Slip of the Tongue (46 page)

AUDIOBOOKS

The Cityscape Series

Strictly Off Limits: A Forbidden Romance Novella

Slip of the Tongue (March 2016)

SLIP OF THE TONGUE

Sadie Hunt isn’t perfect—but her husband is. Until Sadie finds herself in the last place she ever expected to be: lonely in her marriage. When rugged and sexy Finn Cohen moves into the apartment across the hall, he and Sadie share an immediate spark. And while Sadie’s marriage runs colder by the day, she and Finn burn hotter.

Her husband doesn’t want her anymore. The man next door would give up everything to have her.

Learn more about Slip of the Tongue
.

The Cityscape Series
tells a compelling story of a forbidden love affair between a woman and the man who could be her soul mate.
Come Undone
is book one of three.

Come Undone (The Cityscape Series, #1)

Olivia Germaine has already found love. Devoted wife, loyal friend, determined career woman—she’s created the life she always envisioned. But when Olivia locks eyes with a handsome stranger across a crowded room, he peers a little too closely and sees emotions she thought she’d buried long ago.

David Dylan, alleged playboy and eternal bachelor, challenges Olivia to confront the life she’s built and to make decisions that could either lead to happiness…or regret.

Will Olivia be able to draw the line between lust and love? And can David respect that line?

CHAPTER 1

EVER SO SLOWLY, I touched the tube to my parted lips and glided on the Ruby Red. I had always lacked the patience for lipstick and only used it for special occasions. Next came a translucent lip gloss that left threads of goop as I smoothed my lips together. I drew back slightly from the mirror to admire my work.

Perfectly coiffed hair, teased and styled into a long bob, floated just at my shoulders, every shiny brown lock suspiciously cooperating. In the trash laid the scattered teeth of yet another broken comb. I’d wrestled especially long with my tangles tonight, but looked particularly poised as a result; so much so, that if one thing were to tremble, everything else would come tumbling down. Or so it seemed. In that moment, I caught Bill’s gaze in the reflection, his normally mild eyes watching me intently. I quickly forgot that feeling of unease.

“You look good,” he said, admiring my emerald green dress.

“Your favorite color.”

“Because it matches your eyes.” I picked at a mascara smear on the mirror with my fingernail. “Do we have to go tonight?” he asked.

“What?” I’d successfully chipped off the mark, but now I was faced with the messy smudge of a fingerprint.

“Tonight. Let’s stay in.”

“Everyone’s going to be there.” I tossed makeup products back into the drawer and wiped the counter with my palm. “People pay good money for these tickets, babe.”

“Whose idea was this again?”

“Andrew’s firm got tickets for their clients. Not everyone could make it, so he invited us.”

“But,” he began. A quick glare silenced him. He held up his palms in defeat. I turned back to my reflection.

I checked my eyeliner one last time to make sure it was even. “I talked to my dad today. He’ll be in Chicago for a night next month and wants to have dinner.”

Bill groaned and slumped in the doorway.

“What? You don’t want to go to the ballet. You don’t want to have dinner with my father. It’s only one night.”

“And you’re so thrilled when my parents drive in.”

“Touché.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and pushed a gold stud through my ear. “Well, you don’t have to come, but I know he’d like to see you.”

“Sure he would, where else does he get free legal advice?”

“Oh, please. He has plenty of corporate lawyer friends.”

“Not for work, Olivia. For his divorce from Gina. Lawyer friends don’t put up with that shit, they charge you for it.”

“Well, get used to it, ‘cause he’s not going anywhere. I’m sure if you ever need advice on how to win over girls half your age, he’d be happy to help.”

“Half my age?” he repeated as he came up behind me and encircled my waist. A piece of brown hair fell over his eye. He was overdue for a haircut. “Are you trying to get me locked up? I’d say I’ve got my hands full married to a twenty seven-year-old.”

“Bill,” I whined, swatting his hands away. “You’ll wrinkle my dress, and I’m finally ready.”

“Yes, darling,” he said with a sly smile, backing away. “I’ll pull the car around.” I followed him out but pivoted back, grabbed a hand towel, and wiped the smudge away.

