Falling Fast (3 page)

As she slid into the booth, she smiled up at him and promptly stole his breath away, again. He felt like a pimply teenager with her — his mind was blank save the thoughts of how stunning she was.

Before he could get his thoughts in any sort of working order, the bartender walked up and said, “Look at you lass. What have you done to yourself?”

Alexa grimaced. “It’s a long story. I look awful don’t I?”

The bartender cocked his head to one side and rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “You’re still passable.” Winking at Brandon he said, “What will you and your friend here be havin’?”

“Cider and rings for me,” Alexa replied.

Brandon answered, “Pale ale,” and the bartender nodded and headed back to the bar.

Finally finding his tongue, Brandon said, “Do you like working here?”

Alexa nodded. “Yeah, there are a bunch of really cool regulars. But I’ve recently cut my hours back so that I can put more time into my other job.”

“What’s that?” Brandon asked as the bartender dropped off their drinks and rings.

“I’m a writer,” Alexa said around a mouthful of fried onions.

“Really?” Brandon was impressed. She had beauty and brains.

Alexa gave him a half smile and washed her mouthful down with a large swig of peach cider. “Well, practically. I work for a magazine and after a year of proofing and editing I just got my first big story today!”

There was no mistaking the pride in her eyes. Brandon desperately wanted to do something that would make her eyes light up like that.

“Congrats! What’s the story?”

Her eyes twinkled as she said, “It’s top secret.”

Brandon grinned. “I’ll figure out a way to get it out of you eventually. I’ve just got to find your weak spot first.”

* * *

Alexa looked into his eyes and panicked. She was in major trouble if he had figured out what she knew after only fifteen minutes.

He was her weak spot.

All he would have to say was, “Tell me all about your story and then I’ll make mad, passionate love to you,” and she would have folded. Especially when she had a feeling the couple of guys she'd had sex with in college wouldn't even count after Brandon.

Her mouth suddenly dry as a desert, she put her cider to her lips and drained the rest of her glass.

Disgusted, she put her glass back on the table. She had never been reduced to such a pathetic mess before in the presence of a guy. Not since the 5th grade when Joey stopped her on the playground to ask for his basketball back had she felt so weak at the knees.

Weak at the knees? For god’s sake, she was sitting down. How could she possibly know how her knees were feeling? With as little outward movement as possible she stretched her legs out underneath the table.

Damn. She was a little jelly-like right around her knees, as it turned out. What in the heck was she going to do to get herself out of this pathetic mess?

Alexa certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight and she sure as hell didn’t believe in trusting a man to take care of her. She’d seen how those false beliefs had wrecked her mother and sister over the years, leading them towards new haircuts, face lifts, and breast implants in the hopes that they could make themselves ‘better’ for the opposite sex, and somehow more worthwhile.

Alexa only believed in what she could see as fact, preferably in print. She had read
The
Beauty Myth
twice, so she knew what she was up against.

Her hormones had turned traitorously girly on her, just like her unrecognizable hair color and made up face. Alexa knew she had to get out of the bar, and fast, otherwise she was bound to lose all sense of herself. She flat out refused to let that happen, particularly as she was at the tail end of a very long day of selling out for a story.

She felt inexplicably weary, even though she had done nothing more strenuous than lay around and be plucked, colored, cut, and painted. More than anything, she wanted to take a long hot bath, clean off the goop on her body, and remind herself of all the good reasons she had for what she was doing.

Frankly, even being in the same room with — oh god, she was obsessing about a guy who hadn’t even told her his name, for crying out loud, she was weaker than she thought — this gorgeous stranger, was jumbling up her insides. If she didn’t leave soon, she might realize her worst fear.

She might actually throw herself at a guy.

Alexa pulled out a $10 Joe from her back pocket and threw it on the table. Scooting over to slide out of the booth, she said, “I’ve got to get going. Thanks for the beer.”

Brandon stared at her in disbelief. “You’re leaving?”

Alexa wanted to run out of the bar without answering. Instead she was going to give this guy some lame excuse because she didn’t have the nerve to say,
“Stop looking at me like I’m the
answer to all of your prayers. I’m not that kind of girl, and I never will be. Not even for you, no
matter how gorgeous you are.”

