Smiling, she snapped a daisy free from its stem and tucked it behind her ear. He reached up to settle the daisy more firmly. “I have no idea what my future will look like, but I want to make that future with you,” he said.
“I want that, too,” she said, and turned to nuzzle into his palm. He smelled of the truth of them, her skin and his. She’d spent months trying to figure out who he was, and in the end, it was this simple. So simple.
He was hers.
Keep reading for a preview of the next novel in the Irresistible series
THE MUSE
Coming December 2015
The cab’s horn went off like a shot, twice, then settled into a long, indignant blare, shattering what passed for quiet on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday afternoon. Arden MacCarren’s heart rate spiked abruptly as adrenaline flooded her nervous system. Startled in the act of removing her bags from the backseat of the SUV, she banged her head on the frame. One hand clapped to the back of her head, she hunched over to extricate herself from the car when the horn blared three times. Her heart rate spiked again, nearing the terrifying sharp thrum that was the precursor to passing out. She reached out blindly for any solid surface, and gripped the door handle until her fingers went numb, then forced herself to relax her grip slightly. Balanced on the razor wire between frightened and a panic attack, her body would interpret even the slightest stimuli as a reason to tip over the edge.
You’re overreacting. Calm yourself. Brain over body. Mind over matter.
Her brain snapped into hyperalert mode, cataloging her surroundings. Fifth Avenue. Sunlight glinting off chrome and mirrors, coating the trees with gold. The cabdriver righteously taking to task the driver of a Mercedes double-parked while a woman unloaded her take from an afternoon of shopping. Hermes, Tory Burch, Barneys, Irresistible. Arden scanned the woman’s sharp features without the click of recognition, but her brain, already on a hair trigger thanks to the horn, slid into the worst-case scenario like tires on black ice. No one she knew, but in her New York world it was only one degree of separation. She knew someone who knew this woman.
This woman knew.
The woman stalked up the red carpet leading to her building’s front door, and the Mercedes turned the corner onto the side street, allowing the cab to roar off down Fifth Avenue with one final blaring honk. Arden’s heart stutter-stepped up a notch, the resulting spike in blood pressure throbbing in the sore spot on the back of her head. Not good. She forced in a deep breath, inhaling long past the point her lungs thought possible, then exhaled as she focused on what was right in front of her: the black leather backseat of her SUV, the tote holding her sketchbook, pencils, charcoal. Reach out, ignore the tremor in your hand, and close your fingers around the handles. Good. Don’t forget your purse.
Derek, her driver, waited patiently until she closed the door. Arden turned to find Tony, the doorman, sweltering in his gray wool uniform and white gloves as he hovered under the canopy stretching from the building’s heavy brass doors to the sidewalk, his normally friendly face a smooth mask. “Allow me, Ms. MacCarren,” he said, reaching for her bag.
“I’m fine, Tony, thank you,” she said, and ordered her knees to quit shaking. But Tony’s unusual formality sent a new wave of anxious thoughts surging to the forefront. The woman in the street knew. Tony knows. The only people who didn’t know your father and brother were arrested for orchestrating a decade-long Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands out of hundreds of millions of dollars were living under rocks or in yurts somewhere without electricity or satellite television, and how many of those people were left? Six, maybe eight? Everyone knows. You’re exposed; you’re all exposed for everyone to see, stare at, a shining example of how the mighty have fallen . . .
The cool air in the building’s marble-tiled lobby swirled against her skin, drying the sweat at her nape and sending goose bumps down her spine. Without meeting her gaze, Tony pushed the button to call the elevator. “Ms. Cottlin said to send you straight up,” he asked.
“Thank you,” she said.
The doors opened and she stepped inside. Tony pushed the button for fourteen, then stepped back.
When the doors closed, she held it together through sheer will, inhaling slowly, filling her lungs, forcing her diaphragm to expand into her belly, safe in the cocoon of the elevator. That’s all it took to make her feel safe: several layers of thick walls between her and the outside world.
No. I’ve given up on finding peace, inside or out. I will not give up on feeling safe.