Icy Pretty Love (7 page)

Cohen’s face is dark. Something about tonight has ticked him the wrong way. A table over, a little girl peers at him and asks her mom something in French. Probably along the lines of
Mommy, is that man a serial killer?

At least I get the chance to make friends with LeCrue. By the end of the night he’s complimented me so many times that I get the feeling he’s trying to make a point to Cohen about how lucky he is. Either way, I’m not complaining.

“Would anyone like me to bring them anything else?” the poor waiter asks.

“The check will be fine, thank you,” says LeCrue.

“Are you sure? We have a delicious crème brule—”

“He said he wanted the check. Are you deaf or just an idiot?” snaps Cohen.

Anger lashes at the back of my neck. Enough is enough. “Don’t speak to other people like that,” I flare at him. “Apologize. Now.”

The shock around the table is palpable. People probably don’t often tell Cohen to play nice. Maybe that’s why he never does. There’s a few seconds in which my anger melts away, leaving room for the sane part of me to berate myself for losing my temper, again, to this man who I’m at the mercy of…but then he turns to the waiter.

“My apologies,” he says shortly.

You could land a commercial jet in Claude’s open mouth.

It seems a good enough note to end on as any. “I’ve had a lovely night,” I announce, standing and dropping my napkin on the table. “Thank you so much. I hope to see you all again as soon as possible.”

“I share that wish.” LeCrue kisses my hand. “Miracles don’t come along every day.”

Cohen says nothing, all the way outside into the freezing night. The car’s already waiting for us at the curb.

The doors close after us and we’re shut in again into our tiny room. Cohen lets out a breath, closes his eyes, and massages his forehead with his fingertips.

“I’m good, right?” I bounce in my seat, chipper from the wine. “If I run into LeCrue after this month is over, he’ll probably propose to me. That’d be an interesting how-we-met story, wouldn’t it?”

“He’s three times your age,” Cohen growls.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Once I had a client who was so old, the address he gave me was in a nursing home.”

That usually gets a laugh from the girls back home, but Cohen just closes his eyes briefly again.

“Right. That probably grossed you out. Sorry,” I say lightly.

“The idea disgusts me.”

“I’m a pretty disgusting girl.”

“No.” His tone is sharp. “You’re not the disgusting one.”

I’m the one who took the money afterwards, but I don’t say that. Instead I say, “So that old man and his dweeby son are the reason your dad hired me, huh? Seems like a real nice family-values kind of guy. Don’t like his son, though. I was waiting for him to chuck his wine glass at your head the whole night.”

“Could you quiet your yammering for a moment, please? I need to think.”

“Nope,” I say immediately. “You said you wanted me to be myself around you. Well, this is myself. I yammer more than a farmer who grows yams. So get used to it.”

Faint surprise—and, could it be, amusement?—flickers in his eyes. “Fair enough,” he says, with almost no vitriol. “Claude is an absolute moron. The company would burn in his hands. LeCrue knows it. He wants to sell it to me before he dies and has to leave it to Claude.”

“And Claude’s not too happy about that,” I surmise.

“I don’t understand why LeCrue is wasting time.” Cohen’s hand closes in his lap. “I could have his company off the ground in an instant. I’m intelligent. Innovative. I’m—”

“A jerk,” I finish.

He stares at me coldly. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry. You’re right. Excuse me.” I nod. “I meant to say a complete, utter, unapologetic rude jerk.”

“You’re very opinionated for someone who’s being paid six figures.”

“Your dad’s paying me, not you,” I correct. “Besides, you kind of seem like someone who could use a legitimate opinion.”

I’ve figured out what Cohen’s problem is. People are, understandably, scared of him. I’m betting people have been scared of him for a long time. And when someone is rich and powerful and also terrifying, you don’t tend to tell them they’re being a giant ass blister. And when nobody tells you you’re being a giant ass blister, you tend to go on being one until someone does.

“I’m done with this conversation.” He turns toward the window.

“But I’m not.” I wedge in close to him and stick my head in his way, so that it’s more uncomfortable for him to ignore me than not. This also has the unwelcome side effect of setting off a million tiny sexy-man-in-very-close-proximity alarm bells all over my body, but I ignore them.

“You say you don’t know why Mr. LeCrue is waiting. You act like he’s insulting you. But you know what I think? I think he doesn’t want to sell his company to a huge jerk. He’s a nice guy. He’s giving you a chance to change.” The same chance I’m going to get when this month is over. “And you’re wasting it.”

“So you want me to change.” His jaw is taut.

“You need to change, or you’re not going to get what you want.” He needs to hear it. “And you’re going to be miserable your whole life—”

“I don’t know how to change!” he says loudly.

I stop, half-expecting the divider separating us from the driver to roll down, but it doesn’t. We’re still alone in the backseat. I should be afraid, I should be recoiling the way I do whenever a man raises his voice to me. But when I reach for the fear, I don’t find it.

He doesn’t scare me.

“I know what I am. What I’m like.” His voice cracks, just slightly, but he masters it. “If I could be different, I would. Do you understand that? I’m not like you. I can’t slip on someone else’s persona like changing my clothes.”

