I stare after her. She’s sorry? What the hell does that even mean, and why do I have this intense need to race after her and ask, when I never run after anyone?
Two
* * *
I catch up to Ms. Smith at the sliding doors, where a cold gust of October air blasts us.
She shivers and hugs herself. “I guess I shouldn’t have left my coat in the car.” She flicks me an amused look. “And I guess you’re too macho to need one?” She doesn’t wait for my reply, waving me forward yet again and declaring, “I’m freezing. Come on!” She takes off, running across the walkway to the parking garage.
For a moment I just stand there, watching this curvy, petite Barbie doll race away from me again. An irritated sound escapes my lips and I scrub my hand over my twelve-hour stubble before caving to the inevitable beginning of my pursuit. Chasing her. Again. I’m chasing this woman I barely know, who is supposed to be my employee.
I cross the roadway and fall into step with her. “I’m right there,” she says the instant she sees me, pointing at a black Mercedes.
Interesting. I assume the car means she’s done well at Riptide, though I’m not sure how she’d have had time to see the benefits. I don’t remember her at all from my most recent visit last month. Either way, her success is exactly what I want. It feeds more success, and the last thing I need right now, with my mother incapacitated, is a sales manager who doesn’t know how to close a deal.
Ms. Smith heads to the driver’s door and I follow, holding out my hand. “I’ll drive.”
She gives me a look like I’m insane. “You want to drive my car?”
“Yes.”
She frowns. “No.”
Surprised, I reply, “I’m driving, Ms. Smith.” My tone is nonnegotiable, and I’m damned good at nonnegotiable.
But she isn’t rattled. Her brows dip and she actually begins to negotiate with me. “If I agree to this, then you have to agree to stop calling me ‘Ms. Smith.’ ” She makes quotation marks with her fingers. “That’s what people call my mother.”
I almost laugh. This woman is a piece of work. “You really don’t care that I’m temporarily your boss, do you?”
“Being my boss doesn’t allow you to drive my car, and I would think you’d want to call me by a name that makes me feel relaxed. I’m in sales. Feeling all edgy and nervous gives me performance anxiety.”
My lips quirk at her logic and her boldness. “And my calling you Ms. Smith makes you edgy and nervous?”
She studies me a moment and there’s this odd look on her face, like she’s somehow reading something I haven’t said. “I feel nothing you can’t solve by calling me Crystal.” She pauses and adds, “Mark.” The obvious challenge loses steam as she visibly shivers and makes a frustrated sound. “Fine. You drive.” She clicks the locks open, then dares to grab my hand and presses the keys into my palm. “I’m too cold to stand out here and debate name usage.”
She starts to pull away, and my instinct to automatically take control kicks in. I grab her hand, and her lips part in surprise, her gaze colliding with mine. Heat flares instantly between us, defying my certainty that this woman is absolutely not for me, twisting my gut in knots at the poor timing of such an attraction. There’s a hint of some unidentifiable emotion in her eyes that I try to read, but she cuts her gaze away, clearly attempting to block my efforts.
“Don’t wreck my car,” she warns, looking at me again.
“I won’t wreck your car,” I assure her and pause for effect, as she had, before adding, “Crystal.”
She smiles and my gaze is drawn to her mouth. Her lips are full, sensual. Kissable. They’re as interesting as she is, though I have no business finding anyone interesting anytime in the near future.
“Thank you,” she replies, mimicking my pause before again saying, “Mark.” She tugs on her hand and I let it go. With a dash, she goes around the trunk to the other side of the car.
I shake my head and, as impossible as it seems, I smile. My mood is remarkably lighter as I place my bags in the backseat and then slide into the car myself. She’s a refreshing glass of water when I’m drowning in hell, and, damn it, she smells good, too. A scent I can’t place, but it makes me think of the hot buttered rum my mother makes at the holidays.
“I guess you’re a control freak like your mother?” Crystal observes as I start the ignition.
I shake my head at her boldness again and glance at her. “Do you filter what you say at all?”
“Filtering makes other people filter, and then you never get to know them. I prefer to know who I’m dealing with.”
“As do I,” I agree. “I just approach things with a bit more subtlety.”
“Ohhh,” she laughs. “Is that it? I lack subtlety?”
I put the car in gear and back up before flicking her a look. “You’re direct.”
“I guess you could say I like directness probably as much as you like control.”
“In ten minutes you think you have me figured out?” I challenge.
“In ten minutes you think you have me figured out?” she counters.
I pull into to the payment line and cut her a sideways glance. “Who said I was trying?”
“Right.” Her lips twitch. “Of course you aren’t.”
“Spare me the effort,” I say. “Tell me about yourself.”
She shrugs. “Like what?”
“Where’s your family? Do you have siblings?”
“My family is here and I have two brothers, both of whom work for the family business.”
“Which is what?”
“My parents own Arial.”
I barely contain my surprise. “The monster technology company?”
“That’s right.”
I’m instantly concerned. No wonder she’s fearless. She doesn’t have to work or make a sale. Her family is why she has a Mercedes.
Has my mother’s illness caused her to make rash staffing decisions? I discard that idea. She just found out about her cancer a few days ago. I hope. Has she known longer and not told me? Is the cancer worse than she’s let on?