~

We arrived at the performance minutes before curtain. Teetering in my heels, I clung to Bill’s arm as we scoured the crowd for familiar faces. Sophistication perfumed the lobby, as if it had been bottled and sold to Chicago’s elite. Smartly dressed women carefully stepped down scarlet-carpeted steps, passing beneath elaborate chandeliers that cast shadowy corners.

“There they are,” Bill said. From behind, my two best friends, registering at just a few inches over 5 feet, could almost be sisters. Gretchen, in a revealing pink dress and boosted by spiky heels, gestured wildly to the group around her. Her long platinum hair bounced in signature curls with each exaggerated movement.

Next to her, Lucy dodged Gretchen’s flailing limbs, anticipating her every movement. She wore a boat-neck black dress, and her short brown hair was fashioned into a perfect chignon.

Her boyfriend, Andrew, stood off to the side, wringing a program. Upon spotting us, he grinned toothily and beckoned us over. “Sorry, Gretch,” he interrupted. “Everyone, this is Lucy’s other best friend, Liv Germaine, and her husband Bill Wilson.”

“What, now I’m the
other
best friend?” I joked, shaking hands with someone. “I only introduced them, you know.”

Lucy looked up at me with big brown eyes before hugging me. “Look, we’re the same height now,” she said, showing off uncharacteristically high shoes.

“I don’t know, shrimp,” Bill said. “Liv’s still got some inches on you.”

“Anyway,” Gretchen interjected impatiently, “the plane lands, and I rush to the station, just barely making the train. Since it’s now one in the morning and I’ve been traveling for fourteen hours, I immediately pass out. When I wake up, the—what are they called—stewardesses?—she says, ‘Welcome to Chile!’”

“Chile!” one of the women cried.

“I’d gotten on the wrong train, slept through the entire ride, and ended up in Santiago.”

Everyone laughed. I politely joined in, though I’d heard the story twice before.

“To make matters worse, it was fifty-something degrees outside, and I was wearing shorts and a tank top.”

The man next to me guffawed loudly. He was the only one who’d been introduced without a partner; Gretchen’s lure was cast.

“Oh, I think it’s time,” Lucy said when the lights pulsed.

The single man sidled up to Gretchen as we made our way to our seats. “What do you do that you can take off to Chile whenever you like?”

“Entertainment PR,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Bill whispered, reading my mind. Gretchen turned and shot us a dirty look when I giggled. “Uh oh, Windex is mad,” he said with a playful smile. Her face softened. She liked Bill’s nickname for her. When I’d introduced them, he’d said hers were the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

Once we were seated, he leaned over so only I could hear. “Are you familiar with the tale of Odette and Prince Siegfried?” He passed me a program. “
Swan Lake
. Just another love story gone wrong.” He laughed at my expression. “I probably never mentioned my parents took me as a teenager. Another thing to give me culture.”

The lights dimmed, and Bill sat back, shifting to get comfortable. His long legs knocked against the seat in front of us multiple times before its occupant turned to raise her eyebrows. I suppressed a laugh just as the conductor lifted his arms.

Before long, the stage was awhirl with white tulle, hard muscles, prettily pink slippers. And those pink slippers, which curled and arched and lengthened unnaturally, seemed perfectly untouched. Everything about the ballet appeared smooth and blemish-free, from the dancers to the patrons. The graceful precision was one thing, but I was floored by the flawlessness of the performance. Everything in life should be so clean. When the curtain fell for intermission, I clapped gleefully with the crowd.

We spilled into the lobby, excitedly reviewing what we’d just seen as we maneuvered. Bill and Andrew left to get drinks as Gretchen, Lucy, and I broke away from the others, keeping close through a room brimming with people.

“I can’t believe my mother let me quit ballet when I was seven,” Lucy said once we’d found a semi-open spot. “I could’ve been a star.”

“I don’t think it’s as easy as that,” I said.

She shook her head. “I could have been a professional ballerina.” Gretchen and I laughed at her sincere expression. “Fine, don’t believe me,” she said. “I’m going to the restroom.”

“Oh, me too,” Gretchen chimed. “Liv?”

