He arched a brow. "It's
not?"
"No, of course it isn't, and you
know it. Stick a fork in me, I'm
done
."
She toed off her shoes and kicked them to the side with a sigh of relief. Then
she lowered her head and began pulled at the pins, dropping them on the floor.
When she thought she probably had them all out, she shook out her carefully
coiffed hair.
Then she wiped the crimson lipstick
off with the back of her hand. She faced him, boiling with anger. "
This
is me. This, and the gourds, and
the rollerblades."
His brow furrowed.
"Gwendolyn—"
"
No
." She held out to forestall him. "I'm laying it all
out, so there's no question of what I'm offering here. You claimed that I hid
from you, but you're wrong. Everything you saw was the real me. Geneviève de la
Roche never existed except in the minds of my parents and the media."
Eyes narrowed, she stalked toward
him. "The real me is Gwen, the crazy woman who draws on pumpkins and
rollerblades in the rain. She wears color, not black, and she has friends who
care about her, not her bank account or that she owns half the world. She
steals into neighbor's backyards—"
"I thought you said you had a
key," he said.
"Shut up." She pointed at
him. "I'm not done."
"Sorry."
She took a breath to take up where
she left off, but she couldn't remember where that was. She threw her hands in
the air, pacing. "
Great
. You've
made me forget my point."
"I think I can help you with
that." He came around his desk.
And stopped right in front of her.
"There's just one thing," he said.
"What?" she asked softly.
He lowered his head and kissed her.
Only it wasn't just a kiss. It was
anger and retribution. It was love and forgiveness.
It was a promise. A vow.
She clung to his shirt, pressing
herself against him, hungry for him. "I missed you," she murmured
against his lips.
He nodded, moving her backwards onto
his desk.
Some things skittered to the floor.
She reached behind her to brace herself and forced herself to break away from
his kiss, wrenching as it was. "I was being serious."
"How serious?"
She frowned. "As serious as I
can get."
"If that means 'till death do us
part,' then we're on the same page."
She stilled. "What?"
"I love you, Gwendolyn
Geneviève-de-la-Roche Pierce." He held her chin. "I love you
regardless of the colors you wear, but especially when you wear bright orange
and nothing else. I love how you turn vegetables into an art form. I love the
way you care about other people, even annoying teenagers. I love your sense of
recklessness, even when I want to throttle you. I love how you pranced in here
in that little red dress, making me so hot, and then turning the tables on me
by engaging my heart at the same time."
He lifted her face to his. "I
love you, Gwendolyn, pure and simple."
"Oh." She blinked.
"Oh?" He arched his brow.
She shrugged. "That was really
nice."
"And?"
"Yes." She nodded. "It
means 'till death do us part.'"
He narrowed his beautiful gaze.
"I plan on being alive a very long time."
"Good, because I'm not going
anywhere."
"Good," he said, too,
"because I feel like I've been looking for you all my life."
"Yes," she agreed, and she
pulled his mouth down to hers and took him. Forever.
Camille found him at Four Barrels,
sitting in his usual spot in the window, sun beaming down on him, intently
tapping at his computer.
Her heart caught in her throat. It'd
been weeks since the night of her party. She hadn't seen or heard from him
since.
Dylan looked like he always did:
focused and intense. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged his muscular
shoulders. He impatiently pushed back the lock of hair that always flopped on
his forehead and resumed typing.
She felt the flutter she always did
when she saw him, but this time she knew what that flutter meant: that she
wanted him. Wholly and completely, for always.
If only she hadn't blown it.
She swallowed her misery. It was too
late—she'd accepted that, and one day she'd get over it. Maybe. Sure,
she'd held out hope but when he didn't return her calls after a couple weeks,
she knew she'd blown it irreparably.
But that wasn't why she was here.
He looked up and stared straight at
her.
Now or never. Lifting her shoulders,
she strode toward him.
"This is unexpected," Dylan
said, turning away from his laptop.
She tried not to be hurt that he
didn't hug her hello, or kiss her cheek. She tried not to notice that he didn't
sound especially thrilled to see her.
Taking a deep breath, she held out
the stack of papers she held in her arm. "This is for you."
He just stared at it, making no move
to take it. "What is it?"
"My book." She shrugged.
"Well, half my book. I haven't finished it yet."
"Why are you giving it to
me?"
Because he'd inspired it. Because she
loved him. "Because I thought you might be able to give me feedback."
She held it out, steadily, even
though she was shaking inside. Was he going to take it?
"What's it about?" he
asked, reaching out to accept it.
She sighed in relief. "It's
about a teenage girl on the wrong track and the boy who's waiting for her in
the wings."
He looked up at her sharply.
"You're writing a young adult book?"
"It felt right."
"Yes." He set the partial
manuscript next to his computer. "It's perfect actually. You're clever to
realize it."
She was anything but clever, she
wanted to tell him. Instead, she said, "The boy is her best friend, but
the heroine doesn't realize that she's in love with him for way too long."
"That's a good conflict," Dylan
said, crossing his arms. "I bet the boy is incredibly patient, even though
the girl acts very stupidly. Very,
very
stupidly."
Camille frowned. "She's not
that
stupid."
He reached out and tugged her into
his arms. "But I bet the boy would be willing to forgive her
stupidity."
Impossible hope flared in her chest.
She looked up into his dear eyes. "Would he? Even if she didn't deserve
it?"
"She deserves it," he said
softly. "He's always thought so."
And then he kissed her.
She'd been right—when he was
focused on the kissing it was dark and delicious. Addictive. Toe-curling.
Perfect.
He lifted his head. "How is your
story going to end?"
She touched his face. "I'm
shooting for a happy ever after."