“. . . and I really like it,” Crystal says. “What about you?”
I shake off my thoughts. “Sorry. You like what?”
“I’ve lived here my whole life. I love New York. How about you?”
“I grew up here,” I reply absently. “Why exactly are you working for us and not Arial?”
“Aside from technology boring me to no end, I don’t want to ride my family’s coattails. I need my own life and my own achievements. And I need to do something I love. I love art and Riptide. And I love your mother. If ever there was a woman who can rule in a male-dominated world, it’s her.”
There was a quality sure to impress my mother. A woman set to make the world hers, not his, whoever he might be. Exactly what I don’t like, and everything she does like. “How long have you been at Riptide?”
“Three weeks.”
Which explains why I didn’t meet her on my last trip. “Tell me about those three weeks.”
We spend the rest of the drive talking about Riptide and her impressive coordination of the upcoming auction. I absorb myself in what she’s saying, and by the time we pull into the hospital garage, Crystal has successfully distracted me from thinking about the dreaded moment when I see my mother and face the reality I’ve never wanted to face: she’s not indestructible. It hits me now like a block of ice, and I feel frozen to the soul.
I turn off the car and the lights slowly dim. Darkness settles around us, but I don’t move. Silence fills the car before Crystal softly says, “She’ll be okay,” and her palm lightly settles on my shoulder, a warmth spreading through my body that I cannot fight, any more than I can bring myself to remove her hand. I let her touch me. I never let anyone touch me.
I grunt. “Right. Because she won’t have it any other way.” I mean it to come out a joke, but it comes out as grim as I feel. I open the door, not sure why I’ve let this woman I
barely know see emotions I try never to feel, let alone allow anyone to experience with me.
Almost instantly she’s by my side, with an oversized purse half her size on her shoulder. I guess her to be all of five feet two, minus the four-inch heels she manages with practiced ease. “What hotel are you in?” she asks, smartly dropping the topic of my mother.
“The Omni off Madison.”
“Good choice,” she approves. “Close to Riptide and out of the Times Square crush.”
She astounds me. Not only do I not ask for people’s approval, they usually don’t offer it voluntarily. But for reasons I don’t understand, I don’t tell her so. I just don’t seem to have it in me to care who’s on top right now.
When I enter the hospital room, I find my mother sitting up in the bed with her back to me, arguing with my father. “You give his arm too much credit. He needs the cool calm that Mark had on the mound to be a real player.”
The reference to a past I don’t want to remember, or announce to Crystal, makes me quickly change the topic. “Are you telling Dad how to run his ball team again, Mom?”
My mother turns around, her long blond hair bouncing with the curls she meticulously creates each morning, her blue eyes lighting on me. “Mark!” She holds her arms open and I go to her, sitting on the bed to wrap her in a hug. Over her shoulder, my gaze meets my father’s worried one. His light brown hair is rumpled and strain is etched in his features, the lines framing his steely gray eyes deeper than they were a month ago. He’s shaken, which shakes me, but I don’t show it. They need me to be the rock I’ve always been.
My mother pulls back to inspect me, as she always does. She looks good, still ten years younger than her fifty-five years, and as strikingly beautiful as ever. How can she have cancer? How can she be in this bed?
“And for your information, son,” she scolds, “I’m looking out for your father. I want him to get the seven division championships in a row he hopes for, and he won’t get it with his present pitcher.” She turns to my father. “Steven, I insist you show Mark the practice tapes. He’ll see what I mean.”
“You know I’d like it if Mark watched the playbacks, Dana,” my father agrees, and I feel him watching me, even though I don’t look at him. “He just doesn’t enjoy watching them with me.”
“I love baseball,” Crystal chimes in, walking to a chair to sit down, and saving me from a topic I don’t want to address. “One of my brothers played in college and I never missed a game.” She glances at my father. “I’ve wanted to go to one of your games ever since Dana told me you coached.”
“You can join me in the box seats when the season starts,” my mother tells Crystal. “I planned on offering anyway.”
Crystal’s face lights up with excitement. “I’d love that.”
My mother smiles and turns her attention to me, rumpling my hair with her fingers. “You look a mess. Your tie is half off and you have bags under your eyes.”
My smile is genuine, if strained by worry. “Leave it to you, Mother, to tell me exactly how it is. It’s been a long day, but worth it to get here to see you.” That ache in my gut throbs, and I again think how crazy it is that she looks this good when she has stage 3 breast cancer. I soften my voice. “How are you?”
I watch emotions shift on her face. Uncertainty. Worry. Fear. And finally, “I’m pissed.” Her voice cracks. “I don’t have time for cancer, and . . .” She abruptly looks around me at Crystal. “Did you bring those reports I wanted?”
“No,” I say firmly. “You’re not working the night before you have a double—”
“Don’t say it,” she hisses. “Don’t say it. I can’t . . . just don’t.” She turns to my father. “Steven, I need some water, please.”
My father quickly hands her the cup and I sit there, frozen in place from seeing my strong, unbreakable mother struggling for composure.
