Beneath the Surface (15 page)

“I’ve got connections and I’m not afraid to use them.”

EJ chuckled, liking her fearlessness and spunk, and tried not to let them remind him of the one person he was trying to forget.

“I’ll call you once I have more interviews set up. I’m working on some contacts for the first leg of your tour on the West Coast.”

“I’m looking forward to hearing from you then.” EJ signed off again, staring at the phone and willing it to ring.

He’d never had a problem manifesting his destiny or exploiting a connection before, at least not one that existed.

But how could he connect with someone who was totally disconnected, someone who didn’t
want
to
be
connected?

79

Gracie C. McKeever

Tabitha closed her eyes and rubbed her temples in a circular motion, trying to block out the memory of his deep smooth voice, and those big dimples. The memory of his mouth when he’d gone down on her...twice.

She shivered and opened her eyes to see Cynthia standing in her doorway, shaking her head as if disappointed with a star pupil who just refused to get it.

“When are you going to give in and g…”

“Let’s not go there, shall we.”

“I was just going to say when are you going to give in and go out on a date with him.”

“Oh,” Tabitha muttered, and glanced at her monitor. Not much there of urgency except a few questions her webmistress had forwarded from the website, surfers interested in the mechanics of her business in general and
Lyons’ Style, Inc.
in particular.

But the computer was as good a place as any in which to escape the prying curiosity of her capable assistant.

Cynthia crossed the threshold and took a seat in the chair opposite Tabitha’s desk.

She reached across to hand Tabitha several messages. “They’re all from him. The last few are all the way from California.”

“God, the man’s a glutton for punishment,” Tabitha bit out as she took them, chest filling with some unnamable emotion that he’d bothered to call her long distance.

Then she popped her own bubble, rationalizing that he’d probably used some expense account and wasn’t making any big sacrifice to call little old her. Except the sacrifice of his time and what was that meager investment if he finally got what he was after in the long run, namely her?

She’d managed to avoid him well enough for the couple of weeks leading up to his departure, except for that one unavoidable visit to drop off some clothes.

80

Beneath the Surface

Tabitha had been so proud of her judgment in staying in the foyer, patiently waiting for him to try on each and every outfit. She hadn’t sat down in the living room, had refused his attempts at making her feel comfortable and at home, refused to fall into anything that would make her visit look like anything besides business.

He’d tried on his outfits, modeled for her, and then after giving her thumb’s up, Tabitha had beat a hasty retreat from his loft, hormones none the worse for wear thanks to her good sense and distance, though her libido had screamed at her for leaving so soon.

“Or maybe he just believes in the credo if at first you don’t succeed,” Cynthia said now.

“Well, he’s barking up the wrong tree here.”

“Is he?”

Tabitha glared at her, but didn’t otherwise respond.

“I think he’s nice.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“And that’s the point. Neither do you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to know him.”

“Why not?”

Such a simple question, yet the answer to it was more than difficult for Tabitha to get a handle on, if not next to impossible.

How did he confuse her, let her count the ways?

Cynthia reached across the table at Tabitha’s silence and grasped a hand. “What could it hurt? I know for a fact you’re not seeing anyone, so it’s not like your dance card is full.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I like it that way?”

“Coward.”

She said it in a teasing tone, a playful grin on her face, but it sliced just as deep as if she’d been dead serious when she said it.

It wasn’t anything Tabitha hadn’t called herself in the last few days—which was probably why Cynthia’s gibe hit so close to home. If she’d had a good comeback, she certainly would have used it just to get the woman off her back and out of her office, but she had nothing except a feeble, “I’d rather not discuss this. Please go back to your desk and get to work.”

Something in her tone and look must have tipped off Cynthia that Tabitha wasn’t in the mood for a debate about the merits of her love life, or lack thereof, because her assistant quietly rose from her seat and headed for the door.

Cynthia paused at the threshold for as long as it took her to say, “I’ll be at my desk if you need me.” before she left and silently closed the door behind her.

81

Gracie C. McKeever

Tabitha appreciated the woman’s concern, but the lack of respect for her privacy was exactly why she didn’t like being friends with the people with whom she worked.

Exactly why she liked to keep the lines of formality in tact, because once they came down, people felt they had the right to go just a little further each and every interaction, and before one knew it, one’s assistant was telling her how to lead her life and whom she should let in it, and calling her names, however jokingly.

Fine, she was a confirmed coward and control freak, and she was damn proud of both!

What was wrong with setting boundaries, exerting a little self-control rather than acting like a…a wanton harlot?

Tabitha swallowed hard, her mother’s face instantly hovering before her vision—

a bleary-eyed, belligerent drunk saddled with a daughter she’d never wanted, and who couldn’t hold onto a man if her life depended on it.

It hadn’t been her mom’s fault, she told herself. The woman had been sick.

Tabitha knew that now, intellectually recognized the symptoms then of what was today commonly known as bipolar affective disorder. It didn’t help her feel any better about her childhood, about being abandoned at the Port Authority bus station by her mother not long after her dad had left.

God, she was hopeless! She’d thought she’d gotten over the desertion, but evidently it didn’t take much to bring it all back: the helplessness, the fear, the loneliness and sense of failure pervasive to her soul even as an eight-year-old with not much control over her circumstances.

Despite knowing about her mom’s illness, Tabitha couldn’t get over the idea that had the woman exercised just a little more morals, been a little stronger…what? She might never have been born, is what.

