Chapter Eight
PAXTON
*
Oh my god. Sir Asshole is here. At my work.
Crouching down slightly behind a set of nonfiction bookshelves, I peered through the cracks in the books at the tall man standing just inside the store's entrance. I'd started forward when I heard the bell tinkling from where it hung above the door, but I'd quickly ducked back behind cover when I caught a glimpse of the man who'd entered.
What in the world was he doing here? How did he know where I worked? Was he stalking me?
No, wait a minute, I countered that thought a second later. I'd told him, hadn't I? I'd mentioned that I worked for a bookstore, my uncle's store, and I'd given him my name. My uncle, Ryland Davies, named the store after himself, so it probably wouldn't be that hard for Alex to find with a simple internet search.
Still, that was a little creepy, wasn't it? Him looking me up, tracking me down? What in the world did he want?
I peered again through the crack in the books, trying to get some idea of what he wanted. Alex seemed to be just standing there, inside the door, looking around at the interior of the bookstore. Was he waiting for me to go out and greet him?
Admittedly, the inside of Davies Books tended to be a little overwhelming to most people when they stepped inside for the first time. The bookstore covered the first two floors of the narrow building, originally a row house that had been practically smooshed in between its neighbors on either side. My uncle widened the front entranceway to feature a counter on the left side, an old-fashioned cash register squatting on top like a massive metal toad. On the right side, a staircase, flanked by a heavy, custom-carved wooden banister, rose to the second level. The first level held nonfiction books and some of the older, rarer, more expensive volumes my uncle acquired through auctions, estate sales, and his far-reaching network of nebulous contacts and other dealers. The second level featured the different genres of fiction.
But that wasn't the intimidating part of stepping into Davies Books.
Every single wall, every vertical surface, was covered in bookshelves. My uncle knew his way around a saw and other power tools, and he had the kind of patience needed to plan complex, custom woodworking projects. He'd built rows of bookshelves that wrapped all the way around the interior of the store, and promptly filled them all with rows and rows of paperbacks.
The place looked like the library of a madman – but it made sense to Uncle Ryland, and I'd come to understand it nearly as well as he did. My uncle's sorting system worked, in its own strange way, and he seemed to know the location of every single book in his inventory. Sometimes, I thought he used some sort of black magic to keep track of them all inside his big, bald, egg-shaped head.
Usually, when visitors stepped inside for the first time, they just froze in the lobby, turning around in a slow circle and looking at the multiple levels of books. Either Uncle Ryland or myself would come out at some point to greet them, help them find whatever they were looking for in the store.
But right now, I definitely didn't want to try and greet Sir Asshole. I knew that he'd see right through my fake retail smile, and he probably wanted to say something else to get under my skin and rankle me. He'd bothered me enough last night; did he need to show up here and keep driving me crazy?
I glanced down at myself, winced at the outfit I'd chosen today. I wore a pair of old, rather tattered jeans, and a tee shirt that read "Grab some knowledge" was stretched tightly across my chest. Great. Sir Asshole would definitely make a comment about that, and I could already imagine his eyes lingering on how the shirt was stretched tight by the unfortunately large bosom that Mother Nature had handed out to me at puberty.
Maybe, if I could distract him, I could duck upstairs. The only way upstairs was using the main staircase next to Alex, but if I could sneak past him, I could go up to my apartment on the third floor, change into something-
I stopped that train of thought right there. Why did I care what he thought of my outfit? I had no need to impress Alex Hamilton, had no interest in him. If he was here to buy some used books, great. Otherwise, I wanted nothing to do with him.
Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. It was a rather wicked idea, but that felt fitting. Grinning, I turned and headed out from my hiding place – not to the front to help Alex, but to the back of the store.
"Hey, Uncle," I called, popping my head through the doorway in the back of the store and into the office.
Behind his desk, wedged into the small space like an egg sitting in its little egg crate, my Uncle Ryland glanced up. He wore a frown on his broad, strong-featured face, but it instantly melted away into a smile as he saw me. "Ah, my favorite niece!"
"I'm your only niece, Uncle," I pointed out, as I always did – but the words still put a smile on my face. "How's the accounting going?"
