A Taste of Ice (17 page)

She drew in a breath and blew it out through the O of her shiny lips. He wondered how different they’d taste with that stuff on them.

She said good-bye, then Michael steered her away.

Xavier got his first look at her back, the way the sparkling orange dress pressed against her skin, displayed the expanse of her shoulders and the brown line of her spine. Those shoes showed off the high, tight muscles of her calves.

They’d parted without further promise. He walked home with icy wind and trepidation and virginal fear rattling his bones, and still felt better for it.

The last two guests left the gallery at 1:46 a.m. Suddenly the
overhead lights burned too brightly. The adrenaline had begun its crash, the consistent need to smile and nod dropping away. Cat longed for dark, for quiet.

For Xavier.

Helen was in the back gallery with Alissa the assistant, giving instructions to the catering company employees who looked as beat-up as Cat felt. She remained exactly where she and Xavier had stood as the drapes had fallen.

“Nine.” Michael locked the gallery door and turned to her wearing a Cheshire grin wet with whiskey. “Nine paintings. Look how far you’ve risen. A good night’s work, wouldn’t you say?”

He crossed the floor toward her. He looked at her differently, like she’d suddenly become a new person, changed before his eyes.

“For you?” she asked. “Or me?”

He stopped. “What does that mean?”

She hadn’t meant to start this tonight. But she was tired, wrung out, and the ups and downs of this past week had erased her filters. “Michael.” She kept her voice even. Very few people managed to hold his attention, but she seemed to be one of them, and she used it to her advantage. “It’s become very clear to me what you’ve been doing this week.”

Long pause. “And what’s that?”

“Parading me around.”

“I made introductions.” He enunciated every syllable. “You think you would’ve sold tonight if I hadn’t done that?”

Her mouth dropped open. Is that what he actually thought?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That came out wrong.”

“Wow, Michael. Do you even
like
my work? You’ve bought enough of it.”

His hand dropped. He hit her with a steel stare, one she felt in every vertebrae. “I love it, Cat. It’s special.
You
are special.” She’d never heard his voice dip so low. It unnerved her in more ways than one.

“What is this about?” He came even closer. “I helped you make more money tonight than three months bartending. And it’s only the first day.”

“You did, yes.” He’d always been very good at this, twisting conversations to hit points he wanted to hit. “And I’m grateful to you. Really, I am. I hope you realize that my art means more to me than money.”

“So what’s really going on?” Clever deflection away from the money angle. He threw out his arms, assuming a stance of impatience, one that was trying to make her feel wrong before she actually made her argument. It wasn’t going to work.

She crossed her arms. “Tom Bridger, for one. Who isn’t here. Who’d never intended to come.”

He twisted his watch around his wrist. Once, twice. Looked down at it. Looked back up at her. “He’s an artistic person. So are you. I thought you two would get along. You’re very charming.”

Goose bumps popped out along her bare legs and back. She rubbed her arms and shook her head. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again, Michael.”

“Do what?”

“Going in to that lunch you made me believe Tom was a buyer. He’s a wonderful person, yes, but now I know you brought me there to help you accomplish something on your own personal agenda. I don’t appreciate being used like that.”

“Everything okay up there?” came Helen’s singsong voice from the back, followed by a wineglass shattering on the wood floor.

Cat stared at Michael.

“Tell her yes,” he said, leaning closer. “This is our conversation.”

He was right about that. Helen didn’t belong anywhere near this. The woman had been nothing but good to Cat, and she clearly loved Michael.

“Yeah, fine,” Cat called back to Helen. “Alissa, could you get me a cab?”

“I’ve never used you on purpose.” Michael actually looked aghast, but then, he was around actors every day and she had no idea if the reaction was genuine.

“If you wanted something from me, you should’ve asked. No tricks. I would’ve helped you, you know. I owe you a lot, but now I don’t know if I can trust you.”

His eyes flicked to the large front window, a sheet of black glass with crescents of snow tucked in the bottom corners. “I don’t apologize much, Cat.”

