Chapter 6
Laura took a deep, bracing inhale before knocking on the door to Carla and Jonah’s new house. Although she barely got to see Carla before she’d become a globe-trotting television personality, she’d missed her cousin. They were only a few months apart in age, and Laura had spent virtually all her time with Carla before she’d joined the ballet school in favor of the Catholic school they’d attended together.
She expected to see baby Layla bouncing on her mother’s hip when Carla opened the door. Instead, her cousin had both arms free to fling around Laura’s neck.
“You’re heeerreeee!”
Laura laughed at Carla’s exuberance. Her cousin was the kind of person a lot of others underestimated. Her bubbly personality and the mostly one-sided conversations that meandered from Viking death rituals to the invite list at the Met Ball threw people off. But the people who stopped at the surface didn’t know the real Carla Hernandez—Kane, now.
Laura reveled in her cousin—light to her dark, extrovert to her introvert. “Where’s the baby?”
Carla pulled back and rolled her eyes. “You think I get to hold my own kid if Uncle Charlie’s here?”
She was taken aback. Given all she knew about Charlie’s checkered past, she wouldn’t have taken him for a kid person. But his reluctance about giving her an annulment and walking out of her life quietly surprised her, too. With what she knew about his first marriage and how it had ended, she would have thought that he’d want to be rid of her and any potential for drama as quickly as possible.
“Are you sure you can trust him with her?”
Her cousin laughed and pulled her into the house, clinging to Laura’s arm. “You obviously don’t know him that well.” She stopped and turned, grabbing both of her shoulders and giving her a very serious face that scared the shit out of Laura. It was a look that said she wasn’t going to like the next thing that came out of her cousin’s mouth. “I actually think you should get to know Charlie better. Like a lot better.”
All the blood rushed out of Laura’s head, and she felt a little faint. She couldn’t seem to make the words of denial come out of her mouth. Instead, she shook her head, which made her even more lightheaded.
“Now, just hear me out.” She put the tip of her tongue in the corner of her lips. Before the wedding, Laura had observed Layla making a similar gesture. Right before she’d gone face first into a tower of cupcakes. “He’s nothing like he was a decade ago.”
Laura was starting to get that, but it didn’t mean that she wanted to get romantically involved with Charlie. Not for real anyway. She had the feeling that a real relationship would put her at more risk than a sham marriage.
“I’m not looking for a relationship right now.” She craned her neck, hoping that Carla’s husband, Jonah, would interrupt them. “Can we go get a drink?”
“Since when are you a boozehound?”
“I’d like a glass of wine in my hand if you’re going to throw me at a random guy.” A totally not random guy with a pretty face and pretty body and hands she was currently obsessed with. “And I don’t need you setting me up at all. I’m fine on my own.”
Carla tugged her into the kitchen. “I just want you to be happy.”
“And I’m happy.” Not true. Or not entirely true. If she were happy, would she be clinging to the New York City Ballet so much? Wouldn’t she laugh and smile with her partner instead of feel a knot in her stomach every time she went to rehearsal? A happy woman wouldn’t hesitate to end her accidental marriage—she sure as hell wouldn’t have signed annulment papers in her dresser. But she couldn’t say any of that to her cousin. Not now that Carla finally had her happy. Laura turned and grabbed two glasses from the counter. “Red or white?”
“White.” Carla opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle. “And I know that you’ve wanted to be a principal dancer since you were a little kid. But I also know why you want that, and you don’t have to be worried that you’ll turn into your mother.”
Laura took a sip of the cold sauvignon blanc to collect her thoughts. Tears pricked the back of her eyes and she got angry at how well her cousin knew her. “I’m not going to give up my own life and trail all over the world for some guy.”
Her cousin screwed up her face and stepped over to her. “Is that what you think I did?”
