Redemption (15 page)

He knew she was right. Even now he should be viewing yesterday’s dailies. But here he was, compelled by some force beyond his control, trying to shake her from her self-imposed exile. Unfreeze her, jog her senses awake.

“What happened ten years ago…it was as if you were asleep, emotionally and sexually. And when I came along, forced you to feel something, you couldn’t stand it.”

She just listened attentively, as if he were reciting the stock quotes.

“You ran away, hightailed it out of there. It wasn’t just the publicity—you found out real life is a pain in the ass. Feelings are messy, people get hurt. So now you just avoid it altogether. Shut yourself up here like an executive Rip Van Winkle, letting life pass right by you.” He waved a hand over the desktop, the motion disturbing the reports she had been reading.

Her face hardened. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

“I know you’re scared to death someone’s going to come along and make you feel again. You punched the wrong number into your calculator once and ended up with the wrong answer. But it’s not the end of the world. People make mistakes, put their lives back together. They get forgiven, Claire. They forgive themselves.”

“For God’s sake, I don’t need your pop psychology. I have better things to do.”

“Like what? Get your next report written? Slash somebody’s budget? Give someone the ax?”

She glanced at the open desk calendar. “Actually, I’ve got a meeting with the Marketing department. In half an hour.”

“Tell the Marketing department to go to hell. When’s the last time you just let go, had fun?”

“Yesterday, as a matter of fact,” she replied smugly.

“Oh? What did you do, read the comics before the business section?”

“No—”

He raised one eyebrow. “Chewed bubblegum in a board meeting?”

“Of course not,” she said, frowning.

He looked aghast. “Don’t tell me you wrote in your checkbook with purple ink.”

She gave him a quelling look. “As a matter of fact, I have a very full and rewarding life. Not that it’s any of your business,” she added snidely.

“Ah, but it is my business, Claire. You see, I’ve been beating myself up regularly for ruining your life. So if your life isn’t ruined, I’d really like to hear about it.”

The look she gave him was almost pitying. “Maybe you should take your own advice. Forgive yourself. You didn’t ruin my life, Matt. But if you don’t stay out of it and leave me alone…” She let out a sigh, an agitated little breath that he loved, that somehow sounded sexy coming from her lips.

Matt looked away, shoving his fingers through his hair. He had come up here to see if she was the same woman on the tape, to throw it in her face, make her admit she felt something for him once. All of a sudden, that seemed pathetic. Women regularly propositioned him, showed up naked in his backyard, for Christ’s sake, and here he was panting after a woman who had told him more than once to go to hell.

It either said something about his perseverance or indicated how long it had been since he had been with a woman. He almost grinned.
That
was a problem he could do something about. He’d call Annie, see if she could come out. He didn’t need to be here, pestering Claire like a twelve-year-old.

He looked out the window behind her, across the rooftops covered with snow, past the icy branches in Rittenhouse Square, to the Schuylkill River in the distance.

Inside, the central heat was on, but it felt colder than the twenty degrees outside.

“You’re right,” he said finally, picking up the package on the desk and weighing it in his hand. “There were two people who died that day, weren’t there? Only one was mourned by the public. The other just quietly disappeared.”

Claire was staring at the mug on her desk, a misshapen thing that looked out of place among the professional flotsam of her desktop. An odd little smile tilted the corners of her mouth, and she said quietly, “She didn’t have a choice. It was midnight. Cinderella was due back at the hovel. The fairy tale was over.”

He laughed. “Oh, there’s always a choice,” he said. “Maybe the prince would have bought her another glass slipper.”

She shook her head, then smiled wryly. “Instead she got herself a job and bought herself a pair of Ferragamos. Not a bad deal, I’d say.”

“Ah, Claire.” He shook his head. “Somehow I don’t think she managed to buy herself the happily ever after part. I get the feeling she got a part in
Sleeping Beauty
and she’s asleep in some castle, waiting for the prince.” He started to hum “Some Day, My Prince Will Come.”

Claire scoffed. “Well, at the risk of ruining a perfectly good metaphor: This castle’s changed ownership, and I’m now the resident witch. And as you pointed out, I have people to fire and budgets to trim. So, if you’ve done what you meant to, go on and make your movie. I’ve got work to do.” She looked at her watch. “I have to finish this estimate before my meeting with the Marketing department—in twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, masking his disappointment. What did he expect, after all? She was right. This wasn’t a fairy tale, it was real life, and happy endings didn’t exist.

But he couldn’t help wishing he could manufacture one for Claire, like he could on screen. Because, despite everything, he still felt that he had wronged her somehow.

But clearly the lady didn’t want him, or his apology, anywhere around.

He looked at his watch. “All right, I’ll get out of your hair. I’m supposed to view the dailies for the
Pygmalion
scene in an hour.”

“The what scene?”

He smiled. “
Pygmalion
. Luke’s transformation, from cowboy to stockbroker. You remember Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
? Same principle, with the sexes reversed.”

He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him. “You’re forgetting something.”

He paused, his hand on the door.

“Take that—” she nodded at the package still lying innocuously on her desk “—and burn it. I don’t ever want to see it again.”

He hesitated. “It’s pretty flammable. I could get scorched.”

“I’ll loan you my oven mitts.”

Matt smiled. A woman whose gaze could freeze flames probably didn’t need oven mitts, but he’d take the video anyway. It had done its job.

Chapter Ten

S
OMEHOW
, M
ATT
N
EVER
G
OT
A
ROUND
to calling Annie. Not even the thought of hot sex, the kind with No Regrets written all over it, could erase the erotic vision of Claire Porter sitting behind her desk, brandishing a No. 2 pencil and a touch-me-not attitude.