"Bothersome, as always." The scowl reappeared on his face as he looked down at the books of hand-written figures spread out in front of him on the desk. "Blasted things never seem to want to add up properly. Why can't the IRS accept payment for sales taxes in the form of a poem, or a sonnet by one of the Old Masters? They're far more valuable, in my mind, than pure dollars."
I laughed. "I'm sorry, Uncle. But do you want to take a break and help me out with something?"
He set his pencil down, closed the ledger around it so that it marked his place. "Of course, Pax. What can I do for you?"
I smiled at the affectation. My uncle had been the one who first suggested my name to my parents, and he'd given me the nickname of Pax when he first started babysitting me. "Named for peace, because that's the one thing that's in short supply when you're around," he'd tell me, sweeping me up off my feet into a bear hug. Even today, twenty years later, I still went for his arms when I needed comforting.
"There's a guy out front," I said, pointing towards the store's entrance with a thumb. "He's a guy that I bumped into at the club last night, when I was out with Anna-Claire and her friends."
My uncle's eyebrows, white and bushy, climbed higher on his broad forehead. "Met in what way, precisely?"
"Take a breath, Uncle." Uncle Ryland was fiercely possessive of me – it made sense, I figured, given what happened to my parents. He'd never approved of a single man I brought back to the store to meet him – not that there were very many individuals in that category, anyway. "He was kind of a jerk, though, so I don't really want to go out and help him."
"And you want me to scare him off, is that it?" Placing both his big hands on the desk, my uncle rose up to his feet. He wasn't a tall man, but he had shoulders so broad that he had to angle himself slightly to one side to get through most doorways. He claimed that he'd intentionally built the doorways in Davies Books wider than usual, so he didn't need to keep on turning sideways. "I think I can do that."
I thought about warning him not to be too hard on Alex, but decided against it. Maybe Alex needed someone to take him down a peg or two. "Just don't resort to outright violence," I said.
"That depends on what he did with you last night," Uncle Ryland countered, a hint of a growl in his normally jocular voice.
I didn't tell my uncle about Sir Asshole's opening request that I show him my chest. If I said that out loud, my uncle really would fly out and strangle Alex with his bare hands. "He bought me food, but I think he had different intentions in mind than I did," I said instead, deciding on a milder tack. "And I don't want him to get the wrong idea. He's attractive..." wait a minute, where did that come from? "...but I'm not really interested in him in that way."
"So you need me to firmly dissuade him from pursuing anything more." Uncle Ryland tapped the side of his nose knowingly, making me giggle at the mock seriousness of the gesture. "On it, commander."
I followed a few steps behind my uncle as he headed out to greet Alex at the entrance to the store. I didn't make myself visible, but instead ducked back behind the bookshelves again, peering between a couple of encyclopedias to watch Alex get told off.
Alex looked up as my uncle approached, and I once again noticed how tall the younger man stood. Leaner than my uncle, of course, but still almost painfully attractive. That just further strengthened my resolve. No man who looked that sexy would really have interest in me. It had to be a bet, or a dare, or he wanted something else from me that his normal supermodel girlfriends wouldn't give him. A guy like that wouldn't choose to go after a girl like me.
I heard my uncle talking, but I couldn't quite pick out the words. It just sounded like an indistinct rumble, the only warning that came before a volcano violently erupted.
Alex, however, didn't step back or look intimidated at all, as far as I could see. He smiled, and replied immediately.
Rumble. Lighter rumble. The two of them exchanged words back and forth, but there didn't seem to be any telling off happening here. Instead, if I was reading their body language correctly, it seemed like they were hitting it off together! That wasn't what was supposed to happen!
I found myself gritting my teeth, my fingers curling until they dug into my palms. Stupid Alex, being so damn charming! How had he managed to convince my uncle to fall for his tricks? Uncle Ryland was usually pretty perceptive; why wasn't he seeing through Alex's lies and smarminess?
A couple seconds later, to my growing horror, Uncle Ryland turned towards where I stood behind the bookshelf. "Pax, come out here!" he called, giving my hiding spot away.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut for a second, counted to three inside my head, and then opened them as I stepped out. "Hi," I said shortly, doing my best to shoot daggers at Alex from my eyes.
