SIXTEEN
In green and gold and brown they’re lit,
Composed of dazzling color,
With sparks and laughter and lively wit
They move me like no other
Eyes in a face I’ve ever seen.
So starkly seductive they are,
A gaze straight from a lovely dream
With a shine like a brilliant star.
And lashes long and curved and dark
As soot and devils’ souls,
All my resistance is a lark,
These knees are weak as a newborn foal’s.
I beg of you, my burning Sun,
With this poor heart you’ll soon be done.
When I open my eyes, it’s light outside, and my head is perfectly clear. I sit up carefully, worried the room is about to spin, but everything stays stable. I feel no trace of headache or nausea.
I run to my desk, pull out my sonnet book, and quickly scribble down the words in my head.
When I’m done, I read it aloud, then frown at the first line. “It should say blue. Michael’s eyes are blue.” I scratch out the words green, gold, and brown, and insert cobalt, azure, and sapphire.
It feels wrong. And clunky. Too many syllables, too embellished, too much. So I rewrite the original line again, above the one I’ve scratched out, and stare at it.
Green, gold, and brown equals hazel. In my sleep, I composed a sonnet about hazel eyes. “He put something funny in that drink,” I accuse the book.
“What’s that?”
I slam the book shut with a strangled little scream because Cam is standing at my bedroom door. “Nothing! What are you doing here?”
He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Watchin’ ESPN with the cat. Why’re you shoutin’?” His gaze drops to my sonnet book.
I shout, “I’m not shouting!” and throw the book into the top drawer of my desk, slamming it closed so hard the whole desk shakes.
“Uh-huh. That didn’t look guilty at all.”
His smile is like acid on my nerves. I jump up from the chair, smooth my hands over my hair, and try to compose myself. “I thought you left.”
“You thought wrong.”
He’s still looking at the drawer I threw the sonnet book into, so I move in front of it, crossing my arms over my chest. He glances at me, his smile growing wider.
“Okay, I’ll let it go. For now. How’d you sleep?”
“Fine. Amazing, actually. I shouldn’t feel this good after all that wine. What was in your homemade potion?”
“It’s a secret. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
When I just stand there staring at him, he relents. “Ginger, raw honey, flaxseed, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, B vitamins, other stuff. Whips up in the blender in no time.”
“You’re quite the blender master, aren’t you?”
“It was my mum’s recipe. They all are.” A cloud passes over his face. He looks away, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“What time is it?” I ask, to change the obviously unwelcome subject.
He drags a hand through his hair and shakes his head like he’s shaking off a bad memory. “Ten. You got anything planned for today?”
“Nope.”
“Good. We’re goin’ shoppin’.” He turns around and disappears, and now I’m worried.
“Shopping?” I hurry after him into the living room. “We already bought enough food for a month—”
“Not for food, lass. For a dress for the holiday party.”
When I stand there blinking at him in surprise, he shrugs. “Unless you don’t want a man’s opinion on the matter. I’m sure whatever you pick will be nice.”
I think of what I wore to the last holiday party and cringe. I thought ruffles would help hide my girth, but in photos I looked like a demented pirate who’d consumed his entire crew. “I mean, if you don’t have anything better to do, that would be great.”
His eyes—damn hazel eyes!—burn right through me. “I don’t have anything better to do.”
Now I’m feeling shy. Also weirdly guilty and ashamed, like he caught me masturbating or something. “Um. Okay. I need to take a shower.”
“I’ll go change out of my sweats. How much time d’you need?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“That’s it?”
“Why do you look so surprised?”
“Nothin’. Just in my experience women usually take a lot longer than that to get ready.”
Right. In his “experience” with women, which, if made into book form, would encompass several thousand pornographic volumes.
Inspecting my face, Cam says, “You’ve got that intestinal gas look again, darlin’.”
“I’ll knock on your door when I’m ready.” Scowling, I go back into my bedroom and close the door firmly behind me, pushing aside my curiosity at why I’m suddenly so mad.
It must be because he called me darling.
Jerk.
If I thought going with Cameron McGregor to a grocery store was an education in the collective lust of women, going with him to a mall filled with holiday shoppers turns out to be an education in the collective lust of the entire human race.
Everyone stares at him. Everyone. Women, men, children, dogs. Heads swivel in his wake like weather vanes in the wind. Mouths hang open. People stop in their tracks and gape.
It’s so creepy that after a few hours of it I’m ready to jump out of my skin.
“God, how do you stand it?” I ask under my breath, edging closer to him as a pair of goggle-eyed women move nearer. They’ve been circling like vultures for the better part of twenty minutes, whispering to each other as they follow us from rack to rack in the dress department of Saks.
“Stand what?” asks Cam, browsing through the rack with an expert eye. Every once in a while he’ll pull something out, then put it back after a brief inspection and move on. Apparently he has a very specific idea of what he’s looking for.
