FERRO SLUNG HIS bag over his shoulder and waited at the foot of the stairs. Waited for Julia to board the plane. She was stiff. Everything about her. Her nose was pointed straight toward the sky, her posture rigid, every step locked like a soldier’s. And she was pointedly not looking at him.
And he supposed he deserved it. Thankfully, in the cold light of day with his control firmly back in place he could deal with her in a rational manner. Except, she wasn’t being rational. Maybe he hadn’t handled the night before the way that she wanted him to handle it, but he’d more than given her pleasure. He hadn’t taken advantage in any way.
She ascended the stairs, keeping that same posture, never once looking in his direction, and he followed. He blew out a breath before entering the plane and watched it linger in the air. It was cold. Strangely he didn’t feel it so much.
He sat on the couch across from her and she pulled her computer out, typing furiously, never once glancing at him all through takeoff.
“Are we having a problem, Julia?” he asked.
Her head snapped up. “Are you speaking to me again?”
“You’re the one ignoring me,” he said, struck by the oddness of the conversation. It sounded like a fight two people in a relationship, albeit a high school relationship, might have. And he’d never had a relationship before, neither was this a relationship, so that made it all doubly odd.
“I am not!” she said, setting her laptop aside. Then she bit her lip and picked it back up, put the computer back on her lap and turned her focus back to the screen, her cheeks pink.
He’d never in all his life dealt with something like this.
She set her computer down again and looked back at him. “Why did you sleep on the couch last night?”
“Why would I not sleep on the couch?”
“Because we…shouldn’t you sleep together after sleeping together? I assumed that was where that highly glossed term came from.”
“I’ve never slept with a woman I had sex with.”
“You’ve never had a lover before, either, remember? It was supposed to be different.”
A strange pang struck his chest, worked its way through his body. “In that I was in control, and not the other way around. I’m not going to pick a China pattern out with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to. I just thought maybe you could say a few words to me. Or…get in bed with me. Why are you making me feel needy for asking for what, I’m sure, is bare minimum sex etiquette?”
“Did you not listen to anything I told you?” he asked, the burning in his chest getting worse. As it had been just after he’d finished with her last night. A virgin. She’d been a virgin. It had excited him. Made him feel some sort of masculine pride he’d been completely unfamiliar with until that moment.
And it had made him feel every inch the predator. Had made him feel no different than the women who had used him. At least they had given him something in return.
He would, though, regardless of what she said she wanted. He would make sure she was compensated for her time in his bed. For giving him her innocence.
“I listened,” she said, her lips pulled tightly together.
“But you apparently didn’t understand. If you wanted tenderness and feeling you should have picked a man who was capable of giving it to you. I can’t. I don’t want to. I want to make you come, and that’s the beginning and end of it. If you can’t handle that, then I’m not the man for you to stretch your sexual muscles with.”
Slashes of dark color appeared on her cheeks. Anger, he could see, not embarrassment. She was shaking with it. Good. Maybe if he made her angry enough it would erase the hurt she felt, because he didn’t know another way to do it. Didn’t know how to offer comfort.
“I knew that with you all I was getting was good instruction. I knew you weren’t going to want anything else from me. I just wanted a little quality training before I took another lover, but I damn well expected you to treat me with a little respect.”
Such irony that she should speak of respect when she admitted she was using him for training. That she was using him the way the other women had.
As if he wasn’t using her. Using all that sweet innocence as a salve for his bloody soul. But it was really just putting butter on a burn. All it did was hold the heat in so it burned faster and deeper.
“I am not the man for you, Julia, not even for temporary purposes. And I’m not training you.” He spat the words out. “I’ll do business with you, but this is over.”
“Fine by me. I wouldn’t let you touch me again. Not after the way you treated me last night.”
“Then we’ve arrived back at the same place we’ve always been,” he said.
“And that is?”
“Barely tolerating each other but prepared to work together if it will benefit us. No harm, no loss. Except your virginity, that is.”
He didn’t know what had possessed him to strike out at her. He only knew that the same feelings he’d been wrestling with since last night were threatening to rise up and strangle him again. That venting them this way seemed to stop them.
“Oh, classy, thanks, bring that up.”
“You should have.”
“Why? Why should I have to tell you? You said yourself we were just having a fling. You wanted to experience having the control, I wanted to learn from the best. We were both in it for ourselves, but that’s life, isn’t it? Everyone’s in it for what they get out of the deal. I know those women used you, but you used them, too. You used them for money.”
“The power differential was not in my favor, Julia, just trust me on that.”
“I’m not saying it was but…”
“I was sixteen, I thought, yeah sure, get paid to have sex. I’d never in my life worried about sex much since I was too busy trying to figure out where my next meal would come from, or trying to teach myself to read so I could navigate my way through the world. But being a teenage boy, I was interested. With all my bravado, compliments of life on the street, I figured it wouldn’t matter to me. That it wouldn’t mean anything. And I was still a virgin so…it was even tempting on that level. But I didn’t realize what it cost. What I would have to do to get through it in the end. Until you’ve been through it, you don’t really understand, Julia. Until you’ve gone so far as to sell yourself to live, you don’t know what it’s like. Every time was like…having more and more of my skin stripped off until…at the end, I couldn’t bear to have anyone touching me. It was torture. Not pleasure.”
