CHAPTER TEN

Margo

I stood in my kitchen, feeling like my heart had just hit the floor. I could smell coffee and shower gel and warm air and all the things that made mornings happy and peaceful. But somehow, I couldn’t feel anything.

“Dammit,” I said harshly.

I sat down at the kitchen table, feeling like the roof had fallen on me. My coffee was ready, spiraling traces of steam up to the ceiling. But I didn’t feel like drinking it. Inside I could still feel the sweet, warm postcoital ache, and I was glowing. But I was also sad. And confused.

Hell, Jay. You could not have rushed out of here.

I knew it was silly, but it had badly upset me. It was the first time I’d been with him in years. It wasn’t like he’d actually explained his disappearance, now that I thought about it. He had just walked into my life, spent the night, disappeared.

What was I supposed to think? I’m not that ugly…am I?

I sighed. It was four years, almost, since he’d been with me. And he’d walked out on me then. Was I really just so worthless to him after all?

I heaved out a long sigh and lifted my coffee to my lips. I should drink and hurry out to the gym. It was twenty minutes before I’d said I’d be there, and Glenna, my coach, would be mad at me.

I drank down the scalding coffee, ran my fingers through my hair and hurried off to get dressed.

“Why’d he do that?” I asked my reflection. Then I smiled, a bittersweet smile. I had been wondering about Jay and his propensity to walk away for far too long. Why was I so upset?

It’s like a feature.

It was a feature of how we were. Maybe it was because he just didn’t really care about me. The sex—and if I was honest with myself, I had to think of it as sex, not making love—was great. But maybe that was all it was for him.

I sniffed, determined not to cry. Then I got dressed and shot off to the gym.

“Margo?” Glenna said as we worked on my press-ups.

“Yeah?” I sighed, sitting back and wiping a strand of hair out of my eyes. I was tired. I was sad.

“What’s up this morning?” she asked. “You’re not really focused like you usually are.”

I sniffed. “I’m not,” I admitted. She’d noticed I was half-touched and half-shy. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I wasn’t going to let this make me cry—not here, in front of Glenna—not now.

“What’s it?” she said gently. She lowered herself to sit on the mat, staring into my eyes. She was older than me by, I would think, ten years, her face hard and muscled like the rest of her, hair black and chin length, stubbornly dyed. Brown eyes.

I looked away, seeing the kindness in her face and not wanting to go there. If I opened up now, I was going to cry. And that just wasn’t on. If nothing else, I’d ruin my face and I had a session later this afternoon, a preliminary photo shoot for the contract with the new company. I wasn’t going to jeopardize it for anything.

“It’s nothing.”

“Well, maybe you’re just tired,” Glenna said kindly. “It happens. Come on. Let’s finish with squats and then let’s call it a day. Hey?”

I sniffed and nodded. “Okay. Thanks,” I added.

She smiled. “No need to thank me. Let’s go.”

We did the squats and she seemed to be extralenient with me—I could do more than she set me to do, and we both knew that. Then I headed to the shower.

Under the steam, I planned my day. I had the shoot at two, which left me free from when I got home—about eleven am, I guessed—until then.

“Maybe I should have lunch with Alex.”

It was a tempting thought. I might even be able to ask her about Jay. But, I reckoned as I dried myself off, rubbing vigorously with the towel on my tingling, rejuvenated skin—I knew that if I confided in her and she was understanding, I’d cry.

“I can’t risk my face.”

I grinned at myself in the steam and my reflection grinned back—white teeth below sad eyes.

Why did I have to go and give my heart to such a joker? I sighed and shrugged into my clothes again, heading to the hall.

At my apartment, I decided to do some cleaning. Just seeing the bed with those sheets on it made me a mixture of sad, hurt and mad that I didn’t need now. I ripped the sheets off and rammed them into the wash, then set about rearranging the room. I intended to obliterate any memory of Jay. I wasn’t going to let myself get all mopey.

I couldn’t help the reflex of checking my phone as I sat at the table, waiting for lunch to cook. There was nothing.

“Why did I think there would be?”

I was mad at myself. I should know better by now than to think Jay really cared about me. He came into my life, had good sex and left. That seemed to be how it worked. Or didn’t.

All the same, I sent him a text.

Well, I guess it’s easier than mail, right?

I winced and tried to forget his sweet voice, his tenderness.

Hey, Jay. All okay? Have a good day.

There. Completely neutral and friendly. Could be from anyone.

I sent it and leaned back with a long, shuddering sigh. I couldn’t do more than that.

I finished my lunch, did some more exercises, checked emails, fixed my eyebrows and then checked the clock. It was half past one. I should get going if I wanted to get to the studio on time. It wasn’t far, but with the traffic I could still be late.

I ran out into the hall and went down to my car. Behind the wheel, waiting for a break in the traffic so I could join it from the ramp I checked my phone. He hadn’t replied. Too bad.

I was not, absolutely not, going to spend my time worrying about Jay Locke.

