Tangled Beauty (5 page)

Reed ran a hand through his sandy-brown
hair and smiled. “I could use a haircut, maybe I should make an appointment.”

Jesse pointed
up to his highlights. “She just foiled me yesterday. You should consider getting a little splash of color thrown in to yours.”

Reed’s
turned to me, his eyes probing mine. “What do you think, Sin?”

“I don’t
think you should change it,” I said, wondering if his hair was as soft as it looked. “It’s a good color on you.”

He
looked back over to Jesse. “Good, because personally, I feel that if someone doesn’t like me for who I am- fuck ‘em.”

“
Easy for you to say, Reed,” replied Jesse. “You’ve never had to prove yourself to anyone. Even now, with that stubbly mug of yours, you’re still larger than life.”

Reed rubbed the dark shadow on his
chin and smiled. “Larger than life, huh? Listen, Jesse, there’s only one person I need to prove anything to,” he replied, sitting back in his chair. “Myself.”

“Right,” said Jesse.

“No, it’s true. It’s the
only
way to live, man. Otherwise you’ll spend your entire life beating yourself up for the sake of others.”

Jack cleared his throat.
“Not to change the subject, but where is that lovely fiancé of yours, Reed?”

A
flash of irritation passed through his icy eyes. He shrugged, “Guess, she couldn’t make it.”

“Uh oh,” smirked Jesse.
“Trouble in paradise?”

Reed’s lips thinned
. “Let’s just say, little brother, which I’m sure you’ve learned, some women are predictable but most are… unpredictable.”

“Oh,” I interrupted
, suddenly feeling very defensive of my gender. “Interesting assessment of women, which one is your fiancé?”

“
The disappointing kind, she’s far
too
predictable.”

“
Too predictable, huh? How so?” I asked, unable to help myself. Another man thinking that
he
knew all about women. Now
that
was predictable.

Reed,
obviously sensing my disapproval, stared at me with amusement. “Let’s just say she’s a temperamental, spoiled little rich girl, who’s always gotten her way, and if things don’t go exactly as planned for her, she will make your world miserable.”

“Sounds like the perfect woman,” replied Jesse. “You must have se
arched far and wide for this delightful, little creature.”

“More like
collided,” said Reed.

“
So, when is the wedding?” I asked.

Before he could answer, Mimi stepped
back into the room. “Dinner is on its way and good news- Sela made it! She’s freshening up and will be down shortly.”

“Wonderful,” muttered Reed,
grabbing the wine and filling his glass. Tapping out the very last drop in the bottle, he looked at Mimi. “We’d better keep these coming.”

Reed

As I left the dining room, I thought abou
t Sinclair. Not only was she drop-dead gorgeous, with those heart-stopping green eyes, the cascade of reddish-brown hair, and unforgettable lips, but, obviously, a feisty little wench. I wasn’t sure what kind of relationship my brother had with her, but I knew one thing- it definitely wasn’t sexual. A satisfied woman wouldn’t have undressed me with that kind of hunger in her eyes. Not like Sinclair had.

Besides, my
brother was so gay, he couldn’t even think straight.

Chuckling to myself,
I went upstairs to search for Sela and found her in one of the five guest-rooms, standing over a suitcase in nothing but a hot-pink pushup-bra and lacy, thong panties.

I cleared my throat.
“Looks like I arrived, just in time.”

She
turned around, her eyes blazing. “I don’t know about that,” she snapped, raising her arms in the air, in frustration. “Thank you, by the way! I had to meet your mother all by myself, without any kind of introductions.”

I frowned
. “Look, I didn’t know that you were coming. In fact, I’ve been trying to reach you all day. What happened; did your phone fall out of the plane?”

“
Haha, funny man. No, it died,” she said, turning back to her suitcase. As she bent over to look through her things, all I could think about burying myself, deep inside of her. Then, when she dropped a hairbrush on the floor and reached down to pick it up, it was too much. I moved in behind her, slipping one hand between her legs, the other on her perky little breast. “We could skip dinner and have dessert,” I breathed, nibbling on her earlobe.

She slapped my hands away
. “Reed,” she warned. “There’s no time for this.”

Groaning
, with two weeks of pent up frustration, I turned her around and pulled her to me, sliding my hands over the curve of her ass. “Come on, I haven’t seen you in almost two weeks. I’m ready to explode.”

“
Not… my… fault…,” she said, pushing me away. “You could have flown out to see me.”

I sighed. “
You know why I couldn’t. I had to be in court all week.”

“Right, your cases,” she
sneered, slipping a cream-colored dress over her head. “You know, if I knew you were going to spend so much time in ‘court’, I would have put more thought into marrying you.”

“
You’re being ridiculous. Obviously, I just can’t pick-up and leave, whenever I want to.”

She grabbed her lipstick
and turned towards the mirror on the wall. After applying a generous amount to her lips, she glared at me. “There’s always an excuse, isn’t there?” she said, then, lowered her voice to mimic mine. “I have a case I’m working on, I have to do some research, I have an interview,” she turned around.  “Well, what about me? When do I get any of your precious attention?”

“Look
Sela, if you weren’t traveling around the country, all the time, you’d see me every morning and night.”

“Oh, now it’s
my
fault,” she huffed.

