Barefoot in Lace (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 2) (16 page)

He pulled her closer. “Don’t give them that power. Don’t give anyone that power over you.”

Too late. “Let me get dressed.”

“Gussie, you can’t believe her. You do have eyes, don’t you?”

She swallowed hard, arranging her thoughts like swatches of fabric that had to coordinate and make sense. “I don’t see myself…like you do,” she said. “I’m not saying that because I want pity or compliments or reassurances. I don’t see beauty. I see plain.” Worse than plain, but anytime she’d ever admitted that, she’d been told she was nuts, blind, or insecure.

She was definitely one of those three, and she didn’t like that, but couldn’t change it. Insecurities were cockroaches. They never died.

He pulled her up, shocking her with the force. “Come here.” Ignoring her reluctance, he led her to the mirror, making her stand in front of it. Naked from the waist up, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her face clean of any color or enhancement, she could barely look. “Gussie.”

She looked down. “I can’t do this,” she admitted. Especially with him right behind her, facing her scar. But his eyes were on the mirror, and the woman in it.

“You
can
do this,” he said. He kissed her shoulder. “With me. Just me. No one else.”

The words were as tender as his kisses and had almost the same effect.

“Exercising your superpower, are you?” She tried for a tease, but it came out like the serious question it was. “Get your subject to reveal all?”

“No superpowers, Pink. I like you. I care about you. I’d like to hear the rest of your story.”

The fact that he knew there
was
more to her story stunned her a little, but it warmed her, too. She wanted to tell it.

Still, she had to take a few slow, deep breaths before she jumped off this particular cliff. And she needed clothes.

She walked to the ottoman and picked up her blouse again, and this time, Tom helped her slide it on, sitting next to her and silently closing a few buttons while he waited and she gathered her words.

“Luke,” she finally whispered.

He lifted his eyebrows in question.

“It all sort of begins and ends with my brother.”

“How?”

She sighed. “Well, he got blamed for everything that happened the night of my accident. And he carried the guilt—no, I imagine he probably
still
carries the guilt to this day.”

“But you were really in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She closed her eyes and dug her fingers into a fold of satin and velvet. “It was all my fault.” The last word got trapped by the band wrapped around her chest.

“I thought there was a fireworks accident.”

“There was, and it happened exactly as I told you. But the timing, the moment, the whole event wasn’t because of something Luke did. It was me.”

He didn’t say a word or give a reaction, but waited for her to continue.

“I liked one of his friends.” She shook her head, hating the simplicity and stupidity of it all over again. “I liked a lot of his friends, to be honest. I was a typical boy-crazy fifteen-year-old who craved attention from the opposite sex, but I was not the kind of fifteen-year-old who got it.”

No, Gussie McBain had been at the height of her awkward, ugly stage. It may have evolved over the years, but somehow, time had frozen at that moment, and there she stayed, even now, fifteen years later.

“I had zits, and a narrow face, and an oversized nose, and a body that hadn’t even begun to develop like my friends. I was not pretty. But I felt like if one guy—only one, any one—would notice me, then that would change, so I basically threw myself at one of his friends. Brian Grimsby. I can still see him right now.” Not very tall, thin, but he’d had beautiful black hair and dark, dark eyes.

“What did Brian do with the honor of you throwing yourself at him?”

Act like an asshole. “I don’t think he was honored. But he was an eighteen-year-old boy, so when we got far away from the crowd to make out, he took every advantage of me.”

Tom’s eyes widened in surprise, and she realized what he thought.

“No, not
every
advantage, but we rounded a few bases, and I freaked out when he whipped out his dipstick and started pushing me to my knees.”

“What’d you do?”

“Said no and saw his interest fade in the blink of an eye. He zipped up and blew me off, so I downed the Solo cup of vodka he left behind.” She wiped her lip absently, still tasting the burn and shame. “I kind of stumbled away and almost instantly felt sick. I went to go behind some bleachers that had been set up for real fireworks, and I heard him telling some of his friends that he’d just gotten a blow job, which, I swear to God, wasn’t true.”

