Never Kiss a Stranger (10 page)

I just wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need my routines to be okay. That no matter what happened with Wilder, I was going to be fine. Giving up control of my routine, the one thing that made me feel so safe and powerful, was the most liberating thing I’d ever done.

“I need to see you in my office,” she said, nodding toward her open door. “Now.”

My heart pounded, rising into my throat as I followed her. The muffin from earlier suddenly felt heavy as it sloshed around in my stomach like thick sludge. Private meetings with Brenda always gave me mini panic attacks.

“Have a seat, Addison,” she said, her voice quiet as she shut the door behind us. She took a seat in her ultra-luxe leather chair and scooted in. “I wanted to speak with you regarding our newest client, Mr. Van Cleef.”

My throat tightened as I felt the color drain from my face.

“This comes as a complete surprise to me,” she said, “but Mr. Van Cleef is entirely disappointed with Kyle.”

I clenched my lips together, fighting off the smile that so badly wanted to emerge. It took everything I had not to tell her, “I told you so.”

“He says he wants the blonde,” Brenda said with a shrug. “He wants you. Matter of fact, he’s waiting for you right now. In your office.”

I left Brenda’s office and headed to mine, where my stomach did somersaults the moment my eyes landed on the back of his chocolate brown head of hair.

“Good morning, Mr. Van Cleef,” I said in my most professional tone. He turned around slowly, his face lighting up the second our eyes met. I closed the door behind me and headed to my chair. “I’m sorry to hear Mr. Maxwell didn’t work out for you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I made sure to tell Brenda how deeply disappointed I was in working with Mr. Maxwell, and how unprofessional he has been on the job.”

I swallowed, almost certain my gulp was quite audible. Did he know about Kyle and me?

“I mentioned to her how having a team member like Mr. Maxwell was basically committing real estate agency suicide,” he continued. “It could be very bad for business to have an agent with such poor ethics on your team. She seemed to agree.”

“Did you tell her to fire him?” I squinted at him from across my desk.

“In not so many words.”

“But why?”

“I have my reasons,” he said. “Besides, I’d much rather work with you, and now that we’re not fooling around, I’d like to hire you on.”

“I didn’t know we were officially no longer fooling around.” I crossed my arms.

“You made your intentions very clear that night I brought you home with me.”

“Oh, really?”

“When you ran out of my penthouse and then told me to give you space after I’d just declared my feelings for you, I assumed that meant you wanted space from both of us.” His eyes landed on his bulge of his cock for just a moment. “We’re sort of a package deal.”

Wilder stood up, walking around the desk and coming to my side. He pulled me up and wrapped me in a strong embrace.

“I can’t do the no-strings thing anymore,” he said. “Not with you. Any other girl, sure. Not you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it returned in an instant.

“I can’t keep fucking you and looking into those empty eyes,” he said. His hand cupped my chin, lifting my mouth to his yet holding himself just far enough away to prevent our lips from actually meeting.

“My eyes may have been empty,” I admitted, my tone meek, “but my heart never was. You just couldn’t see it.”

And with those words, I’d erased the line I’d drawn in the sand the night I met him; the line that had been crossed over and over again.

“So it’s settled,” he said. “You’ll be my agent
and
my girlfriend.”

“I ordered your usual,” my aunt said as she dipped a slice of bread into a saucer of olive oil. “I’m sorry, Wilder. I was starving. And you’re late.” She rolled her eyes, though I knew she couldn’t stay mad at me for long.

“Aunt Laura,” I said as I met her for our weekly dinner. I kissed her cheek and sat down across from her, still wearing the smile Addison had given me earlier that day.

“Well, you’re awfully chipper tonight,” she said. She leaned back in her seat, giving me a once over as she chewed. “What’s all this about?”

“Just had a pretty amazing day,” I said. I turned the tables on her. “How about you?”

“Oh, same old.” She rolled her eyes as she proceeded to vent again about her work arch nemesis, Kathy. “You know, I talked to Vince today.”

She always had to bring up my dad, though I supposed he was the common thread between us.

“He said he’s coming to the city with his new fiancée,” she said, one eyebrow raised. “Were you aware he was coming to town?”

“Yeah, he called me the other day and said something about it,” I said. “I wasn’t really listening.”

