Magnificent Bastard (6 page)

“Battle armor.” Her full mouth curves into a half smile as she fetches the lemonade from the fridge and two glasses from the tiny cabinets above the sink. “You really think clothes matter that much?”

“I know that clothes matter that much,” I say without hesitation. “You know what they say, looking good is the best revenge.”

Penny wrinkles her nose. “I thought the quote was living well is the best revenge.”

I accept the glass of lemonade she pushes across the counter. “You’ll live well after the revenge is over. For now, we’ll concentrate on making your mother green with envy and Phillip want to kick himself repeatedly in his own ass for letting you go. From the moment you step out of my car Wednesday, to the moment we drive off into the sunset on Saturday, we want all eyes on you, the lovely duckling who has turned into an even more stunning swan.”

“You remember that my mom is a famous movie star and former model, right?” Penny asks, a dubious expression on her face. “She might be forty-two, but she sure as heck doesn’t look it.”

“She doesn’t look twenty-five, either.”

“I don’t know.” Penny takes a considering drink of her lemonade.
“She could easily pass for early thirties. She exercises four hours a day, eats superfoods for every meal, and can afford
all
the lotions and creams.”

“Lotions and creams?”

Penny nods seriously. “Some might tell you that plastic surgery is the path to eternal youth, but truly rich people know it’s all about exclusive lotions and creams. The more snail goo, ground up beetle shells, and whale semen in them, the better.”

I barely avoid spitting lemonade all over the counter.

“Bull semen, too,” Penny adds, with a grin. “Semen is kind of a big deal. Or so I hear.”

Fixing her with a mock glare, I swipe my sleeve across my mouth and point toward a door on the other side of the room, which I assume leads to her bedroom. “Quit stalling and go put on something pretty.”

She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “Fine. But I’m warning you, this fashion show is going to be brief. I pulled anything even remotely appropriate out of my closet, and everything that still fits after my close encounters with several pints of ice cream this spring is out of style, boring, or has grass stains on it.”

“Why grass stains?” I ask as she flounces around the island, looking so much like a kid being sent to her room I can’t help but smile.

“I used to like reading books stretched out on the great lawn at grad school. Back when I left the house more than once or twice a week.”

Before I can think of how to respond, she disappears into her bedroom. As the door shuts behind her, I scan the apartment. It gives off a cozy, homey vibe, but would it still feel that way after being cooped up in it for months?

Maybe even years? Penny said it has been over
two years
since the incident.

Has she been hiding away from the world in this tiny room ever since? Is that why she turned me down every time I tried to get her to meet me for happy hour drinks or bike riding in the park or the newest exhibition at the Met?

I had assumed she was one of those Brooklynites who loathe crossing the river or maybe thought it was creepy to meet her boss in real life. But maybe it’s more than that. Maybe she’s been serving a self-imposed prison sentence for a crime her mother and slimy ex-boyfriend committed.

My stomach tightens at the thought.

And then Penny emerges from her room in a floor-length goldenrod dress that makes her olive skin look a sickly shade of yellow and the tightness becomes a full-fledged intestinal cramp.

Holy mother of pearl, what the hell has she put on her beautiful body?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My tongue curls at the back of my throat and I fight the urge to gag. “Jesus H. Christ.”

Penny’s hands come to rest on her hips with a huff. “Oh come on. It’s not that bad. The fit is nice.”

“The fit is adequate; the color is horrendous,” I say, fighting the urge to shudder. “Take it off and toss it out here when you’re done. I’ll throw it away.”

“You will not throw it away.” She scowls at me over her shoulder as she stomps back into her bedroom.

“You’re right,” I agree. “Better to burn it and make sure it never has the chance to inspire nausea in anyone else ever again.”

“Not everyone has hundreds of dollars to spend on clothes, you know,” she calls from the other room, her voice muffled. I concentrate on the memory of how sallow her skin looked in that dress, the better to keep from imagining her pulling it over her head, baring the killer curves beneath.

“If that dress was free, you still paid too much.”

“Are you this sweet to all your clients?” she asks in a lilting tone.

“If you’re asking if I lie to my clients, then no. I don’t.” I settle on the couch with my lemonade. “I’m here to do a job, Penny, not blow smoke up your ass. And even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t let you leave the house in that dress. Friends don’t let friends wear goldenrod.”

She laughs. “Your mother was an interior decorator, you said?”

“Yes. I knew the difference between pink and fuchsia years before the other boys.”

“I’m not sure most boys ever know the difference.” She throws open the door, revealing a sundress composed of yards and yards of heavy black fabric that overwhelms her petite frame. “How about this? Plain, simple, linen. A classic choice.”

“It’s a wedding, not a funeral,” I say, twirling one finger in the air. “Next.”

She rolls her eyes as she slams the door. I take a drink of lemonade and pray that she’s got at least something we can work with. There’s a boutique in Chelsea that usually comes through for my clients in a pinch, but I’m not sure even Sheila, my favorite personal shopper, will be able to outfit Penny in not one, but four ex-slaying outfits in one morning.

Penny and I repeat our open door, repress gag reflex, roll eyes, slam door routine through four more hideous dresses, and I’m beginning to think she needs a fashion intervention as much as a Magnificent Bastard one when the door creaks open, my breath catches on an inhale, and I forget how to exhale.

The white, sleeveless gown is silk and chiffon and hugs her breasts before falling in asymmetrical waves around her knees. She’s paired it with white kitten heels that emphasize the strong, sculpted curves of her calves and pearl chandelier earrings that peek through her dark hair as she flips it over her shoulder.

“This is the last one. I know it won’t work,” she says, tugging at the hem. “But I figured I’d show it to you anyway.”

