The Gideon Affair (12 page)

Paige was punching his arm and snapping her fingers an inch from his face.

What the hell?

Edward shook his head and looked around. Yeah, he was in the kitchen. With Paige. But they weren’t mid-fuck, and she was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Y
ou’ve got to kidding,” she snapped into the phone. Closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose as if that would help this train wreck, Paige considered screaming at the top of her lungs. It was so much worse than Edward knew, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to tell him that.

“Mickey, take a breath before you drop from lack of oxygen, okay?”

Listening while the enraged agent went on and on about liars and payoffs and what he kept referring to as dick-riders, she kept an eye on Edward. He was wandering in and out of the study where she’d settled to work the phones and check the social media sites on her iPad.

Watching his restless pacing kept her thinking about the downright weird thing that had happened earlier. One minute, she’d been thinking out loud about Joann’s part in all this, and the next, she’d been on the receiving end of a covetous look and what must have been one hell of an erotic fantasy. Bringing him back from wherever he’d gone in his mind had taken real effort … and a smack on the arm.

And she wasn’t making shit up by assuming he’d been thinking naughty thoughts about her. From the second she stood next to him on the beach, there had been this unsettling sexual energy swirling around and through them. It was as though some paradigm shifted in the makeup of their personal relationship, like a ten point five on the Richter scale was shaking everything up.

When he came back from wherever his mind had wandered, he’d made that face. The one she knew was a mixture of self-deprecation and embarrassment—and earnestly confessed, “I should apologize now for what I was just thinking.”

“That bad, was it?” she’d asked with a sly smirk.

He’d made the funniest face and had replied, “Depends on whose point of view we’re talking.”

She sure as hell hoped she was on the receiving end of whatever debauchery had him in thrall. The librarian fell off her book stool laughing when Paige shivered slightly.

With the tension between them eased, she chose to compartmentalize the sexual attraction and get down to business. She was in full damage control mode by the time she’d gotten organized and reached Mickey on the phone.

Just as she had feared from the scattered details Edward had provided, they were passengers on a lumbering caboose that was far behind the engine of a speeding train. She couldn’t believe how much fuckery had gone down in just one afternoon.

It ended up that the shit was already hitting the fan before Edward had exited the interview earlier in the day. Dave had been right with the brow-raising insinuation that the cowgirl getting her yeehaw on in the video being called
Shaw Me the Way
was supposedly none other than Gideon’s leading lady, Joann Jones.

Mickey was on fire and taking names. Swearing in Russian, he pretty much left Paige speechless with his display of outraged anger. Despite his reputation as a shark, Mikhail Demetri Klein was an old-school gentleman at heart who viewed the trend of public vulgarity with disdain.

He was furious that his
mishpocheh
was being dragged through the mud. It had taken almost a year for Paige to figure out what the expression meant, and she still wasn’t sure of the origin or correct spelling, but the intent was clear enough.

Family. It fit in some bizarro-world way. They were a family, an unusual trio for sure, but Edward, Mickey, and she had been a tight unit from the start. And over the years, they had developed an extraordinary friendship.

Mishpocheh
, indeed.

Paige shoved back into the cushiony loveseat and put her feet up on the coffee table. Her brain was frying from the overload. Popping a mint into her mouth, she absently sucked, moving the small circle around her mouth as she concentrated.

Edward sharked into the room and made a circuit, pretending to dump an armload of dog-eared scripts in a basket near his favorite recliner. Didn’t he realize how obvious he was being?

He looked around for a second without ever making eye contact then swam away. Wouldn’t take long for him to reappear.

Maybe I should make him sit the heck down
, she thought. All this back and forth was making her mental and really did feel like he was circling in the water—either waiting to strike or better yet, eat her up.

Ooooh. That didn’t sound so bad. The eat me part.

Before the lewd thought burst into full bloom in her mind, Mickey said something that cut through her distracted reverie like a hot knife through butter. Wiggling frantically, she sat up and slammed her feet on the floor.

“… and-seriously-who-the-hell-is-that-old-tart-trying-to-fool? I-can’t-believe-Harvey’s-team-or-that-busted-weave-blogger-didn’t-balls-to-the-wall-that-bitch-and-point-out-that-in-no-world-that-didn’t-involve-a-megafuckton-of-Photoshopping-could-the-derrière-riding-the-carousel-pony-be-mistaken-for-a-sixty-year-old-ass. I-mean-come-the-fuck-on-you’ve-seen-that-ass-and-it-all-but-was-branded-Grade-A-Prime-aged-for-twenty-something-years-not-a-half-a-goddamn-century …”

Paige snickered at the thought of the blustering agent quite literally sucking all the oxygen out of a room when his mouth got going. He was exhausting.

But he’d also just made a brilliant point—one she hadn’t considered. It was one thing to question the identity of the partially obscured man. But it was impossible not to see an up close and personal view of some woman’s ass and not have a sense of how old she might be. Ballparking it, of course, but on this point Mickey was right. There was no way that a surgically enhanced butt-ass naked body, a menopausal one at that, could pass for a woman barely in her twenties.