She tried to project an air of confidence, sure she was failing miserably. “Actually, I just remembered I’m supposed to be somewhere else right now. Bye.” She turned and scurried out of the bar and away from him.

It wasn’t until she was several blocks away that she realized she had left her second chili dog in the booth. But since she had also lost her appetite, it didn’t really matter.

She had lost more than just her appetite, though. She had lost the ability to control her own life. In only twenty-four hours, everything had gone from perfectly normal to horribly unfamiliar. She dreaded the morning to come at Nordstrom’s more than ever. Once they dressed her up like a doll, what would happen to her? Would she end up married with a house in the suburbs and 2.4 kids?

She sure as hell hoped not.

Alexa whipped her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Jared?”

“Hey what’s up?”

Alexa smiled. Then, remembering her predicament, her smile turned into a frown. “The worst thing in the world has happened to me.”

“Did you just find out that you weren’t adopted after all?” Jared asked, his voice thick with mock-shock. “Whatever it is, just don’t tell me that Mel is actually your sister by blood. I don’t think I can take it.”

Even in her funk, Jared could make her laugh. “No. It’s not that bad, I guess,” she said, keeping their fifteen year running joke going about how she
had
to have been adopted with a gotta-be-glam mom like Sophie and an all-woman-all-the-time sister like Melanie. “But it’s pretty damn bad.” She sighed loudly into the phone. “Jane’s given me my first cover story.”

Jared whooped so loud that Alexa had to pull the phone back from her ear. “Alexa, you rock!”

“I wish,” Alexa muttered.

“I don’t get it? What’s the problem?”

“The problem,” she said, spitting each word out one at a time, “is that I am officially pretty now.” She felt a twinge of guilt about leaving the hunky smashed chili dog guy off of her list of complaints, but she really wasn’t up to dealing with his ridiculous out-of-the-blue lustful urges right now. “I’m going undercover on this dating show and Jane sent me to a,” she lowered her voice and glanced around her to make sure no one was listening, “
spa.
”

Jared gasped and she continued. “I’ve been subjected to every form of torture imaginable. Hot wax, sharp scissors.
Makeup!
”

“Oh shit,” Jared said, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “That’s bad. That’s real bad.”

Alexa groaned. “You’re telling me.”

“You’d better come over so that you can tell me the whole sordid tale,” Jared said sympathetically, his voice fairly dripping with curiosity.

“Give me five,” Alexa said as she clicked her cell phone shut. Jared didn’t have any idea just how close he was to the truth. Sordid disaster described her situation perfectly. Especially since she couldn’t get
his
face out of her head, no matter how many blocks she put between her and the bar, where she had just left him like the wimp that she was.

* * *

Brandon sat in front of his half-drunk glass of beer and stared at the newly vacated seat across from him in the booth. He had no idea why she had fled the bar out of the blue like that.

It couldn’t have been anything he had said, could it? After all, they were barely getting to know each other. And he didn’t think he had done anything to offend her. Although, according to all of his ex-girlfriends, he was a totally clueless male, so maybe he had.

To top it all off, he didn’t even know her name. He thought about asking the bartender for it, but then what? He had signed a contract that stated, quite clearly, that he had to meet and marry a virtual stranger in two weeks. Brandon could just see it all unfolding; if he did get her name and ask her out, she would hate him when she found out he had known all along that he was already taken — by a damn TV show of all things!

He wondered if he should call the whole thing off. After all, it had been less than twelve hours since he had signed away his future, and the lawyers probably couldn’t hurt him too bad.

He took a large swig of beer, mulling it over.

Yes, that was what he’d do! He’d go by the producer’s office first thing in the morning and say that he had thought it over and couldn’t go through with being Mr. Right after all. He’d explain that he had just filled out the application on a whim, that they’d surely be able to find a better Mr. Right. Then, with a clear conscience he’d come back to the bar and find out her name.

Once they’d been together for a while he’d tell her all about it and they’d have a good laugh about the whole thing.

