Smart Girl (9 page)

I hate seeing him with someone else, but it’s nothing new. It’s more upsetting to know that he’s done it intentionally to remind me of the distance between us. It seems unnecessarily cruel, and I never would have imagined Liam doing anything so hurtful. If he really is this cruel, then he’s not at all the person I thought he was, and that means I’ve been wrong about everything else too. My daydream of us telling stories to our grandkids flashes through my mind, and I cry harder.

“I didn’t know it would upset you this much!” His voice reaches me long before he does.

I spin on my heel in surprise and watch as he hurries down the street to stand in front of me. Once he’s there he seems at a loss for what to do next. He runs a hand through his hair in agitation.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” he says finally.

I want to strangle him with that stupid designer scarf.

“Don’t.” I try to make it a warning, but it comes out wobbly.

“We are acquaintances.” He emphasizes every word. “Work associates or family friends at most. You’re fixated on this idea that there’s some sort of deeper relationship between us, and it’s just not there.”

The mention of our fledgling business relationship is enough to make me pause. The retainer to design the restaurant for Barker-Ash is four times as much money as I’ve ever made on a single job. A paycheck like that means I can hire Casidee on full time. It means I can get a new Mac. It means I could propel my company further along in a way that I haven’t been able to do, since I refuse to take out a loan from the bank or borrow money from Tosh. This job is important to my career for so many reasons. I just can’t bring myself to care about my résumé right now. His refusal to acknowledge this feeling between us instantly dries my tears.

“Then why are you chasing me down the street, Liam?” I demand. “If I’m just some family friend with a misguided crush, why do you care? If we’re just acquaintances, then why do I catch you staring every time we’re in the same room? Why do you find a way to insert yourself into the conversation every time someone tries to hit on me in a bar?”

He clamps his mouth shut and looks away from me.

Coward.

I take a step closer to him. “You can lie to everyone else, but please don’t lie to me. You owe me at least that much.” I jab a finger into his chest. “If you’re too much of a child to admit that you have feelings for me, then that’s your loss. But don’t you dare stand there and tell me I don’t know what I feel.”

He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair. “Your feelings are based on some fantasy you’ve concocted in your head, Miko. They don’t have anything to do with me.”

The comment takes all the wind out of my sails. I take a step back like he pushed me, shaking my head in denial. “It’s not—”

“It is. You’re fixated on who you
think
I am, like a character in one of your damn books. All of the reasons you like me aren’t based on anything real. They’re based on my false charm and your imagination.”

Gods, he doesn’t get it at all. He thinks I like him based on what, his hair? I mean, yes, it’s gorgeous, but I admire him for so many reasons, and none of those are made up. He’s kind and funny and smart, and he loves his family. There are so many reasons to want him for my own, and the only reason I’ve never admitted them out loud is that I’d sound utterly enthralled—which I guess I am.

His sigh sounds so tired. “I’ll walk you back. This neighborhood isn’t safe.”

When he turns around to walk back in the other direction, his head is down and he’s staring at his feet, looking for some kind of answer on the dirty sidewalk. Telling him that he’s funny or nice to his mother isn’t going to cut it. He thinks I’m romanticizing him, that I don’t know who he really is. I find my voice.

“You love dogs, but you think you travel too much to have one of your own,” I call after him.

He quits walking and turns back to face me.

“I know because you stop to pet every single dog that crosses your path. And not just to pat them—you actually bend down so you can look them in the eye. I think you like big dogs the best, but you’re nice to them all. Even the little yappy one that bit your finger last summer.”

He looks stupefied.

I continue on nervously.

“You always have lottery scratchers in your wallet. I saw them the first time you paid for our breakfast after dodgeball, and now I notice them whenever you reach for the bill. That night you—you told me that your mom loves them, that you buy them every time you think of it and then save them up for your visits.”

He takes a step towards me, but I can’t read the look on his face. I flex my fingers anxiously. Now is not the time to let my nerves get the best of me.

“You hate tomatoes. You always ask the server to leave them off your dish, but you never complain even if they forget. The other night you ate Vivian’s salsa, because she was so proud of it, and I could tell you wanted to gag. When you could see how happy it made her, you asked for a second helping and you ate that too.”

He takes another step closer, and his eyes scan my face.

“You listen to jazz when you’re anxious or sad.” This one is only a guess.

His voice is whisper soft.

“How do you know that?”

“Because we’ve had three meetings on a Monday. And every time I’ve walked into your office, you shut off Miles Davis.”

“And?”

“And Monday is the day you visit your mother.”

His curse is loud on the quiet street.

“What’s wrong?” I take a step closer. “Why are you upset?”

Dark eyes grab hold of mine.

“Because I’m about to do something really stupid.”

He crashes into me like a storm, only the force doesn’t push me away; it seals us together. Like we were magnets at counterpoint and someone finally flipped one of us around in the right direction. And then his lips are on mine, and through the haze of sensation and the total euphoria of being in his arms, I am aware that I am wholly out of my league. If my kiss is a question, his isn’t just an answer—it’s a statement of fact. I feel that kiss everywhere. I feel his hands running through my hair and the strands winding around his fingers to hold him there. My own hands itch to explore, to trace the contours of his skin, but I refuse to release the grasp I have on his shirt; I’m afraid he’ll step away and I’ll be grasping at nothing but air. And so I stand there, and what I cannot explore with my fingers, I try to explore with my mind. I want to remember his hands sliding down to my hips and holding me against him. I want to remember the feel of his bottom lip against my own and the sharp surprise when he nips me there. I want to remember how hard my heart is beating and that the wall of his chest is there to absorb the vibration. If I could hold on to this feeling, I could live off the single moment for the rest of my life.