Not anymore. Not this time. I had enough to worry about as it was, with the shoot. There was a lot hanging on the success of this. That, combined with my natural reluctance to meet someone new, was making me nervous. I liked the esthetician and the photo guy I worked with at Petals. They knew me, and I knew them, and we’d built up mutual trust. With these new people, there wouldn’t be that easy, safe feeling. That was more than enough to worry about right now. Jay could take a back seat.

I shoved my phone resolutely into my pocket and focused on the drive to work.

“Ms. Lawrence. Hi.”

The red-haired guy, tall and dressed in a beige T-shirt, shook my hand vigorously. I took in a breath, trying to conceal my nerves.

“Hi.”

I shook hands with the photographer, at least I guessed that’s who he was. Behind him was a woman with a kind squarish face and strawberry blond hair. She must be the makeup artist—certainly she had beautiful nails and makeup herself. With her was a tall, dark-haired guy in a brown suit with a casual black shirt—he was another guy who I half-recalled.

“Hi, Margo. It’s me—Durrell,” the guy in the suit said smoothly.

“Oh yeah. Mr. Burne.” I recalled him from the interview. He was there as the company representative. I took his hand and shook it.

He gave me a smile. He was quite good looking and somewhere in his forties, his hair just touched with gray. He should have no reason to make my skin crawl, except that he did. I was relieved when he let go my hand.

“Fine, I’m Mr. Burne, if you like,” he said with a wry smile. “The name’s Durrell. I will go and leave you all to it in a moment. I was just briefing the team. All yours, Ms. Lawrence.”

I smiled at the use of my title, though it felt awkward, like he was rebuking me for using his surname.

He headed out. I looked at the photographer and the makeup artist, nervous and shaken.

“Okay,” the guy said, clearing his throat. He was about my age or younger, and he was flushed, seeming really awkward and a bit shy. “So, Ms. Lawrence, we’re just going to do some shots in here and then two or three in natural light next door…”

I listened to the briefing, taking note of what he said and asked for. I am a professional—I’ve been in the field for six years and I did courses in modeling before that. He seemed really nervous, and I had to ask questions to elicit the right information from him.

“Okay, nothing more I guess?”

I smiled. “No, it’s all clear.”

I was quite relieved when he left to set up shop and Bernice, the makeup artist, took over. She was about my age or older and seemed quiet and capable.

“Right, now we’re just going to go with the natural look today…” she began.

As she worked—applying eyeshadow, painting my brows, contouring my cheekbones—I sat with my eyes closed and thought about the night and the morning.

My body tingled deliciously with my memories, but I was uncertain. My heart was sad and wistful, and I wished that he would just relent and contact me.

“All done.”

I smiled and nodded, getting myself under control.

“Thanks.”

We headed through to the studio for the photo session.

When it was done, I was surprised to see Mr. Burne in the lobby again.

“Hey, Margo. Uh, Miss. How was it?”

I closed my eyes. During the session I’d gotten a headache. He made it worse.

“It was fine,” I said levelly. “Your people are professionals.”

“Oh?” He raised a brow. “High praise, Ms. Lawrence. Thanks.”

I sighed. “Well, it’s to be expected, I guess. You’ve got a great reputation, for a new company.”

“Oh.” He looked pleased. “Thank you, Ms. Lawrence. I take that personally.”

He was, as I recalled, some senior executive in the company Realtone. Why he felt the need to even be there at the shoot I had no idea. But there he was and there wasn’t a lot I could do to shift him no matter how awkward it was.

“Well, fine,” I said lightly. “All done?” I asked, raising a brow as Dylan, the photographer, came out.

He flushed red and stammered. “Y…yes. Thanks, Margo. That was amazing.”

I bit my lip and blushed. It wasn’t so much his response, as the slow smile that spread across the executive’s face as he looked from me to the guy and then to me.

“You have a strong impact,” he said softly. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, his eyes drifting up my neck to my face. “We made a good choice, I think.”

“Thanks, I think,” I said.

He chuckled.

“Well, good looking and hard to get. Irresistible.”

I stared at him, but he’d said it so softly that I didn’t know if I’d heard it right. I wanted to say something, but he’d turned, chuckling, leaving.

I sighed and shrugged into my coat. It was cooling off. It was almost four P.M. and I wanted to walk through the park before I went home—I had deliberately parked the car in the parking lot just across the street from there. I needed time to think.

As I walked through the streets and headed to the park, I tried to clear my head. It was confused and sad and reeling.

Mr. Burnes. Jay. My career.

I couldn’t help that, on the one hand, the way the senior executive had complimented me had made me feel better. After Jay shot out of there as if the demons were after him I had felt a bit bad. It was a strange way to react.

“I’m not that ugly,” I told myself wryly.

At least after the creepy guy and the photographer, I had some sense of my own beauty. Jay had, oddly, left me feeling down.

“I suppose what did I expect?” I asked the air. I sank onto a park bench and leaned back, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. I had put on sunscreen before I left, so I didn’t have to worry about messing up my face. And I had sunglasses and a hat, should I need them.

I let myself focus on the problem at hand. The disappearance of Jay.

I didn’t check my phone, as I knew he wouldn’t have said anything.

After twenty minutes of trying to make sense of stuff and failing dismally, I stood again and headed across the park to my car, ready to go home.