It was the night Addison ran out of my apartment. My mind was elsewhere, so I only picked up bits and pieces of what he was saying. He always tended to call late at night, too, neglecting to consider the time difference between us.

“He said something about doing dinner with her and her two daughters,” I said. “That’s about all I picked up from the conversation. I was a little preoccupied when he called.”

“I mean, how well can he really know this woman?” Aunt Laura scoffed. She’d been single most of her life after a failed marriage in her early twenties. Brash and opinionated, she was more than most men could handle, and yet she still believed she just hadn’t met the right one yet. For all her hard edges and straight lines, she really was a hopeless romantic. “It can’t possibly be true love.”

I shrugged. “Who are we to say whether or not the man’s in love, right? To each their own.”

“Well, given your father’s track record…”

“Maybe he’s finally met the One? We’ll have to see what she’s like. He does sound happy, I’ll say that.”

She laughed. “Good for Vince.”

“What about you? You go on any dates lately?”

“One.” She slipped a finger coyly into the corner of her mouth. “His name is Steven Goldberg. He’s my accountant.”

“Aunt Laura…” I said in jest, as if she’d revealed a scandalous secret. “Look at you, mixing business and pleasure. You rebel.”

“Oh, stop.” She giggled like a schoolgirl, her hardened expression fading, if only temporarily. “It was just one date. But I will tell you, he’s a phenomenal kisser.” Her fingers flew up as she placed air quotes around the word “kisser.”

I shielded my eyes, hanging my face. I couldn’t look at her. “I didn’t ask for details.”

“Oh, come on, at least one of us is getting some,” she whispered.

I lifted my eyes and focused on the bread basket, unable to meet hers. I wanted to leave. The conversation took a sharp detour to the bad part of town, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “What happened to that pretty girl you saw at the restaurant a few weeks ago? Your friend? What was her name?”

“Addison,” I said.

“You still talk to her?”

“I do.”

“Tell me about her.” Aunt Laura twisted her wine glass in her fingers as her attention honed in on me. “I want to know everything. She’s the reason you’re glowing right now, I just know it. I haven’t seen you light up like this in years.”

“I’m glowing?” I laughed.

“You’re glowing like a damn pregnant lady,” she said. “Now spill it. Tell me everything. Where is she from, what is she like? Does she have any family? Where does she work?”

“She works in real estate,” I said.

“Ah, so she’s right up your alley.”

“She’s driven. Independent. Way too stubborn,” I said, fondly recalling her. “Beautiful inside and out.”

And then it hit me. I still barely knew her. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to know everything about her.

Thoughts of Addison buzzed through me like a live wire, as my aunt took her sweet time finishing her dinner. The second I paid the check, I bolted out of there. I had to get to her.

Two weeks later…

Morning sex was my favorite. No, maybe it was shower sex. Maybe it was a tie. I wasn’t sure. Days and weeks blended together into one giant mess of sex and love-drunk, late night conversations and sleep overs.

I rolled over in bed, curling up into my brand new, bona fide boyfriend’s arms and sliding a free hand down his boxers until it reached his rock solid morning wood. I slid down the length of his muscled torso until my lips found his shaft.

Wilder moaned as he stirred awake. Never one to waste an erection, especially when they were attached to the world’s hottest man, I took the tip of his cock in my mouth.

“Oh, God, that feels amazing…” he moaned as his hands reached the top of my head, tangling his fingers into my messy bedhead.

Who was this girl? This girl who lived for the moment all of a sudden. Who pushed her cares away and focused all her attention on the man with the golden touch. The man who held more power over her than she could ever possibly hold over her own self.

I was changing. I hardly recognized myself. And I loved the new me.

Coco had called me Addison 2.0 at lunch the day before, saying whatever I was doing was working. I failed to tell her I was falling in love. That was my secret. She said I looked as if I’d bottled up a billion stars and bathed in them before slathering them all over myself like Crème de la Mer.

I hadn’t made my bed in days. Wilder had been sleeping over every night for the past two weeks. And I’d scaled back on my overly zealous work schedule in an attempt to make time for him. I’d scaled back on a lot of things. In the two weeks since I’d last ran on my treadmill, I’d gained a good five pounds. When you removed running from your routine and replaced it with decadent dinners at New York’s finest restaurants, that sort of thing was bound to happen. But Wilder said he loved every inch of me anyway. He swore he couldn’t even tell, and I believed him.