“The ogling.” I nudge him with my elbow.
He looks up and sees the women. When he smiles at them, they freeze. Then they perform a hilarious about-face and dart away, giggling hysterically like a pair of silly teenage girls, though they’re obviously both over fifty.
“I hardly notice it anymore,” he says with a shrug, then withdraws a red dress from the rack with a little growl of pleasure. “This one.” He tosses it at me and keeps going.
I drape the dress over my arm and watch him continue his quest. “Seriously, though, it must get annoying! The amount of attention you get doesn’t bother you?”
“Comes with the territory, lass. This kind of rare, extraordinary beauty has a price.” He sends me a wink and I roll my eyes.
“God, I’m glad I’m not beautiful. I’d wind up a hermit if I had to deal with this every time I went out.”
I’m fingering the neckline of the dress over my arm when I bump right into Cam because he’s stopped moving. Startled, I look up into a pair of hazel eyes, intense and unblinking.
“The only reason you don’t have to deal with it is because you don’t notice it,” he says, his voice low. “And the only reason you don’t notice it is because you’ve mind fucked yourself into thinking you’re fat and plain.”
My lips part, but I’m too shocked to form a sentence. He takes my silence as permission to continue.
“Since we walked into this store, I’ve seen at least half a dozen men looking at you. Yes, you,” he repeats when I start to protest. “If you want an example of what I’m talkin’ about, look to your right. Three o’clock. Lad in the leather jacket with the red scarf. Look.”
He glances up, and I follow the direction of his gaze. Sure enough, there’s a guy across the aisle in a leather jacket with a red scarf looking right at me. He’s tall, with nice hair, and a nice face. He’s actually kind of cute.
When he sees us both looking at him, he glances away, cheeks ruddy. He turns and pretends to browse through a display of stacked sweaters.
“It must be you,” I say, astonished. “I’m getting some of your glow. Like the moon reflecting the sun’s rays. If the sun didn’t shine so brightly, the moon would just sit there in the night sky like a dead lump of rock.”
Cam’s sigh is aggrieved. “Bloody fucking hell,” he mutters, and storms over to another rack. I follow at a safe distance and watch with growing alarm as he tears through the rack, eyes black and lips thinned, his entire body bristling.
A young man in a suit with a gold name tag on his lapel stares at Cam with glowing heart eyes from a nearby register. When he sees me looking at him, he bites his lip and puts his hand to his throat, like Cowabunga, girlfriend, is that big, glorious beast yours?
I should introduce him to Cam. They’d make a lovely couple.
Smiling, I approach the Mountain and brave the storm brewing over his head. “What you’re failing to take away from my comment is the compliment I paid you.”
He glares at me from under lowered brows. “Don’t talk to me right now. I’m mad at you.” He savagely pulls a dress from the rack, rakes his black gaze over it, and tosses it in my general direction. I have to leap a few feet to catch it before it drops on the ground.
“Oh, okay,” I say, acting casual. As casual as one can be, standing on the slopes of an erupting volcano. “So it’s no biggie that I called you beautiful.”
He freezes, narrowing his eyes at me. “No, you didn’t.”
“Didn’t I?” I drift toward another rack. Cam follows on my heels like I knew he would, because there’s nothing more irresistible to his ego than a stroke down its back.
“When?” he demands, cutting me off as I reach for a sparkly silver jacket.
“Use that big brain of yours and think.” I move around him and admiringly fondle the sleeve of the jacket, then decide I’d look like a disco ball in it and let it go.
Cam moves in front of me again. “You said you were glad you weren’t beautiful. How is that a compliment to me?”
“Because it’s implied that you are.”
He purses his lips, looking at me askance. “No. A negative doesn’t count. You can’t prove a negative.”
It’s so obvious what he wants me to say, but I know if I come right out and tell him he’s beautiful, I’ll never hear the end of it. Also, the building could explode if his ego gets any larger, so I just shrug and drift away again.
Cam surprises me by taking my arm and gently pulling me into his chest. “So what you’re sayin’ is that you think I’m beautiful?”
I aim for a breezy, nonchalant tone that doesn’t give away the sudden thumping of my heart. “Well . . . you’re not entirely unfortunate looking.”
He’s serious and intent, gazing at me with laserlike focus, not a hint of a smile in his eyes or on his face. “It’s a yes-or-no question, Joellen. So—yes or no?”
Heat begins to creep up my neck. “You know exactly how you look, McGregor.”
“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, lass. I dunno how I look to you.”
The roughness of his voice surprises me, as does the intensity burning in his eyes. Has all my ribbing hurt his feelings?
I’m breathless with shame when I realize that all the times I’ve been sarcastic with him might have been taken at face value. Not everyone appreciates a sharp tongue, or that its owner is usually just a big scaredy-cat who uses sarcasm as a shield.