Julia looked down, some of her rage cooling then. In some ways she did understand. She hadn’t realized how she would feel after sex. The rush of jumbled emotion that would hit her. She hadn’t had a clue. And she pictured him as a teenager, innocent in that way, being led into something he couldn’t possibly have understood the repercussions for.
“You can’t stop when you start,” he said. “Because there’s no other way to make that kind of money in that little bit of time. Otherwise I was doing hard labor for twelve hours of the day and still not making enough to sleep in a bed at night. Not making enough to keep you fed, to keep up your strength to work.”
“Ferro…”
“No, it’s good you know. But I think it draws a line under the fact that you and I can’t allow our personal attraction to have a place in this.”
“Are you attracted to me?” she asked.
“I am. But I think you can now attest to the fact that being used for your body doesn’t feel much better than being used for your money.”
“I knew more about that than you might think. That wasn’t being used, trust me. I didn’t particularly enjoy the…after stuff, but the sex was great. I felt desired, I felt pleasure. I hope you did, too. I hope you didn’t feel like I used you, because that wasn’t what I wanted. Because whatever you might think, I do know that pain.”
“Maybe we should just call the conversation over,” he said.
“Oh, right. Over.” So he didn’t want her to share. Fine. She didn’t want to share anyway. Things just weren’t working out, and they were ending them. Which was the only way it was ever going to go.
But you don’t want him anyway. Too much baggage. Not enough cuddling. Failed experiment. Back to the drawing board.
She sighed and looked back down at her computer, more than ready to just deal with some silence on the flight. It was better than this awkward conversation.
And she would try to ignore the fact that when she looked at him, her body burned. There was no place for that. She’d made a mistake, but at least it had been her choice. And it wouldn’t be terminal.
They were in a business relationship and it was time for her to remember that. Time to get back to California. Back to real life. Back to business.
* * *
“Why is there a giant metal salmon in my office?” Julia walked out into the foyer, coffee clutched in her hand, and over to Thad’s desk.
“I thought you ordered it,” he said, not looking at her and sounding way too innocent.
“You did not. Did Calvaresi come in and flash his abs at you?”
“I’m not that easy, Julia, honestly. You wound me.”
She leaned forward, hands planted on Thad’s desk. “And you let him put a fish in my office.”
“It’s not a real fish.”
“Thad, focus.”
“I thought since you were, you know, with him now, that it would be acceptable.”
She was about to say she wasn’t with him, but she couldn’t say it, because she just remembered the assumption had been that they were together before they’d actually slept together and that the ruse had to go on with the absence of actual sex.
It was officially so complicated. And she was so damn trapped! Stupid media. Stupid Facebook page. Stupid, stupid celebrity nickname! JulErro. Of all the ridiculous…
And it was only getting worse. There was a website now. With unauthorized merch. Little joke T-shirts showing his phone breeding with hers and making sleek sparkly phone babies that possessed tech superpowers. So dorky. And if it hadn’t been about her she would have thought it was hilarious.
“Assume that if Ferro wants to put anything in my office other than flowers, he’s messing with us both.” She turned and stormed back into her office, dialing Ferro as she went.
“Why the fish, Calvaresi?” she said when he answered.
“Why not? You liked it.”
“I was making conversation. How did you get it in here? How am I supposed to get it out?”
“That’s rude, Julia, you make it seem like you don’t like my gift.”
The whole conversation was so strange. And so from a few weeks ago. He was back to being obnoxious Ferro, of the charming grins and zero depth. And she wasn’t sure what she thought of that. On the one hand, it was a nice thought. Like they could erase that night in Alaska just by pretending it didn’t exist. That all that honesty, that being skin to skin, hadn’t happened.
On the other hand, in the week since their return, she’d thought of very little else. And everything about her felt different. She was more aware of every part of her body. Maddeningly aware. When she took a shower, she turned herself on just by trying to get clean. Because her mind automatically went to the way Ferro’s hands had felt on her. The way the wet heat of his mouth had felt at her…
Her face burned and she turned her focus back to the salmon statue. “It can’t stay here. I have to meet with people here.”
“And what’s wrong with a little natural art?”
“Bah!” She hung up the phone and threw it onto the low, cushy chair she had in the corner. Then she stalked to her desk and plopped down on the computer chair, her head rested on her hands.
Her desk phone rang. She answered it. “Julia Anderson.”
“I’m going to need to see your idea from the Barrows pitch ASAP.”
“Ferro, I just hung up on you.”
“I know. But that was a personal call.”
“Is a call about a fish statue really a personal call?”
