The Owner of His Heart

CHAPTER FIFTEEN





GETTING cleaned up for a black tie fundraiser turned out to be serious business. Layla had to take half a day off of work because Kate had jammed her Friday with so many beauty appointments: first, she’d gotten exfoliated and buffed from head to toe, waxed just about everywhere, with a mani/pedi to top it all off. Then she’d had to rush back to the loft to meet up with Mark and Jacob, a hair and make-up team. They’d worked on her in a whirlwind of gossip, fake eyelashes, and flat irons, which culminated with them zipping her into the light blue sheath dress Kate had picked out and guiding her to the wall of full-length mirrors in the home gym portion of the loft.

At first Layla couldn’t believe the vision in the mirror was actually her. The dress hugged her curves perfectly, making her body look more like a work of art than the bag of bones she’d had to drag out of bed that morning. Though Jacob had spent an hour on her make-up, she somehow looked fresh and dewy, like she’d just thrown some lipstick on and her face was always this big-eyed and gorgeous. And her hair—in the up-do Mark had fashioned, she could have passed for a glamorous movie star from the forties. No one looking at this version of her would be able to guess she was an overworked physical therapist in real life.

“You’re miracle workers,” she said to Mark and Jacob.


They just laughed, and complimented her for being such a wonderful palette. Then Jacob spritzed her with expensive perfume and they left in a flurry of upkeep instructions and air kisses. Before she even had time to catch her breath, the car service buzzed to say the limo Kate had arranged was waiting for her downstairs.

But all the trouble was worth it for the look on Nathan’s face when she walked into the lobby of the Pittsburgh Opera. He’d been talking to another man in a tux, but walked away from the conversation without a word of explanation as soon as he spotted her, not stopping until she was in his arms, her lips crushed beneath his.

“You look good,” he said, by way of explanation when he finally released her from the kiss.

“You stole all my lipstick!” She laughed and wiped the color off his lips with her thumb. Luckily Jacob had given her an extra tube for reapplications.

He grinned. “You had it coming. Walking in here looking this good—you had to know how I would respond.” He secured an arm around her waist and guided her deeper into the party. “Let’s start doing the rounds, so we can get out of here in fifteen minutes.”

“I spent half a day getting ready for this party. We’re not going to just skip out,” she said.

“Okay, half an hour.”

“Two hours.”

“One hour. That’s my final offer.”

Layla laughed again. “Fine, Nathan.”

She thought she’d spend most of the party listening to Nathan talk business with his other associates, many of whom also served on the opera board, but to her surprise, he included her in every conversation, even going so far as to steer the dialogue back to topics she could discuss when it became too business-oriented.

It helped that Layla had already converted to Pittsburgh sports fandom, able to hold forth on why the Steelers were the best football team on earth, bemoan the ever-losing Pirates, and talk passionately about how the Mario Lemieux-led Penguins had convinced her to give hockey a chance.

Nathan disagreed with her on all counts, which meant even his own friends took her side over his and were happy to help her gang up on him when he tried to argue for the Patriots, the Cardinals, and Canada’s hockey teams. This started an inflamed conversation that kept them laughing, and soon other people at the party joined their circle, as if attracted by their loud arguments and sparkling back and forth.

Layla had expected a stodgy party, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed this much. And when Nathan called time on their hour, she groaned. “I’m having so much fun. Can’t we stay a little longer? I’ll give you a five-minute kiss break.”

“The reason I want to leave is so I can kiss you without time limits. Besides if we leave now, we don’t have to sit through the boring speech.”

Layla winced. “But shouldn’t we stay for the speech? I mean you are on the board. You should be more supportive.”

He chuckled, “Only you would try to guilt trip me about skipping a fundraising speech.”

“Just twenty more minutes,” she said. “I didn’t go to prom, so this is my first fancy party. Like ever.”

He pulled her into his arms, folding his hands behind her waist. “You did really well tonight, Layla. Haven’t you ever heard of leaving them wanting more?”

“But I’m leaving in two weeks, so even if they wanted more, I wouldn’t be able to give it to them.”

