Claim Me: A Novel (15 page)

“It will pass, you know. That’s the good and the bad about publicity. It goes away.”

“And like Tanner said, I’m the flavor of the month.” I smile, and this time it’s genuine. “Maybe next month they’ll leave me alone and focus on the rising starlet who’s dating Byron Rand.”

“Bryan Raine,” she corrects. “And don’t even try to change the subject. So come on—forget the stupid paparazzi. I want to hear the rest of what happened at the meeting.”

“Right,” I say, then finish off my martini. I’ve been telling Jamie what happened once Tanner and I reached Suncoast, and I was up to the actual meeting with the clients.

“I’ll field that,” Tanner had said when the head of IT asked me a conceptual question. “Ms. Fairchild is coming at this from a purely administrative point of view.”

“The little prick,” Jamie says when I get to that part of the story.

“No argument from me,” I say. “But I probably should have said nothing. I mean, the whole idea was to get the client to take the product and the team. That would get Tanner out of my hair for six months.”

“So what did you do?”

“When he finished, I just casually pointed out that while Tanner’s overview was entirely accurate, he left out some key information. Then I spent the next fifteen minutes running through ways to tweak the algorithm to give them a huge variety of options. I mean, conceptually, the program is brilliant, but when you get down to the actual coding, then all you really—”

“Okay,” Jamie says, lifting her hand. “I get the idea. Techie stuff. You impressed them. Tanner looked like a doofus.”

“So sweet and so true,” I admit. “But the beauty is that he didn’t look like an ignorant doofus. He knows his stuff. He just left out some important details.”

“Which is good, because they wouldn’t want some bonehead moving in-house for six months,” Jamie says.

“Exactly. I think I’d have to quit if Tanner were working down the hall from me. The guy’s toxic.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to quit,” Jamie says, rolling her eyes. “How on earth would you live? A million dollars just doesn’t go as far as it used to.”

I toss my napkin at her, but I’m smiling as I do it.

The bartender comes over and Jamie orders another martini. I go with a sparkling water.

“You have no sense of adventure,” she says.

I think about the rather adventurous things Damien and I have done together and bite back a very self-satisfied smile.

“So when do you get the money?” she asks.

“It’s already mine. But I need to tell Damien where to transfer it.”

“Uh, yeah,” Jamie says.

I shrug. The truth is, I’m oddly hesitant to invest it. There’s so much riding on that money, and after seeing how my mother’s horrible investments went spiraling down the drain, I’m nervous about making my own choices. Of course, Mother’s failure was about her craptastic running of the family business and her ridiculous over-the-top spending habits, but knowing that I am not my mother and believing that I am not my mother are two entirely different things.

“I’ve been talking with brokers,” I say, which is sort of true. I’ve talked with two receptionists to make appointments to talk with brokers. From the way Jamie eyes me, I’m pretty sure she’s cluing in to my deception. “And enough about the money,” I say,
as the bartender returns with our drinks. I lift my water. “To you. Today a commercial, tomorrow an Oscar.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“You’ll drink to anything.”

“True,” she says, and polishes off half the martini. “Would you have believed it?” she asks.

I don’t know what she means. “Believe what?”

“When we were in high school and you were doing all those damned Miss Corner Gas Station pageants and I was auditioning for community theater. Would you have believed we’d be in Los Angeles and I’d have a commercial and you’d be on the cusp of starting your own business? Not to mention lassoing the town’s most eligible bachelor.”

“No,” I say. “I never would have believed it.”

“So this is for both of us,” Jamie says as she holds out her fist, waiting for me to bump it. I do eagerly. “For two Texas girls who moved to LA on their own, we’re not doing half bad.”

Since Jamie walked to the bar, I drive us both back to the condo. It takes longer than I anticipate since my Honda keeps stalling out at the lights.

“Face it, Nik,” Jamie says. “You can’t do LA in this car.”

I’m afraid she’s right, but the truth is bittersweet. The car is the first thing I bought on my own. I’m proud of what it represents, and I can’t help but feel a little bit superstitious about the fact that she’s starting to die right now when I’m starting to take off.

