“I know, right? I was on another dating site awhile back. A lot of these people are imposters, or else they all have advanced degrees in photo editing.”
They laughed together as the ice was officially broken between them.
He raised his glass again. “To truth in advertising.”
“Absolutely—”
Her peripheral vision snagged on a figure looming over their table just as an icy male voice spoke.
With a posh British accent.
“Hate to interrupt…”
Anthony?
A wild surge of joy caused Melody’s heart to careen into cardiac arrest territory. She risked a severe case of whiplash spinning her head around to make sure it was him.
Then she saw the expression on his face and remembered that she was on a date.
With. Another. Man.
Shit.
A great horned owl could be intimidating, yeah, but at least it might occasionally blink or turn its head around to the back to look for a mouse. The look Anthony gave her now? With those chilling blue eyes, hardened cheekbones and squared chin?
Great horned owl that had been stuffed and mounted on a mantel. All-seeing, with no warmth and no soul.
Her smile turned brittle as sudden horror rooted her to the spot.
Oh, God. Anthony. Who’d come all this way to surprise her.
She saw it all through his eyes—the wine, the flowers, her sexy shoulder-baring cashmere sweater—and wished she could crawl under the table and hide. Since she couldn’t do that, a cringe would have to suffice.
“…But I just wanted to say hello. I found myself unexpectedly in town for the weekend.” When his scathing disdain had frozen most of Melody’s flesh solid, Anthony turned, held out his hand and leveled all his frigidity on poor Jerry, whose only mistake had been clicking on Melody’s profile. “Anthony Scott. And you are…?”
Jerry hastily stood and shook. “Dr. Jerry Ayers. Great to meet you.”
“And you,” Anthony said, but he didn’t look like anything was great. In fact, he regarded Jerry like some noxious substance he’d discovered clogging his toilet. “From Doctor Love dot com, I presume?”
A shadow began to fall across Jerry’s face.
“Ah…yes,” he said, his narrowing gaze swinging between her and Anthony.
“Brilliant,” Anthony said.
By some miracle, Melody squared her shoulders and got her voice working. She was not a criminal here, and she would not stand by while Anthony treated her like one.
“Anthony—”
“Well, don’t let me keep you from your date.” Anthony zeroed in on her again, his voice roughening. Difficult as it was to keep her chin up and meet his gaze through the obvious anger, she caught a flash of something profoundly hurt. Bewildered. “Have a lovely evening.”
They stared at each other for one excruciating second.
Desperate for something to say that would take that look off his face and restore the glittering warmth she’d seen when they laughed together, or when they lay together on the sofa, she opened her mouth.
Floundered.
Wished she’d never been born.
His lips curled into a sneer as he muttered something indistinct and strode off, sucking all the room’s air with him as he’d done the night they met.
The sight of him walking away kicked her out of her paralysis and her ass into high gear.
He’d made a tremendous effort to come back early. To see her. And his reward for his effort?
Discovering her out with some other guy.
She surged to her feet with a helpless glance at Jerry, who was now doing a remarkable imitation of Anthony’s frosty disdain, and tried to smile as she grabbed her coat and bag.
“Would you excuse—”
He flapped one hand at her and used the other to top off his wine.
“Go,” he said bitterly.
“I’m really sorry, Jerry. You seem like such a—”
“A nice guy, yeah, I know. But you’re the second woman who’s walked out on a date with me to chase some other guy. Hard to miss the message there.”
He toasted her, then drank deeply.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Dashing off without bothering to put on her coat turned out to be a mistake, as did running around in heels. But she wove her way through the crowd loitering near the door, raced outside with a blast of arctic air to her cheeks and looked wildly up one end of the sidewalk and down the other—
There he was!
She hurried after him, doing her best to catch up with his long strides.
“Anthony!”
He kept going.
Cursing, she sped up
Luckily, he’d reached his rental, some sort of dark SUV parked at the curb. His fob beep-beeped and the lights came on just as she met up with him at the driver’s side door, which he swung open.
She scrambled back, out of the way.
“Anthony.”
He paused without looking at her, one hand on top of the door and a muscle pulsing in his temple.
She stood on the door’s other side, wondering how she’d landed herself in this mess and telling herself he had no right to be upset when she knew in her heart that he did.
His single quick and angry glance at her face made her recoil as though he’d scraped the business side of a potato peeler across her forehead.
“So glad we had that discussion about you not forgetting me.” His words were rapid-fire and clipped, like bullets fired from a pistol, and the steam from his breath was like smoke. “Made all the difference, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t forget you—”
“All evidence to the contrary, you mean?”
Melody stared at him, wanting to kick her own ass for landing in this terrible situation. Wanting to cry for hurting him like this, and over something that, in the end, had meant absolutely nothing to her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
His gaze shifted away, focusing on something over her shoulder. “Making a fool of myself, apparently.”