“Listen-dollface-our-takeout-Thai-just-got-delivered-and-you-know-how-the-wife-is. Sheesh-all-this-
mishegas
-about-my-health-and-slowing-down. You-know-me-though-I-only-have-one-gear-turbo-and-if-that-makes-this-old-ass-of-mine-a-Type-A-that-just-means-I’m-the-bomb …”

His good-natured chuckle brought a smile to Paige’s lips. The little man might operate at Mach 1 on a bad day, but he was in tiptop shape due in no small part to the firm hand of his wife. Shirley Klein was a foul-mouthed, hilariously funny, sarcastically challenged Hollywood housewife who worshiped the quirky agent’s self-styled moldy ass and had stood as a bulwark at his side for more than forty years. She was one of those ballsy veterans of the L.A. social scene who held a dim view of what she’d termed the ‘manner-less hordes’ turning the already unconventional town into a three-ring circus.

She cut him off because, really, there was no other way to squeeze a word in with him … especially on the phone.

“Love her face and you should be thanking your lucky stars that she puts up with you! Go and eat your dinner and relax, Mr. Klein. I need you to help me navigate this storm of perfect bullshit so count me on Team Shirley.”

The gleefully loud, “Bah!” that echoed through the phone broke their serious mood. “Did-you-just-tell-me-to-fuck-off-young-lady? Imma-have-to-wash-your-mouth-out-with …”

“Bye, Mickey.”

Disconnecting the call, she dropped the phone at her side just as Edward circled around again. Only this time, he’d changed. The destroyed by sand and surf slacks he’d taken off had been replaced by a familiar sight. An old pair of jeans that made the most of his, uh … assets.

Swallowing the thickness forming in her throat, Paige didn’t try to hide her appreciation for the sight he made.

Gideon Shaw was one hot piece of ass. Edward Banning, however, was a thousand times hotter.

A thrill slithered through her. Nobody but she and, occasionally, Mickey ever saw him like this. It was hard to explain what the difference was because, after all, Gideon and Edward were the same man. But there was a distinction—no matter how subtle. In some ways, it was about being in his natural habitat rather than the manufactured and artificial magnifying glass of his professional persona.

The jeans molded to his perfect physique didn’t hold her attention, though. What held her attention was the perfectly fitted white t-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and impressively muscled chest that he’d halfway tucked into his waistband. Dammit, if the simple cotton tee didn’t accentuate the masculine V of his shape… but the impossible wingspan fingertip to fingertip, the tapered torso, lean hips, and sturdy legs also tickled her hormones.

Oh, and his feet were bare.

She swallowed hard, again.

Pushing the refrigerator door shut with a shove of his hip, Edward juggled an armload of items he’d pulled from the cooler and prayed he didn’t drop half before making it to the island counter.

Next, he grabbed the impressive walnut cutting board that he’d picked up from an artisan in Canada a few years back. A small perk of location shoots was the opportunity to explore many different environments, cultures, and out-of-the-way gems he wouldn’t normally visit.

Spreading everything out across the black marble, he surveyed and made a mental list of what else he needed.

Like something to boil the water in. Yanking a cookware organizer out from a bottom cabinet, he took a tall pot and twirled it by the handles with a flourish worthy of the
Top Chefs
then plunked it onto the massive professional cooktop.

After he’d set the water to boil, he washed his hands then tucked a large kitchen towel into his waistband for an apron and got started.

It was mindless busywork—cooking. Stalking Paige while she did what she did made him feel a bit pathetic, so he’d made a snap decision, changed into something comfortable, and headed for the kitchen.

In no way a foodie or anything that came close to being like Gordon Ramsey, he was just an American boy raised on his mom’s home cooking, and that fact alone went a long way.

His mom was one of those ‘here is why we do things’ types who transformed practically every moment of every day into a learning opportunity. He and Marsh could cook, sew on a button if necessary, do laundry in a way that wasn’t a complete disaster, and scrapbook like a motherfucker.

Yep. Scrapbook.
Don’t be hatin’

Tonight’s mindless culinary offering was a basic chopped salad … organic vegetables only, thank you very much, and a throw together pasta pot that he hoped Paige would enjoy.

She was staying for dinner whether she wanted to or not. He’d tie her ass to a chair if he had to. No way was he letting her skip out after the day they’d had.

And he wasn’t referring to the Gideon kerfuffle.

Two opposing viewpoints around his relationship with Paige had crashed head-on and, between one moment and the next, they’d crossed that invisible line—the one that tore the lid off everything. Where once there had been nothing but iron-willed control, there was now a million unlimited possibilities.

She wasn’t going anywhere until they had talked about what was happening. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Adding a second heavy bottom pot to the cooktop, he made quick work of some garlic, onion, Portobellos, fresh tomatoes, and finely diced carrots while his mind clocked in at maximum overdrive.

Keeping an eye on the softening veggies, his forehead furrowed from the effort of taking in the magnitude of how altering the dynamic of their association would change things.

As fucked up as it sounds, he’d never been best friends with any of his previous lovers. Not like he was with Paige.

Edward snorted disbelief.
No, seriously man. I’m being real here.

On some level, he supposed, his high school girlfriend had been close, but the tell was in how he framed that thought. She’d been close, yeah, because he’d allowed it. But he’d be full of shit trying to make the case that the exchange was intentional.

It wasn’t.

He was a horny teenager with one thing and one thing only on his mind. She was the adoring girlfriend who gave in to his horn-dog demands because, and probably only because, he’d let her in enough for her to think she was different. What they had—special.