I sighed.
“No, I’m not saying that. Look, we both had these careers before we met. We
both
knew what we were getting ourselves into.”

“
No, I didn’t because
you
pursued
me
and we spent much more time together. Now, I’m beginning to think that there is someone else who is taking up more of your time.”

My eyebrows shot up. “What?”

She raised her chin. “A lover, perhaps?”

“That’s bullshit
,” I snapped. “There is nobody else, for Christ’s sake. I can’t believe you’re accusing me of that.”

“
Really? I heard you were quite the…the… ladies’ man, before me.”

“That was then,” I said. “Now I’m a happily, engaged man.”

With a seductive smile, she
slipped her arms around my neck. “If there is anyone else, Reed, and I find out,” she murmured, her French accent thicker than usual. “I’ll cut off your deeck.”

“My
deeck?” I put her hand on my straining zipper. “Sela, there
is
nobody else,” I said. “So do me a favor- either stop with the accusations, or do something more useful with that mouth.”

She licked her lips
and slid down to her knees. “Something more useful?” she whispered, unzipping my pants.

I sucked in my breath as she pulled out my cock and
slid it between her lips.

“Is this what you meant?” she asked, licking the tip.

I groaned. “That’ll work.”

Sinclair

“Sela is certainly lovely,” said Mimi, placing a napkin on her lap. “I can understand why Reed is so smitten with her.”

“So, she’s not pregnant?” asked Jesse.

“Jesse…” she warned, with a withering stare.

“What? It’s a sincere question,” he replied.

Mimi didn’t respond, instead, she bit into her salad and glanced towards Jack, who was furiously texting, on his cell phone.

“Well, if she is, we’ll know soon enough,” replied Jack
, looking up. “Anyway, Reed is twenty-seven. He’s definitely old enough to settle down.”

“I wond
er how long they’ve been dating,” said Jesse. “If she’s some big-time model, I would have thought I’d have read something about them in the tabloids.”

“R
eed detests the paparazzi,” sniffed Mimi, “especially after dating that actress a few years back, the one who tried using him to get in with your father. After he dumped her, she made all of those vile accusations about him and made Reed look like some kind of arrogant baboon.”

“What kind of accusations?” I asked.

Mimi waved her hand. “Oh, that he had a horrible temper, drank too much, and was a womanizer.”

“And those weren’t true
?” snorted Jesse.

“Hardly.
Your brother does not have a drinking problem,” said Mimi. “It’s absurd.”

“But the rest is true?
” I asked, biting back a smile.

“Well, I’m sure that creature brought out the worst in him,” replied Mimi.
“She was a dreadful girl. Don’t you agree, Jack?”

He
looked up. “Despicable. But, unfortunately, she got what she wanted. Notoriety. She was even cast in a couple of movies, soon after.”

“Seriously?”
I asked.

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, but they were ‘B’ movies.”

I worked on my salad and was almost finished when Reed and Sela stepped into the dining room. As they moved closer, I stared at her and sighed; she was everything I wasn’t- tall, rail-thin, with light blonde hair, high cheekbones, and perfect, little bow-shaped lips.

Reed introduced her to al
l of us and then they sat down across from me and Jesse.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, with a slight French accent.

“Oh, it’s quite alright,” gushed Mimi, staring at her future daughter-in-law with appraisal. “You have a busy schedule. I’m just happy you were able to make it.”

“Yes, it is
… upsetting, having to travel so much,” said Sela. “I never get any rest.”

“Or time to eat?” joked Jesse, under his breath.

I kicked the outside of his foot.

“You should
really take some time off,” said Reed, pouring Sela a glass of wine.

Sela’s
eyes narrowed. “As I’ve mentioned before,
Reed
, I cannot simply do that. You know that I’ve already committed myself for the fashion shows in Paris. Maybe
you
should take some time off to be with me.”

“I can’t take time away from my cases, unfortunately,” he replied. “People’s lives are depending on me.”

“People’s lives depend on me too, Reed,” she answered, tightly.

“
Well, we are delighted that you could make it here, this weekend,” interrupted Mimi, obviously sensing the tension. “Right Jack?”

Jack, who was smiling down at his phone,
looked up. “Right, Mimi.”

“For Heaven’s sake, would it hurt you to put that thing away for a little while?” she chastised. “I’m pretty sure the studio will live without your attention for the next hour.”

Jack chuckled a
nd stood up. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? Please excuse me, everyone. I need to make a quick phone-call. Be right back.”

Mimi frowned. “Jack-
”

“
Feel free to start the main course without me, if it takes too long,” he said, hurrying off.

M
imi stared at Jack’s retreating back, lost in her own thoughts and something told me that theirs’ wasn’t the perfect marriage.

“I see s
ome things never change,” murmured Jesse under his breath.

“So,” said Reed, pouring himself another glass of wine. “Where is your shop located?” he asked me. “I think I’ll make an ap
pointment this week.”

“It’s in Midway City,” I said,
“near the art-museum.”

“Reed, I thought you were flying
back to New York with
me
on Sunday?” asked Sela.

He shrugged. “
Actually, I have some business I need to take care of in Stanton. Plus, I haven’t been home in a while. You don’t mind if I stick around for a few days do you, mother?”

Mimi’s face lit up
. “Are you serious? That would be marvelous.”