Much? Or ever?

His eyes swung back to her. “But I’m sorry for that.”

“Good.”

Was he actually sorry, or was he just saying that to end this conversation? He stared at her so hard she didn’t know what to make of it. Was he trying to intimidate, or to make her believe him?

She wanted to believe him. She sure as heck wasn’t going to let him intimidate her.

“And don’t pull me away from Xavier again.” Oh, she was opening a filthy, writhing can of worms with that one, but it had to be done. “It’s rude to him and disrespectful to me.”

Michael squinted. Was he actually trying to look confused, as though he couldn’t remember Xavier?

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend.”

Michael smiled, but it carried a vicious taint. “I’m not pretending. I’m just trying to figure out what makes him special. Why you’d go for him.”

Having to work to peel back Xavier’s layers was
exactly
what made him special, but Michael would never comprehend that. Michael needed everything always within his reach, always perfectly understandable. If it wasn’t, he needed the people around him to be malleable, or he’d walk on. Which was why he’d thrown up a shield against her current attack. She was surprising him, and not in a good way.

His smile died fast. “He’s not for you.”

Now she was pissed off. “You have absolutely no say in that. You don’t know him at all. You barely know me.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders taut, chin raised. “Oh, I know you.”

The heat of his stare rubbed uncomfortably on all the bared parts of her skin. It was the thing that Xavier had warned her about, and now Michael no longer hid it.

“No,” she said. “You
think
you know me.”

But he was shaking his head. “I always know what I want. And then I get it.” He tapped his temple with two fingers. “I think about things. I analyze. I’m not impulsive. It takes time for me to find a goal, plan a course of action—”

“Oh, God. Don’t say it.”

“I saw you in that silly art fair. I saw you and I thought ‘what about her?,’ then I walked on, thinking about it some more. I circled around the fair, came back to you. Talked to you. I saw your resistance, how careful you were about talking to me. To men, in general, which appealed to me. I do love a good challenge. I get so few of them. And I saw your potential, how you were this pearl waiting for me to take you and show you to the world. I know what I want—”

“Stop right there. Please.”

“And I want you.”

Utter silence plummeted between them. She bristled under its weight.

“Why?”
she finally managed to say. “We’re all wrong for each other.”

He pursed his lips. “I can make you right. I’ve already started.”

What?
She shivered uncomfortably. “You have all those women, the ones who worship you, the ones who cling to you. I’ve seen you with them in the Keys. And you talk about that one all the time. What’s her name, Lea?”

Something shifted on his face. She couldn’t tell if it was anger or annoyance or something else entirely.

“Those women are what I have,” he said. “They’re not what I want. What I need.”

“You don’t need me.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

He was creeping her out. A horrifying thought came to her. “So all this,” she swept out an arm, “was to get in my pants?”

“Don’t reduce this to sex.”

She hated that Xavier had told her almost the exact same thing.

“You only want me because you can’t have me,” she said, then turned to go get her coat from Helen’s office. She said good-bye to Helen and told her they’d touch base tomorrow.

On her way out, Cat’s eyes shot to the wall near the front door, covered by
River #2
. It was where she’d first seen Xavier that evening—him clearly feeling out of his element but trying his best not to show his discomfort. She could still see the look on his face when she walked toward him. Half-pained, half drowning in desire. And the gentle, worshipful hand on her bare back when they’d finally embraced. Even though he’d made her orgasm and had stolen her mind with pleasure, it was that single hand on her skin that now sent her blood racing and her heart soaring.

An indefinable distance still yawned between them. He still held back, even though he no longer wanted to. And she was being careful because she didn’t want to scare him away. So what came next?

A horn sounded outside. Her cab was here.

Michael still stood in the center of the gallery, watching her askance. She walked right past him, heading for the door. The brand-new nude pumps had destroyed her feet during the evening. The bite of blisters tore into her heels and the stiff patent leather sides had rubbed her skin raw.