“I’ll wait here for the guys.”

I craned my neck above the crowd to search for the bar, where I expected Bill would loom over everyone. My gaze lingered on different people, noting how their stiff, deliberate movements countered the elegance of the dancers on stage. To me, they not only seemed like strangers, but like aliens. Or maybe I was the one who didn’t belong.

Since the abrupt divorce of my parents when I was a teenager, I’d never figured out exactly where I was supposed to be. Large crowds heightened that insecurity and left me feeling vulnerable. It was an unfortunate ability of mine, feeling spectacularly alone in a crowd, even when surrounded by friends and family.

I had the sensation of being watched seconds before I met a man’s unfamiliar pair of eyes across the room. They were dark, narrowed intensely in my direction as if he were trying to place me. Everything slowed around me, but my heartbeat whipped into a rapid flutter.

Our gaze held a moment longer than it should have. My body buzzed. My pounding heart echoed in my ears. It wasn’t his immense, tall frame or darkly handsome face that struck me, but a draw so strong that it didn’t break, even when I blinked away.

A woman bumped my shoulder as she passed. I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. Bill waved as he wound through the crowd.

When I looked back, the man loomed closer than necessary. Something about the lean in his posture was intimate and easy, yet the space between us was physically hot. Fire under my skin. I reminded myself to breathe.

Hair blackest black, short and unruly but long enough to run my hands through. His suntanned complexion appeared natural from time spent outdoors. Strong carved-from-marble facial features were softened by long, unblinking lashes. Involuntarily, I drew a sharp breath at the magnitude of his beauty.

A woman’s voice cut into my consciousness and he turned, giving me the opportunity to regain control. In one swift movement I ducked away, exhaling audibly. Bill and Andrew were there then, shoving a wineglass at me as I shielded myself with their bodies.

“Where are the girls?”

“You like Pinot right?”

“What do you think of the show?”

My attempt to speak was just a noise.

“I’ll take that,” Gretchen said, intercepting the wine.

“The line for the bathroom isn’t bad if you have to go,” Lucy said. She touched my arm. “Liv, are you—”

“I think I will go to the restroom,” I said, backing away. I only just saw her puzzled expression as I turned to struggle through a crowd dense enough to suffocate. Or so it felt in that moment.

~

I could not remember what he looked like. Our exchange was a mere moment, but I had felt the shift.

After, as I sat in the theater, the velvety red seats that I had not much noticed before pricked at my exposed skin, causing me to shift uncontrollably. Because each time I sat still, his heat enveloped me again. As hard as I tried, I could not remember what he looked like. I could only feel him.

I forced myself to focus on the second half. A bewitching Odette mournfully enthralled the crowd as her story unfolded. Why did it feel as though she watched me between sequences?

Back in the lobby, I scanned the crowd for clues. Hints. That man, who he was. To both my relief and disappointment, I did not see him again. I tried to forget the feeling while we dined and drank into the night.

~

The heavy door of our Lincoln Park apartment threatened to slam behind me, but at the last second, I caught the knob and eased it shut. I yawned, hanging my coat and sliding out of my pumps. Bill flipped on the television set in the next room while I sorted through mail, tossing half of it into the trash. On the brown polyester couch his mother had given us some years ago, I found him in his boxers, languidly watching replays of the basketball game he’d grudgingly missed.

Three glasses of red wine coursed through my veins. I stripped off my emerald dress in one sinuous motion and let it drop onto the floor. When he didn’t look up, I shimmied over and settled myself onto his lap.

“Hi,” I said in my sultriest voice. His hand righted a stray strand of hair as he glanced between the screen and me. I wet my lips and kissed him full on the mouth. I’d been humming with electricity since intermission and was impatient for human contact.

“Well, well,” he said when we broke. “What’s gotten into you?”

“It’s late. Take me to bed.”

His eyebrow rose, and his mouth popped open as if connected by an invisible string. He looked about to protest and then relaxed as he thought better of it.

In an uncharacteristically graceful motion he stood. With my body secured to his, he carried me to the mattress. Fingertips tenderly caressed the outsides of my thighs as he hovered over me.