Oh my God. I’m such a dick. A spiteful, petty little dick who’s made a man feel bad about himself.
Looking into his eyes, I say quietly, “To me you look like a man everyone underestimates, objectifies, and misjudges because of his appearance. To me you look like a man who’s thoughtful, insightful, and kind, but hopes no one will notice because it will be mistaken for weakness. To me you look like a man who hides his pain behind smiles and buries it in women and tries everything he can to forget whatever’s hurting him but can’t because he’s got a soft heart that scars easily, but no one has ever looked close enough to see.”
A look of anguish crosses his face. His fingers curl into my arm. He swallows, hard, a muscle in his jaw flexing.
A sudden pop of noise and a flash of light make us both turn.
There’s a man with a camera standing across the aisle. It’s one of those cameras with the long lenses and the big flash box—the kind the paparazzi use.
A growl rumbles through Cam’s chest, so violent and animalistic sounding it raises the hair on my arms to gooseflesh.
It scares the crap out of the photographer, too. He leaps into motion, sprinting off down the aisle, bumping into people as he flees.
Cam lets loose a stream of obscenities under his breath that could peel the paint from the walls.
“Was that—”
“Aye. C’mon.”
Holding my arm, Cam steers me away from the aisle and through the dress department, to the dressing rooms located in the back. A young female sales associate is there, helping shoppers into rooms. Her eyes widen when she spots us coming.
“She needs a room,” Cam growls, “and I need to speak to your manager.”
Neither of us dares to disobey him. In his current state, he’s too intimidating to refuse. The girl quickly ushers me into a dressing room, then I’m alone with my shaking hands and knotted stomach, wondering what he’s going to do.
And what would’ve happened if the photographer hadn’t been there.
Was he about to kiss me?
“Are you going crazy, Joellen?” I whisper to my reflection. In the mirror I’m all wild eyes and flushed cheeks, a startled bird poised for flight. “Get it together. Your imagination is running away with you again.”
But I didn’t imagine it when I thought Michael was about to kiss me . . .
With a groan of exasperation, I throw my handbag onto the chair in the corner, hang the dresses on the bar on the wall, and tear off my coat. I spend too long wrestling myself out of my clothes because I’m flustered, and by the time I’m standing there in my underwear, I’m out of breath.
“Stupid,” I mutter, yanking the red dress off its hanger. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. One man shows you some attention, and now you think they all want you. Cam was not going to kiss you! And he probably paid that guy in the leather jacket to stare at you, because he’s nice!”
I pull down the zipper that runs the length of one side of the dress, and step into it, noting absently that it’s my size. Lucky guess. “Be grateful the poor guy’s helping you out, for Pete’s sake, and stop acting like such a dimwit!”
I shove my arms into the sleeves of the dress, get my boobs into position in the bodice, then zip everything up and, with a huff, straighten and look at myself.
“Oh.” That’s pretty much all I can come up with.
I turn slowly left, then right. The dress isn’t something I would have ever chosen for myself, but—somehow, miraculously—it works with my figure. It worships my figure.
The bodice is cut into a low V, exposing an acre of cleavage. Around the waist, the fabric is shirred to one side, gathered with a small, sparkly thingy like a brooch. The fit is tight but slimming, cut so well there are no gaps or puckers, no unsightly bulges, just a lot of softly draping scarlet fabric that swings attractively as I move.
Even the color is flattering. It makes my pale skin brighter, my mousy hair warmer, lends my green eyes a mysterious, fiery tint.
“You should definitely wear more red,” I tell my reflection, who agrees with an enthusiastic nod.
There’s a gentle knock on the dressing room door. “Is everything all right in there, miss? Do you need any different sizes?”
I open the door a crack and tentatively look out. “Um, would you happen to have any heels I can try on with this?”
The salesgirl looks me up and down. “Wow, that looks like it was made for you! What shoe size do you wear?”
I tell her, and she’s off. Less than a minute later, she’s back, bearing a pair of strappy gold heels.
“I’ll break my leg in those,” I say doubtfully, noting the height of the heel.
“Honey, if you’re gonna go for it, go for broke. Metaphorically speaking.”
She has a point. I pull off my shoes and socks and step into the heels, then inspect my reflection once again. Then I pull the elastic out of my hair and comb it out with my fingers so it floats over my shoulders and down my back.
“Your boyfriend’s gonna love it,” the salesgirl says, grinning.
“Oh, he’s not my—”
But she’s already dragging me out of the dressing room, no doubt dreaming of the commission she’ll make if she can convince us to take the dress.
Cam’s standing right outside the entrance to the dressing rooms, his back turned to us, his arms folded over his chest.
When the salesgirl calls, “Here she is!” he looks over his shoulder. Then he jerks all the way around, his eyes big and his jaw unhinged.
He drags his gaze up and down my body, says faintly, “Holy shit,” and sinks into a nearby chair.