Everything was working out perfectly. Almost too perfectly. I refused to believe that we were meant to be anything other than lovers in love.

I finished worshipping Wilder’s delectable cock and wiped the corner of my mouth before climbing up his body. We slept naked every night, keeping warm by the mixed heat of our bodies under the covers. With my cheek against his bare chest, Wilder traced his fingers along the side of my jaw.

“I’d kiss you right now, but…” he whispered.

“It’s okay.” I gripped him tighter, tucking my hand under his side. “I just want to lay here for a bit.”

He let me linger for a while before gently nudging me off him. “I’m going to hop in the shower.”

I watched his fine ass as he strutted out of my room. He was mine. Wilder Van Cleef was mine.

And every cell in my twenty-five-year-old body was his.

“Oh, forgot to tell you,” he said as he popped his head back in the doorway. “Can’t do dinner tonight. My dad’s in town. I’m supposed to go meet his new wife, or some shit like that.” He sauntered back toward the bed, placing a kiss on my forehead. “Believe me, I’d rather be spending the evening with you.”

* * *

“Why are you acting so weird?” Coco asked as we shared a cab to dinner that night. We were headed to meet our new stepfather-to-be and his son, who coincidentally also lived in the city.

I hadn’t said anything to Wilder. When he mentioned he was meeting his father’s new family the same night I was supposed to meet my mother’s new fiancé, a sickness had settled in the pit of my stomach.

I thought maybe if I didn’t think about the fact that our relationship seemed to be entwined in coincidence, it wouldn’t be true. Stranger things had happened, of that I was sure. We couldn’t possibly be the children of two people who were planning to marry.

Though we were still in the getting-to-know you phase, we’d talked about our parents and found humor in the fact that they were both love addicts, but we’d never talked details beyond that. I knew his dad’s name was Vince, but that was it.

“Hey, what’s Mom’s fiancé’s name?” I asked Coco.

She scrunched her nose. “It starts with a V. Vance, maybe? No. Vince. I think it’s Vince. Pretty sure. Why?”

The words refused to come out. If I didn’t say it out loud, it couldn’t possibly be true. I waved her off, thanking the stars when a text message on her phone stole her attention.

The cab dropped us off in front of a quaint little French bistro in the East Village. From the sidewalk, we saw Mom and her new guy sitting at a table by the window. His thick head of chocolate brown hair was flecked with gray at the temples, and though his paunch gave away his age, his profile was strikingly similar to Wilder’s.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

My legs threatened to give out from underneath me with each step we took toward the restaurant. I wanted to turn and run. I wanted to pretend this was all a bad dream. An alternate reality. A glitch in the matrix. That I wasn’t about to find out that the man I was falling in love with wasn’t going to be off-limits in every sense of the word.

“Girls!” my mom chirped the moment she saw us. She popped up out of her seat, her blonde hair hanging in loose curls around her face. She looked older since the last time I saw her. I focused on the lines stacked across her forehead as I avoided looking Vince’s way. “Vince, this is my oldest daughter, Dakota.”

Vince stood up and shook Coco’s hand. She smiled like the classy woman she’d become over the years and took a seat.

“And this is my baby, Addison,” my mom gushed. She wrapped her arm around my side and pulled me in. “Everybody says we look just alike.”

I stared at the empty seat next to Vince as my mom rambled on about our identical features. I supposed we did look similar. We were flesh and blood, after all. But Tammy Lynn’s face had been weathered and leathered over the years. She’d lived a hard life. A beauty queen who peaked in high school, she never quite noticed when her looks gradually faded over the years. The only time her age seemed to blur was when her eyes lit up and her full lips twisted into a smile.

Men seemed to gravitate toward her infectious laugh, big boobs, and her ability to morph into whatever the hell kind of girlfriend they wanted her to be. After they got tired of her tofu personality, they usually moved on to something else. It happened every time.

“Hi, Addison.” Vince extended his right hand, and I returned the gesture, forcing myself to look him in the eyes.

Those eyes.

Those aquamarine eyes that matched the very ones I lost myself in on a nightly basis. Two tropical lagoons that made the rest of the world fade away, if only for an hour or two.

