The charmer, p.14
The Charmer, page 14
“How come?”
“I’m going out of town.”
“Promise to tell me all the details when you get back, and I won’t tell Frankie you’re headed off for a weekend of amazing hot monkey sex.”
“I’m not having sex.” Lessons. She’d be having lessons and that was totally different. Her core clenched. Totally. Different.
“Then why haven’t you asked me for advice on packing if you aren’t planning on leaving everything in the overnight bag?” Fallon said with all the superiority an older sister could muster.
“I’m hanging up now,” she said, never more glad that Fallon hadn’t FaceTimed her and been able to see the five-alarm blush burning her cheeks right now. “Oh, but first, can you feed my cat while I’m away?”
“Yes. And love you, too, sis.” Fallon made a kissy noise and disconnected the call.
Felicia left her phone on the counter and crossed into her bedroom, the overnight bag sat in the middle of her already made bed. Team Anticipation and Team Annoyance were back duking it out in her belly, making her lungs tight. Just looking at a bag shouldn’t do this to her insides. But it did. What’s worse is that it wasn’t the sight of the bag that made her nipples pucker against the soft material of her robe. It was the hope that Fallon was right and that she’d never unpack.
…
Hudson had been up since dawn—a freak occurrence of epic proportions—double guessing his plan to make Felicia the first person to step foot inside the cabin since he inherited it at eighteen. He’d been staring at his penthouse’s pristine ceiling for hours by the time he finally gave in and picked up the phone. He didn’t need to look up the number. He’d known it by heart since his first day of school.
“What’s wrong,” his mother answered.
“Why would something be wrong?” he asked as he paced from one end of the bright white room shot through with slashes of indigo, amber, and ebony, the hardwood floor cold on the soles of his feet.
“Because it’s before noon on a Saturday and you initiated the call,” Helene said with all the subtlety of a cop in an interview room with a phonebook and a pipe.
He strolled out the door and headed straight for the kitchen and the coffeemaker. “I call you all the time.”
“Not this early in the morning. What’s wrong?”
Okay, this had been a mistake but the only other person he knew that got up this early was Sawyer, and he’d learned the hard way that his brother and Clover were the kind who got naked, sweaty, and orgasmic first thing in the morning. He only made that mistake once.
Popping the coffee pod in the machine, he tried to think up something—anything—that would explain this call to his mom besides the truth, that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Felicia. She was his project not a potential date, as far as his mom was knew.
“Are you still there?” his mom asked, concern thick in her tone.
Shit. The last thing he wanted was to freak her out. She’d finally stepped out of a three-year mourning and, while she was emotionally stronger than when he’d watched My Fair Lady practically on repeat with her, she wasn’t the same woman she’d been before his dad’s heart had unexpectedly given out on him.
“I’m here.” He hit the brew button. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going out to the cabin this weekend.”
“What is it that you do all the time out there? Wait, don’t tell me,” she said, the words rushing out. “A mother shouldn’t know those things.”
“It’s true, I’m having orgies at the cabin I inherited from Grandpa. I figured he’d appreciate it.”
“The man never appreciated anything,” Helene grumbled. “God rest his soul, but he didn’t—especially not the son he’d ignored.”
Hudson may not have been able to tell his dad, Michael, about his art after the massive blowout they’d had his senior year in college, but that had been the only—if major—blip in their relationship. Otherwise, it was all baseball games, family vacations, and smack talk during boys-only poker nights. That hadn’t been the case with his dad and his grandfather. Those two had barely been able to be in the same room without an arctic blast freezing the whole place.
“What ever happened between them?” he asked.
Helene mumbled something under her breath before speaking, “Just the regular pigheaded Carlyle man no-one-knows-what’s-right-but-me thing.”
“I resent that,” he said, speaking up for the men in the family.
“No,” she shot back. “You resemble it. Now, what’s this I hear about you bringing the same someone to two client dinners.”
Sawyer sure had a big mouth when he wanted to. “Just trying to help Felicia hook Tyler like you asked me to. Nothing makes a man notice another woman as much as another man noticing the same woman.” Yeah, that was as fucked up as it sounded.
He picked up his now full cup of coffee and walked out to the balcony to enjoy his view of the park. It was a sight that always relaxed him, especially this time of year when the leaves had gone from deep green to a mix of orange, red, and gold.
“That’s it? Clover made it seem like more.”
“Why would Clover think that?” Crap. That wasn’t a good sign. While Sawyer was all big picture, his wife noticed every detail—even the ones Hudson always tried to hide. Time to spin this away from the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about and toward one of his mom’s favorite pet projects. “Did she also mention that Sawyer and Tyler are hanging out again? And that they were able to meet for a client dinner without Clover being there as a buffer?”
“It is a job she’s proven herself to be quite good at, and on that note—how is your little mission going?”
That’s it. Spin that conversation like you get paid for it. “I think Operation: Bromance is going well.”
Better than expected really, and he hadn’t even gotten Tyler to fall for Felicia yet. He could have but he was going slow—for her sake, of course. No matter what kind of list Captain Clueless had been at the top of for her, the man was a grade A dipshit and didn’t deserve a woman like Felicia.