“I forgot the reports in my trunk,” Crystal says, popping to her feet. “My trunk sticks. Mark, can you please come help me?”
My mother spits her water out and almost chokes on a sudden burst of laughter. “Mark?” she inquires, glancing at me. “You let her call you Mark?” Her gaze flicks to Crystal. “I knew I liked this girl. She knows how to put a man in his place. No ‘Mr. Compton’ for her.”
My eyes meet Crystal’s, and when I expect her to gloat, she gives me an apologetic look. “Would you help me? Please?”
I give her a nod. I need a minute to get a grip on what I’m feeling, anyway. Something I never feel or need—but I do now.
Following her into the hall, I pull the door to the room shut.
The instant I turn to face her, she confronts me in a soft whisper. “I thought you couldn’t say no to your mother. Why would you start tonight, when she asked for the reports?”
I’m taken aback and irritated. “You barely know any of us. Don’t try to tell me how to handle my mother.”
Her lips tighten and her eyes meet mine, and suddenly her expression changes, as if something in mine has softened her. Which is impossible. I’m unreadable. She surprises me by taking my hand in hers. I surprise myself by letting her.
“You’re trying to protect her,” she says. “I get that, but she’s having a double mastectomy, Mark. She wouldn’t even let you say the words. She needs work to keep from thinking about it.”
I stare down into her pale blue eyes, and I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t have control. She has control. Worse, she’s right about my mother.
I trust this woman more than I trust myself right now. And that scares me in a way I haven’t been scared in a very long time.
Three
* * *
At nine o’clock, a hint from my father to leave them alone sends me on my way, and I head to the lobby. To my surprise I find Crystal, who I thought had left a good hour earlier, sitting in a waiting room chair with her laptop open. She doesn’t notice me and I find myself watching her work. I’m drawn to this woman, who’s the complete opposite of my type, for reasons I don’t understand. Maybe it’s simply that she’s different from everything familiar, and everything familiar feels wrong right now.
Her brow knits adorably as she keys some kind of data into whatever program she has open, long strands of her blonde hair draping her shoulders and cheeks. My groin tightens with an image of that hair draped over my stomach and hips, and guilt twists inside me.
It’s too soon. I only just discovered that Rebecca’s absence hadn’t meant she was traveling the world with the rich businessman she’d met. It meant she was gone forever.
And I remind myself that Rebecca was the one person who saw beneath my mask. She knew what I’ve always known: that sex is a tool for me. It’s how I survive, how I block things out. How I blocked her out. I was always honest with her. I never promised her love. But, damn it to hell, I selfishly convinced her to try to live without it. Maybe with her, I came as close to love as I’m capable of ever coming. I did need her, when I’ve never needed anyone before.
And right now, I need to get out of my own head. I refocus on Crystal. “I thought I sent you home long ago.”
He head lifts and she shuts her computer. “I have your bags. I wasn’t about to make your day worse by not having them.” She shoves her notebook into her oversized purse that clearly doubles as a briefcase. I watch her delicate little hands, wondering why I don’t mind when she touches me. And why I want her to touch me now.
She hikes her bag onto her shoulder, thrusting her chest out in the process, and my gaze drops to the high neckline of her dress, the material hugging her in all the right places as she walks toward me.
She stops in front of me. “How’s your mother?”
“Putting on a show of bravery she doesn’t feel.”
With a grim nod, she agrees. “Yeah. I kind of got that, too.”
For a few moments I just stare down at her, puzzled by this woman in too many ways to count. “You seem rather fond of my family, for someone who’s only known the
m for three weeks.”
“Actually,” she corrects, “I met your mother at a Riptide auction I attended with my father and brother about a year ago. I’d been working at a small gallery a few blocks from Riptide and we sort of became friends.” She smiles with a memory, and it’s genuine in a way so few are. “When the sales manager’s job came open, your mother all but tied me to the desk and insisted I take it.”
I could think of a lot of places to tie this woman up, and none of them are to a desk, though that holds interesting potential. “I’m surprised it took her a year to hire you.”
“I’m as stubborn as she is, and I thought we’d have issues working together. But it turns out we’re a great team.”
“Seems that way,” I agree, having seen how fond my mother is of her. I motion to the exit. “Ready?”
She nods. “If you’re ready, I’m ready.”
My lips twitch. “That’s the most agreeable you’ve been since I met you.”
She grins. “Don’t get used to it.”
I pull the Mercedes up in front of my hotel, and I have no desire to be alone with my thoughts. “Come in,” I tell Crystal. “I’ll buy you dinner.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I don’t remember saying, or thinking, it was,” I reply. When her eyes meet mine, for some reason I know that she feels like an obligation and it bothers her. Why would she assume such a thing? Who has made her feel that way? Nudging her, I add, “I’m not looking forward to staring at a hotel room wall for the next few hours. Spare me that, please.”
The valets open her door and mine. “You told your mother you’re tired,” she reminds me, then laughs. “And she seemed to think you look that way, too.”
My brows lift. “That may be true. But it still doesn’t mean I can sleep.” It’s an admission I normally wouldn’t make. I seem to be doing a lot of things with this woman I wouldn’t normally do, and I’m not sure if that’s because of her or me.