So Into You (10 page)

She nodded as he sat across from
her. "I had no idea it was going to be so intense. No matter where I went
someone was there wanting to talk business."

She felt his legs move toward her
and encase her ankles as he grinned. "I can't blame them. A beautiful
woman with the mind of a genius. Maybe we ought to talk business
ourselves." The curve of his lips was frankly sensual and she knew him
well enough to realize that the business he was talking about had nothing to do
with profits and losses.

"We will." She rubbed his
calf with one of her own. "Trust me on this."

They chatted for a few moments while
their orders were taken and arrived promptly. It was lunch, so nobody wanted to
linger over their food and the restaurants needed a fast turnover.

Casey dunked a fry in some ketchup
and leaned down, as Phil finished his burger and wiped his mouth on his napkin.
"Got something I want to show you."

"I know. I want to see
it." He snickered.

"Mind out of the gutter
please." She pulled out a manila envelope and passed it to him. "This
is kind of a surprise and a present for you."

With a look of curiosity, he opened
it and slid out the sheets of paper, pushing his plate aside and putting them
in front of him.

His expression changed to confusion.
"What's this?"

She leaned toward him. "Isn't
it wonderful?"

"I don't know. What is
it?"

"It's a contract, Phil. For
your drawings. From a publisher who wants to put them in a new coffee table
book. It's an amazing concept— passion in all different kinds of media, and I
knew when I saw…" Her voice trailed off as she looked at his face and saw
not excitement, but growing anger.

"Casey, what did you do? How
did these people get my sketches?"

"I…" She floundered.
"I don't understand. I thought you'd be thrilled…"

"How did they get my
sketches?"

She looked down in embarrassment.
"I photographed them with my cell phone before you woke up."

"You
what
?" His
voice was ice.

She straightened with a frown.
"They are incredible works of art, Phil. And since they were of me, done
without my permission by the way, I thought at least I had the right to take
them with me."

"Without asking?"

"All I wanted was to be able to
look at them, to have them with me. To treasure them, Phil. Truly." She spread
her hands, trying to explain. "Then at the conference I met a friend who
agents for a publisher and she told me about the book. I showed her one of the
sketches and she went apeshit for the rest of them."

Phil's eyes burned and his lips
tightened as he thumbed through the contract. But he remained silent.

"I thought you'd be pleased.
Having your work published?"

He refused to meet her gaze for a
few moments, and she noticed a muscle working in his cheek. Right now he was a
stranger, a furious stranger. A man she didn't know sat across the table. He
had Phil's face and voice but his words— she swallowed roughly.

"Casey, you've betrayed me, my
trust. Those were drawings of you I did without any skill or training or intent
that anyone ever see them. They were visions from my heart, if you want to be
dramatic about it. But the bottom line is that they were
private
."

Now he looked at her, stared at her
with fury burning in his eyes. "You should have asked, plain and simple.
Instead you've taken something very precious to me and paraded it in front of
anyone and everyone. You've cheapened it and also cheapened the feelings behind
those drawings. I put down on paper how I saw you. How I wanted you. What you
meant to me."

She flinched at the angry words and
the dawning realization of what she'd done.

"You took more than photos when
you snapped my sketchpad, Casey. You have to know how personal something like
this is." He pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and roughly scrawled his
name on the bottom of the contract papers, tossing them back at her across the
table. "I know you were trying to surprise me with something. But you took
my trust and my love for you and turned it into nothing more than a fucking
business contract."

He stood and grabbed his wallet,
dropping a couple of bills next to his plate. "I have to say you are
really great at business. But you forgot to think about how I would take this.
It obviously didn't matter to you. And neither did I."

And with that he was gone, leaving
her chilled, scared and shattered as she stared at the remains of her lunch.

*~*~*~*

Phil made very sure his path didn't
cross Casey's for the rest of the day. He was furious, hurt and remorseful,
finally reaching a point where he could admit that he'd overreacted. But then
he remembered his sketches, the intimacy and the dawning hope that had gone
into every loving line.

And he hurt all over again.

He almost cancelled his plans for
the evening, but since he'd agreed to hit the town with two visiting fraternity
brothers, he figured perhaps that would be the best way to drown his sorrows
for a bit. He'd have dropped them in a New York minute if Casey had been free.
But now, that was a moot point.

He hadn't seen either Brent or Ryan
in ages, so he prepared himself for a night of heavy alcohol intake with a side
order of flirting. He figured he'd referee if necessary and be designated
driver if they needed to be someplace without taxi service.

Thankfully they stuck to the
well-populated cab routes, enjoying a great steak dinner and typical manly
conversation. Which, to Phil's surprise, included a casual job offer with
Ryan's new company.

"We'll talk, bro." Ryan
nodded over the bill. "Now we drink and see if we can get laid,
okay?"

Phil sighed and followed them out
the door, unable to repress a grin as Brent hailed a cab, put on his best
British accent and demanded "Take us to the nearest high class drinking
establishment, my good man."

In spite of that, it wasn't too long
before they all found themselves on high stools in front of a spotlessly
shining bar with foaming tankards in front of them.

Yeah, life was looking up.

"So no new meat for you
anymore?" Brent teased, as a cleavage-enhanced waitress frisked by with an
inviting smile.

"He's in luuuuurve," Ryan
hummed into his beer. "I know the signs."

