Untangling The Stars (8 page)

“I’ve got to go, but I’ve got an idea first.” He waited for Andie to look intrigued—which took all of four seconds—before he continued, “Let’s back up just a little bit.”

Andie’s characteristic curiosity peaked as Guy held out his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Guy Wilder.”

She raised an eyebrow and took his hand, or, rather, she lost her hand inside of his much larger grasp. His skin was warm and his grip firm, nothing like the shaky, sweaty handshake the day before. “Dr. Alessandra Foxglove,” she introduced herself properly for the first time. “My friends call me Andie.”

He kept her hand in his, and laced his fingers across hers so that the formal greeting morphed into something more intimate. “A pleasure to meet you, Andie.”

He loosened her hand and stood, took a step forward, and then stopped and looked back down at her. More combed hair tumbled down, his hair reclaiming its trademark disheveled status. Andie had to admit it; she liked the hot mess look. He slid the sunglasses back into place, eclipsing the blue of his eyes.

“Have dinner with me. Tomorrow night, say seven o’clock? Let me prove that there’s more to this jerk than meets the eye.”

Her voice got stuck in her throat on its way to answer him. A dinner date was something she had not been expecting, and if there was more than met the eye, Andie wasn’t sure she could handle it. Unable to find words, she nodded and hoped she managed to find a tempo between hell yes and bobble head yes.

“Great. See you then. Should I send a car, or would that be presumptuous?” His smirk was back, and this time, Andie kinda liked it.

“I think I can manage.” It sounded more like a croak than her normal voice, but it worked.

“Great. I’ll send details. And, don’t worry; I know where to find you.” Guy winked, pivoted on his heel, slid his glasses into place, and pulled his phone from his pocket in one smooth movement. Then he disappeared out of the café almost as suddenly as he’d appeared.

Seconds later Scott’s fedora poked around the sidewall. “Call me crazy but that handsome devil looked just like that actor, what’s his name? The one on that vampire show that’s all the rage? Guy Wilder.”

Andie cleared her throat and found that her voice box still worked. Oh good, so she could still speak after all. She pulled a strand of hair between her lips and tried to contain her thirteen-year old inner self that wanted to start squealing. “That handsome devil
was
Guy Wilder.”

“No!” Scott’s voice sounded almost as incredulous as his face looked. Even Oz’s big brown eyes looked like wide, dinner plate-sized eyes of curiosity.

“It was.”

“And you’re going on a
date
with him?”

If she hadn’t just witnessed it herself, Andie almost wouldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Weepie’s lyrics floated through her brain again. It really would never work between her and Guy.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Hi—come in.” Guy seemed to look beyond Andie as he swept her into the hotel room and shut the door softly behind her. He paused a second to check the peephole before turning to face her.

“Hi back.” Hopefully her grin didn’t reach
all
the way from ear to ear. It was really hard not to be smiling right now. She was standing in
the
Guy Wilder’s hotel room, and the two of them were completely alone. That wasn’t exactly something that happened every day.

This was the first time she had seen Guy without his trademark leather jacket and dark sunglasses, which made him a little bit less intimidating and a little bit more like the boy next door—if that boy were smoking hot. He was wearing a tight-fitted cotton t-shirt the same shade of blue as his eyes and faded denim jeans that were starting to wear thin at the knees. He was barefoot and disheveled as always, and the shadow of stubble on his face looked like he hadn’t shaved since she last saw him. If he were cake, she’d take a bite.

Yet, for every bit as comfy as his clothing looked, his body seemed tensed and on alert. He stood between her and the door like there was an enemy on approach and he was waiting to see if they’d pass or pounce. After a few seconds of awkward stillness—during which he kept the palm of his hand firmly pressed against the closed hotel room door—his body relaxed a little, but he kept his eyes diverted from hers as he ran a hand through his hair. It was impossible to tell his expression beneath the swatch of dark hair that tumbled across his face. The curtain of hair was almost as bad as the damned sunglasses.

Guy took a small step toward her. His eyes briefly washed over her from her head to her shoes. He made a stunted movement like he might offer to take her purse, but almost immediately his arms fell back, uncertain. He inhaled deeply and waved the palms of his hands toward her awkwardly. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Oookay.
Andie hoped she didn’t look as confused as she felt. Why was he being so shifty about pulling her into the room so quickly? What was the deal with the whole checking the peephole and staying on guard like he was waiting for some kind of danger? Wasn’t she the one who was supposed to be nervous? This was just too bizarre.

Andie was too bemused to be suspicious in earnest, but that didn’t stop the list of questions from piling up in her mind. After all, she’d been over one hurdle of doubt after another ever since yesterday morning in the coffee shop. She’d gone through the past however many hours on autopilot, not daring to speak a word to anyone about her upcoming date with the infamous Guy Wilder. It was half self-preservation so she’d never have to tell anyone if—and when—it all went up in flames, and half disbelief that it was even happening at all. Honestly, she could hardly even believe it herself. If Scott hadn’t been in the coffee shop with her when it all happened, she was certain she would have thought she imagined the whole damned thing. She’d be wearing scrubs and petting her clowder of imaginary cats in the loony bin in no time.

Actually, Andie had been so worried about keeping her date a secret that no one knew where she was or who she was with—well, except maybe Scott. If she ended up drugged and harvested for her kidneys right here in the hotel suite’s bathroom, no one would ever be the wiser. They’d all be shocked when her face showed up on the evening news with the headline “Local Professor’s Body Found Kidney-less in TV-Monster’s Hotel Bathroom.” That would be one hell of a way to go.