“No. I just—Jonah makes you happy. And that’s great. You’re equals.” She looked down into the swirling liquid as though it would give her an answer. Needing words to describe why she and her cousin were so different. “Dancing is all I have. It’s everything I know. Some guy is not going to replace that. I have to wait until dance is done with me and then figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life before I find someone.”
Carla’s shoulders relaxed. “But aren’t you, maybe, done with ballet?”
“No.” Not quite. Her stomach flipped even thinking about it. She took another sip. “I’m not done.”
“You were so happy in Bali without rehearsals and stress and backstabbing. Don’t you want that to be your life?”
“Life can’t be a vacation.” She sighed. “And even if I was done, I would have to figure something else out. I’m going to support myself. I can’t rely on someone for my own security.”
“But you can go on a few dates and have some fun, right?” Carla grabbed her free hand. “You’re here tonight, and this is fun.”
“Not right now it’s not.”
“Let’s go find the boys. That’ll be fun.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Just give Charlie a chance.”
Laura was afraid that Charlie would run away with everything she had to give if she gave him even a little opening. He would take her time, her career, and very possibly her heart. She ached where that organ strained toward the fear. Only her brain and the logical reservations she had to getting even more involved with a man who—along with a few shots of tequila—had stolen her good sense once.
She steeled herself inside her mind as they walked out onto the lanai. Instead of giving in to the relaxing atmosphere and the good company, she prepared herself for battle.
* * * *
“Who’s my best girl?” The baby smiled and showed her four teeth when Charlie made a funny face. Layla was maybe the best thing ever. It made him sick that he’d missed this with all of his nieces and nephews. He couldn’t drop by his oldest brother’s house and grill meat. He got pictures and homemade cards every so often, but they weren’t personal.
He guessed it was weird that he’d grown attached to a kid that didn’t belong to him. But on long trips around the world, Jonah and Carla had become like family. And the feelings now extended to their daughter.
It also helped that he was something of a baby whisperer. On a shoot in Rio, the nanny had gotten sick. They hadn’t had money in the budget to extend the shoot, and the baby was too fussy for them to include her on the episode. Carla had been close to tears with frustration, and Charlie had made a face at the sobbing baby.
When she perked right up and laughed, they’d cemented their friendship, and the rest was history.
“I’ve got a front-runner right here.” Carla’s voice always had a winking quality to it. She was really amazing, and she made Jonah deliriously happy. Gorgeous and funny as hell. When he’d first met her in Havana, he’d decided that he was going to make a play for her if Jonah dropped the ball.
But when he turned and saw who she’d come out on the patio with, he couldn’t even see Carla. When Laura came into a room he couldn’t see another woman, couldn’t recall how he’d ever found another woman attractive.
She wore a strappy sundress that she couldn’t possibly have a bra on underneath. Her face, her long limbs, and the hint of a smile on her mouth. All of it together made her glow. She was his kryptonite, bracingly beautiful and twice as dangerous.
Probably not liking his attention off of her, Layla started to fuss. Jonah stepped away from the grill and grabbed his daughter. She planted her gummy smile into his shirt, likely leaving a trail of drool. For his part, Jonah rolled with it, offering up his tongs to his wife.
“Can you turn the steaks, princess?”
“I’m never going to get to hold my own kid, am I?”
“She likes me better than you.” Jonah smiled more now that he was with Carla and had Layla in a way that made Charlie sick in a good way.
“That’s one woman who likes you then.” Both of them walked over to the grill, Jonah standing back to keep Layla out of the line of fire, literally.
That left Charlie to stare at his wife. She approached him tentatively.
“Apparently, this is a set-up.” Her voice was quiet and she looked down.
He wanted to take the hair that had fallen in her face between his fingers and touch that silk. Tonight, she looked a lot like how she’d looked the night they’d met. Soft and ripe for picking. The fact that he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t kiss her without letting the cat out of the bag made him want to touch her all the more.
“Why are you just looking at me like that?” She sounded bewildered that he’d want to spend a whole lot of time looking at her. She could stop people’s breath with a hand gesture, but she didn’t realize what she did to him just by breathing.