“How about that side assignment I gave you to find someone of your own to bring to charity events?” his mom asked, interrupting his internal rant.
“And break the hearts of women across Harbor City?” He fell back into character. “Why, Mother, I can’t do something like that.”
“That may be, but you are hereby under orders to bring a date to the Dixon Library masked ball fundraiser Wednesday night.”
He knew that tone of voice. She’d used it on Sawyer before she started dragging single women along with her to every family function in her mission to get her oldest son to stop focusing only on business and to actually take the time to appreciate the really important little things, like love. Not that Hudson needed to worry about that. He had years in front of him. Decades even. He’d find someone, someday, but he wasn’t looking for it now. His double life gave him more than enough to juggle. An image of Felicia popped into his head, calling him a liar.
“I’ll be fine going by myself,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll meet someone there.”
Yes. That’s just what he needed. Some no-strings-attached and no-ants-discussed hot sex with a woman who didn’t make him forget that she didn’t want him. He was just a man with a willing dick who could help her get exactly what she wanted—even if what she wanted was a douchebag. He refused to acknowledge his dick had no interest in anyone but Felicia right now. The traitor.
“I suppose I could make that work.” Helene’s voice came through the kind of extra calm way that every child—small or grown—knew meant shit was about to go down. “I do still have contact information for all of the ladies that Sawyer couldn’t run away from fast enough.”
“I’ll probably bring Felicia.” Now, where had that come from?
“Wonderful,” his mom said too quickly, and the skin on his neck started to itch.
“Has there ever been a day you couldn’t bend a Carlyle man to your will?”
His mom sighed, all the gamesmanship leaking out on that sad sound. “Just once and it almost broke my heart, but that’s neither here nor there.” Her tone changed to her more natural, take charge one. “I’ll see you Wednesday, please bring Felicia by the penthouse first. I’m holding a low-key cocktail party Tuesday night. I think I’ll send an invitation to Tyler as well and do my part to push things along.”
“Mom, if you ever decided to use your powers for evil, we’d all be doomed.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said with a chuckle. “I love you, darling.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” And he did. The woman was bossy, demanding, and a force to be reckoned with, and one of his most favorite women in the world even if she was wrong. The last complication he needed in his life right now was a date—especially not with his own personal Eliza Doolittle who was still in love with the wrong man.
Chapter Fourteen
When Hudson double parked his Alfa Romeo 4C Spider in front of Felicia’s apartment, he found her waiting out front, a small overnight bag at her feet, and a wary expression on her face. The woman would never make it as a poker player, but she’d kick ass as a mime. With Honeypot’s wail blaring out of the apartment, he got out, popped the trunk, and grabbed her bag off the sidewalk.
“Wondering if I’m taking you away to kill you in my cabin in the woods?”
She followed him to the back of the car, her ponytail swaying from side to side along with her hips. “Is that where we’re going?”
He dropped her bag in the trunk, using the motion as an excuse to lean down enough to inhale the fruity scent of her shampoo. That’s it. He had become a creepy freak. He jerked back a step and reminded himself for the billionth time that she was in love with someone else. “That’s what you want to know about, not the killing part?”
“I trust you,” she said, strolling to the passenger’s side and opening it before he could reach the handle. “At least not to kill me.”
“Well, don’t you take all the fun out of things.”
She got into the car, and he shut the door behind her, giving him the entire walk around the front—ignoring the asshole in the sedan honking his horn as if no one ever double parked in Harbor City—to repeat all the reasons he could think of as to why taking Felicia to the cabin was a good idea. He came up with pretty much jack shit. Still, he got behind the wheel, pulled into traffic, and headed north out of the city.
The drive took two hours, and for most of it they played a game called “find the shittiest song on the radio.” Okay, really, she was playing without realizing it, but she looked so damn happy singing along that he kept forgetting to tell her that the driver gets to pick the music. In between highway karaoke, they talked art, ants, and architecture—agreeing on next to nothing, right up until they both decided that if anyone deserved a monument created in their likeness it was the Harbor City leprechaun, a fifty-year-old man who dressed up all in green everywhere he went and told everyone, “Top of the morning.”
The conversation dragged once he pulled off the highway, drove the three miles down a county road to an electrified security gate (Grandpa liked his privacy), and punched in the code that only he had. He couldn’t blame her. At this time of year, the trip up the driveway was spectacular with the sun fighting through the clouds to hit the fall leaves just so they shined brilliantly in the afternoon light. It was magic—and it always made him want to haul out a canvas and paint so he could get it all down. Finally, two miles in from the gate, he parked the car next to the ten thousand square foot, two-story log cabin with its stained-glass front door and wraparound porch.
“This,” she said, her eyes round. “Is what you call a cabin?”
Okay, it was more of a lodge, but considering the place in Vail, it was on the small side. “It is by Carlyle standards.”
“Those are some standards.” She turned and looked a little slack jawed at him.
He supposed they were, but unlike the rest of the Carlyle empire, this was just his and it showed as soon as he walked through the door. His gut tightened. That he could see the oak and colored glass from where he stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch meant he was really here, really doing this. After they walked through the door there was no going back, no hiding who he really was.
