Chapter Seventeen

 

SAM

“Do you do this for all your friends?”

Mandy sits cross-legged on the stainless steel counter of an empty Josef’s. The stoves and burners finally got hooked up today so I decided to cook instead of find somewhere to take her for dinner. With her fairy wings still strapped to her back, she sips wine out of a plastic cup, because the glassware won’t arrive for at least another week. Silver glitter catches my attention as it twinkles under the downlights. It’s dusted on her shoulders and across her throat. I’m not sure if it’s fallen from those fantastical wings or if it’s makeup she deliberately brushed there. She swings one pink suede wedge from her toes. Using her empty hand, she adjusts her fluffy tutu.

“Sometimes.” I shake my head and smile to myself as I flip the contents of the sauté pan. A few green vegetables to go with the pork belly and roast potatoes in the oven.

I’ve never met anyone who is so young and so truly themselves as she is. It’s enchanting. Most people with far more years under their belt don’t have themselves so together as she does. I certainly haven’t achieved as much as I thought I would. “I have a lot of friends who are chefs and sommeliers. Usually we do it together.”

“Isn’t that awkward? Some of you would be used to being in charge, wouldn’t you?”

“Sure.” I shrug, setting the pan back on the burner. “We just decide who’s doing what. We’re used to working together.”

“So you and Cas could cook together if you wanted to?” She drains her cup and holds it out for me to refill.

“We could if we had to, but I don’t think either of us really wants to.” I certainly would rather be spared having to spend time in the man’s company. I copped an eyeful of how he looked at her earlier. The possessive glares at me didn’t go unnoticed. Nor did the way he tracked her around the room as though he wants every moment of her time. But it was the way she gazed at him that made me wish she would look at me like that. With this intense kind of affection that was bigger than her skin could contain. I could practically see the electricity of it. I swear if I’d reached out I could have touched it. I’ve never looked at anyone like she looks at him. Never had anyone look at me like that. I didn’t even know it was possible.

“I suppose not,” she muses while peering into the clear plastic cup. “But you would be surprised what I can do when I put my mind to it.”

I chuckle as I move to take the roast out of the oven. “Don’t I know it.”

Although she would never have gotten me to change my mind. I should be grateful that Casper came along, even if I can’t help but wonder whether I’m missing out on something great. Something crazy. Intense. Beautiful.

Mandy Pearce makes me want to find out what the world looks like through her eyes. She makes me wonder if there’s more in store for me than what I’ve let myself believe I can have. Now, when I think about Claudia I can’t remember why we started dating in the first place. Was it all about Josef? About my place in his business? Just because our relationship made sense on paper? We were the same age? I pull the tray from the oven and set it aside to cool while I go to my laptop bag. Could I really settle for something with no spark just because it was safe?

“We didn’t get a chance to do anything about your birth certificate last time.” I dig my laptop out and open it up on the counter beside her. Those legs are my damnation. That gap between her thighs as she uncrosses them makes my cock throb. Ignoring it to the best of my ability, I focus on pulling up the website for birth certificates. “I thought maybe you would want to do that first? It’s probably the easiest option as long as your biological parents didn’t want the information sealed. Might as well start with the most straight forward choice.”

“Please.”

“If the information’s sealed we’ll have to try something else though,” I tell her while we wait for the page to load. “You might have to take it to court, and there’s a chance you won’t be able to find out who they are.”

“I still want to try,” she says, picking at the quicks around her fingernails.

“Okay.” It takes a couple minutes to fill in the information with me asking her questions and typing in her answers. She laughs at the way I peck at the keyboard with two fingers. Not all of us can touch type. “We need to take a scan of your license to attach with the application.”

“It’s in my purse.” She springs from her perch on the counter, but she’s had three glasses of wine and it must have all gone to her head because her balance is nil. Stepping back, I throw my arm out to catch her around the waist.

She giggles as she smashes into my chest and tips her wine down both our fronts. Both palms between us, she glances up at me and bites her lip. “My hero.”

Christ. Why is it that the harder I try to convince myself I’m not attracted to her, the more she gets under my skin? Can she tell that she does? Can she sense the way she makes me want to throw caution to the wind?

Her hair is a silk waterfall of pink under the stroke of my palm. She licks her lips, leaves them open like an invitation. There’s no way she doesn’t feel how hard that one look makes me. She could turn this grown man’s world upside down. That’s the power this little girl has in her pocket. I’m not sure how long I can resist.

I’m not sure that I want to try anymore. Bowing my head, I capture her mouth and taste the wine on her lips. Her arms coil around my neck as her tongue thrusts and parries with mine. I groan with how good she feels crushed up against me. My fingers find the curve of her ass, and I rub my hardness against her thigh. Once. Just once I need to experience her as a woman. “Come back to the hotel with me?”

She breaks away to stare at me, her fingers curling in my shirt. “What are you saying, Sam?”

I press her back to the counter and tilt her chin up. “I’m asking you to spend the night with me.”

“Just one night?” She wets her lips as I lift her onto the steel, her knees squeezing my hips.

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. My life is complicated at the moment.” There’s Claudia and Josef. There’s the restaurant, and what the hell I’ll do if I don’t have a job at the end of this trip. I’m not even sure I want to go back to L.A. anymore. I have no idea where that last thought comes from. Los Angeles is my home. My life is there. But what kind of life is it anyway? “And you have a boyfriend.”

He’s barely a thought in my head, but he is another hurdle. Her gaze pops wide open, and she drags her hands from my neck. “I do. I have a boyfriend. I’m not going to hurt him for one night in a shady hotel room, Sam. It isn’t fair to ask that of me.”

“You’re right.” I slowly relinquish my hold on her. What the hell am I doing? I’ve never been this guy before. The other one. The seedy asshole that takes what isn’t his.

Carefully she slips to the floor. “I think I better go.”

“You don’t want dinner?” I don’t know why I mention the stupid food. I shouldn’t stand in her way, not after I asked her to do something morally inexcusable. It’s just I might be falling for her after all. Despite all the reasons I don’t want to. Despite her age. My age. The fact that I want to settle down with a reasonable woman and maybe have a dog or a cat or a kid. But maybe Mandy is worth changing my plans for. Maybe Mandy Pearce is the one you break all the rules for.

“I don’t want dinner,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it would have been wonderful. It smells amazing. But I think I need to go and see Cas. And maybe I need to ask him to forgive me.”

“Is that what you want?” I run my hand shakily over my head. My heart keeps skipping a beat. Almost as if it’s trying to remind me that I’m too old to be making a play for the kind of girl who takes over a man’s world. His sensibilities. His ability to be happy with anything less than the kind of fantasy relationship he knows can’t exist.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes are glassy. She shakes her head. “I have no idea what I want anymore.” 

I’m silently thankful as I cross the room to reach her before she gets out the door. Grabbing her elbow, I keep her from leaving. “If he doesn’t forgive you he’s a fool.”

She glances at me, her brows scrunched tight over her eyes, her eyelashes sweeping her cheeks. A dimple plays peekaboo momentarily. “Cas isn’t a fool. He’s one of the best men I know.”

“I’ll be here. I’ll be waiting. If you need me.”

She clasps my cheek and shakes her head. “Don’t hold your breath, Sam.”

Opening the door, she leaves me behind. I watch her traipse down the street, the dark punctuated by streetlights overhead. This glittering fairy spreading her magic over everything she touches now looks a little like I broke her wings.

It’s a shitty feeling.