Graphic designer looking for
hot sex.
Freya
Godwin shook her head and crossed out the sentence. Too blatant. That may be
what she was looking for, but maybe she should be a touch more subtle. She
didn't want every freak in San Francisco to respond to her ad.
Doodling
faceless lovers entwined in different passionate embraces, she thought about
what she really wanted. Finally she scribbled:
Female web designer seeking
inspiration in order to complete a very important project. Bring your muse to
share.
Lame.
Accurate, sure, but it sounded desperate.
Who was she
kidding? She was totally desperate.
Her office
door slammed open. Flinching, she looked up to find Charles scowling in the
threshold.
Hell. She
quickly flipped the notebook shut. If he knew she was spending her valuable
time working on a personal ad instead of the Sin City redesign, he'd blow a
gasket.
"What
the hell is this?" He waved sheets of paper in the air.
Maybe he'd
blow a gasket anyway. "I can't see the pages with you flapping them around
like that."
He strode
into her office and slammed them on her desk. "Here."
Freya
glanced down and mentally winced. The design was even more white bread than she
remembered. She didn't need Charles to tell her that Sin City wasn't shelling
out the big bucks for white bread—they were paying for buttery French
pastry.
"Well?
What the hell is this crap?"
It was the
last throes of a web designer who hadn't felt an iota of creativity in over a
year. But she just shrugged. "They're some initial ideas I had. They're
not the final mock ups to show the client."
"Damn
right, they aren't. If they saw this"—he stabbed a blunt finger at
the printouts—"they'd run out of the building in horror. This is
crap."
"Tell
me what you really think, Charles."
Ignoring her,
he braced his hands on the desk and leaned forward. "Do you understand
what a coup it was for them to choose Evolve to redesign their website and
revamp their branding?"
Yeah, she
did. Evolve was well regarded in San Francisco's competitive web design field,
but to call Sin City hiring Evolve a coup was understating matters. It was
unheard of for a huge corporate entity like Sin City to go outside the biggie
web design firms to a boutique shop like Evolve.
And Sin
City was huge. They were Amazon and Facebook combined but for all things
sexual. Store, blogs, chats, reviews, live video feeds—you name it. They
even had their own publishing branch that put out several magazines in addition
to a line of erotica for women. Compared to Sin City, the Playboy empire looked
like a business run out of someone's garage.
"They
didn't just choose Evolve, Freya." Charles's blue eyes burned with the
zeal he was renowned for among his colleagues. His employees called it The
Mania. "They chose you."
Because of
the site she'd designed for a local sex toy shop two years ago. Back before her
creative juices had dried up. "I understand, Charles."
"I'm
not sure you do. If you screw this up, you're out of here."
Her mouth
fell open. It took a couple tries before she could get any words out. "You
can't fire me for one bombed design."
"I'm
the boss. I can do whatever the hell I want. Especially if one of my employees
blows the biggest opportunity this company has ever had." His eyes sparked
with dollar signs. "This is our opportunity to play with the big boys.
Maybe even go public. I won't let anyone screw it up."
"But—"
"And
your work over the past year hasn't been up to your usual standards. I know
Marcus bailed you out of the Accordiana job," he said bluntly.
She cut off
her protest. She couldn't deny it—Marcus hadn't just helped her out with
the design, he'd taken the crap she'd come up with and turned it into gold.
"If
you can't perform, I can't afford to keep you. Just because you're Evangeline's
best friend doesn't mean I'm going to make allowances for you."
"I
can't lose my job." Her stomach lurched at the thought.
"Then
I suggest you produce a design they fall in love with." He snapped his
suit coat straight and turned to leave. At the door he looked over his
shoulder. "I mean it, Freya. Fuck this up and you're out of here."
She winced
as the door slammed shut. She couldn't afford to lose her job. It wasn't that
she cared about herself—if she lost her paycheck she'd figure something
out. But she wouldn't be able to support her sister Anna through college, and
that wasn't acceptable. She'd vowed after the fallout from her parents'
accident that Anna would never have to compromise her dreams like she'd had
to.
That meant
she had to produce a kick-ass design.
In the pit
of her stomach she felt a spasm of worry. She'd been off her game—she'd
never felt such an utter lack of creativity.
She grabbed
the notebook and opened it to her ad. She crossed it out and wrote
Artist in trouble. HELP.
Like every
morning in the six months since she'd opened Grounds for Thought, Eve Alexander
peeked from the kitchen window to check on her bookstore café. Gleaming
espresso machine. Sparse stacks of books specially showcased through the
inviting space. People drinking and reading.
Her dream
come true.
And, like
every morning, she had the same thought. She was
insane
.
Shaking her
head, she picked up a tray of hot scones and carried it out to the front,
careful not to get her heels caught on the knotty wood flooring.
Her friends
teased her for wearing her impractical fancy shoes in the café but a girl had
to have standards. Besides, she loved them—and she had a backup pair of
flip-flops in the kitchen in case her feet began to hurt badly.
"Watch
out," Eve warned her barista Allison.
The older
woman stepped out of the way and inhaled deeply. "Clotted cream and
orange. If I outgrow my wardrobe, you'll have to give me a raise."
"You
deserve a raise regardless." Eve set the scones to cool on a rack
strategically placed so customers could see and smell them. "I don't know
what I'd do without you."
"The
word
whimper
comes to mind."
"No
kidding." Eve couldn't afford to have someone else on staff yet, but
Allison had offered to work for practically nothing, just to have something to
do other than watching TV and gardening. Having Allison saved her from working
twenty-four/seven but, even better, offered her friendship. "How's it
going out here?"
"It's
been steady this morning. People seem really interested in the book club. We're
going to need more flyers."