“True, but you were closer and I thought you’d be a lot less conspicuous,” she replied, keeping her voice as nonconfrontational as possible.
From everything Faith had ever told Zelda about her big brother Ty—and what she’d witnessed all those years ago in St. J’s foyer—he was the stick-up-your-butt, hopelessly self-righteous, I-know-best type. And his current snotty reaction wasn’t disabusing her of that fact. Plus she’d had more than enough run-ins with her own brother to know it was next to impossible to win an argument with a person who assumed they were always right simply because they sported a pair of testicles.
The only difference with Ty was that he seemed to be engaging his emotions in this debate, if the huffing and puffing was anything to go by. Unlike Seb, who never lost the controlled, detached, closed-off look that was his fallback position whenever they had a disagreement. Up until this particular moment, she would have believed she preferred the emotionally-engaged reaction… But at three a.m. while stranded in Brooklyn, with her hair looking like a bird had been nesting in it for days, and the two thousand dollar Versace gown she had been loaned for her red carpet appearance at the Foundation’s charity gala in Manhattan last night, sporting unidentifiable stains on the hem courtesy of whatever was on the floor of the station house? Not so much.
She’d never been vain about her appearance. She knew her modeling career was a result of good bone structure, lucky metabolism, and her above-average height, all things she’d had nothing whatsoever to do with acquiring. Plus when she spent two hours in styling and then three hours posing for the camera, just to get a couple of signature shots, she knew how much of her success as a supermodel was down to her and how much down to the expert eye of the photographer or the talents of the makeup artist and hair stylist. But even so, Ty Sullivan’s superior glare was starting to make her much more aware than usual that she did not look her best.
Figuring out how she was going to explain tonight’s disaster to her sponsor at AA and then her brother was taking up enough of her diminishing brain power, after being awake for the last twenty-four hours. How she was going to avoid the handful of paparazzi who would probably be staking out the Mausoleum by now after hearing of her nonappearance at the charity gala was taking up even more. So she simply did not have the headspace to worry about what Ty Sullivan did or did not think of her.
“Conspicuous?” He barked. “Conspicuous how?”
“Conspicuous as in I don’t want the tabloids getting ahold of this story if that’s okay with you. I get enough grief from them as it is.” And was liable to get a lot more when they discovered she’d decided not to sign her latest three million dollar contract with Fantasy, the hair care company who had employed her as the face of their signature shampoo brand for six years. The poor, little rich bitch tag had been one she’d worked hard to play down in the last five years; this stunt would not help that.
Ty looked momentarily taken aback by her explanation before his glare intensified. “You know what your problem is, princess?” he said, the grinding disgust in the tone suggesting that whatever her problem was, it wasn’t one that was going to register on his ‘problems that deserve my sympathy’ list.
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me,” she growled back. “Being as you’re such a prince.”
His eyes flashed with green fire and she remembered she was supposed to be doing contrite, not confrontational… A moment too late.
“You need to get the hell out of your ivory tower. If you lived with four kids under six in the Marlboro Projects and were fighting an eviction notice, like the client I’m representing in …” He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Six hours. You’d have a real problem to deal with. Instead of whether you were gonna get splashed over the centerfold of the New York Post for some dumb stunt entirely of your own making.”
Contrite came surprisingly easily at the mention of his client. The last of her temper fizzling out as she noted the lines around his mouth. The firm sensual lips pursed in a flat line of displeasure. He was right. He had a real job, with real consequences. And she was the one who had screwed up. While Faith had been the one to suggest calling him at this ungodly hour when she’d been on her way to the station house before her mobile had died on her, it would have been fairer and more honest to simply ring Seb and take the heat.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter where my ivory tower is located,” she said, resigned. “I’d still get stalked by the press.”
“Don’t kid yourself, if you were hanging out on my house barge, no way would you get caught by the press. But that’s never gonna happen, because we’re not big on ivory towers in Brooklyn.”
The comment was delivered with such contempt; Zel’s reflex action was instant and unstoppable. She might have been sober for five years, but her wild streak would never be completely tamed. Hence the decision to go for a midnight swim on Manhattan Beach to celebrate the sheer joy of finally escaping from the hollow, pointless world she had despised for so long. Or the impulse to call Ty Sullivan’s bluff now.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’d love to hang out on your house barge. Invitation accepted.”
“Huh?”
He looked so surprised, his dark brows shooting up to his hairline, that she couldn’t resist a wry smile.
Funny how everyone always assumed she’d led such a charmed life. When in reality, so much of it had been marred by the sudden loss of both her parents at the age of thirteen—and the subsequent disintegration of her once close relationship with her brother. Money was useful, and it would be disingenuous of her not to admit that having such a lucrative job had helped to paper over a lot of the cracks. But smiling for the cameras while she felt hollow inside, and never being able to stop long enough in one place to enjoy more than a few soulless shags in yet another anonymous hotel room, took its toll on a person’s psyche, too… Not in the way grinding poverty did. So maybe she didn’t deserve Ty Sullivan’s sympathy. But she wasn’t the shallow thoughtless egotist he had obviously pegged her as. Or at least she was trying hard not to be.
All she needed to do now was prove it. “Let’s get going before the press finds us here.”
“Hold up a minute…”
“It will be easier all ’round if I stay at your barge tonight. It will solve you having to worry about how I’m going to get back to Manhattan at this hour,” she added, deciding to do the decent thing and help him out… as well as herself. Knowing his overdeveloped sense of responsibility, he would insist on driving her home and that would only make her conscience kick up even more of a fuss. Plus staying the night at his barge—under that surly wave of self-righteousness and disapproval—would be her penance for being such a monumental ninny and getting herself into this fix in the first place. “And don’t forget you’ve got a wake-up call in five hours.” She looped her arm through his, ignoring the pleasant flutter of reaction in her abdomen when his muscular forearm flexed under her fingertips—which was simply her normal biological response to a good-looking man. “You need your sleep, and I’ve taken up more than enough of your time.” She directed him towards the car park, her conscience kicking up another notch when he relaxed and allow
ed himself to be led. “I don’t want you fluffing your lines tomorrow,” she continued. “Your client with four kids under six might get evicted from her Marlboro Project and then I’d have that as well as your sleep deprivation on my conscience.”
Lifting the car keys he had looped over his thumb, she flicked the unlock button, and the tail lights on a shiny black SUV flickered across the lot.
When they got to the car, he stopped dead, those deep emerald eyes glassy with fatigue but strangely intense as they roamed over her face. “You sure about this? The barge isn’t up to your usual standards.” For the first time he sounded unsure, and more confused than pissed off, so she ignored the implied dig—and the misconception.
He had no idea how low her standards had sunk, before she’d gotten into the program. Back when she was sofa-surfing the fleshpots of Continental Europe and doing her utmost to lose herself in a haze of booze and other controlled substances, a house barge in Brooklyn would have been the height of luxury. Plus she’d always been surprisingly frugal and low maintenance, despite her often luxurious surroundings. Because she’d been born with a serious case of wanderlust, and she’d learned at an early age that material comfort could often mask an emotional wasteland.
That wanderlust had led her astray in her teens, when it had stopped being about enjoying new experiences and instead become a plea for attention or a uniquely self-destructive way of dealing with all the things in her life she couldn’t control.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, pulling open the heavy door of his SUV. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Yeah, right,” he grumbled, giving her another steely-eyed once-over, which set off unfortunate sizzles of reaction all over her skin.
Seriously, what a shame the man was such a monumental grump, because he could bottle sexy with that glare.