“Sorry I’m late,” a man’s voice startled me back into the moment. But it wasn’t just any man’s voice.

“Wilder, my boy!” Vince said, wrapping his son in a big bear hug. He looked at Wilder like he wanted to ruffle his fingers through his hair. “Dakota, Addison, this is my son, Wilder.”

Wilder’s face fell as our eyes met. He offered a cordial smile to my mother as he shook her hand, and we all found our seats as soon as the server brought by a tray of water.

“So,” my mother said, grinning wide and clasping her hands together as she stared into Vince’s eyes. Judging by the way she was acting, it may as well have been Christmas morning. All she ever wanted was a nuclear family, like the ones she grew up watching on T.V. in the sixties and seventies. A modern-day
Brady Bunch
or
Leave it to Beaver
. “How about this. Girls, you always said you wished you had a brother growing up. How old are you, Wilder?”

“Twenty-seven,” Vince answered for him. “He’ll be twenty-eight next month. On the first of May.”

“Oh, so you’re Dakota’s age,” my mom said with a smile as she nudged Dakota. “Dakota, how’s work going these days? I watch you on T.V. every single morning. My goodness, my DVR queue is just full of all the shows I’ve saved of yours.”

Coco and I exchanged looks. There was Tammy Lynn pretending to be Mother of the Year again. She never gave two shits about us growing up. I could recall countless track meets where I’d look up into the bleachers to find that Coco was the only person cheering me on, and the ache in my stomach from going to bed hungry so many nights never fully went away, no matter how many years had passed.

“Mom couldn’t make it,” or “Mom’s not feeling well” was how Coco would cover for her, though it was always for my benefit. Lies or no lies, I knew the truth. She was usually sleeping off a hangover or on a three-day bender with her newest boy toy.

I took a good look at my mother. In her khakis and a merino wool twin set the color of sea mist, she looked like she belonged at a country club. Never mind the pearl necklace dangling over her sun-freckled décolletage. What did Vince see in her? In his golf polo and gray slacks, he was a far cry from all of the men I’d ever seen her with.

Tofu. That was it. He could mold her and flavor her however he saw fit. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. Tammy Lynn was pretty good about picking up on what men wanted and almost shape-shifting herself to fit their mold.

She seemed happy, though.

“Addison,” Wilder whispered from across the table, reminding me of the real issue at hand. The one I refused to acknowledge until I could get my thoughts straight.

If I looked at him, I knew I’d cry. I grabbed the drink menu and searched long and hard for the strongest drink I could find.

“So how’d you two meet?” Coco asked as she sipped her water.

“I answered an ad for a job in the paper working at a real estate agency,” Mom said, the lilt in her voice suggesting she was recalling one of the greatest moments of her life. “Vince happened to own the agency.”

Vince’s lips danced into a smile, as if he recognized the impropriety of the origins of their relationship. “I couldn’t resist your mother, Dakota. I mean, look at her. She’s beautiful and kind. Everything I could want in a woman. And the way she spoke about her daughters told me she was a wonderful mother, too. A real catch.”

Wilder cleared his throat and kicked me under the table. My gaze was still transfixed on the miniature vase in the center containing a single white rose the color of a wedding day, sitting pretty and innocent amidst five complicated souls.

“So, Wilder, what is it that you do again?” My mom’s voice held a softer, more matronly quality in it than it ever did when we were kids. “Vince says you followed in his footsteps?”

“Not quite,” Wilder said. He spoke to my mom, but his eyes were on me. I could feel the weight of his stare, as if he were silently pleading for me to look at him. “I deal mostly with investments. Flipping properties. Finding buildings to renovate and rent out. I got my first taste of the business as a child, though, working in my dad’s office.”

“Smart boy, this one.” Vince beamed as he rubbed Wilder’s back. I couldn’t watch.

“My Addison works in real estate!” my mom said. “Do you two know each other?”

I shook my head fervently before Wilder had a chance to say anything. “We don’t.”

“Have we all had a chance to look at our menus?” the server asked, appearing out of nowhere.

My stomach churned. Anything I were to attempt to eat was going to come right back up.

“I can order something for you, if you’d like,” Wilder offered. “I bet you’d like the duck a l’orange.”