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
“That much is obvious.”
“Why didn’t you—?”
“Baptiste made a last-minute decision to come back and see Samira today because he couldn’t wait to see her. I hopped a ride on his jet because I couldn’t wait to see you. Anything else?”
His chill and the night’s chill combined to make her shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself and huddled miserably inside her sweater.
“You can’t even look at me?” she asked.
He hesitated. Then his gaze swept her up and down, barely touching her eyes, and that was somehow worse than his cold stare.
“You should put your jacket on,” he finally said. “You’ll catch your death without it.”
“I’m fine. Can I just explain?”
“No point.”
“Anthony…” Rising frustration—or maybe it was despair—pitched her voice higher. “You can’t just shut me out like—”
“If and when you decide you’d like to pursue a real relationship, you know how to reach me.”
“If you’ll just—”
But there was no reasoning with a brick wall, and she wasn’t breaking through his stony attitude unless she discovered a jackhammer in her back pocket. So she backed up a few steps (in this mood, he’d probably run her over and not think twice about it) and watched helplessly as he climbed in, shut the door, started the engine and, with a final narrowed glare aimed at the dead center of her face, zoomed off.
She watched helplessly as he disappeared around the corner.
Even his flashing red taillights seemed to rebuke her.
16
Melody cycled through several emotions during the time it took her to walk back to her car and head home.
Disbelief.
Frustration.
Guilt.
And finally and most powerfully?
First of all, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
Second, the arrogant SOB had just cut her out of his life without giving her a chance. Just given her the relationship equivalent of the death penalty without deigning to listen to her side of the story.
Controlling, much? Yeah. Possessive, much? Hell, yeah.
Was that fair and just when she was only doing what twenty-first century women did in the dating world?
No, it was not.
And how had she even landed herself in this situation when she’d so recently resigned herself to spinsterhood?
Fuming and running on autopilot, she made it almost all the way home before her car turned itself around and headed for Journey’s End’s one big hotel, which was the place where they’d had the gala the night she met Anthony and was presumably where he planned to stay tonight.
By the time she’d parked, marched through the lobby, waited for the elevator (oh, God, it was the same elevator that had trapped them together the night they met) and pulled out her phone to dial his number, she’d worked herself into a royal snit.
Mr. High and Mighty didn’t get to walk out on her without listening to her side of the story.
Oh, no, he did not.
“Yes?” he said in that cool accent, water running in the background.
“I want to talk to you,” she said, grateful that the elevator car was empty when it finally arrived. “I’m on my way up. What room are you in?”
Long pause.
“On your way up? You’re full of surprises tonight, Dr. Harrison, aren’t you?”
“I’d say we both are,” she said flatly. “Are you going to tell me your room number, or should I just go to the top floor and start knocking on doors until I find you?”
Another pause. “Seven-eighteen.”
Was that a touch of amusement in his voice?
“Are you laughing at me?” she demanded, punching the button for his floor.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. But I’d hate for us to waste more of each other’s time when we’re so clearly not on the same page.”
“You’re back in town, so you apparently care a little bit about me. Seems like you could give me a few minutes after going to all this trouble.”
A rumble of dissent from Anthony. “Maybe it’s time for me to start cutting my losses.”
“Well, you’re going to hear me out. That’s only fair, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps, but I’m not in a very fair mood at the moment.”
“Sucks to be you,” she said, and hung up.
She’d waited too long to press the button, so she did, in fact, ride to the top floor and have to come back down again. When she finally arrived, got out and checked the room number sign to see which way she should go, she only had time to take a step or two in the right direction before a door way at the end of the hallway flew open and Anthony hurried out. Now wearing one of the hotel’s fluffy white robes, he jammed his hands on his hips, shot an impatient glance in her direction and froze at the sight of her.
They stared at each other in a seething silence.
“Did you get lost?” he demanded.
“Your indecision forced me to ride all the way to the top.”
He made a disparaging sound that didn’t help her equilibrium any as she headed toward him.
She felt like a dead woman walking.
She squared her shoulders and kept her chin up as she came closer, a difficult task under his unrelenting attention. When she finally arrived at his door, he stepped aside and let her in, treating her to a whiff of his just-showered scent and fresh shampoo. He looked and smelled delicious, much to her current dismay, with his strong calves and nice feet in flip flops visible below the bottom of the robe.
Her pulse rate kicked pleasantly higher—he probably wore nothing underneath, and what a sexy thought that was—but she still wanted to hit him.
She walked inside his giant suite, noting the edgy furniture, his overnight bag sitting at one end of the sofa, the Thurgood Marshall biography on the coffee table, the open briefcase and paperwork atop the desk and the massive king-sized bed framed by the doorway into the bedroom. Tossing her jacket and bag onto the sofa, she turned to face him.
