Chapter 8
“Is that so? Boston is sexy?”
The question sounded like no more than his usual mild skepticism to her. But she’d take it. She was wild about this project and had almost forgotten about the promise of it with the distraction of the junior mobster after her. She was happy to launch herself back into the frenzy now.
“Boston has Harvard and MIT and more world-championship sports teams than 5-star hotels. It’s authentic, smart, and fun. And Martha’s Vineyard . . . well, two recent sitting presidents vacationed there. You don’t get any more chichi than that.”
“Chichi? You talking in some kind of Hollywood code?”
She laughed and put a hand to his cheek. She would have caressed it, but she noticed the slight flinch, the look that told her a story of regret. If there was one thing she did not relish being, it was a man’s morning-after regret. She patted his cheek and turned away.
“I suppose Iamtalking in code. Same way you talk when you talk missions with your Zero Go Team buddies.”
“And how would you know?”
“It’s the same for everyone. No matter which walk you’re walking.”
“You’re a little too slick for your own good, Ms. Monday. You shouldn’t bother using your cheeky attitude to try and cover yourself up. Doesn’t work.”
She didn’t like that and kept her face away from him to spite him. If she wanted tocover herself up,as he put it, then he’d damned well ought to have the decency to let her.
“Says the master of covering up.”
“Look. I’m sorry—”
“Mr. Know-it-all, you should know that ‘I’m sorry’ is the last thing I—or any girl would want to hear after—” She waved her hand in a juvenile cop-out rather than spelling it out for him. She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t sayafter a night of wild, passionate sex like I’d never had before. They’d been like cinders igniting with such a rush that it was dangerous.Hadto be dangerous. For her anyway. She’d had no guard on her emotions. She’d been fully engaged. Still was, if she was honest.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You need to hear the truth and deal with it. I’m a one-night stand kind of guy and I had no business having a one-night stand with a client. If it means anything to you, I’ve never broken that rule before.”
She scoffed. “Mean anything? How many of your clients have been attractive young women? How many clients have you even had?”
Silence.
“I thought so.”
“You have a point about that. But I’m not a rule breaker. That’s more to my point. I pride myself on self-discipline. You—”
“Spare me. You and your regret can f—ck yourselves and you can puzzle out your troubling lapse on your own time.”
He took her wrist. For once his face showed something, albeit anger. Typical guy. Use anger as the default emotion to mask whatever else is really going on. She took her wrist back.
“It’s no big puzzle, is it?” She let her anger—mostly at herself—have rein. “You’re a lonely man. Doesn’t take a PhD to see that.”
The shuttering of his face fascinated her. It was as if he had yanked a cord and blank slats closed over all the emotion, all the life in him. Everything that made him human disappeared, leaving a shell playing the role of a cartoon hero.
Mae was not a fan of cartoon men. A dime a dozen. Even if this one was a more convincing cartoon hero, he was too hell-bent on playing that role instead of being a real man. She mentally wiped her hands of him.
Too bad her heart didn’t follow suit as it wept for the lost possibilities. And it was those murky possibilities that worried her. What had she really been hoping for? If not with Joe, then with any man? She knew better than to believe in Hollywood happily-ever-after love stories, had seen real life in all its unhappy glory. No, it wasn’t that.
Then what the hell had she wanted? What the hell was this feeling of loss about? Loss of what, exactly?
The mysteriousness didn’t lessen the hollow pang, maybe made it worse. She kept her mouth shut. Seemed they were both good at that.
She reached in her bag for her iPad and fired it up. A glance at him told her he wasn’t going to ask, but she gave him the explanation anyway.
“I need to review the script. I’ve been over it, but I’ll make notes this time on my thoughts about the nature of the characters and what kind of look I envision for them.” Then she added, more to herself that to him, “I hope the damn actors playing the parts don’t have any body quirks to work around. I’m short a seamstress for making alterations and I’ll need to do them myself if they’re too far off standard sizing.”
“Seamstress?”