This is insane.
Reiko stood in front of her most hated mirror, trying to see herself objectively.
A woman looked back at her as if afraid to meet her gaze. Her brown eyes were hooded with a permanent combination of exhaustion and shame. Makeup lightened the circles that usually emphasized the former. Her dark, naturally straight hair was pulled back into a bun and the inevitably too-short strands that popped free had been carefully curled. The curled bits took a small portion of the edge off the crisp professional look … she hoped.
Did she?
Reiko bit her peach-painted lip. The woman in the mirror was an idiot. She ought to be planting roots on her sofa until her phone rang with the request of an interview, not dolling herself up for a date.
It’s not a date.
She raked her eyes over the modest, wide-leg pants she’d snagged a year prior on sale and rarely wore. They were much nicer than anything she usually had occasion for. She actually felt good in them. And they paired well with the faux-silk blouse that was just loose enough without looking like a bag on her. The pants covered her ankles, but as long as she wore somethingwith a slight heel, she wouldn’t step on them. The blouse was three-quarter sleeved with a higher collar, and while everything cinched in at her waist when she belted it together, she thought the outfit made a good impression.
It would probably be better off saved for job interviews.
Reiko blew out a breath. Why was she making an effort to pull herself together to see Santino Guerra? She didn’t owe the man anything. He was bound to lose interest in her the moment he realized she wasn’t mysterious or alluring—she was just boring and abandonable. A fact her life had proven repeatedly.
His voice whispered, again, through her mind and her foolish heart beat faster.“By the end of today, you will know one thing. You have me.”
She knew better. She did. But if she couldn’t chase him away with words over the phone, then she would have to show him the cold, dreary reality. It might do her some good to look it straight-on, too. She was not the heroine whose life tumbled upside down only to fall into the arms of a future better than she might have imagined for herself. She was one of those whose stories added to the majority, one whose story contributed to what made the exceptions so exceptional.
Reiko closed her eyes and smoothed her hands down the sides of her clothes. “I can do this.”It’s not a date.
Patterned knocking carried through the apartment as if in challenge to the thought.
Her eyes popped open. She was out of time to pull herself together, then. There was certainly no one else who would be at her door.
Reiko turned away from the long mirror and hurried to grab her mid-size purse and her phone from the table. She had no new messages or emails. A small bubble of disappointment fizzled inside her. Every second that passed without at least a lead on a new job felt like it dropped the proverbial blade closerto her throat. She ought to have been pounding on doors and shoving résumés into people’s faces, not heading out on a social … something. A social something that was not a date.
She tucked the phone into her purse, unlatched the door, and pulled it open as the knocking resumed. And her breath lodged awkwardly in her throat, suddenly solid and heavy like a stone.
Guerra had been nicely dressed every time she’d seen him. She couldn’t even imagine him owning a pair of jeans withintentionalholes, let alone something so worn down the holes developed naturally. But the sight he presented in the late morning sun, black sunglasses perched on his head, was unnatural.
He wore black slacks over polished black shoes, and tucked into the pants was a button-up dress shirt some mystical shade of lilac-blue. The top three buttons were undone, leaving his entire corded throat and the uppermost part of his broad, strong chest visible to every greedy eye. He’d pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows—pushed, not rolled—and a surely ungodly expensive watch gleamed on his wrist. The look was simple. He could easily have come straight from the office. He probably had, in fact.
He might also have teleported straight from a photoshoot for the latest cover ofGQ.
The breathtaking asshole smiled widely and his blue eyes seemed to gleam in the sunlight. He made no secret of raking his gaze over her—though she hadn’t been subtle in her perusal, either. “It’s a little hard to breathe around you, you know?”
Reiko blinked. “Pardon?”
Guerra leaned closer and tilted his head, his chest expanding as if he were breathing her in. His eyes never left hers. “You’re just so damn beautiful,” he said, the words somehow both soft and rough at once.
Reiko opened her mouth to respond, but she had no idea what to say.
Was he crazy? Was he deliberately trying to see how far he could push her?
He took a step back and to the side, motioning her outside. “Shall we get going, then?”
She swallowed hard, the most unfamiliar type of apprehension building inside her. It wasn’t as scary or crushing as she was used to. It felt … brighter. Still overwhelming, but not in a way that had her retreating. She didn’t know what to make of the weird sensation, or of her general odd reactions to Guerra, so she decided to let it all guide her. Cautiously.
“Where, exactly, are you taking me?” she asked once she’d locked her door and taken an intentional step toward him.
His smile warmed and Guerra turned, hooking his arm around her as he moved. The action pulled her into motion with him, simultaneously locking her at his side. “Anywhere. Everywhere. You have my undivided attention today, beautiful Reiko. If there’s a shop you’ve been fantasizing about walking through, I’ll take you there.” He angled them toward an idling Rolls-Royce, where an unfamiliar, middle-aged man with too much gray in his hair stood waiting. “I have to be in a room with a handful of interest-minded, stuffed-up suits in about twenty-five hours,” Guerra continued. He brought them to a stop parallel with the bumper of the shiny Rolls and moved into her view, lightly curling a finger beneath her chin as if to make sure she didn’t look away. “You have me all to yourself until then.”
He made that sound far too dirty.
Reiko struggled against the urge to lick her lips. Was it her? Was there something wrong with her that she kept hearing innuendos in everything he said? It wasn’t like she could remember the last time she’d orgasmed, but that did not make these near-hallucinations okay. She pulled in a slow breath. “Idon’t know how to respond to that.” It was the most honest thing she could offer.