Deep in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the bartender coming over to the booth, until he was standing there looking down at him, with, if Brandon wasn’t mistaken, traces of pity in his eyes.

“You need a refill?”

The bartender’s words doused cold beer all over Brandon’s new plan.

As he shook his head and the bartender walked away, he realized that even if he were a free man, she probably wouldn’t want to go out with him anyway. He had to face facts. If the speed with which she left him sitting in the bar was any indication, not only was she not the least bit interested in seeing him, she was dying to get away from him.

Brandon downed the last of his beer and got up with a sigh. No wonder he had signed the contract for the show. At the least, being the eligible bachelor on
Falling For Mr. Right
would be an easy, painless way to find a wife.

Which was a good thing, in view of the fact that he had clearly lost his touch.

* * *

By 2am, Brandon had his fill of counting cracks on the ceiling. Heading out to the open kitchen in his loft, he grabbed a box of Frosted Flakes off of the stainless steel cabinets and dumped the cereal into a big white bowl. Sloshing milk over it, he dug in his spoon and looked at the crumpled up piece of paper on the butcher-block island.

“I'd better fill the stupid questionnaire out, or they’ll find me thirty one-legged, mustached women,” he muttered. Grabbing a pen from a cup next to the telephone he reached for the paper and smoothed it out.

What are three adjectives that describe your ideal woman?

Brandon rolled his eyes. “Figures that these questions are stupid beyond belief.”

His words echoed off of the huge expanse of cream walls, wood-plank flooring, and high ceiling above his head. Brandon was sorely tempted to toss the questionnaire into the fireplace.

Tapping the pen against his head for a few seconds, he couldn’t help but be tormented by the image of the woman who had run out on him earlier that evening.

“She was amazing,” he said. “She was gorgeous, not to mention witty and self-confident.” “What the heck,” he said, writing
Witty
and
Self-Confident
down on the questionnaire, then added,
Sexy as hell.

Brandon smiled. Suddenly, filling out the asinine list of questions didn’t seem quite so difficult. All he had to do was conjure up the delectable vision of the girl he had fallen for on the sidewalk, with her long legs, her hazel eyes, her soft brown-black hair, and his answers were clear as a bell.

Alexa woke up just in time to meet with the personal shopper. Dragging herself in and out of the shower, she threw on jeans, a well-worn t-shirt, and tennis shoes and caught the bus outside of her apartment building.

Even though she was heading off to be tortured by fashion and clothes, she still enjoyed the ride to Union Square. Plenty of interesting people got on and off the bus at every stop, and Alexa’s brain went into overdrive as she thought up a story to fit each person.

The teenager in private school clothes was sneaking away from her Catholic School to meet her boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks.

The middle-aged woman had finally gotten up the courage to leave her husband and kids to pursue her dream of painting in Italy.

The old man had lost his fortune in the 20’s stock market crash and never quite recovered from the shock, so he’d lived in poverty ever since.

What about me, she wondered. What would my story be if I saw myself? Twenty-something girl going shopping at Nordstrom, she thought, pleased that she could still laugh at herself, considering all of the stress she was under.

The bus dropped her off in front of the huge department store and Alexa felt nauseous. “I have to go in there?” she asked herself apprehensively. Deciding she was no coward, she squared her shoulders and walked inside the large glass doors.

She hadn’t been inside a department store since her mother had forced her to go on one last, awful shopping trip when she turned sixteen. In her ten year absence, shopping centers had grown bigger and shinier. By the time she found the right corner of the store, she was out of breath and out of patience.

Stopping in front of the desk marked
Personal Shopper
, she propped her elbow up on the high counter. “I’ve got an appointment at 10am.”

The woman behind the counter slowly looked her up and down. “I’ll see if Mary is ready to see you.”

Alexa tried to keep her temper reined in. “I can’t believe the way she looked at me,” she hissed to herself as the receptionist walked away. “As if I’m some vagrant who just popped in off of the street with nits in my hair.” Feeling wicked, Alexa was tempted to start picking at her head, but even she had her limits, so she forced herself to sit quietly and fold her hands in her lap as demurely as she ever had.