A needle of pity wedges in my heart. I’m very familiar with that shadow in his voice, because it’s been in my heart for years. Self-loathing. At least I can escape myself by being other people. He doesn’t even have that luxury.

Stop it, Rae. Don’t you dare feel sorry for him. He has everything you’ve ever wanted, remember?

“That’s bullshit,” I say bluntly. “You can change. Anyone can change. No matter how long they’ve been…bad. No matter what their past is like.”

I have to believe that.

“Show me.”

“What?”

He turns his full gaze directly on me, and I lose myself for a brief second in those ice eyes. “Show me how to be someone else. You do it so easily. You’re getting paid enough, I might as well get some use out of you.”

“You mean like…give you niceness lessons?”

He grimaces. “I’d rather we didn’t call it that.”

“Well…” I hesitate.

“Please,” he says emotionlessly. And if I had to bet on it, I’d say it was damn near the first time that word had passed through those perfect lips.

“You’ll have to do what I say. That’s probably not something you’re used to.”

“Fine.”

“And that won’t be enough. You have to really hate your old self, want to change more than anything else in the world—”

“I want it,” he says. I can’t argue with the fire in the way he says it.

“Okay. It’s a deal.” I stick out my hand. After a second, he shakes it. Warm skin. Human skin. He’s a real person, after all. Not a monster. Not a block of ice.

“When I’m done with you, Mother Theresa’ll be jealous,” I announce. “Your boyfriend’ll thank me.”

He blinks slowly. “My what?”

Uh-oh.

“I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I just kind of accidentally figured it out. But I’d never judge you for it, I’m not that type of person—” I say in a rush.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Ah. Well, your hookups, then. Whatever your style is.”

I never expected to see utter shock on that face. “You…think I’m gay?”

Horror dawns. “You’re…not?”

And then he laughs. He breaks wide open and laughs, laughs, laughs. It comes straight from the core of him, it’s honey and warmth and deep sweetness and I could sink into it like the world’s most comfortable bed, wrap myself up in it like a quilt.

I love the sound of his laugh.

When he finally finishes, there are tears in the corners of his eyes. He catches his breath gasp by gasp. “No, I’m definitely not gay…why are you staring at me?”

“I just realized you really are human, that’s all.”

He wipes his eyes. “What did you think I was? Besides gay?”

“A robot, maybe. Or a vampire. Or a vampire robot from space.”

“I am unfortunately one hundred percent human.”

“Why unfortunately?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Do I really have to answer that?”

No. No, he doesn’t. Being human kind of sucks. I know that better than anyone.

And, as the car moves on, I’m struck by one question—

If he’s not gay, what the hell was Baldy getting so worked up about?

~5~

RG: So I have a question.

Sam: Ode to joy.

RG: If someone were to teach you how to be a nice person, how would you want them to go about it?

Sam: Is this about that guy again?

RG: Maaaaybe.

Sam: One wrong number text and suddenly I’m your personal authority on some guy I’ve never met.

RG: You probably know him as well as anyone else does.

Sam: I reiterate. Never met him.

RG: Exactly.

Sam: You can’t teach someone how to be a good person like you can teach a dog how to fetch. Once people become something, they don’t change. Ever.

RG: I don’t believe that. :<

Sam: What does that punctuation have to do with it?

RG: It’s a frowny face. I am frowny facing on your pessimism.

Sam: It looks like a deranged bird with a reverse beak.

RG: Fine, I’m deranged-birding-with-a-reverse-beak on your pessimism.

Sam: I don’t have to answer these texts.

RG: Yes you do! Or I’ll send you a thousand deranged birds until you have to change your number. And even then the birds will follow you. The birds always know.

Sam: Fine. I’ll give you advice on your douchebag boyfriend. I hate birds.

Sam: And douchebag boyfriends, incidentally.

RG: He’s not my boyfriend.

Sam: But you want him to be. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother trying to change him.

RG: :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :< :<

Sam: Would you look at that. It’s a flock of obnoxiousness. Why does this feel like an Alfred Hitchcock movie?

RG: Because I’m going to show up outside your shower with a giant knife?

Sam: Changing my number now.

RG: No, wait! What if I show up outside your shower with a tray of cupcakes instead?

Sam: I’d prefer it if you didn’t show up outside my shower at all.

RG: That’s no fun.

Sam: Debatable. I find it lots of fun to take showers without the threat of being murdered.

RG: Or pastried.

Sam: That’s not a verb.

RG: Anything’s a verb if you try hard enough!

Sam: What did you major in in college? Being annoying?

RG: I didn’t go to college.

Sam: What a surprise. “Anything’s a verb if you try” doesn’t usually fly on the Reading section of the SATs.

RG: Never took the SATs either! I dropped out of high school! :>

Sam: Why does that warrant a happy bird?

RG: Because high school sucked.

Sam: Look, I’m not that interested in your personal life. I just want to give you your jerk advice so you’ll stop texting me and I can get on with my life.

RG: Your exciting life, full of lonely showers.

Sam: Who says they’re lonely?

RG: …

RG: Okay no, they’re definitely lonely. “Who says” is a thing people pull when they want to act like something’s not true without having to lie.

Sam: Maybe you would have done better on the Psychology section of the SATs.