“Gussie,” he said, a little pity and sympathy in his voice. “Guys say stupid shit and no one believes them.”

Of course she knew that. “His friends asked who, of course, and he told them, and they…they all started laughing and barking like dogs and joking about how”—her voice betrayed her with a hitch—“how Luke had it all, and I had nothing. He had looks, brains, sports, friends, but mostly looks. They were cracking jokes for what seemed like an hour but was probably two minutes. But I was mad and a little drunk and hurt beyond description.”

She covered her mouth with her hands, shaking her head, hating this memory.

“Fact was, I despised my brother right then,” she admitted. “He
did
have everything—he was great-looking, beloved, brilliant, bigger than life. Everything I didn’t have, Luke had in spades. So I marched off to tell him, to rat on Brian, and take out my fury at how life had cheated me.”

And that, right there, was the stupidest thing she’d ever done. “I saw him throwing the bottle rockets, and I recklessly ran right into the line of fire. The next thing I knew, my hair was on fire.”

“Oh, God, Gussie.” He reached for her hands. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

No one could. The flash, the heat, the pain, the screaming, the ambulance, and the aftermath. Her mother losing her mind, her father bawling in the hospital, and Luke, stricken with guilt for something that hadn’t been his fault.

“That stupid move cost us a family. Losing him was way worse than losing my hair.”

“And you have no idea where he is?”

“Not a clue,” she sighed. “After the accident, oh, it was horrible. I told you he was insane with guilt, certain it was entirely his fault for being drunk and dumb. My parents were…” She shook her head. “They refused to talk to him, which, I know now, they regret. When he turned eighteen, not long after I came home from the hospital, he left.”

“He ran away?”

She shrugged. “At eighteen, it’s not running away. It’s breaking up a perfectly happy, healthy, wonderful life.” She sighed on the last word. “I miss that family so much.”

The lump in her throat grew so big it actually hurt to talk, so she didn’t, waiting for the pain to subside.

“I know what it feels like to lose a family, Gussie.”

The pain in his voice stabbed her, and when she looked at him, the agony in his eyes sliced right through her.

Of course he knew that. He’d lost his parents at seventeen and his sister just last month. And, clearly, that pain had not yet healed, not if the dampness in his eyes and the sorrow in his tone were any indication.

“I know you do,” she said, rubbing her hand on his back in sympathy. “I don’t mean to act like no one else ever had their family break apart. If it affected you like it did me, well, then, you know why family means so much to me.”

He nodded, his jaw tight as if he didn’t trust his own response.

“Have you tried to find him?” he asked after a moment.

She frowned. “You mean like use an investigator? No. I think my parents might have, but we never talked about it. Everything got broken and weird and ruined after the accident. Which”—she took a shuddering breath—“wasn’t really an accident since I basically caused it by acting like an idiot. So, there you have it.” She dabbed a tear carefully, forgetting for a minute that she didn’t have a drop of makeup on. “My story of insecurity and heartache. Time kind of stood still for me that night.”

He studied her, not answering right away. “It explains a lot.”

“But doesn’t change anything,” she said quickly. “Telling the truth doesn’t make it hurt any less or take away any impossible-to-understand repercussions.”

“I would think,” he said slowly, trailing a finger over her cheekbone, “that some dickhead who called you unattractive wouldn’t have any power after that.”

“You would think that.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed the touch, but then moved away. “And, to some extent, you’d be right. Brian and his comments were forgotten for the most part in the trauma of what ensued. But I was the butt of jokes and then I let them…wreck everything. I don’t know how or why that’s affected me all these years, and maybe some high-priced therapist could tell me, but I haven’t bothered to find out. My insecurities don’t matter, though. What matters is that I lost my brother. And”—she touched her hair—“I got even less attractive in the process, which sometimes feels like…” She couldn’t get the words out.

“Like retribution for what you did,” he supplied.

Her heart slipped a little, with gratitude and relief to find someone who absolutely understood. “Yes. Payback for my mistake.”

He shook his head. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”

Did she? She shrugged, trying to find some bright side to her sad tale. “I did discover wigs.”

