Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(44)

“Cameron did, my dear.” She notices him leaning against the counter in the kitchen. “Oh! Hello, Cameron!”

“Hullo, Mrs. Dinwiddle.”

She squints at him. “Are you all right, my dear? Your face looks funny.”

At the same time, Cam and I say, “Intestinal gas.”

Our gazes meet across the room. I look away first because I’m not sure what my expression might be doing.

“I’ve got something for that, my dear. I’ll have Blessica bring it over, along with my makeup kit.”

“Your makeup kit?” I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

“We’re giving you a makeover!” she crows in glee, then turns practical. “Now that Michael is getting divorced, we have to move quickly. We don’t want another girl snapping him up. And forgive me, Ducky, but I thought you might need professional help with your hair and makeup. It’s Friday night, so we’ll have plenty of time to experiment with different looks.”

I form a terrifying mental image of me, postmakeover, with scarlet-slashed lips, heavy blue eye shadow, a fake beauty spot glued to my cheek, and false eyelashes so long they arouse Mr. Bingley’s hunting instincts when I blink.

“Um. That’s really nice of you, Mrs. Dinwiddle, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Pssh! Poppycock!” She waves a hand in the air. The seed pearls on her headband quiver madly. “It’s a capital idea! Don’t you think so, Cameron?”

“Sure. We want her to look her best for Michael, don’t we?”

His tone is casual, but his jaw is tight, and his back is stiff. Is he mocking me?

Mrs. Dinwiddle is vindicated. “Exactly!”

“Well, fine. If Cam thinks it’s a good idea.” I didn’t mean for it to come out sounding like a challenge, but it does, and Mrs. Dinwiddle is befuddled. She looks back and forth between us.

“Why wouldn’t he, Ducky?”

Cam and I stare at each other. The sudden tension is excruciating. I’m so confused and just want everything to go back to the way it was before that stupid kiss. That incredible, delectable, stupid kiss.

Leave it to me to mess up everything.

“Actually, I was just about to make dinner, Mrs. Dinwiddle—”

“No,” says Cam abruptly, pushing away from the counter. “You girls have a good night. I’ve got things to do.”

His tone is like “I’ve got better things to do,” and now I’m unreasonably hurt.

Without another word, Cam strides out of the kitchen, pulls open my front door, and disappears through it. In a few seconds, his apartment door slams, and then his godforsaken rap starts up at full volume, like a big musical middle finger in my face.

The cat chasing her hem, Mrs. Dinwiddle minces over to the door and shuts it. She downs the dregs of her martini and turns to me with a mysterious smile. “Ignore him, Ducky. Men are children.”

I mutter, “Some of them are more like juvenile delinquents.”

Her smile grows wider. “Now, while we wait for Blessica, let’s go through your closet, shall we?”




The evening was about as pleasurable as having my fingernails pulled off and all my toes smashed with a hammer.

By the time Blessica showed up with the makeup kit and another martini for Mrs. Dinwiddle, I’d finished the rest of the bottle of wine while being subjected to an elderly woman’s shock and horror at the contents of my wardrobe. You’d think she’d stumbled across a mass grave the way she carried on. Horrified exclamations of, “Good God, what is this?” were regularly heard from the bowels of the closet, along with disgusted clucks and muttered choruses of My word.

A confidence booster it wasn’t.

Then I was treated to the unforgettable experience of having a makeover by a person who’d consumed approximately half a dozen martinis and didn’t have the steadiest hands to begin with. Clowns have more attractive makeup. By nine o’clock, my face looked like a Rorschach test, and I was drunk and miserable.

For the life of me, I couldn’t get that kiss out of my head.

“What do you think, Ducky?” asked Mrs. Dinwiddle at one point, peering over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror as she breathed gin fumes into my face.

“I think it’s perfect. If I’m starring in a play about a Kabuki warrior.”

Eventually, Blessica carted Mrs. Dinwiddle off to bed, and I fell asleep in my blue dress, still in all my makeup.

I’m awakened by pounding on my front door.

“Ow.” There’s pounding inside my skull, too. I lift a hand to my head, wincing when I touch my forehead because even that slight pressure hurts. The clock on the nightstand reads five minutes after five in the morning. I wonder if there’s an emergency and the building is being evacuated.

More pounding, then the doorbell rings. I swat Mr. Bingley’s tail away from my face and attempt to sit up. The room swims woozily, and I clutch my stomach, groaning.

“Joellen! Are you in there? Open up!”

Oh God. It’s Cam. I’m late for our morning run.

I’d rather die than go on our morning run.

I shuffle out of bed, fighting nausea, and pad out of the bedroom in my bare feet. When the cat meows for his breakfast, it’s like steel spikes being driven through my skull. It takes all my strength just to pull the door open.