“So as intellectually stimulating as chatting with you always is, goodbye.”
“I’m coming over—” he started firmly, and I jammed my hand down on the End Call button with enough satisfaction that if it had been money, I could have bought all the silk in Thailand with millions to spare.
On second thought, I might have some plans for that blue dye.
#
The doorbell rang.
“Coming!”
I did one last check in the mirror to make sure I’d erased all signs of my earlier rage and frustration from my face. My reflection looked back at me, unconvinced, long red curls framing a heart-shaped face and blue-green eyes. I forced a smile—there, that was better. No one wanted to buy things from a girl who looked like she might go on a homicidal spree with her sewing scissors.
“Come on, girl,” I told myself. “Chin up. Tomorrow is another day.”
At least my reflection couldn’t disagree with that.
The doorbell trilled again, and once more immediately after that, impatient. That’s the downside of working with models: they think time travel’s already been invented. They totally do not comprehend a world that doesn’t respond to their whims, like, yesterday.
I took one more nervous look around my apartment, suddenly worried, like I always was before my clients came in, that it all looked completely unprofessional. The silks, satins, and laces lay in wicker baskets arranged by country of origin, thickness, texture, and color. The curtains were drawn, hiding a view of my parking lot that was less than scenic—unless minor drug deals were your thing, in which case, yes, totally scenic, you would not believe how scenic this parking lot was. I had lit a pair of cheap lavender candles to try to cover up the burnt popcorn smell from upstairs, and I thought it was working. Well, mostly it seemed to be making it smell like burned lavender, but it was the thought that counted, right?
I kicked a pair of dirty socks under the couch, peered through the peephole to make sure it wasn’t Stevie setting the record for Fastest Douchebag On Land, and let Dove Steele and her boyfriend in.
I say ‘Dove Steele and her boyfriend,’ but it would probably be more accurate to say ‘whatever strange symbiotic organism Dove Steele and her new boyfriend had melded into, which interestingly enough didn’t seem to need to breathe.’
“Hello, Kate,” Dove gasped around his lips, her hands sliding into the man’s very packed back pockets—not that I was looking—while his hands roamed her back, pushing up her long bleached blonde tresses as well as the translucent gauzy fabric of what could liberally be called a tank top, until I started to worry that all of us were going to be arrested for public indecency. “This is Asher. Asher Young.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” I said.
Neither of them even looked at me as I held the door open. Someday I ought to figure out how to bottle and sell the invisibility field that models give off, obscuring all other women around them; now there would be a successful business venture. I bet the Department of Homeland Security would give me a mint.
I mean, I might not be a supermodel, but I do have my high points. I’m not exactly the Wicked Witch of the West. Show me a guy who doesn’t like a tall redhead, and I’ll show you a guy who hasn’t met me yet. Lack of self-confidence in the looks department isn’t my thing: I save all my insecurities for my business.
They’d barely made it through the door before they started groping each other again. These two were taking it beyond public displays of affection. This was a public display of…I don’t even know what. Probably something illegal.
Not that I could entirely blame them. I mean, Dove was a supermodel, with all the slender limbs, blinding Colgate-white smile, and camera-ready hair that word implied. And this new man of hers…
Well, hot damn.
Jet black curls spilled across his forehead over cat-green eyes with lashes that a million girls would have killed for, and an honest-to-God chiseled jawline complemented the slope of his powerful shoulders. He was muscled but lithe, the sleeves of his T-shirt stretched tight, the hem of it lifting to reveal sculpted abs that were made for running your fingers down. His bronze skin dimpled in his right cheek when he smiled.
And I believe I mentioned the state of his back pockets, hellooooo, yes I would like a side of that meat, ring it up and wrap it for delivery, please.
Not that I was susceptible to such mind-numbing hotness.
The model somehow managed to detach her mouth from Asher in a process only slightly less complicated than a NASA liftoff. “Kate, I’m so delighted we could finally make this work with your schedule!”
“Yeah, the day job keeps me jumping,” I said, fetching the changing screen for her. “Thanks for being so understanding.”
Asher reached out to help me with the heavy changing screen, holding it steady while I guided it into place.
“Thanks.”
“Not at all,” he said, flashing me a dazzling smile. He was looking at me as if I were the only woman in the world. That is, if I were the type to fall for that kind of thing. Which I wasn’t.
I tore my gaze away from that searingly hot mouth as Dove squealed from the other side of the screen. “You liking so far?” I asked.
And then I heard another gasp-this one from Asher.
“Is that an original copy of Graham’s Magazine? With The Murders in Rue Morgue?” he whispered.