“I like looking at you.” Maybe more than he liked anything else.
“You’re just full of lines, aren’t you?”
“Be nice,” Carla said over her shoulder from the grill. She’d reclaimed Layla from Jonah, but was lingering on the other side of the patio.
Charlie picked up his beer, just to keep from continuing to stare at Laura like a dolt. “It’s not a line when it’s true.”
“Why am I supposed to believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
She doesn’t even pause. “No.” She looked chastened.
“I’m not going to start now.” He took a step closer to her and she didn’t move away. He caught a whiff of whatever soap or lotion she used—it was floral, like lilies or something else beautiful and rare. “I will never lie to you Laura, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to convince you that I’m not the guy she said I was on that tape. She did lie about me, and I reacted badly.” He paused to let it sink in with her that every damn thing his ex had said about him was a lie, especially the parts about him being bad in bed. “I’m older and wiser. And I know what I want.”
“You don’t want me.”
“Wanna bet?”
This time, she stepped closer to him and whispered. “I maybe remember that it was a bet that got us into this.”
“Yeah, you bet me that you could go shot for shot.” Her outsized confidence had been hot. He liked that she’d sized him up and found him wanting. And that was the bitch about this whole thing. Maybe he only liked her because she didn’t want him?
She took another sip of wine. “I’m not going to make that kind of bet tonight.”
“Well, we can’t get married twice, and we’ve already established that I don’t take advantage of incapacitated women.”
“We have.” She inclined her head towards him, and something about the way her posture softened made him want to reach out and touch her even more.
“Can we just have a nice night with our friends?”
“I thought we already were.”
He didn’t struggle to find words very often. But he was at a loss. He wanted to show her nice, give her more nice. “I just—I want us to be friends.”
“I have enough friends.” She turned to him and squinted, as though everything he said aroused her suspicion. Not exactly the emotion he was aiming to arouse with her.
“We could all use more friends.”
“I don’t trust you.”
That hit him in the chest and a ball of anger formed in his throat because he wanted her to trust him. Charlie looked over at Carla and Jonah, who seemed to be ignoring them but were probably just sneaky about watching them together.
“What would I have to do to earn your trust?” He ran his hand over his hair. “Carla and Jonah trust me with their kid, for Christ’s sake.”
“You’re too much for me.”
Funny, he thought it was the other way around.
Before he could ask any questions, dinner was ready. Reluctantly, he put his easygoing fun face back on for his friends, plotting to find out what Laura had meant later.
* * * *
Fuck Charlie Laughlin. Not literally, but figuratively and in a way he wouldn’t enjoy. Tonight, he hadn’t even done anything to piss her off that much. He just confused her, and surprised her. Laura didn’t like being surprised by people. She liked to make her conclusions and put them in their respective boxes. She didn’t like to fixate on people. Even when she was a kid her crushes had freaked her out. All that obsessive thinking had her wishing her life was different and those thoughts were dangerous.
It was the kind of thinking that had sent her mother straight to the bottom of a bottle of pills. A bottle she still lived in, to this day. Wishing destroyed lives.
And seeing Charlie with Layla hit her right in the ovaries. She’d always figured that children weren’t going to happen for her. By the time she gave up professional dance, her reproductive organs would be calcified. And she’d been fine with that possibility. But seeing her husband—that word was coming too quickly to mind when she thought about him these days—with his thumb clutched in a chubby, baby hand had filled her with longing.
She sawed at her filet mignon with way too much intensity, making her plate skid across the table, narrowly missing her wineglass. Jonah and Carla looked at her quizzically, and Charlie smirked at her infuriatingly. That he knew he got under her skin got under her skin even more.
Just being here, being normal, made her want this more often. She wished she could have more than a glass-and-a-half of wine, wished she could stay out here listening to her cousin and her husband chat with Charlie until midnight. Instead, she was about to turn into a pumpkin at ten. If she didn’t get at least nine hours of sleep tonight, she’d have yet another worthless rehearsal tomorrow.