Phil just shook his head and ordered
another round. He knew from prior experience that talking to these two after a
few beers was an exercise in futility.

"Hey Phil. Can't believe you're
out for a night on the town. What a coincidence, huh?"

He turned and there was Joan,
dressed to kill. She had hot and sexy curves and most of 'em were front and
center in a short
short
dress with a low
low
neckline.

Ryan nearly fell off his stool and
Brent visibly drooled.

"Hello Joan. You out on a
date?"

She eyed the other two men with
interest. "No, just having some fun with the girls. We had dinner in the
restaurant next door and figured we do a little dancing to work off the
calories." She leaned into him. "Flying solo, huh? Wise thing I guess.
Now that Casey's off the market, so to speak."

Phil frowned. "What are you
talking about?"

"Didn't you hear? Some guy from
her past who was supposed to be dead showed up." Joan giggled. "Just
like that. Poof. Dead one minute, there the next."

Phil blinked. "What was his
name? You remember?"

"Sure." She smirked.
"He was one helluva good looking not-corpse, if you know what I
mean."

"His name?" God, he might
have to choke it out of her.

"Umm…Desmond? Derek? No…
Dominic
.
Yeah. Dominic something. He came to reception looking for her just after
lunch."

Thankfully, Brent and Ryan demanded
an introduction at that moment, interrupting the conversation and giving Phil a
chance to straighten a world that had suddenly tilted upside down.

Her dead boyfriend
? The one she'd said was the love of her life or something?

Fuck.

Double fuck.

It would seem that fate or whatever
was against him. He'd ripped up at her and walked out only to have her perfect
man show up and probably rescue her. Even now they might be…

Phil's heart thudded at the terrible
image of her in someone else's arms, someone else's bed. So
this
was
heartbreak. Well, he should have been smart enough to know it was coming.

Disgusted with himself and the world
in general, he made a snap decision. "Hey Ryan. Were you serious about
that job?"

Ryan, who was trying to look down
Joan's dress without being too obvious about it, glanced over at him and lifted
an eyebrow. "Yeah, why?"

"I'll take it."

*~*~*~*

"And just like that he said
I'll
take it
. No hesitation or negotiation. Nothing." Joan leaned on the
cubicle wall, watching Casey like a hawk.

Casey was struggling, fighting a
battle on two fronts. The first was against the tears she'd thought she'd
controlled last night. The second was the urge to take her stapler and figure out
if it was possible to murder somebody with it. Somebody like Joan. She'd start
by stapling those pouty lips together and then maybe moving up to the
heavy-duty model and nail her to the cubicle wall. Upside down.

She found words at last. "Well,
wow." Lame, but since Joan was on a roll it didn't really seem to matter.

"Yeah, I know, right? Of
course, I was there, and he's awful cute. I figured if he wanted a
goodbye…um…fling, well why not?"

Hating herself, Casey had to ask.
"And?"

"Not a thing." Joan looked
disgruntled for a minute or two. "Reckon the beers probably hit the old
manhood. Some guys get needle-dicked after a few, ya know?"

"I didn't, but thanks for
sharing."

"Anyway it didn't really
matter." Joan tossed her hair. "That Brent was….mmm…mmm." She
fanned herself. "Hotter'n a jalapeno if you catch my drift."

Joan's phone buzzed and Casey
offered up a prayer of thanks to the communication gods. She couldn't have
stood much more.

It had been hard enough seeing
Dominic again.

Dominic.

Alive. In the flesh. Smiling at her,
hugging her, kissing her.

And telling her he was married.
To
Keith
.

His voyage of self-discovery had
begun on the side of a mountain and ended in the arms of his gay lover. It was
all very surprising and very wonderful, but impossible to explain to anyone,
apparently.

So for three years, they'd lived
under other names, quietly enjoying life and ignoring anyone who might have
suffered at their loss.

After her shock and joy at seeing
him again, Casey began to look at him with new eyes. What she saw was a hunky
guy who was, fundamentally, rather shallow. Hot sex was fine, but when it came
to passion it was all about what he wanted.

She was very glad he wasn't dead,
but overall not sorry when he said he was just passing through and asked her
not to tell his remaining relative. Aunt Joy, he explained, just wouldn't
understand.

He never even noticed that her eyes
were bloodshot and scratchy and that she was on her second bottle of red eye
drops.

After Joan's stunning news, it
looked like she was going to have to go for the hat trick and open her third
bottle, although God knew if she had any tears left.

She'd been an asshole and done a
stupid, fucked up thing without thinking. And the result had been—emptiness.
Her life was emptier than when Dominic had left it.

Because now she'd understood what
the warmth of desire and the honesty of passion could mean. She'd been held
close to the heart of a man who wanted nothing more than her, Casey. As she
was.

A man who had loved her.

She knew that now. He would never
have done all those things for her, stuck by her side, devoted so much time to
being her friend, if he hadn't loved her. He'd never have even
thought
about sketching her, that was for sure. He'd put his love out there in the
lines of his drawings and all she'd seen were pretty, sexy pictures. She'd
missed the emotions and the feelings behind them, even though he'd tried to
tell her.

And now she'd thrown it all away.

That night, she sat in her bedroom
and once again scrolled through Phil's drawings.

She'd survive this loss. She'd
survived before.

But this one would be so much
harder.

With that thought in her mind, she
let the tears come once again in the hopes that their salt would cleanse the
deep wound bleeding from her heart.