How many times in her teens had she wished for exactly this? How many times had she let the kids in her neighborhood make her feel totally worthless because her mother was a substance abuser and a “kook”? How many times had she felt like less than nothing because her clothes came from the Salvation Army and Goodwill when all her classmates wore, if not the best gear, then gear that had been bought specifically for them first, and not castoffs from so many strangers? How many times had she had to listen to her dad’s lame excuses about her mother’s prolonged and sudden absences, holding her tongue when she knew the unfortunate truth? How many times had she had to fight for her mother’s honor, even when her mother could have given a flying kitty about what people thought of her?

If there was one thing that she had admired about her mother it was her ability to block out what people thought of her, her carefree and eccentric ways. Of course, Denise could probably attribute most of that carefree attitude to her illness, but if Tabitha could have had just one-tenth of that ability, that one symptom of her mother’s malady, she thought she might have been a much happier kid growing up.

But it just wasn’t in her not to care. She cared about everything and everyone too damn much, though she knew she gave off the air that she didn’t.

82

Beneath the Surface

Case and point, Eric probably thought she hated his guts for seducing her their last time together when what she actually felt was…hell, she still wasn’t sure exactly what she felt about that evening.

She knew for sure that she’d never felt more free and alive than the way he’d made her feel in that fitting room and against that tree, and Christ, it must have been something for her to be thinking about it weeks later!

She needed to get a life is what she needed, rather than moping around about something she couldn’t have, some
one
she had thrown away simply because she was worried about what someone other than herself would think if she had accepted Eric’s offering.

“You can run from me, Tabby, but you can’t run from yourself,” he’d said before bending his head to plant a kiss on her lips and turning to leave.

Tabitha stood at the top of her front stairs, hands balled into fists at her sides, wanting to punch him as she called, “Hey, Vega!”

He paused on the bottom step, holding onto the newel as he turned and grinned up at her.

“Don’t call me Tabby.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that?”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“I know you, Tabitha.”

He’d sounded so sure of himself, so sure of her, that he almost had her believing him, believing that he knew her better than she knew herself.

Well, damn it, he didn’t know her! He knew a facsimile of what she presented to the world, and as far as Tabitha was concerned, that was all he’d ever know. All he deserved to know. All anyone deserved to know.

Tabitha slid her mouse across the pad aimlessly, staring at her computer monitor and not seeing the words on the screen, seeing only his face.

Sure, she’d succeeded in staying away from him physically, but what good did that do her when everywhere she turned the image of him haunted her, reminding her of how much she’d enjoyed his touches; reminding her of how badly her body had betrayed her?

She stared at the screen, determined to respond to at least a few pieces of e-mail before she left the office for another shopping trip for the unforgettable and seductive Eric. She already had several outfits mentally picked out, could just see him in them, and hated herself for looking forward to watching him model for her again.

Someone knocked on her door and Tabitha popped up her head as Cynthia cracked the door and peeked in. She had a chagrined look on her face that immediately put Tabitha on guard. What had that man done now, three thousand miles away, no less?

“What is it, Cynthia?”

83

Gracie C. McKeever

Her assistant shrugged and opened the door further to show the bouquet of red roses in a vase she had behind her back. “These came for you, so I signed for them.” She walked the vase over and set it on Tabitha’s desk. “They’re from—”

“Yeah, I kinda figured they were.”

Cynthia at least had the decency to cover her mouth with a palm as she chuckled.

“He is persistent,” she murmured.

“As acid reflux, and just as enjoyable.”

Cynthia just smiled, her look doubtful as Tabitha leaned across the desk to sniff the roses and glance at the message on the card:
I saw these and they reminded me of
you…velvety and thorny.

Oh, he was good, a charmer until the very end.

“You’re going to keep them, aren’t you?”

“I see no reason to waste perfectly beautiful flowers.”

“You want me to send him an official thank you note?”

“Etiquette would have us do no less.”

Cynthia looked at her hopefully. “Any special message you want me to add?”

Like he’d get it? He hadn’t so far, so why bother? Tabitha grinned as she tapped the card against her bottom lip. “Just a simple thank you for the flowers will do.” Let him figure out the rest. That his romantic ploys were not going to work, that he and she were client and personal shopper, nothing more, and would never be anything more.

She glanced up when Cynthia hadn’t left, arched a brow. “Anything else?”

“Uh, no, I guess not.”

“Thanks, Cyn.” She watched her assistant leave and closed the door before finally throwing herself into her work on the screen, suddenly feeling energized and rejuvenated.

* * * *

She had to admit, she had more fun shopping for Eric though, probably because the end result would be to see him in the clothes and be at the receiving end of his appreciation and excited reactions.

Most of her other clients were well established and staid in their tastes. They knew exactly what they wanted and what they wanted it for. Tabitha’s main job with them was essentially to do time-consuming legwork.

With Eric she was working with a blank slate, had the freedom to stretch her creative muscles, using her unique gift and “eye” for the art of dressing well to pick out what she knew would look good on him. She got to do what she had originally gotten into the business for—work with a client to define and refine his or her image.

84

Beneath the Surface

Before Eric, she hated to admit it, her job had become routine, something she did to pay the bills, something she did because she’d been doing it so long. Shopping for Eric though, made her see things in a new light, everything fresh and fun, daring and dangerous…like the man.

God she hated him! And she wanted him so bad it hurt to think about him.

Arriving home, Tabitha retrieved her mail out of the lobby mailbox and headed up the stairs, antennae going up when she caught sight of a vaguely familiar surname in the return address area of something looking suspiciously like an invitation.

If this was another one of his tricks…Tabitha put a fingernail under the flap and slit the envelope open. She’d been right. It was an invitation from Angela Calminetti to a surprise birthday party, and the guest of honor was, guess who? None other than Eric.

Shit.

She couldn’t not go. That would be rude. Knowing Angela from just their one meeting at the sidewalk café with Evelyn, his oldest sister wouldn’t take no for an answer, business relationship or not.