Was he just hankering for the forbidden fruit? The one woman who told him “no” in no uncertain terms? Or was it possible Claire Porter was getting under his skin again after all these years?

He hoped it was the former. The last thing he needed now was a woman whose idea of a good time was watching the stock quotes—and not the ones from the Crider County Stock Auction.

Hell, he thought as he strolled into the kitchen of the townhouse he shared with Laura, Claire Porter probably didn’t even own a decent pair of jeans.

Laura looked up as he entered the room. “Well, here he is, the ‘Quintessential Guy’ himself,” she announced. She was perched on the counter eating ice cream, the latest issue of
GQ
open next to her. She took another bite, then let out a moan of rapture as she slid the spoon from her mouth.

Matt eyed the half-empty ice cream carton in her hands. “You planning to eat all that?” he asked, ignoring her comment. The woman in front of him was slim as a reed, but he couldn’t resist adding slyly, “You’ll never fit into that evening gown if you do.”

Laura smirked and jabbed the air with the spoon. “Ha. Lynn told me I had to gain a pound if I didn’t want it to slide off me.” She dug out a chocolate-covered nut. “Eat your heart out, Cover Boy.”

Matt frowned. “Don’t you have something better to read? Like your script? Scene twenty-seven was rewritten yesterday.”

She shrugged. “I’ll have it by the time we get around to filming.” She would too. As Matt had quickly discovered, Laura was a professional right down to her coral-painted toenails, now dangling prettily from the counter where she was perched. “How were yesterday’s dailies?” she asked, rooting around in the carton for another brazil nut.

“Good. We won’t have to reshoot the scene at the Reading Market, either. Got it right the first time.”

“Too bad. I was hoping for another trip there. Those cookies…” She closed her eyes and gave a little sigh of pleasure. “Pure chocolate heaven.”

He chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s a wonder we have anything left in the refrigerator around here.”

“That’s right—you’re supposed to be bulking up for your next role, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “That’s one reason I scheduled the fashion plate scenes early in the shoot. In two months, I might look more like a heavyweight fighter than a wealthy stockbroker.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t worry. According to this article, you have the amazing ability—” Laura held the magazine aloft and began to quote: “‘to appear equally at home on a horse as in a Porsche; as comfortable wearing Levi’s as wearing Armani. And as graceful on a basketball court playing a pickup game as handing out Academy Awards.’”

Matt dismissed the charges with an elegant lift of his eyebrows, then pulled a leftover steak sandwich from the fridge.

“Speaking of basketball, I’m getting tickets to a Lakers’ game in a couple of weeks. Wanna go?”

“Me? I don’t know a free throw from a field goal. And I thought you had sworn off public places after that photographer snapped you on your run.”

“For a chance to see the Lakers, I’ll brave it. Besides, I’ve made a deal with the local media. They lay off me while I’m here, I hold a press conference when this is over,” he said, unwrapping the sandwich.

Laura gave an unladylike snort. “Huh. That’s like sharks agreeing to lay off the tuna.”

Matt laughed, then ripped off a bite of his sandwich.

“Oh, Annie called. She said her concert this weekend was canceled and she wanted to come out here, maybe meet you in Atlantic City. She said you had mentioned getting together sometime during the shoot.”

Matt winced. “Damn. I haven’t called her since I’ve been here.”

Laura gazed innocently into the ice cream carton. “She might have mentioned that.”

Matt sighed. “I’m too busy this weekend anyway. I’ll just have to call her and explain.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand.” Laura said, tossing the empty ice cream carton in the trash.

She probably would, Matt realized.

If he called her now, explained he would have to spend the weekend shooting the scenes they had rescheduled due to the snow…The problem was, it would be a lie. Yes, they would be shooting, but he could work around that. It was his feelings for Claire that were the real problem.

Briefly, he wondered what Claire’s reaction would be to a wild weekend in Atlantic City—but then decided to save the image for midnight, when he had time to savor a fantasy.

He set his plate in the sink and glanced at Laura, who had been watching him with an interested expression on her face. He nodded at the notepad near the phone. “That Annie’s number?” he asked, realizing he had to be straight with Annie. She deserved that much.

He gave Laura a wry smile. “The Quintessential Guy is about to become the Quintessential Asshole.”

Two days later, Claire strolled through the store on her way to her office, noting the signs of the newly begun renovations around her. She had developed the habit of walking up the escalators, which remained frozen until the store opened at ten. She appreciated the exercise, as well as the opportunity to view the selling floor, free of customers at this time of morning.

Kaslow’s was getting ready to shed its skin. The store would undergo a complete makeover, including a floor design incorporating the latest retail trends.

Along with its new decor, Kaslow’s would acquire a new logo, with packaging and advertising to match. A new look all around, to reflect the new ownership.

If everything went on schedule, most of the renovations should be completed by March. Just in time, Claire thought, hurrying down the corridor to her office, for the
Scandal
debut. Provided Mme. Bendel approved the choice of Kaslow’s as the exclusive East Coast distributor.

Maybe the trade she had made with Matt wasn’t such a bad deal. And, as filming at Kaslow’s had wrapped up without a hitch, she had to admit, not only were her fears groundless, but the potential profit for the store could turn out to be rather tidy.

When she reached her office, there was a surprise waiting. A bouquet of pink roses sat on her desk, with a note attached. Claire peeled off her gloves and opened the small envelope, smiling as she read:
The castle’s all yours again. Thanks for everything, Matt.