“In this instance. And this is a business call. So, not the same.”
She growled. “Whatever, man. Why don’t you come by my office and…”
“No. Your office is a little crowded.”
She gritted her teeth. “Now it is.”
“So come to mine. Two hours. There will be lunch. And coffee. I’ll see you then.” He disconnected the call and Julia sat back in her chair, trying to order her thoughts. She was going to see Ferro for the first time since flying back from the wedding. She was going to have to figure out some kind of game face so that she didn’t just blush, stammer and lose all the social grace she’d managed to train herself to have.
She took a sip of coffee and stared at the metal fish statue. Then burst out laughing. It was pretty funny. The ultimate inside joke.
As suddenly as the laughter had burst from her, it died. It would be funny if Ferro weren’t using it as some sort of deflection. She wasn’t stupid. He had regressed to the way they’d treated each other before the deal. Before the sex. And there was a reason for that.
Probably the same reason he’d shut down completely after their night together. Why he’d gone into the bathroom and showered for the better part of an hour before lying down and going to sleep without another word spoken to her.
She was just going to play it cool. Yep. Play it cool. She’d learned to do that as a way to protect herself from this kind of thing and she was just going to keep doing it.
Time to get her game face on.
* * *
Ferro didn’t know what to expect from Julia when she came breezing into his office fifteen minutes later than he’d asked her to arrive.
She was wearing a black top with a rigid, ruffled collar that skimmed her jawline, black, feathered earrings dropping down inside it and disappearing into her top. Her pencil skirt, also black, was just as severe, as were her extremely high heels and the tight bun she’d tamed her blond hair into.
No soft pinks and golds in her makeup today. Thick liner around her eyes and lipstick like a ripe, black cherry made her look like she was ready to ride into battle. Ms. Julia Anderson had come to meet him in full armor today.
“Hello, Ferro, how has your day been? No steel aquatic creatures in your office I see.”
“Not my thing.”
“Right. Well. I’ve brought my ideas for the navigation system.” She reached into her leather bag, also black, and pulled out her tablet computer, bringing up a three dimensional model on the screen. She turned it with her finger, showing different angles, the dimensions for each part of the system, fading in and out depending on what she was featuring.
“It will be touch screen. And voice activated. It will be able to look things up by landmark or by street, state, zip code, whatever. It will be especially handy when you’re lost, and say, you’re on Third Street, but you need to get to the wharf. So you can push a button on your steering wheel, activate voice recognition and say, ‘How far am I from the wharf?’ And it can tell you and map a route.”
“Good ideas,” he said. And they were. Julia did have a way of thinking like the kind of person who would need to use this piece of technology.
It was harder for him. Maybe because he didn’t understand people especially well. Not normal, functional people.
They spent the next few hours altering her rendering, discussing features, modifying specifications and fighting over things one of them found necessary and the other felt was useless.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed the conception of a product so much. And it had to do with Julia. With the fact that she felt so deeply about what it was they were doing. It made him want to put more into it. To match what she was giving.
By the time they were finished, there were five empty cartons on his desk that had once contained Chinese food, and they were on their fourth pot of coffee. And the sun had gone down, their afternoon meeting extending long past work hours.
“This is it!” Julia said, standing up from her position at his desk. “They’re going to choose our design. How can they not? It’s genius. Beyond genius, if I say so myself. I mean, really.”
When it came to work, Julia was unable to disguise her passion all the way. And he was glad. She tapped into a part of herself, a part of life, that was off-limits to him. Watching her, being near her when she was overflowing with energy and exuberance was intoxicating.
Nearly as much as sleeping with her had been. No, he wasn’t going there. He was determined to put that out of his mind. To forget it happened. It opened up too many doors he simply didn’t want opened. Let in too many ghosts from his past.
And it almost felt like it might be worth the cost. Almost.
“It is a good design,” he said, trying not to betray his thoughts. Trying not to show just how badly he wanted to push her onto his desk and have a repeat experience of what it was like to have sex on his own terms. With a woman he wanted. Wanted so much it made him burn.
“It’s an amazing design.”
“I think that should be all, then,” he said, standing and straightening a stack of papers on his desk. Something to keep his hands busy, to keep from touching her. She was like fine porcelain, and he was afraid his hands were far too rough from all his years on the street. He had been foolish to think he could touch her without breaking her.
Foolish to think he could play with sex again and walk away unaffected. It never worked that way. It was why he hadn’t gone there again since escaping Rome. Not until Julia.
And he wouldn’t do it again. Not with her. There would be another woman, one who wouldn’t challenge him so much. One who wouldn’t make him feel like he was being torn apart from the inside out.
“That’s…all?” she asked, her blue eyes round.
“Yes. There’s nothing more for us to discuss today. We can pitch this to Barrows in person next week. Until then, we can both get back to our businesses.”
Julia only stared at him, her mouth parted slightly, her cheeks flushed. And then she reached out and grabbed his tie.