“In every color.”

“It was right around the time that some companies were making them in colors, and it was my little form of rebellion. Then I felt lost under the fake hair, my plain features seeming even…more so. My interest in fashion and makeup really took off then, and I started experimenting on myself. Next thing I knew, I always wore…a mask.”

“Ever consider going without it?”

She shrugged. “Too many people know me this way, and it would take all kinds of explanation and…no,” she finished. “I don’t.”

“Not even for a little while, as an experiment to see how you feel? Not even, say, for a couple of weeks in another country where no one knows you?”

It took a few seconds for the real meaning of the question to hit her. France. She smiled and jabbed him with an elbow. “You’re a tricky one, Tommy.”

“Come with me, Gus. Take off your mask and”—he slid an arm around her, pulling her closer—“just be you, with me.”

“You want help with Alex.”

His expression dropped in disappointment. “Do you
really
think that? If that were true, I’d take you up on your offer to keep her while I go. No.” He gave his head a strong, vehement shake. “No. That’s not why I’m asking.”

“Then why are you asking?”

He puffed a surprised breath. “Are your insecurities that deep?”

“Have we not spent half an hour discussing them?”

He put both hands on her face and held her still, forcing their eyes to lock. “Augusta McBain, come with me and leave your mask behind. Consider it your therapy that you never got. You can walk the Promenade, eat the best food in the world, watch glorious sunrises, come to the set, and sleep”—he leaned closer and put his forehead against hers—“wherever you like, but preferably in my arms.”

Seduction
. This was what it felt like. Tempting and sweet and agonizingly
good
, no matter how bad it would be later. The very idea intoxicated her…weeks with him, in France, and Alex, who gave her a different kind of joy. No wigs, no makeup, no mask.

How could she say no to that?

Yes, when it was over, it would be, well, over. She knew that going in. He’d be “always alone,” and she’d still be exactly the same. But if she said no, she’d spend the rest of her days regretting the decision. Hadn’t she regretted enough in her life?

“Yes,” she whispered into a light kiss. “I’ll go.”

Chapter Thirteen

Thomas Jefferson DeMille, you are on dangerous ground.

Although, to be fair, he was currently about thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean in an elegantly appointed Gulfstream G280.

Sipping a cold bottle of—what else?—LaVie, Tom glanced across the wide aisle to see Gussie leaning her head against her window, her eyes closed or focused on the cushion of clouds below. The soft hum of the jet engines lulled the cabin into a quiet cocoon, made even more private now that Alex had dropped off to sleep on the sofa in the back.

From his vantage point, Tom could see Gussie’s chest rise and fall with each breath, making him think she might have fallen asleep, too. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail that peaked at the crown of her head, she’d easily covered most of the scar that troubled her so much, and he could truly appreciate the slopes and angles of her profile.

She had a slight overbite, and her chin was a little too small. Without the bounty of fake hair around her face, he could really see the angles of her delicate bone structure, which might, before she’d developed into a woman, have been considered unexotic enough to be “plain.”

Yet, she was beautiful to him. The way she made Alex laugh, or when she gave him her full attention and listened to what he was saying, or when she talked about a particularly crazy bride, he was enchanted. It attracted him on a level that had nothing to do with looks.

And the last time that happened…he’d suffered.

But here he was, barreling back toward a scary place at hundreds of miles an hour.

Of course, this was different. He wasn’t attached. He wasn’t even close to committed beyond the promise of what would be some romance and, he hoped, satisfying sex.

Surely he couldn’t deny himself that just because he found her attractive, right? Spending his life “alone” meant no family, no ties, no chance of losing everything again. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be with someone, did it?

He shifted in his seat, making enough noise against the leather to get Gussie to open her eyes and look at him. For a moment, neither spoke or smiled or blinked or, hell, took a breath of air.

He really should tell her everything about his past. But he never told anyone. And, obviously, his sister hadn’t even told Alex, or she’d surely have brought it up by now. Once he’d shared the pain, they’d be closer and then—