THE FIRST VOICE IN my ear this morning wasn’t the one I would have chosen. But Isabela knew me, she knew when I woke for the day, so she called then, confident I’d have time and the desire to speak with her.
“Hey,” I answered, stepping out on my balcony.
“Hello, Dominic. How is everything?”
“Pretty damn fine, Iz.”
“Excellent. All logistics are working out for your shows?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed the center of my forehead. “I don’t ever have to worry about that. You know I basically just show up and do my thing.”
That wasn’t strictly true. I knew we had double everything. While a crew was setting up for a concert in one city, another crew was speeding down the highway to set up in our next venue. I was familiar with the sound engineers since I’d worked with a lot of them for a long time, and I knew most of the roadies by name. So yeah, I didn’t have to worry, because I’d built up trust with the professionals who did the behind-the-scenes work.
“Oh, I know. You let the little people handle that.”
She made it sound like a bad thing, that I wasn’t schlepping shit and setting up pyrotechnics, but that was stupid, and Isabela wasn’t stupid. She was poking around for something, information probably, and trying to be sly about it.
“Do you want me to run wires?” I asked. “Maybe test out the speakers? Build the sets?”
She sniffed. “I get your point. Tell me how Claire is doing.”
There we go.
“She’s fine. Seems to be on top of everything. I don’t have any complaints.”
I had a lot of complaints about Claire Fontana, but none that had anything to do with how she did her job—and none I’d be discussing with my ex-wife.
“Wow, Dom. That was more than I’ve ever heard you praise any of my PR assistants. I guess there truly is something to be said for hiring a girl you aren’t going to be attracted to.”
I held back the growl in my chest. “You sound like a cunt when you talk about her like that, Isabela. It’s also pretty un-fucking professional. You’d think you would have learned a lesson from the last time you insulted her looks.”
She went silent for a beat, obviously unprepared for my admonishment. She shouldn’t have been, though. When we were married and she got catty about other women, I always shut that shit down. That was what I found unattractive.
“You’re right. I’ll watch myself.” She cleared her throat twice. “I’m just happy Claire is working out and I won’t have to fly out to douse any fires.”
“No, you won’t. It’s all under control here.”
Her inhale hitched. “All right. Well, I was thinking I might fly out to LA when you’re there. You have the gala and—”
“And what? Did you think you’d be my date?”
She sure as hell would not be. She knew that. I knew that. She could blame me all day for her not being able to move on, but when push came to shove, Isabela was the one who continued to insinuate herself into my life. We still had good times, but the romantic portion of our relationship ended years ago.
“Well, not a date. But I could go with you if you need someone…” She trailed off, and I let the silence blanket the conversation. “It was just a thought.”
“I’m good, Iz. You were right about us not seeing each other.”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Okay. Well…call me if you need me. And I’ll be in touch with Claire as well.”
The knock on my door distracted me enough, I barely said goodbye to Isabela. Claire stood on the other side with a white bag in her hands, clear-rimmed glasses perched on her nose.
“I don’t know if you eat beignets, but I took a chance and bought you some.” She thrust the bag at me. “Here.”
“Did you get some for yourself?”
Her nose wrinkled. “They’re in the bag. I didn’t think that through.”
I widened the door. “Come in. We’ll eat together.”
She entered my room, and after she passed me by, her honeysuckle scent rising above the sugary beignets, she peered back over her shoulder. “Two meals in a row? That sounds like the beginning of a habit, Mr. Cantrell.”
“I’ve had worse habits.”
This one was bad, though.
I sat on one end of the couch, and she took the other, propping her shiny shoes in front of her. I tore into the bag, laying it flat on the coffee table, steaming pastries covered in powdered sugar piled on top. Claire had brought us both coffees too.
Powdered sugar snowed down on the hint of cleavage peeking out from Claire’s V-neck shirt. Instead of wiping it with a napkin, she wet her thumb with her tongue, swiping the sugar from the slope of her breasts, then sucked her thumb into her mouth, softly moaning.
I’d seen a lot of sexy women in my life. I’d had a lot of them too. Some of their sexiness was contrived and purely for show, some came naturally. Watching Claire suck sugar off her thumb had to be one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen.
It pissed me off. Right the fuck off.
She ate and talked about the upcoming day while I swallowed down the bitter coffee she’d brought me. I had no interest in the beignets or my schedule, and I couldn’t feign it—not when there was a swirling dervish gathering in my gut, threatening to tear apart my control.
Touching her foot last night had been a mistake. Asking her to stay for dinner had been another one. All that added to Claire bringing me breakfast and me allowing it. She probably thought we were at the beginning of some beautiful friendship like I had with Marta. But I couldn’t be friends with a girl I wanted to fuck—and I couldn’t fuck Claire.
Not when she was twenty-six and hurting. Not when she was the kind of girl who believed in love, despite what she said, and the stars in her eyes hadn’t been completely snuffed out by the asshole she’d married. Not when I was the worst kind of mistake she could make.
“Hey.” She nudged my knee. “You’re being quiet and not eating. Did I overstep here?”
“Yes.” I turned my cool gaze on her. The smallest dusting of sugar remained on the upper curve of her breast, and my mouth watered at the sight. If I trailed my tongue there, would she let me?
Not now. Not when she was looking at me with her big brown eyes like she was just seeing me for the devil I truly was.
Claire blinked, balling her napkin in her fist. “I did? I overstepped?”
“You did. I probably misled you last night—and that’s on me. I’m not really interested in you outside of the work you do for me.”
Her breath caught in her throat, those pretty plump lips parting. “Okay. Wow. I apologize.” She gathered her trash, squishing several uneaten beignets along with it, and hurried to the door. “I’ll meet you at the elevators at ten, sir.”
She disappeared as suddenly as she’d arrived, leaving me with a twisting feeling in my stomach and a dick that didn’t understand it wasn’t allowed to perk up at Claire calling me “sir.”
