Driving Her Crazy (15 page)

Sadie stood in front of a photo of emus mid-dash across a western sky. The bounce of their soft feathers and the dust kicking up around their powerful legs gave the photograph a sense of motion and urgency. She remembered him taking the pictures. Telling her about his grandfather.

She studied it for a while as she waited for the crowd to clear from around the next piece. She’d been surreptitiously looking for him but he’d obviously been true to his word.

‘Oh, my God.’

Sadie turned at the urgent tug on her arm administered by Leila. She wasn’t too concerned though—Leila had been goggle-eyed all night, each photograph seemingly more fantastical through her rose-coloured glasses than the last.

‘Sadie, is that you?’

Sadie frowned at her friend’s face, then looked up at the photograph that had everyone’s interest. It took a few seconds to compute what she was looking at and then everything inside her seemed to crash to a halt.

Her brain synapses. Her cellular metabolism.

The beat of her heart, the breath in her lungs.

It was the one he’d taken of her the night of the campfire. Where she’d stood and he’d called her name and she had looked back over her shoulder at him. It was a stunningly visual shot. Her face in shadow, her semi-naked body silhouetted in soft yellow light against a starry sky.

The caption read—
Sadie In The Sky With Diamonds.

Beside it, enlarged and framed, was her sketch. The byline proclaiming her as the artist.

When she’d got home from Darwin she’d realised she’d left her sketch book in his car but hadn’t bothered to contact him about it. A part of her had wanted him to have it, to have a tangible reminder of what they’d shared—
emotionally,
not physically.

Sadie could feel heat rising in her cheeks as she looked at it now. How could he share something so personal? How could he?

She’d believed him when he’d told her how very much he hadn’t wanted
Mortality
to be shared. Had he not thought she’d feel the same way about this?

‘You like?’

Sadie started at the oh-so-familiar tone. She turned to find him standing behind her, his mouth, beautiful as ever, so very, very close.

Her heart started again at the sight of him. It had been
so
long and he looked
so
good. Just as she remembered from the last long six months of thinking about him. Of sketching him.

Only better.

The dark suit blunted his
he-man
edge to a different kind of sexy and her belly clenched.

But it didn’t change what he’d done or the sudden block of emotion welling in her chest. Her heart pounded in her ears as she shook her head. ‘How could you?’ she whispered, then pushed past him.

Away, she had to get away.

It was much harder for Kent to make his escape from the gallery than it had been for Sadie. He’d just caught a glimpse of her climbing into a taxi before someone blocked his view and it had been another twenty minutes before he’d managed to get away.

He guessed running out on your own exhibition was pretty poor form, but he’d only been there tonight hoping she’d show up.

And now she was gone, he didn’t want to be there either.

He just wanted to be with her.

Luckily he knew the way to her flat and by the time he’d parked an hour had elapsed since she’d run from him.

‘Sadie,’ he called, knocking on her door. ‘I know you’re in there. Open up!’

Sadie, sitting in her daggy track pants and shirt, jumped at the harsh command. Her hand shook as she raised the glass of red wine to her lips.

Kent belted louder this time. ‘I’m going to knock all night if I have to, Sadie!’

Sadie glared at the door. It was tempting to let him go for it. Mrs Arbuthnot from next door called the police if a cat meowed too loudly outside her door at night.

But she
was
pretty mad at him. And she did need to talk to him about pulling the photo from the exhibition. She stormed over to the door and pulled it open. ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve,’ she said, turning on her heel and stomping back into the lounge room, leaving him standing on the doorstep.

Kent shut the door after him and followed her at a more sedate pace, finding her waiting for him, arms crossed, grey eyes stormy, spoiling for a fight.

‘I want it pulled,’ she said straight up.

‘Sadie—’

‘No. You were supposed to delete those pictures. I did not give you my permission to use a
half-naked
picture of me in an exhibition that thousands of people will see.’

Kent undid his jacket buttons and thrust his hands on his hips. ‘But a fully naked portrait is perfectly fine?’

‘What other ones have you used?’ she demanded, ignoring his jibe. The portraits were consensual and he knew it. ‘Have you uploaded them somewhere? Damn it, Kent, they’re private and I want them back.’ The words were familiar and a thought suddenly hit her. ‘Oh, my God, that’s what this is about, isn’t it? This is payback for that stuff I wrote. For the last time, Kent, it
was not
a story!’

