“Bullshit.”
3
Mia
Michael catches me coming out of the powder room a few minutes later. I freshened my makeup and slid my game face back into position, but remedial measures like that don’t work on brothers who know you too well to be fooled by cosmetics. And, of course, a fresh layer of lipstick can’t quite hide the veiled panic in my eyes.
“You’re a mess,” he says after taking one look at me.
“You think?” I snap, deciding to focus all my righteous anger on him because he’s the culprit. My so-called twin brother. I feel as though I’ve discovered he’s a spy for the other side. “What did you expect would happen when you invited Liam fucking Wilder tonight?”
“I didn’t invite him.” He takes my elbow and steers me over to an alcove in the airy foyer, where there’s a bit more privacy. Luckily, the crowd is starting to thin and there’s no sign of Liam lurking anywhere. “He showed up because he wanted to see you. And you’re not over him at all, are you?”
I suppose I should be grateful I’ve hidden it as well as I evidently have, but his bewilderment this late in the game only fuels my outrage. I try to scoff but produce only a garbled sound, like a woman in dire need of a lung transplant.
“Of course I’m over him. I’m not still hung up on Liam Wilder after all this time. How pathetic do you think I am? I just didn’t expect him to show up out of the blue tonight.”
My voice contains way more vehemence than is strictly necessary to issue what I’d hoped would be a cool denial.
Naturally, Michael hears it and frowns. “I wasn’t expecting this development.”
“There’s no development.”
“We’ll discuss later.”
“Not if I can help it. Anyway, great party. Insane apartment. My friend Eric just left, so I’m on my way out. I’m just going up to grab my purse. I stashed it in one of your many new bedrooms.”
“Take the private apartment elevator that leads to the second floor,” he says as he comes in for a kiss.
“Stop bragging,” I say, rolling my eyes.
I trudge toward the elevator, grateful to hit the end of this endless night. Liam’s got me running on fumes and adrenaline, both of which are threatening to fizzle out. Damn him. I’ll be doing good to postpone my imminent collapse until I get home to the privacy of my apartment, where my emergency slab of vanilla cake from Magnolia Bakery awaits me in the freezer. Alongside an emergency black-and-white cookie and an emergency slice of Junior’s key lime pie cheesecake.
Not that I ever suspected I’d confront an emergency like this when I replenished my emotional eating supplies a couple of months ago. My only hope is to limit my consumption to just one.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open just as I get mad as hell and decide not to take it anymore. Liam Wilder came back to town. So what? Is that a reason for me to fall apart and stuff myself with empty calories? No, it is not. In a couple of days, we can both disappear into this city of eight million people and never lay eyes on each other again.
At least until Michael’s next event. Luckily, Michael doesn’t entertain much.
I’m a strong woman. Liam Wilder doesn’t get to show up and turn my hard-earned peace upside down. I won’t let him.
Just like that, I breathe a little easier.
I square my shoulders, lift my chin and stride into the empty elevator like the confident woman I am. I even start to smile as the doors slide closed and I hit the button—
Until Liam appears with his hands in his pockets and, without the slightest appearance of hurrying, strolls into the elevator at the last possible second. I watch in absolute disbelief as he leans against the brass bar opposite me, crosses his ankles and settles in for the ride, looking as relaxed and unconcerned as a man waiting for the next bus to arrive at his stop.
Except for his eyes. I don’t know how any pair of eyes manages to look so hot and so cold at the exact same time. Eyes like that belong to a person who either wants to fuck me or kill me. Maybe both.
In response, my entire body shivers with a renewed current of electricity. Swear to God, it’s like I’m only alive when he shows up. The rest of the time? I wait in suspended animation. That’s the most galling thing about his sudden reappearance in my life. I thought I’d been living a real life this whole time, but maybe that was all an illusion I sold myself.
“What are you doing?” I say in an alarm-tinged voice.
“That seems obvious. Going upstairs. Same as you.”
“Right, but why are you going upstairs?”
Maybe I don’t look strung out enough yet, because he pauses to cock one of those heavy brows. The effect? A terrifying level of insolence. A man with that look on his face has a point to make and won’t stop until he makes it.
“Why all the interest in some guy who’s such ancient history that you haven’t bothered to think about him this whole time?”
I shift uncomfortably in my heels and toss my hair off my shoulder, my cheeks burning with helpless fury. I have the wild idea of hitting the red button and getting someone to come rescue me, but I’m not in any physical danger. I know that. This kind of danger is so much worse. And what would I say when security came on the line? That I don’t like how hot it makes me when my ex-boyfriend looks at me like that?
“What are you doing, Liam?”
“Coming upstairs to fuck you, Mia,” he says without missing a beat.
I don’t know what’s more thrilling.
The steadiness of his gaze as he stares me in the face or the silkiness of his voice.
I go absolutely still, startled by his baldness in saying it and by the vehemence of my body’s response. Nerve endings tingle to life between my thighs and across my bare arms and legs. My breasts ache.
This involuntary physical reaction, naturally, pisses me off.
“Not that it matters to you, but I don’t plan to fuck you now. Or ever again.”
Amusement flickers across his expression. “Sure you do.”
He’s so smug. So infuriating. As though this is all a foregone conclusion. As though he can smell my arousal wafting from my pores like sweat after a tough jog. As though he knows that he’s the one man in the world with the right combination of eyes, voice and pheromones to make me stupid and weak.
But I know something as well. I know that I still have the power to get inside his head. Even after all these years.
So I run my fingers through my hair for the pleasure of hearing his breath catch as I cross over to his side of the elevator. Keep going until I’m well inside his personal space. Grip the rails on either side of his arms, caging him. Maintain eye contact as I lean in and angle my mouth a whisper away from his.
“Why would I do something so self-destructive? When I can go downstairs, right now, and find someone to sleep with without all the emotional damage?”
Crooked smile from Liam just as the elevator glides to a stop and dings. “Because none of them can do it like I can, Starlight. And we both know it.”
I stiffen, this bull’s-eye hitting me right between the eyes in a kill shot.
But he doesn’t need to know that.
“Poor Liam,” I say sweetly. “Didn’t you hear me when I said ancient history?”