Shoving his fingers through his hair, he wrapped his fingers around her forearm stopping her from going up the steps. “Before we go in, I have to swear you to secrecy.”
She grinned up at him and pushed up her glasses, stray hairs that had slipped her ponytail dancing around her face in the breeze. “Is this where you’re going to off me?”
“Worse,” he said, covering up his nerves with a slathering of teasing and leering. “This is where I’m going to paint you.”
“Please tell me you’re not going to stick one eye here and the other one over there somewhere.”
“I’m more of a realist.”
This was it. The moment when he could change his mind, keep his secret, and drive them both back to the city. But just seeing her here in this light made him crave a paintbrush and a blank canvas like a chocoholic joneses for a candy bar. It wasn’t all-consuming, but it was damn close. That’s why he was doing this—because he’d known from the first moment he’d spotted her at that fundraiser that he needed to get her on canvas. That was the reason. Not anything else. He could just shove any lingering doubts about that to the dark corner of his brain. Helping her was all part of Operation: Bromance because as soon as Tyler realized all he’d been missing with Felicia, he’d start wondering about everything else and then all the little moves Hudson had made to get Tyler and Sawyer together as friends again would pay off. And what did he get out of this? He got to paint Felicia. Sure, he’d hoped for maybe more, but this was enough. It had to be because as he well knew, no matter how close they became, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle didn’t walk hand and hand into happily ever after at the end of My Fair Lady. They went their separate ways, just like he and Felicia would because fakers like him didn’t end up with women like her. So, all of this would have to end, but not today, not yet.
Stop being such a chickenshit, Carlyle, and take her inside.
He did, the sense of being home rolling over him as soon as he opened the door. There was a reason why he’d set up shop at the cabin besides the privacy—the floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the four sides of the open concept main floor that provided ideal light at nearly every hour of the day. Canvases for his upcoming show at Everly’s gallery covered the space. Each one showed the faces of the Harbor City residents he encountered in random trips around the city. Old. Young. Stock brokers. Cabbies. Kindergarten teachers. Those who worked overnight shifts. Those who’d retired decades ago. Those who were decades away from their first job. Each one of whom helped to tell the story of Harbor City. A card detailing each subject’s story would accompany each painting as it hung in the gallery. The project had taken more than a year to come together and the faces—nervous, excited, grumpy, and even combative—that greeted him from the canvases were like old friends at this point.
Felicia went from painting to painting, respecting the ones still covered by sheets and inspecting the finished works on display. Each step she took, each closer look she leaned in for, squeezed his lungs tighter. He’d watched hundreds, thousands, of people check out his work. It hadn’t ever made him as nervous as he was now as he tried to read her face and figure out what she thought. For once, he couldn’t tell. It was making him edgy enough that he was about to chew a hole through his cheek.
Finally, she turned away from the portrait of the bodega owner with a smile as wide as the horizon and cocked her head to one side. “These look familiar, but I know I haven’t seen them before. They almost look like…”
“Hughston,” he filled in for her.
She nodded, walking to his side. “You’re a big fan?”
“I am Hughston.” He didn’t even hesitate. He should have. “No one knows, so you can’t tell anyone.”
Whatever he’d been expecting—and he really wasn’t sure—it wasn’t for her to laugh. A big laugh. Like a Santa Claus kind of belly full of jelly laugh. The kind that made her wrap her hands around her middle and toss her head back with what looked like absolute shock and joy. The breath he hadn’t meant to keep locked up eased out of him, and he found himself laughing along.
“But why the big secret?” she asked.
“It’s a long story.” One he sure as hell didn’t want to get into now—or ever, really. He poured his emotions out onto the canvas not out in the world. “Besides.” He leaned down, slipping on his charmer personality like a well-worn pair of jeans that didn’t fit nearly as well as they’d used to, and traced a finger down the exposed length of her neck. “You haven’t told me what color your panties are today.”
Her blush and stubborn silence on the topic lasted for as long as it took to give her a quick tour of the place as the wind changed from a gust to a howl outside the cabin. By the time they strolled into the guest bedroom, the sky was nearly as black as his mood. It was the last place he wanted her to spend the night, but she’d been more than upfront with him about her goal. Tyler Jacobson. Captain Clueless. Mr. Shit for Brains. Sir Luckier Than He Had a Right to Be. It wasn’t that Hudson wanted to date her—after all he didn’t date, he slept around, everyone in Harbor City knew it—but Felicia deserved someone who wasn’t totally oblivious. Besides, he’d already accepted a long time ago that any woman worth her salt, when she found out why he’d kept this part of his life hidden from his family, would realize he really wasn’t a keeper. Shame and guilt gnawed at him every day of his life but luckily no one ever bothered to look beyond the charming facade. Until Clover. And now Felicia.
Annoyed all of a sudden, Hudson dropped her bag like it was a steaming hot french fry fresh out of the deep fat fryer at Vito’s. It landed with a thunk that was eclipsed a moment later by the near-deafening crack of thunder that boomed outside the windows. Felicia let out a yelp of surprise right before the lights went out and they were plunged in darkness.