‘Sadie,’ Kent said, holding up a placating hand, trying not to be turned on by how gorgeous she was all het up, her hair flying around her head, her eyes burning, her chest rising and falling in an agitated rhythm.

‘They’re burned to a disc. I kept meaning to send them to you but I couldn’t bring myself to part with them. I wouldn’t share them with anyone.’

Sadie snorted. ‘Just half of Sydney!’

‘It’s one photo, Sadie. No one knows it’s you.’

‘
I
know it’s me!’ she snapped. ‘And let’s not even mention the fact that you reproduced and displayed
my
artwork, without
my
permission!’

‘The two pieces belong together.’

Sadie gaped. He didn’t even look a little contrite, standing in her lounge room oozing sex and confidence in his important artist suit. She hadn’t really expected to see him tonight and she resented how damn good he looked.

And how her traitorous body didn’t seem to care that he’d just exposed something between them that had been intimate and private. He might as well have stripped her naked in front of everyone at the gallery.

‘Why?’ she demanded.

‘Because it’s a stunning image. The pick of all the photos I took on our road trip. Maybe one of the best of my career. And to apologise.’

Sadie blinked. ‘Apologise?’

‘For being such a prat in Darwin.’

‘By being an even bigger prat now?’ She gaped.

Kent saw the two spots of colour up high on her cheekbones and wanted to drag her into his arms so badly he had to grind his feet into the floor to stop himself from following through.

Sadie didn’t look as if she was quite there yet.

He took a steadying breath. ‘If you don’t like it I’ll have it withdrawn.’

Sadie sat down and took a gulp of her wine. She needed fortification. ‘It’s got nothing to do with not liking it,’ she said slowly through clenched teeth.

‘Okay,’ he said, hands still on his hips as he looked down at her. ‘Explain it to me. It’s not like you haven’t posed nude before, Sadie.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with that.’ She glared up at him. ‘That picture represents a very personal moment you and I shared. And I know you’re Mr I-don’t-need-anybody and no doubt
he-men
pander to women with poor self-image every day, but it means something to me. I feel about it the way you feel about
Mortality.
That photo is an intensely private moment. Not for public viewing. It’s not my body I want to protect. It’s the moment.’

Kent sat down on the coffee table behind him, his legs stretching out, almost touching hers. He was encouraged when she didn’t attempt to move away. ‘I’ll have it withdrawn first thing tomorrow,’ he murmured.

Sadie looked into the multi-hues of brown that made up his eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Kent nodded, his heart thudding as her gaze locked with his. ‘It’s good to see you, Sadie Bliss.’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t.’

He half smiled. ‘Don’t what?’

‘I’m not going to fall into bed with you because you turn up on my doorstep all sexy and apologetic. I’m still mad.’

He chuckled then. ‘I missed you.’

Sadie sipped at her wine, determined not to give him an inch. ‘Yeh, well, I haven’t missed you,’ she lied.

‘I’ve thought about you every day, Sadie. And I’ve pretended that’s a lot of things—fond memories, lust, friendship—but I saw you tonight and I knew it was more than that.’ He dropped his gaze to her full mouth that had parted as she listened. He wanted to kiss her so badly he could almost taste her. ‘You’re under my skin, Sadie Bliss.’

Sadie’s internal muscles undulated deep down inside her at his words and his sudden intense look. It would be so easy to just throw caution to the wind and hurl herself at him, but after six months apart she knew two things.

She was head first in love with him. And the Kent she knew couldn’t handle that.

‘I’m back at art school,’ she said as his gaze returned to her face. ‘I’m loving it. For the first time in my life I really know what I want to do. I’m actually my own person. I love you, Kent. I think I have from the moment you let me drive the Land Rover.’

She paused. Her pulse was beating triple time but the admission had been surprisingly easy to make.

‘But I can’t take on your stuff. I need to be in a relationship where I can talk with the other person, where no subject is off limits, no words are left unsaid. Where I can talk whenever I want to. I have a lot to say.’ She smiled at her own joke. ‘I’m prepared to do some hard yards but I need to know that you’re going to meet me halfway.’

Kent knew what she was saying was true. ‘How did you get to be so wise so young?’ he asked.

Sadie smiled around her wine glass. ‘Misspent youth.’