“Wait.” The ugly command in Michael’s voice made her turn. He’d never talked to her like that. Never with such aggravation. He bit his lower lip then added, calmer, “Don’t leave like this. Please.”

“It’s late. I’m done here.” She swung her coat over her dress, fully aware of how silly the green parka looked over such fabulous sparkling material. She pulled the red hat over the hair that had taken almost forty-five minutes to straighten. “Michael, you and I are professional partners, nothing more. It will never be anything more.”

He drew a breath he was obviously trying to keep steady. “At least let me walk you back to the hotel.”

She turned back to him, looked him right in the eye. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not going to the hotel.”

Michael should not have been behind the wheel. It was bad
enough he was legally drunk, swerving on the mountain roads. Even worse that he had his cell phone slammed against his ear. He knew this. Didn’t care. At least the snowplows had been out.

“Where the fuck are you, Lea?” Goddamn voice mail. Didn’t matter that it was closer to sunrise than sunset. She should answer the phone when he called. Who did she think supported her? “Are you in White Clover Creek? That better be the reason you’re not answering. When I get up to the house, I sure as hell hope you’re there.”

She wasn’t.

Sean was asleep in the great room. Michael kicked his feet off the armrest of the couch and told him to go up to bed. Michael, on the other hand, snatched a lowball glass from the kitchen cabinet and dumped a healthy splash of whiskey into it.

He burst through the door to the garage. Flipped on the fluorescent light and blinked into its harshness. The box swirled with black, which meant his girl had recently been awake. Or pissed off. Or both.

Join the club.

The fan spun furiously and a harsh line of cold air streamed under the cracked-open garage door. Michael stalked around the box, swigging away at the whiskey, not really caring if he got it all in his mouth. He burned with such anger, such frustration, that maybe only his little fire prize could possibly understand.

We’re all wrong for each other
.

You only want me because you can’t have me.

I’m not going back to the hotel.

Motherfucker.

Michael whirled, pitching the glass into the garage door like the count was three and two and he was going for the strike. The crystal exploded, but he barely heard it over the rage of blood zooming through his brain and making a racket in his ears.

He closed his eyes and reached for the seam inside his mind.
He should have done this back at the gallery. He should have
split
and followed Cat to that townie’s house. It wasn’t too late. If he
split
now, the two of him could head back into town. Yeah, the double could case some bars to ask if anyone knew where the tall local guy with the bad hair lived. Michael had already bribed the Margaret valet once. Maybe another hundred could get him the townie’s address.

This was so much more than base lust. Cat was
his
creation. The anonymous girl he’d chosen and plucked from a life of nothingness. He’d brought her here for himself, just like all the others in his collection. No one was going to steal what was his.

The seam between his halves shimmered red and tempting. He pulled at it, widened it, feeling the beginning of the separation and thinking of Cat. How he was going to steer her back to where she belonged—with him. How he was going to make her realize he was the reason she was here. How he was going to bust down the door to that guy’s house and…

What? See another guy’s hands all over her?

Jesus, he didn’t want to see that. He didn’t want to
know
that. Nothing else existed outside of the world he’d created with his collection.
Nothing
. This wasn’t the best outlet for his energy right now. He needed to sober up. To think.

Resigned, he zipped up the seam in his mind and bent forward, hands on his knees. Whole again.

Kicking aside a shard of crystal, he stalked toward the house door. He’d almost made it back inside when a dark, dark female voice rose up, curling out from inside the box.

“You don’t know what the fuck you are, do you?”

He spun around.

His fire woman had smudged away a peephole in the soot. He hadn’t seen her do it. Didn’t know how much she’d seen of him when he’d almost
split
. Didn’t care, actually, because there was her incredible face, her mix of striking, foreign features, staring back at him. And she’d spoken.

He rushed for the box, forgetting to hide his excitement. “What’s your name? How can you breathe fire and not burn yourself? Where are you from?”