She had meant this as a joke, but a certain sadness permeated the air between them as they both seemed to realized this would indeed be the last “fancy” party they ever attended together.

But then he said. “No, we can do this again. You can be my date to the Sinclair Ball in two weeks. It will be our last hurrah.”

She scrambled to recapture the previous breezy mood they’d struck. “I don’t know,” she said. “Will it be as fancy as this event?”

He took her empty champagne flute and handed it off to a passing waiter. “Even fancier. Now do me a favor and go reapply your lipstick, so I can take it off again in the limo.”

But before she could untangle herself from his arms, he kissed her again, this time a chaste buss and then another and another, as if he was looking for any excuse to give her extra kisses, even though he was the one kicking her out of town.

When he finally let her go, Layla felt a now-familiar melancholy come over her at the thought of leaving in two weeks, and true anger rose within her. Why was he making her leave? Why couldn’t he just forgive her for whatever it was she’d done? Most of all, how could he not feel about her the way she was beginning to feel about him after six weeks together?

In the restroom, she reapplied her lipstick on autopilot, wondering if this was how all the women he dated felt, like they were the center of his universe and maybe had a chance at winning his love—until he got rid of them the way he was about to get rid of her. If only she could find his brother. Maybe he knew something, something she could use to convince Nathan to let her stay.

“Layla? Layla Matthews?” a voice said to the right of her. She looked up to see a plump, red-haired woman in a black dress with a sweetheart neckline. “I thought that was you, when I saw you in the lobby, It’s me, Jessica.”

Layla shook her head.

“Oh, I know it’s been a while, but surely you remember that night with you, me, Nathan, and Andrew. That disastrous double date.” Suddenly her face fell. “You don’t remember me. It’s because I’ve gained so much weight, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s not it at all.” Layla reached out a hand to soothe the distraught woman. “I had an accident, you see. I fell and I lost a chunk of time, my entire first year of college. Maybe we met then?”

Layla sure hoped so, because the woman looked like she was about to burst out crying.

Jessica’s eyes widened. “Yes, that’s when we met. Really? You lost an entire year? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

Layla smiled. “Well, I’m nice, but no I wouldn’t fake a head injury to make you feel better.”

The next thing Layla knew, Jessica had gathered her up in a hug. “Oh, you poor thing. You poor, poor thing,” she said. “I can’t believe something like this happened to you. You were so nice.”

“I’m still here,” Layla said, gently disengaging herself from the smothering hug. “No, need to refer to me in the past tense.”

“Yes, you’re still alive. How lucky. And I saw you kissing your college boyfriend in the lobby, so it looks like you’re back together.”

Layla demurred with a shy head tilt. “I wouldn’t say back together. I didn’t even remember him when we saw each other again three months ago, the first time since my accident. And I’m moving to Savannah in two weeks, so who knows how it will all turn out.”

But Jessica shook her head, grabbing Layla’s hands with emphatic fervor. “No, you two were perfect together. Everybody used to say so.”

“Really?” Layla said. “Because we’re pretty opposite in most regards.”

“Maybe you two come from different classes, yes. But you’re both such gentle souls.”

“Gentle?” Layla said, because that would be the last word she’d use to describe Nathan. He didn’t have a gentle bone in his body, but maybe he was a lot different back then.


Her brain seized. Could it be possible that whatever she had done had made him this way? Was that why he’d been so adamant about her leaving town?

“Though, I must say I’m surprised to see he’s broken up with Diana. I mean I heard they were having problems, but I didn’t know they had separated. Or are they already divorced? Heaven knows, you can push those through pretty fast if you have a tight pre-nup, which I imagine they did as much money as both their families are worth.”

Then it became clear to Layla what was going on. “Oh, no, I think you’re confused. I’m not here with Andrew. I’m here with Nathan.”

To Layla’s surprise, Jessica’s face went from happy to angry, complete with narrowed eyes. “What?” she said.

“That’s who I was with in college, right? On our disastrous double date?” Layla asked, though the worst feeling was starting to steal over her.

“No,” Jessica said. “I was with Nathan. You were with Andrew. From what I could tell, you and Nathan hated each other.”