That last made Andie bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. From first date jitters to an episode of
Criminal Minds
in five seconds flat—who else but she could come up with such crazy ideas? Oh well, at least it set the potential terror level of the night extremely high. Whatever actually happened—like, you know, being on a date with an incredibly sexy, enigmatic, rich and famous drool-worthy man that would surely make for one of the best stories of her life, even if was only a one-time fling, would be a piece of cake, maybe even anticlimactic. That was comforting. She was a Taurus after all; boring was just right by her. Hopefully Guy was only dangerous onscreen.

Speaking of the devil, Guy had apparently determined the doorway was safe and was now swaying from the ball of one naked foot to the other, tapping his finger against his nose. He had shockingly nice feet for a man, which was a lovely surprise. He looked at her with furrowed, considering brows as if he were deep in thought.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m, uh, I’m just going to powder my nose. Be right back.”

Powder his nose?
Seriously, who said stuff like that—besides southern debutantes from the 1950s? Well, dangerous might be part of his act, but dancing to his own drummer was definitely all Guy. Andie played it cool as Guy disappeared into one of the several doorways off the suite’s foyer without sparing her a second glance. Oh well. Whatever he was so on edge about, it was still pretty entertaining to watch those tight-fitting jeans walk away.

Guy’s anxiety was a good distraction for Andie’s nerves. All of his fidgeting was a good placebo for her stomach so she could function with some degree of normalcy at least. She still hadn’t totally recovered from him walking into her classroom days ago. This was one hell of a long bounce back, but if Guy would have answered the door with that same brooding intensity and seductive heat he’d given off the other day in her classroom, she’d probably have made a total ass out of herself right there in the hallway. She would much rather be the strong one, like always. Thinking that way helped her avoid jelly knees every time she looked at that chiseled jawline and mesmerizing eyes. Besides, she wasn’t exactly proud of the way she didn’t seem to be able to practice what she so often preached about separating the entertainment effect from reality. It was like she just dove into Guy’s spell at the mere mention of his name. Her students would be so ashamed.

Pick the hill to die on
, she thought. And Andie Foxglove was not going to give up without a flight.

***

At first, she waited for Guy to reappear, but, after a few moments alone, Andie set her purse down on a small table and took a moment to survey the room around her. On the far side of the room, an entire wall was devoted to a massive picture window that showed off the beautiful lights sparkling across the skyline of downtown Denver. Far in the distance, the snow-tipped peaks of the Rockies were just visible in the twinkle of towering skyscrapers. Though Boulder and Denver were less than thirty miles apart, it had been a long time since Andie had made the trek from the foothills to the Mile High City. In fact, because she lived so close to campus and could easily get to nearly everything she needed on foot, it had been a while since she’d even taken her car out of the garage for a drive. Looking out the window, it almost felt like she’d left some small, forested village and wandered into some fantastical city of lights. The palatial suite, which was easily bigger than her entire loft apartment, didn’t do much to quell that feeling.

Beyond the window, there was a large living room lined in overstuffed white couches that framed a fireplace burning with a pair of electronic logs so bright and crackling they could easily be mistaken for real ones. A fully stocked bar with a wide selection of stemware sparkled from the corner. There was also a pair of French doors to the left that opened, Andie guessed, into a bedroom. She could hear the sounds of water running as she pressed her ear against the glass. It was mildly tempting to open them in walk through…tempting in the same way poking at a sleeping snake was tempting.

“Nice place,” she called through the closed doorway. No answer. The faucet turned off.

She’d never admit it to another soul, but wandering around the expansive hotel suite, Andie almost felt liked she’d wandered into a real life set of
Pretty Woman
. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling. It awakened some of the sleeping butterflies in her belly and Andie silently begged them back to stillness. Any minute now, Guy would come walking out of that bedroom wearing an unbuttoned vest and holding a thick wad of cash as he approached to pay for “services” that Andie would be damned if she was going to render.

Not that Guy hadn’t at least tried to butter her up a little. She wouldn’t have pegged him for a flower guy, but nevertheless a beautiful spring bouquet of peonies and tulips had arrived in her office yesterday, along with a card that said cryptically little. “The Ritz, Downtown Denver. Penthouse Suite. Ask for Dickey Valentine.” Dickey Valentine was one of Guy’s lesser-known alter egos from a low-budget gumshoe flick he’d made before he’d hit the big time and gone mainstream on prime time cable. Andie remembered it from a time she’d accidentally caught it on late night television when she’d been working on her dissertation. It was very noir, a much classier role for Guy that he’d fit perfectly into. With the flowers and the little bit of mystery, the whole thing seemed like some cute cheesy meet straight out of some dark noir, where two strangers don fake names and meet for a racy late night rendezvous in some neutral place. It was pretty damn sexy, except for the fact that film noir wasn’t exactly known as the place for women who intended to survive. It was femme fatale for a reason. Andie hoped that wasn't some kind of bad omen.

Come to think of it, he had rushed her in through the door
really
fast. Was he hiding something? Or worse—was there something wrong with her being here? Of course, there was something wrong with her being here. The thought struck Andie like a slap in the face. A guy like Guy Wilder had to a have a girlfriend, right? Probably a supermodel, maybe one of those
Victoria Secrets
angels. Or, he’d at least have better options than some simple college professor dumb enough to think she could hang with a guy whose face was plastered over magazine covers. Shit, was he
Pretty Woman
-ing her?

Whatever he was up to, “powdering his nose” was sure taking a lot longer than she thought it should. Maybe he’d let her in out of politeness to save face, and locking himself in some out of the way bathroom was some kind of slang for “if I stay hidden long enough she’ll get the point and get lost”?