Virtuous(14)

My new name sounds right coming from him. It sounds like me—the new me. I like the new me. She’s brave and bold and mostly fearless. That is until the biggest movie star on the planet decides he wants to spend time with her. Then she becomes nervous and fearful and riddled with the anxiety that nearly debilitated her in the past.

I don’t want to be her anymore. I worked so hard to escape those shackles, to find my way out of the nightmare of my past into a future bright with promise. I can’t let one night with an enigmatic man undo all that hard-won progress. I won’t let that happen.

“I can hear you thinking,” he says as the car descends ever deeper into the garage.

“How can you hear someone thinking?”

“Your thoughts are so loud they permeate the silence.”

“All right. I’ll bite. What am I thinking?”

“Wait. You bite? Really?”

I roll my eyes at his shameless flirtation. He’s incredibly gifted in that regard. A master, if you will. I am woefully out of my element, and we both know it.

He pulls into a parking space and turns off the engine. “You’re thinking this is the craziest, most impulsive, most ridiculously unsafe thing you’ve ever done in your life and…” He tips his head and studies me in that intent, knowing way that has become familiar to me in the short time we’ve spent together. “You’re wishing you were home sharing Chinese takeout with Fluff rather than wasting your time with a man who wants things you aren’t interested in.”

I’m stunned, shredded, exposed and reminded of how broken I truly am. I have no business being interested in him or wondering what it would have been like to meet him as a whole and healthy woman who could give him what he wants.

“How close was I?”

“Startlingly.”

He sticks out his lip in a pout that is naturally adorable coming from him. “I’ve never been so jealous of a twenty-pound ball of fur in my life. I bet she even gets to sleep snuggled up to you, right?”

“Of course she does.”

“What about the goose-down bed that was listed among her assets earlier?”

“It’s all for show. We don’t want people talking about us sleeping together.”

The pout morphs into a smile so potent, my panties feel too tight all of a sudden. I’m constricted and tingling in places I’ve never tingled before. It is the smile that has landed him twice on People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive cover. It’s the smile that opens movies and makes women do crazy things like climb the security fence at his home and send him photos in the mail that no one but their husbands should ever see. Yes, I’ve read every word that’s ever been printed about him, so I have an unfair advantage.

I know everything about him. He knows nothing about me, and if I have my way, he never will.





I want to know everything about her—if she requires coffee to function in the morning, what her favorite song is, her favorite color, what she likes to sleep in. The possibility that she prefers to sleep in nothing at all is one I can’t afford to entertain at the moment. Not when I’m trying to keep her from running away. She’s like a skittish colt being introduced to a saddle—always ready to bolt. I’ve known her less than twelve hours, and I already understand that if I let her run, if I let her get away, the memory of her will haunt me forever.

“What kind of car is this? It’s nice.”

Yes, it’s nice and worth more than one-point-five million dollars, not that I’d ever tell her that. “It’s a Bugatti Veyron.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Cars are one of my vices.” I gesture to the white Range Rover SUV and the red Ducati motorcycle, which is my preferred means of transport in the city. I decided earlier that the Range Rover is too pedestrian for such an important evening, and the Ducati would scare her away for sure. I’ll save that for the second date, if I get that lucky.

The thought gives me pause as I get out of the car and go around to help her. It’s not often that I worry about getting a second date. I’ve become complacent where women are concerned. It’s been a long-ass time since anyone made me work for a second date the way I already know I’ll have to with Natalie.

She takes the hand I offer to help her out of the car, and the impact of her skin brushing against mine travels through my body like a live wire. When she glances up at me, eyes wide and lips parted, I know for certain my touch had the same effect on her.