“Why won’t it work?” I set my drink on the coffee table and stand as she moves into the room. “It’s gorgeous. You look beautiful.”

“It’s white,” she says with a nervous laugh. “I can’t wear white. I’m not the bride.”

“You can’t wear white at the wedding.” I motion for her to turn and she does, proving she looks just as stunning from the back. “But this will be perfect for the rehearsal dinner. The night before the wedding, you’ll remind Phillip of the beauty he could have had on his arm if he hadn’t been such a fool.”

She turns back to me, a troubled look on her face. “I don’t really blame him. I mean, I blame him for using me to get to my mom and lying to me and playing ugly games with my head, but he’s not the one who broke my heart the most.”

I nod. “I figured.”

“You did?” She tilts her head back, curious brown eyes finding mine.

“My dad left when I was twelve. For the first few months he would still come to my baseball games and pick me up from school once or twice a week, but eventually, he lost interest.” I shrug. “By the time I was thirteen I saw him maybe once a month and he was usually after money to support his Percocet habit. By the time I graduated, we hadn’t talked in years. I have no idea where he is now.”

Penny’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry. I never knew my dad, but I know fathers are important. Especially to sons.”

“It’s all right. I got over it a long time ago.” I smile as I reach up, brushing a few stray hairs back to join the rest of the waves tumbling over her shoulders. Her hair is as soft as I imagined it would be. “Just wanted you to know that I get it. The way it hurts when one of the two people in the world, who are supposed to be on your team more than anyone else, decide they don’t give a shit about your feelings.”

“Thanks,” she says, the wrinkle between her brows deepening. “Do you really think we can pull this off?”

I nod reassuringly. “Not a doubt in my mind.”

“But I’m so bad at pretending.” She nibbles her bottom lip. “And my mother and Phillip are both actors. They are exceedingly good liars and like most exceedingly good liars they are very good at sensing when other people are lying.”

“Relax.” I bring my hands to her shoulders, gently kneading the knots there, ignoring the warm buzz of pleasure that hums up my arms. It just feels so good to touch her. So weirdly…right. “You might be new to this, but I’ve fooled evil exes dozens of times.”

“But not with me,” she frets, clearly working her way into a full-blown panic attack. “Maybe we should just go as friends.”

“Stop this. Right now.” I move my hands to grip her upper arms and lean down until my eyes are level with hers. “You don’t want to go as friends. If you did, you wouldn’t have booked us both into the same cottage in Southampton.”

One cottage, with one queen-sized bed, that I’m doing my best not to think too much about. Spending four nights in a tiny cottage with Penny is going to be torture. Even if I take the couch and give her the bed, I’m never going to be able to forget that a woman who affects me like no other in recent memory is half naked and only a few steps away in the other room.

“You’re right, I don’t.” Her tongue sweeps across her lips, sending another sizzle of awareness flooding through me against my will. “But now that you’re here I can’t imagine doing it. Especially not in public, in front of my mother and Phillip and everyone else.”

I shake my head, fighting to keep my gaze from dropping to her lips. “Doing what?”

“This.” Before I realize what’s on her fretful mind, she throws her arms around my neck, pushes up on tiptoe, and presses her lips to mine.

And then suddenly, I’m kissing Penny.

Really kissing her.

This is no friendly peck or tentative exploration. The second her lips touch mine, electricity forks through my body and my blood ignites.

I’ve wanted to do this since the second I laid eyes on this woman, and maybe even before. I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when I was reading one of Penny’s e-mails or texts—the flirty ones that made me laugh or the ones where she just got me, in a way not many people ever have—that I didn’t wonder what it might be like to kiss the smart mouth behind those words.

And now she’s pressed against me with her breasts flush against my chest and her lips hot and urgent against mine, silently begging me to show her that I know what I’m doing, and there’s no way I’m going to let her down.

CHAPTER TWELVE

My tongue slides across the seam of her mouth, slipping between her parted lips and stroking against hers. She tastes like sugar and lemons and all things clean, good, and wholesome, but there’s nothing wholesome about the way her kiss affects me. Two seconds in and my cock is rock hard and pulsing inside my jeans, straining against the fabric in an attempt to get closer to the sinfully hot woman in my arms.

But I don’t cup her ass and pull her closer to where I ache.

I mold my palms to her ribs and hold her tight, maintaining the last few inches of distance between her hips and mine.

This is a kiss with built-in boundaries, a kiss meant to promise far more than it will ever deliver.

I will never cup her breasts in my hands or tease her nipples with my fingers. I will never spread her thighs and kiss her where she’s salty and wet or hear her cry out as she comes on my mouth, begging me to put my cock where my tongue is. I will never feel her legs locked around my hips or her heels digging into my ass as I thrust inside her heat, fucking us both into the happiest place on earth.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy this moment, this kiss, her taste, and the perfect way her lips slide against mine.

I drive my hand into her hair, fisting my fingers in the thick, silky strands, taking control as I ratchet this up to the next level. I shift the angle of my lips, gaining deeper access to the sweetness of her mouth. She makes a soft, needy sound that is so honest, so hungry, and so exactly what I’m feeling that my control begins to slip.

The kiss grows hotter, wilder until our teeth are grinding together through our lips and I’m fucking her mouth with my tongue and I’m so turned on I don’t realize I’ve let my hands move down to squeeze her ass until it’s too late.

By the time my logical mind shouts for me to step away from my client, employee, and friend—three very good reasons not to let this woman know I’ve got a hard-on for her that won’t quit—I’ve already hauled her hips to mine.

She groans against my lips, her breath coming fast as she wraps one leg around my waist. And then she rocks against me, and suddenly I’m two steps away from an ugly fall and not certain I’ll be able to drag myself away from the edge.