shane, “She’s on her way outside.”
“All right,” Shane replied and pressed on the gas, making Milton suspect that he’d conveyed his urgency a little too clearly.
When they swung around the corner and then through the parking lot to the employee entrance, Regina was stepping outside the glass door, bundled up in a purple down jacket with a white knitted cap and dark gray boots that came to her calves.
“Shane, can you take us to the brownstone?”
“Sure, boss, no problem,” Shane replied, and quickly rolled up the partition.
A thick and molten silence descended between them, a silence that was not silence but deeply drawn breaths, expelled harshly from lungs that felt tight, from lips that trembled on the brink of saying something, anything, that would get them to the next kiss, the next touch between them.
“Can’t kiss you here,” Milton managed. “I won’t stop.”
She nodded, licking her lips, and took a deep shuddering breath. “I’ve never been like this. Sex has never been like this for me.”
Milton knew what she meant. He’d been fascinated by women before, been infatuated with the idea of them, had wanted them, but with her it was almost like a sickness, like something that took him over completely. It reminded him of his magic.
He wanted more.
“I ordered dinner. It’s being delivered.”
Relief came over her face, whether at the idea of being fed or the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to be seen in public with him, he wasn’t sure, and at the moment he didn’t care. He didn’t even know if he was hungry, but he wanted to feed her, wanted to indulge every need and whim she had, large or small, until she saw nothing but him, cared for nothing but the time they spent together.
He didn’t remember feeling this strongly for anyone, not for a long time, not since William was alive.
He stopped the thought in its tracks, not wanting it to escape, not daring to think about what it meant that he would equate her with his lost brother.
“Talk to me,” she urged, “or I’m going to crawl in your lap.”