When he looks down at me, I feel dizzy, elated, and a thousand other emotions I can’t name. But the expression on his face isn’t tender or sweet; it’s flustered and challenging.

“Honesty?” he asks gruffly.

His hands are still gripping my hips, and my lip still stings from where he kissed me.

“Always,” I choke out.

“I want you to come home with me tonight.”

Excitement and blind panic make my heart beat erratically, and thoughts fly so fast through my mind that I can’t hold on to any of them.

“For tonight,” he continues. “I don’t do tomorrow, but I want you for tonight. Can you handle that?”

The words are a gauntlet. Somehow I always knew it would come down to this. My experience with men is limited, and he must know that. He’s daring me to make good on the lie I told him days ago, that I was fine with casual. Maybe he thinks he’ll get over this feeling if we finally fully acknowledge it. Maybe it’s another attempt to teach me a lesson. Either way, I’m playing with fire hot enough to match the one burning inside me. It’s the ultimate means to an end. If I back out now, it proves him right on so many levels, and I don’t know if I’ll get another chance.

It’s hard to think with him this close, with his eyes reading every thought on my face. He gave me honesty, and I answer him with the only truth I can. He wants me for tonight. Can I handle it?

“I want you . . . any way I can get you.” If not an answer to his question, it’s at least the truth.

The words seem to frustrate him even more but not enough to back down. He grabs my hand and leads me off down the street, and I hurry to keep up in my daze. The night is cold enough that I can see my breath in front of my face coming out in excited bursts. In the back of my mind I can hear Tosh cautioning me not to start any relationship with a beggar’s mentality.

We ride the whole way to Santa Monica in tense silence. It feels awkward and also weirdly exciting. I’ve never been to his house before, but I don’t even have time to admire it before he’s opening my car door and tugging me inside with the same determination he pulled me down the street. He takes my jacket and hangs it on a hook by the door. That banal gesture makes me pause long enough to remember something. I cross my arms and fix him with a stare.

“What about your date? Did you just leave her there?”

I want to believe I might change my mind if he admits that he’s been so callous, but I’m honestly not sure that’s true.

He tucks his hair behind his ear sheepishly.

“She wasn’t my date,” he tells his shoes.

“What?”

“I met her out front. I thought maybe it would help you understand . . .”

Misguided, yes, but at least he wasn’t intentionally being malicious. The relief I feel at this discovery is all-encompassing. I can’t help my giggle, and when he looks up in surprise, I smile at him. I look down at my rumpled clothing and touch my lips, which are still on fire where he kissed them earlier.

“You sure showed me.”

His grin is lopsided, and for the briefest moment he seems vulnerable, like the person I met on New Year’s, not the successful businessman who’s always in control. His face clears of the tender expression.

“I’ll take you home right now if you want to go. We don’t ever have to talk about this again.”

Any hesitation I might have had goes right out the window. I know him, and whatever he thinks about this night, it is going to lead to a tomorrow. I close the distance between us by a foot. It’s either the smartest or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

“Don’t get cold feet on me now, big guy.”

He takes a step closer to me, and when he finally speaks he sounds so sad.

“Did you know that Tinker Bell dies in the original
Peter Pan
?” He reaches out to play with the ends of my hair where blue meets black. “And when they ask him about her later, he can’t even remember her name?”

I hate the melancholy in his voice and the reality creeping back alongside all of the feelings running through me. I push both of them away with an action.

My hands are steady when I slide the first button of my blouse through its hole. His eyes fly to mine, and the force of his gaze is like an earthquake; everything inside me shakes. Another button comes undone, and the one after it. His blue-gray eyes are riveted on the movement of my fingers, and my gaze is trained on the play of emotion on his face as he watches.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. Somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I’m mortified. But the embarrassment that’s surely staining my cheeks is nothing compared to the way it feels to be the one who put that look in his eye. My blouse falls to the floor with a whisper. Something like wonder fills his eyes. His fingertips feel hot against my skin as they slide along the pattern of shapes in every color of the rainbow that lines my rib cage and runs all the way down to my hip.

“Yet another thing I wouldn’t have expected, and yet it makes total sense.”

I watch then in mesmerized silence as he lowers himself to his knees in front of me. When his lips touch the first bit of artwork, I fight the urge to crumple to the floor along with him. He kisses one image after another with something close to reverence, and I give myself permission to do something I’ve wanted to do since the moment I met him. My shaking fingers hover over the crown of his head for a long moment like a priest offering benediction. I’m almost afraid to actually touch him, since that feels like an official invitation and the sum total of my knowledge about what to do next ended with taking off my shirt. My college boyfriend would have just sort of taken it from there, but I don’t want to be the bystander here. I’ve dreamed about this too many times to just go along for the ride; I want to be involved in every part of it.

My fingertips slide into his hair, adding another sensation to the myriad that fight to consume me. There are so many feelings battling for attention—how do I choose? My focus flits from one nerve ending to another until I think I might be dizzy from the chase to experience it all. Suddenly he’s upright again, and I’m wrapped around him like that scarf; I’m lips and teeth and tongue and fingers and a desperate need to touch every single part of him as fast as I can. We’re backing down a hallway and bumping into every surface we touch. A picture frame flies off the wall and crashes to the ground as I gasp.