Kent placed his hands on his knees. ‘I’ve been seeing a psychologist for the last four months. It’s been...hard at times. But it’s helped. I’ve started to write a memoir about the time I was embedded. I even went on a commercial flight just recently. The dream doesn’t come so much any more.’

He paused. Smiled at her. ‘Now all I usually dream about is you.’ She smiled back at him and he felt encouraged. ‘I can’t promise I’m going to be happiness and light twenty-four seven but my life didn’t make sense for a long time and then you came along and, briefly, it did. I don’t know how our future is going to pan out, Sadie—I’m so happy that you’re pursuing your art dream and at some stage I’m going to want to take another overseas assignment—but I know that whatever happens I want you in it. I love you, Sadie.’

Sadie considered him over the rim of the glass, her heart beating frantically at words that were like music to her ears. The man who had taught her to embrace who she was, to glory in it, was telling her he loved her.

‘That’s all I need,’ she murmured.

Kent held her gaze. He wasn’t sure what that meant. Or whose move it was.

Sadie sat forward, placing her wine glass on the table beside him. ‘So,’ she said, resting her bent elbow on her knee and propping her chin on her palm, ‘these dreams? Do I have my clothes on?’

Okay, Sadie’s move
. He grinned. ‘Not often.’

‘Are they...graphic?’

Kent nodded. ‘Usually.’

She reached for his tie and started to untie the knot. ‘I think you’re going to have to demonstrate,’ she murmured.

Kent nuzzled her temple, her ear, her neck. ‘I’m good at demonstrating.’

Sadie slid the tie out from the collar with a loud zip. She stood, his tie dangling from her finger. ‘Well come on then, let’s get started.’

She held out her hand and he took it.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
The Taming of a Wild Child
by Kimberly Lang.

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ONE

The only thing worse than waking up naked in a strange bed was realizing there was someone else sleeping in the bed, too.

Someone male.

The bright light on the other side of her eyelids sent pain streaking through Lorelei LaBlanc's head as she tried to piece together exactly what the hell was going on...and who she'd just spent the night with.

She forced herself to lie still; jumping right up might wake her companion, and she didn't want to get straight into a confrontation before she had a handle on things.

Think, Lorelei, think.

She had a hangover that would slay a mule, and it hurt to think. How much champagne had she consumed in the end?

Connor and Vivi's wedding had gone off without a hitch; all of the four hundred guests had had a fabulous time. The church had never looked better, and the hotel had outdone itself with both the decor and the food. She'd been at the head table for dinner, but once the dancing had begun and the champagne had really started flowing... Well, that was where things began to get a little fuzzy. She remembered having a small, good-natured disagreement with Donovan St. James over...

Her eyes flew open.

Oh. My. God.

Bits and pieces of the night before came rushing at her with distressing speed and clarity.

Carefully, so as not to aggravate her hangover, she rolled slowly to her other side. Sure enough, Donovan lay there on his back, bare-chested, with only a sheet covering his hips and one leg. His hands were stacked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.

She swore under her breath.

“Right there with you, Princess.”

The amused sigh in Donovan's voice put her nerves on edge. “What the hell happened last night?”

He had the gall to look pointedly at the tangled sheets—which she was currently trying to pull over herself in a belated attempt at modesty—and raise an eyebrow. She really wasn't ready to go to the whole
we had sex
bit just yet. She cleared her throat. “I mean, how?
Why?
”

“How? Buckets of champagne. And there were tequila shots involved. As for why...” He shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”

Tequila explained a lot. Jose Cuervo was
not
her friend.
I've done some stupid stuff in my life, but this? With Donovan St. James? And now?
A chill ran down her spine. If she'd
publicly
done something... Oh, her family was really going to kill her this time. Her sister would be first in line.

“Please just tell me we didn't make a scene at the reception,” she whispered.

“I don't think so. It's a little blurry, but I think the reception was pretty much over before...”

That alleviated a bit of her immediate worry; being stupid wasn't quite so bad as long as there wasn't an audience for the stupidity. Now, though, she had to face the fact she'd had sex with Donovan St. James.

No red-blooded woman would question her taste. Donovan had poster-boy good looks: deep green eyes, inky black hair with a slight wave that he wore long enough to look a little dangerous, and skin the color of the café au lait she desperately needed to combat this monster hangover. The high cheekbones and square jaw now shadowed with dark stubble spoke to a heritage as mixed as New Orleans itself—if one could pick the best bits and discard the rest.