And she could feel Matthieu getting more and more frustrated with her. If they weren’t friends, then he already would have replaced her. Five years ago, that thought would have filled her with shame. Now, she struggled to care.
The only intense emotion that filled her was the waves of lust and something else she couldn’t quite name coming off the man she remained temporarily married to. He didn’t have to say anything, she just felt it. His sexual interest was overwhelming even without the occasional brush of his hand or their knees touching under the table.
She worked hard not to show that she was affected by him, to keep her body from drifting toward him.
When they were done eating the delicious steak and asparagus, Carla stood up. “Dessert?”
“None for me.” The meal had already had too much oil for her diet. “I’ll come in and help you serve, though.”
“I’ll eat her serving,” Charlie said. He put the emphasis on the first three words of that sentence.
Carla brushed off her offer of help. “Jonah’s going to help.” Her cousin’s wink didn’t leave any doubt that the objective of fetching dessert was to give her and Charlie a few moments alone.
To his credit, Charlie waited until his friends were out of earshot before leaning over and saying, “You don’t have to be so nervous.”
His words frittered through her system like lightening, setting every nerve ending to attention. “You just insinuated that you want to eat me.”
He chuckled. “I don’t have to insinuate anything at all.” Her heart nearly stopped when he tugged her chair over close to him. “I can’t think about nearly anything else but getting my mouth on you.”
“You’re being crass.” And she really liked it, not that she would say that out loud.
“You don’t seem to be responding to me acting like a gentleman.” He ran a finger over the exposed skin of her collarbone. It was such an intimate touch she ought to have pulled away, but he had her enthralled, waiting for the next thing to come out of his mouth, hoping it was filthy. “So, I think I need to change the game.”
“Won’t make a difference.”
He leaned even closer and his breath warmed her skin and gave her a chill all at the same time. He’d had wine with dinner so she smelled that but also felt like she’d been doused with pheromones. Being this close to him made her feel like she was floating, and any second he’d disappear and she’d crash to the ground.
“Of course it will make a difference. Do you think I don’t know why your legs are rubbing together? Your body wants my cock right there.” She hadn’t even noticed she was squirming in her chair. Then, he reached his hand under the armrest and cupped her over her dress. She ought to move his hand, maybe bend his arm back so hard that it broke. He shouldn’t be touching her, and she shouldn’t like it. She shouldn’t want more.
But—God help her—she did.
“I think you want, no need, to lose control.” That was the last thing she needed, but she said nothing and willed him to say more. “Give me one night. Both of us sober.” He squeezed, and she gripped the armrests of her chair until her knuckles ached. “And I’ll show you how good it can be.”
She felt like a shaken-up bottle of champagne, not caring that her cousin and Jonah were bound to walk out on them while Charlie was fondling her. Handling her. Nearly making her come.
All that wanting for something different converged on wanting Charlie. If they could actually leave it at one night, maybe she would get out unscathed. Maybe he would leave her alone. Even addled by being on the edge of coming, she knew it wasn’t likely. Their chemistry was like a heavy blanket. It was nothing like she’d ever experienced before, but she knew it wouldn’t be over in one go.
“One night?”
When she looked at him, he looked totally different to her than he ever had before. His brow was furrowed, his gaze serious. Some tender thing inside her wanted to smooth out the lines on his face; she wanted to soothe him. She knew one way to do that, and it couldn’t possibly slake her thirst for him.
Just one night.
“If that’s all you’ll give me, I’ll take it.” He moved his hand down her thigh, and she wanted to protest, but she heard steps on the patio. His fingers on the skin of her thigh when he got past the hem of her dress made her jump. “But I’m not going to say that I don’t want more.”
He brushed his lips against her cheek as he backed off. She didn’t miss the looks from both Jonah and Carla—him warning and her giddy—when they walked out and found her and Charlie closer.