He leaned against the desk and crossed his arms, his expression as dark and impenetrable as an Amazonian rainforest at midnight.
She cleared her throat and tried to gather her wits. It was one thing to fantasize about cursing him out when she was safely in her car. A whole different story when confronted with that unblinking and merciless stare.
“You should have told me you were coming,” she said.
Irritable shrug. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said, running a shaky hand through her hair.
“Why do you sound so shocked?”
“Why?” Melody spluttered, her words slipping away from her like Jell-O through her fingers. “Because we just met and that’s a lot of effort.”
“Evidently my imagination’s run away with me,” he said, his voice like razor blades, rusty nails and glass shards in a velvet pouch. “Because I thought we had a great deal of chemistry and a lot in common. I thought we were getting to know each other better by talking and texting while I was gone. I was hoping to speed that process along by coming back to see you again.”
“But…” She rubbed her temple, trying to think. Men didn’t go to this sort of effort for her. Ever. Especially sexy and fascinating men like this. Oh, sure, they might flirt a little and pretend her scar didn’t bother them, but they didn’t follow through. They never followed through. “You can’t just show up out of the blue, Anthony. What if I’d been out of town or something? You would have wasted your time.”
“I knew you’d be here. You’d already mentioned that you were planning a quiet weekend. I foolishly thought you’d be glad to see me—”
“I am glad to see you.”
“—because you’d said you missed me.”
“I did miss you.”
“Not too much, apparently,” he said coolly. “Or maybe you missed me as much as I missed you, but you have the gift of getting over it by substituting someone else in my place. Amounts to the same thing from where I’m standing.”
“Can I just expl—”
“I’m not a fan of your approach.”
“And I’m not a fan of your little temper tantrum,” she said, something coming over her. Maybe she’d messed up tonight, but what did he expect? This was all new to her. They were new to each other. And she would not be bullied or talked over. She had as much a right to say her piece as he did.
His eyes flashed. “My what?”
“Temper. Tantrum. You picked up your toys and went home without giving me a chance to tell you what I’m thinking.”
He hesitated, frowning. Cracked his knuckles.
Crack-crack-crack.
Then he caught himself doing it and lowered his hands.
“I was angry.” His face flooded with color as he swallowed with a rough bob of his Adam’s apple. “I was hurt.”
“You froze me out. And that hurts.”
They stared at each other, the air full of reproach and sudden vulnerability.
He started to speak. Faltered. Crossed his ankles and cleared his throat.
“The floor is yours,” he said with a mocking little sweeping gesture. “I’m all ears. I can hardly wait.”
Melody opened her mouth to tell him her side of the story, but first she had to master the lingering urge to hit him.
He had the remarkable ability to nail her with those ice-hot blue eyes one minute, as though the fate of humanity hung on whatever she said next, and then sound terse and bored the next, as though he’d rather be trimming nose hairs than talking to her right now.
“There you go being an arse again,” she said quietly.
He winced. “Sorry.”
Mollified, she took a deep breath.
“I wasn’t aware
that spending a little time together and exchanging some texts and phone calls equaled an exclusive relationship,” she said.
“Indeed.” His lips flattened. “And here I’d thought that if one had a special person in one’s life, one wouldn’t want to be with anyone else. At least, that’s how it worked for me this week. Oh, and I mentioned you to my grandmother. Something I’ve never done in my life before.”
Her breath caught.
“I thought you were also feeling something along those lines.” He snorted. “Clearly not, based on the way you and your date were laughing together.”
What? She and Jerry may have laughed, but they weren’t laughing together. Why did Anthony have to make it sound like she and Jerry had been caught doing advanced positions from the Kama Sutra on the table next to their glasses of merlot?
Outrage took over her body and her words. “Okay, not that it’s any of your business—”
He made a low noise that sounded dangerously like a growl.
“—but that was just a blind date that was never going to go anywhere. I already told you that Samira signed me up for Doctor Love dot com. Jerry turned up as a match. I thought, why not meet him and see what happens? I’ve got nothing better to do on my rare night off. But he was a little old for me and he wasn’t really my type anyway. If he’d asked me to stay for dinner, I would have ducked out.”
“I am obviously your man for seeing what happens.” Anthony said. “Not some bloke from a dating website. Did you ever think of that?”
Of course she’d thought of that.
It scared her how much she’d thought of that in the last several days.
Not that she planned to admit it.
“A girl has to be smart, Anthony.” Her voice rose. “I can’t lose my head for some guy who lives on the other side of the Atlantic from me on the basis of a little chemistry. You can’t seriously blame me for that.”
His lips twisted. “None of my business? Some guy? A little chemistry?”
“You know what I mean!”
“Sadly, I don’t. Maybe you can enlighten me by answering a question or two. Let’s see if we can’t get on the same page.”
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