Donovan definitely rated high on the
hummina
scale. Good looks, though, were pretty much all he had going for him, in her opinion. Why had he even been invited to the wedding? It must have been a professional or courtesy invite. At least a hundred of the guests had fallen into that category. But the St. James family was the worst kind of nouveau riche
—
using money to buy influence and respectability—and if Donovan had any class at all, he'd have RSVP'd
no
to what had obviously only been a polite gesture.

But money couldn't buy class, that was for sure.

And she'd
slept
with him. She must have reached an astonishingly new level of intoxication to completely lose all her self-respect.
I am never drinking again.

“Oh, don't look at me like that, Lorelei. I'm not real keen on this new development, either.”

Donovan sat up—slowly, she noted, implying his hangover was equally as miserable as hers—and reached for his clothes. Lorelei averted her eyes, but not before she got a good long look at broad shoulders, a trim waist and a very nice, very firm butt. Donovan ticked up another notch on that
hummina
scale before she noticed the red claw marks marring his back.

She'd enjoyed herself, it seemed. Pity she didn't have a better recollection of what had led to those marks. Although she felt like hell, underneath the hangover was a pleasant muscle soreness that spoke to a good time.

The silence felt awkward and uncomfortable. Despite her reputation, Lorelei wasn't an expert on morning-after protocols, but she'd brazen through this somehow. Clutching the sheet to her breasts, she let it trail behind her as she grabbed her dress off the floor and headed for the bathroom. She thought she might have heard a sigh as the door closed behind her.

The sight in the mirror was not pretty. Lorelei splashed water on her face and tried to wipe away the worst of the mascara circles under her eyes. Then she finger-combed her hair until it didn't look quite so wild and made use of the mini-bottle of mouthwash provided by the hotel. Feeling marginally human, she righted her dress and slipped into it.

She could only hope that no one would see her heading back to her room as nothing said
night of debauchery
quite like wearing a cocktail dress before breakfast. Six months of very hard work could be shot all to hell.

Of course she had a much more pressing—and disturbing—problem right outside that door which she had to deal with first.

“Okay,” she said to her reflection, “you need a dignified exit.” Taking a deep breath, she opened the bathroom door.

Donovan stood by the window, looking out over Canal Street, but he turned once he heard the door open. He'd pulled on a pair of jeans—ending up in your own hotel room instead of someone else's had perks, like clothes—but he'd stopped before adding a shirt. Lorelei had a hard time keeping her eyes from wandering as he wordlessly handed her a bottle of water. She nodded her thanks.

“There's aspirin, too,” he said, dodging past her into the bathroom and returning with a bottle. “Care for a couple?”

He shook the bottle, causing her head to throb, and she was pleased to see him wince at the noise, as well.

Lorelei felt like she was in a bad movie. “Look, I think we would both agree that last night should not have happened.”

“That's for sure.”

She stamped down the remark she wanted to make at that insult.
Dignity.
“So we'll just pretend it didn't happen. I won't mention it to anyone and you won't write about it, okay?”

From the look on Donovan's face, he didn't like the implication, and Lorelei worried that she might have made a tactical error. Donovan had turned his high-school hobby of flaying people alive for sport into a profitable career. He destroyed careers, lives, families. Rumor had it that he was looking for another big story. People tried to avoid pinging onto his radar screen; no one with a shred of self-preservation would bait him intentionally.

“I limit myself to topics of public interest, and even if this fit the definition—which it doesn't—it's not something—
wasn't
anything—to brag about.”

Dignity be damned. She was
not
letting that slide by unchallenged. “I wouldn't know. Must not have been that memorable an experience.”

“Then forgetting it happened at all won't be a problem for you.”

“No, it won't.” That was a lie, but Donovan had no way of knowing better, so it was a safe lie. And it allowed her to hold her head up as she gathered the rest of her things.

Her small purse was upside down by the door, her phone, lipstick and room key spilling out. Not far from that was one of her shoes, then Donovan's tie and shoes, then her other shoe. It was a breadcrumb trail of shame that led straight to the king-size bed.

Lord, was there anything less dignified than searching for your underwear?
She picked up Donovan's jacket and gave it a shake. Nothing. Dropping to her knees, she looked under the bed. She found an empty condom wrapper, alleviating one of her fears, but finding two more had her cringing.