They just bounced harmlessly off him. "Ah, Paxton!" he greeted me, as if we were great friends, not a couple strangers who bumped into each other once in a club and then intended never to see each other again. "I remembered that you worked here, and thought that I'd drop in!"
"So, you're not here to buy any books? We don't need people hanging around the store if they aren't customers." I crossed my arms over my chest, realizing only as I started the motion that doing so would probably call attention to my inappropriate shirt. Oh well. I did my best to add a surly glare and distract him from looking down at my chest.
It didn't work, of course. His eyes only flickered down, but the little quirking upwards of the corners of his mouth told me that he was laughing inside his head at the thought of grabbing some "knowledge". What an asshole.
I looked over at Uncle Ryland, wondering why he wasn't kicking this guy out of his store. But my uncle was smiling up at Alex, as if he was the target of Alex's flirty and inappropriate attentions!
"Some people do come in here without intending to buy a book, it's true," Ryland said, "but they often turn out to be looking for something after all – they just don't know it yet! Now, are you sure we can't offer you anything?"
Alex turned his eyes back to me. "Your niece could help me out, actually," he said, those green eyes staring straight into mine. They were a piercing green, I thought distantly as they momentarily cleared my mind of all my previous thoughts. The color of money, practically.
"What's that?" The words came from my mouth, and they didn't sound quite as adversarial as I'd intended.
There was that smirk, making his whole face light up, like a movie star who'd stepped off the silver screen and out into real life without losing any of his Hollywood glamour. I knew that I ought to be on guard against this slick charmer, but dammit if he didn't just look so sexy that it scrambled my brains.
"How about dinner?" he asked.
My mouth dropped open. "What?" There was some sort of angle going on here, I knew it. I'd spot it, any second now. He couldn't be doing this because of real interest. He wanted something else from me, and he thought he could get it through charm.
"Dinner," he repeated. "All I bought you last night were appetizers. Tonight, let me get you a real meal."
I should say no. My brain screamed at me to tell him to get out, that I didn't want a thing to do with him. But a tiny little corner of my psyche pointed out that my fridge upstairs was totally empty except for some elderly peanut butter and a half jar of pickles. And besides, he really was heart-meltingly cute, and even if he did want something else from me, I could surely enjoy a free meal as I figured out what it might be, right?
I looked over at my uncle, hoping that he'd rescue me. "I'd say yes, but I need to stay and help my uncle close up," I said, straining to get my uncle to telepathically agree with me.
My uncle, however, just shook his head, unknowingly betraying me. "Nonsense! I can handle it myself." He smiled at me, my mental pleas apparently flying right over his bald head. "You go out and have fun, Pax. You deserve a night to relax and let your hair down."
Who was this would-be suitor, and what had he done with my normal Uncle Ryland? Shocked, I turned back to Alex, who raised an eyebrow as he gave me another way-too-sexy-to-be-real smile.
"Fine." Whatever, just get him out of here! I felt like he'd invaded my inner sanctum – this bookshop, my uncle's bookshop, was my place. He had no right to come here. "Fine, just let me get back to work."
His grin, through some miracle, managed to grow even more smug. "Pick you up here at seven?"
I turned and stalked away, back into the shelter of the shelves. "I'll see you then!" he called after me, taking my silence as a yes.
I headed back, leaned against the back of one of the walls, took a few deep breaths as I tried to steady myself. My brain, inside my head, wanted to know what the hell Alex was playing at, why Sir Asshole seemed to keep wanting to pursue me. He had to have some ulterior motive.
But despite my conscious mind knowing that this was trouble, some tiny little part of me, traitor to the rest of my thoughts and feelings, kept on reminding me about his broad shoulders, that sexy smile, the way his arms flexed when he moved, the little whiffs of faint cologne that I caught when the breeze blew past him. It pointed out how long I'd been without a date, how all the romance novels that I devoured during my free time featured a sexy, dashing, handsome hero who swept the heroine off her feet.
I knew better than to see myself as a heroine – and I didn't need any man trying to sweep me off my feet. I could stand on my own, thank you very much.
But still... no harm in fantasizing, just a little bit...