“I’ll take her in for a tune-up soon,” I decide. “It’s probably just something like spark plugs or a gunked up carburetor.”

“Do you even know what a carburetor is?”

“No,” I admit. “But presumably the mechanic does.”

“Open your eyes and observe the reality, Nik. She’s been a
great little car, but she’s going to stall out on the highway one day, and you’re going to be the lead story on the eleven o’clock news. ‘Billionaire’s girlfriend squashed like a bug in fifteen-car pileup.’ Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I roll my eyes, but I don’t argue. The truth is, she may have a point.

“Speaking of the billionaire boyfriend,” Jamie continues, “who all’s coming to the party tomorrow? I’ll finally get to meet Evelyn, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “And Blaine, of course. And you and me. We’re the only ones who know it’s me on that wall, so we’re keeping it intimate—”

Jamie interrupts me with a snort, and I curse my choice of words.

“We’re keeping it small,” I begin again, “until eight. That’s when the regular guests arrive to see all of Blaine’s paintings and do the mingling thing.”

“Cool. And Ollie?” She says it casually, and I can’t tell if she’s just making conversation or if there’s still something going on between the two of them. I know I should simply ask, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

“He’s not coming,” I say.

“Not for the first part,” she clarifies. “I know you never told him about the painting.” She eyes me sideways. “Did you?”

“No,” I say firmly.

“I was wondering if he was coming to the rest of it. The showing, or whatever you want to call it.”

“I’m still calling it a cocktail party,” I say as I pull the car into my assigned parking space. “And no, he’s not coming. I think he and Courtney have plans,” I add, referring to Ollie’s fiancée. I feel guilty about the lie, but I don’t want to tell Jamie that Damien refused to invite Ollie to his home. It bothers me that
Damien and one of my best friends don’t get along, but I get where Damien’s coming from.

Though they’d started out sniffing around each other like two alpha dogs, they’d ultimately forged a tentative truce. But that came to an abrupt end when Ollie told me some of Damien’s secrets—and breached the attorney-client privilege by doing so. Damien understands that Ollie thought he was protecting me, and that’s probably the only reason that Ollie is still a lawyer and still working in this town. Or on this continent, for that matter.

But Damien doesn’t want him in the house, and I can’t say that I blame him. I hope they find a way to get along, because I need both these men in my life. But it’s only been about a week since all the shit went down, and things are just too raw between them.

Jamie, however, knows none of that, and I don’t plan to tell her. But that’s one more wedge between us, even if I’m the only one who realizes it’s there.

Soon we’re at the door and I’m fumbling for my house key. I slide it into the lock and push open the door—then stop dead on the threshold.

“Holy fuck,” Jamie says, looking over my shoulder.

I don’t say anything. Jamie has pretty much said it all.

There, in the middle of our living room, is the bed.
The bed
. The beautiful iron bed beside which I’d posed. The stunning bed upon which Damien so thoroughly fucked me last night, and so many nights before that.

I realize we’re both standing frozen and take a step into the room. There’s a dress bag from Fred’s on the bed with a note pinned to the plastic. I only have to glance at the handwriting on the envelope to feel my body tighten with anticipation. Slowly, I pull the folded slip of paper from the envelope, then unfold it and read:

I realize too late that Jamie is behind me, reading over my shoulder. “How did you get so lucky? The guy is seriously swoon-worthy.”

“Totally,” I agree, smiling.

She flops down on the bed while I unzip the garment bag, and then laugh. I’d fallen in love with the dress while we were shopping yesterday. It hits mid-thigh and is made out of dusty-blue chiffon. It’s not fitted, but the pleated front and flowy design make it fun and flirty, and I cannot wait to put it on with my favorite pair of clunky silver sandals and a matching silver bangle.

I hold it up for Jamie to see. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re going to look hotter than sin in that dress,” she says. “Can I raid your closet? I’m bored out of my mind with my clothes.”

“Jamie, you’re a size four. I haven’t been that small since I escaped from Mother and learned about the existence of that mysterious substance I like to call food.”

She sighs and eyes my new dress lustfully. “I need my own billionaire boyfriend.”

“I don’t disagree,” I say. “I find him a highly desirable accessory.”