No sign of her underwear, though.

“If you're looking for these...” Donovan drawled. She looked up to see him dangling her panties from one finger. She bit her tongue and settled for shooting him a dirty look as she jerked them from his hand and tucked them into her purse. The addition of the undergarment, as tiny as it was, was too much for the little bag, and it refused to close. Heat flushing her face, Lorelei had no choice but to take the extra time to put them on.

Funnily enough, she felt a little less flustered once she had.
Underwear was a form of armor, it seemed.

Squaring her shoulders, she went to the door and examined the fire-safety map posted there. According to the red
X
marking her location as room 712, she could easily get to the fire stairs, go down one floor and she'd come out only a few doors away from her own room.
Excellent.
The chances of running into someone she knew had just decreased exponentially.
Something
might actually go her way this morning.

“Planning your escape route?”

She turned to see Donovan stacking the pillows on the bed into a comfortable back-prop, and then reclining, remote control in hand. He wasn't even looking at her, and, if anything, he now sounded bored. Obviously this was not an out-of-the-ordinary morning for him.
Why am I not surprised?

“Exactly. Goodbye, Donovan. I hope I don't see you again for a very long time.”

She didn't wait for his reply. Cracking the door, she peeked into the hall and found it empty. With at least a hundred of last night's guests having taken advantage of the location to enjoy Connor and Vivi's open bar, she just needed her luck to hold for a few minutes. The quick dash to the stairwell was no problem, and her stiletto heels clacked on the stairs as she moved as fast as possible in the tight skirt. At the door to the sixth floor she paused, took out her room key, and took a deep breath. Another peek showed two people in the hall, but neither of them looked familiar. Just to be safe, she waited until they were at the elevators before making the last break for her door.

Only to find that her stupid key didn't work.

Donovan was relieved Lorelei had left in a huff. He'd been awake for about fifteen minutes before her, and he'd spent that time anticipating a number of equally horrific and awkward scenarios.

But Lorelei had gone straight to indignation and huff—which, in this case, had been more than he'd dared hope for.

Of all the women who'd attended what was arguably the biggest society wedding of the decade, he'd managed to hook up with Lorelei LaBlanc. He'd known both Connor and Vivi at least tangentially since high school and, while they might not be close friends or anything, they were business associates and often traveled in the same social circles now.

He might be considered an interloper by some in those social circles, since his blood wasn't quite as blue as theirs, but no one had the courage to say that to his face anymore. And, while he might not have generations of Old South manners ingrained into him, even
he
knew it was bad form to bed the sister of the bride after the reception.

Yeah, pretending it had never happened was an excellent idea.

Another excellent idea was liberal quantities of aspirin and coffee until he felt human again. That might take days.

The little two-cup coffeemaker on the desk didn't have the best quality coffee included, but it would do for now. He set it to start and the smell of coffee soon filled the room.

The jackhammering behind his eyes had been honestly earned. He'd lost count of the tequila shots, but there might have been a bet involved about who could drink who under the table. He and Lorelei had never been friends, never hung out together, so how they'd got to that point last night was a mystery.

Lorelei had been a couple of years or so behind him in school—and they certainly hadn't traveled in the same circles in those days. St. Katharine's Prep was the school of choice for New Orleans's best families. A safe haven for their precious children from the riff-raff of society, with only a couple of charity-case scholarship students as a nod to “diversity.” The Lorelei he remembered had been spoiled, narcissistic and stuck up. Even when he'd morphed from one of those scholarship students to the son of a major donor by his senior year, Lorelei hadn't deigned to give him the time of day.

Oddly, he respected her for
that.
She might be shallow, but she'd proved herself to have slightly more depth than most of her socialite friends when the sudden influx of money into his family's bank account hadn't changed her attitude toward him at all.

Tequila had, though.

He had a few hours before checkout, and the need for a nap was nearly overwhelming, but if he headed on home he could nap in his own bed—a bed that did not now carry the scent of Lorelei's perfume. He might not remember exactly everything that happened last night, but he remembered enough that the light fragrance sent a stab of pure desire through him and made the scratch marks on his back burn. Lorelei certainly had stamina.

He turned on the TV for background noise and picked a news station to listen to while he waited on the coffee. He still had to decide on a topic for Monday's column, and...

The phone rang. Not his phone, but the hotel's phone. Who would be calling him here? “Hello?”