“Wanna go shopping?” Jamie asks. “I’m serious about my wardrobe crisis.”

I glance at my phone. Still no word from Damien. “Sure,” I say. “But give me a sec to change and feed the cat. And can we get some real dinner while we’re out? Vodka isn’t one of the major food groups.”

“It’s not?” Jamie retorts, displaying her stellar acting skills by
putting real bafflement into her tone. She heads to her room as I go to the kitchen. Lady Meow-Meow appears the minute I pop the pull-top on her kitty food, and she head-butts the back of my leg until I finally put the food dish down in front of her.

I’m in my room stripping off my work clothes when Jamie calls to me. “How’d he get in the apartment?”

“Beats me,” I say, though I can guess. He probably bribed the manager, who’s just wacky enough to have been amused by the thought of a surprise bed delivery.

I change into one of the math T-shirts Jamie maligned earlier—
friends don’t let friends derive drunk
—and a pair of jeans. It’s the first time I’ve worn jeans since Blaine started the portrait, actually, and I hesitate before zipping them up, feeling a bit naughty. Like I’m breaking a rule.

I’m not, of course. The game’s over. If I want to wear jeans, I can.

And if I want to go pantyless under a skirt? Well, I can do that, too.

I’m grinning as I leave my bedroom, but my mood shifts when I get back to the living room and the giant bed that overwhelms the space. I’d been so happy when I walked in and saw it there, as if I were being bathed in a flood of special memories.

Now that happiness is mixed with a tinge of some unpleasant emotion, though I’m not entirely sure what is troubling me.

I move to the bed and press my palm against the smooth round ball of the footboard. I’m thrilled that the bed wasn’t shipped off to a warehouse somewhere or sold to an antiques store, but at the same time, I’m undeniably melancholy.

“It doesn’t belong here,” I say, when Jamie returns and asks me what’s wrong.

“The bed?”

“It’s supposed to be at the Malibu house. Not here,” I repeat. “It feels like an ending somehow.”

I remember the story Damien told me. About how he sacrificed a deal he was passionate about in order to save the tiny gourmet food producer. I didn’t like the story then, and I like it even less now.

Jamie is silent for a moment as she stares intently at me. “Oh, shit, Nik,” she finally says. “Don’t even.”

“What?”

“Don’t go all Psych 101 on me. You’re looking for all sorts of meanings that aren’t there. You do this all the time.”

“I do not.”

“Well, maybe not all the time, but you did it with Milo.”

“That was freshman year of high school.”

“So maybe ‘all the time’ was a tiny exaggeration,” she concedes. “My point is that you had a crush on him and he was a senior, remember?” I nod, because I remember it well. “And it was cold one day, and he lent you his letter jacket.”

“And we spent a week trying to analyze what his underlying motivation was.” Oh, yes. I remember.

“Turns out he was motivated by the fact that you were cold and he was nice.”

“And your point?”

“Do you like the bed?” she asks.

“I love it,” I admit.

“Does Damien know you love it?”

“Sure.”

“So there you go. You like the bed. Damien likes you—understatement of the year, but there you have it. I’m sure that when you move in, you can take the bed back there with you.”

“When I move in?” The idea is both terrifying and exciting.

“That’s what you want, right? Not that I’m trying to kick you out, but a girl’s gotta face reality.”

Yes
, I almost say, but then I close my mouth and start over. “It’s too soon to even think about that.”

“Shit, Nik. You want it. Own it.”

“Fine,” I say. “I want it. But leaping into things that we want isn’t always the best course of action. Sometimes, a little thought and discretion make a lot of sense.”

“This isn’t about me,” she says, totally catching on to the way I’ve shifted the subject.

I sigh. “Maybe it should be. You’re not exactly one to be giving relationship advice.”

“True. But you asked. So which one of us is the idiot here? Besides,” she continues as I stifle a grin, “maybe I’m turning over a new leaf. Monogamy can be fun. I mean, I can’t imagine getting tired of Raine.” Her face turns dreamy. “Actually, after last night I don’t think I can imagine Raine getting tired.”

I laugh, but have to silently admit that I know the feeling.