Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A lexis, Reagan had concluded, or Lexi , as Brody had called her, slinked into the room wearing a red dress with an ornate shoulder puff on one side. Her lips matched her gown, and her dark brown hair was twisted into an ornate chignon. Since Reagan had recently worn a red dress, she couldn’t help comparing herself to the actress.
Lexi was curvier and shorter than Reagan, her high heels adding a few inches. The gown appeared to have been custom-tailored to the other woman’s curves. She was, in a word, gorgeous.
And Brody had once shared his bed with her too.
“Alexis Calvin, Reagan Palmer,” Keaton introduced.
“Pleasure.” The actress flicked her eyes up and down Reagan’s person before making herself at home on Keaton’s couch. “I just finished filming the most lush scene.” She crossed her legs and twirled a loose curl around one manicured fingernail. Reagan glanced down at her imperfect cuticles before fisting her hands and holding them at her sides.
“Thanks to that stupid camera snafu, I have to film another one today. Ugh!” Alexis dropped her head back onto the sofa, causing her breasts to bulge against the bodice of her gown.
“Don’t I know it,” Keaton agreed. “We should treat ourselves to a gourmet meal once we wrap tonight. I’m missing a charity event for this.”
“Oh! What about The Palm?” Lexi turned to Brody. “Remember how good the food was there, BC?” To Reagan, she added, “We had the most divine dinner there on New Year’s Eve. So lush! There had to be, like, twelve courses.”
Next to Reagan, Brody sighed. She sent him a smile that was more brittle than the one before it.
“Where’s the charity event?” Lexi asked before slanting Reagan with a look that might have conveyed disgust.
“Crane Hotel.”
“Could’ve guessed. You will love it,” she said to Reagan. “It’s so lush .”
Favorite word alert.
“Have Brody take you to the terrace. When the harpist is playing and the stars are out, it’s so romantic.” Lexi rested one hand on her partially exposed breasts. “Unless you two are friends and have no interest in romance?”
Reagan ran a hand down her jean-clad thigh, wishing she would have come to the studio in full charity ball regalia instead. Not to mince words, but Alexis Calvin was a bitch.
“Good to see you, Mom,” Brody announced. “Reagan and I have to head back to the apartment. We had a long night.”
Alexis sneered.
“Bye, darling,” Keaton said, either ignoring or not picking up on their silent exchange. “Reagan, lovely to meet you. Don’t be a stranger if you’re in town longer than tonight.”
“Thank you.” Reagan felt immediately awkward about the reply. Should she have said You too instead?
“The same apartment you had when we dated?” Lexi asked as Brody opened the dressing room door to leave.
“ Yes ,” he answered with what sounded like paper-thin patience.
Reagan shuffled out behind him, but not before Lexi got in one final jab.
“I highly recommend setting number three on the waterfall shower! It’s divine!”
Trial by fire, it is. Brody pinched the space between his nose and eyebrows where a fresh headache was coming on.
The potential of running into Lexi at the set was high, but he’d hoped against hope that he and Reagan could slip in and out without the actress noticing. When they’d dated, he’d loathed passive-aggressively sparring with her. He would’ve preferred skipping the Alexis Calvin experience altogether.
“Sorry about her. She’s a child,” he said as he unlocked his front door. During the drive across town, Reagan had been resolutely quiet, and so had he. He hadn’t wanted to bring up Alexis in front of Bruce.
“Your mom? She’s lovely.” Reagan set her purse on a barstool at the counter.
“You know who I’m talking about. Lexi’s…mean.” And he’d dated her for some ungodly reason. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t questioned why, or delved too deeply when it came to dating. In the past, he’d spent time with who he’d spent time with, and when his interest flagged had stopped spending time with them. Simple as that.
He studied Reagan. The delicate way she held herself, the fatigue in her eyes. Being with her had been so different from any experience he’d had with a woman. In a good way. He never wanted to get the hell away from her like he had Lexi.
“You don’t have to apologize for her. Though her perfect manicure was a timely reminder that I need one.”
“The building has a spa.” He reached for his cell phone. “I can arrange for someone to be sent up.”
“Of course you can.” Her smile didn’t light her eyes. “Excuse me.” She went into the guest bedroom and softly shut the door.
He stood in his kitchen, cell phone in hand, a wrinkle on his forehead. Something had gone south, and he was beginning to believe it was due to more than Alexis’s pain-in-the-assness. It was clear that Reagan needed some time alone.
They had about five hours before the event tonight. Might as well hit the gym now. He rapped on Reagan’s door. She opened it a crack and regarded him with the same heavy gaze. And not sexy-heavy. More burdened.
“I’m going to the gym. Want me to send up the manicurist in an hour? Figured you wanted to nap.” He wanted to touch her. She looked soft and fragile. Beautiful, as per her usual. But the door was barely cracked, and the way she held her body away from him suggested she didn’t want him to touch her.
“Thanks, but I’m perfectly capable of walking down to the salon.”
“And I’m perfectly capable of making sure you don’t have to.” He gave her a smile to communicate that everything was okay. He hoped like hell everything was okay. “You have plenty of time to rest before we leave.”
“Are you saying I look tired?”
“I’m saying that a run-in with Alexis Calvin is like bumping into a bloodsucking vampire. She leaves everyone feeling like a husk.”
“And you dated her for a while.”
“Little while,” he admitted. Alexis was more a pastime than a choice he’d consciously made. Since that explanation made him sound like a stunted idiot, he kept it to himself. “You okay? For real?”
She nodded. “I’m worried about Ike. Leaving him after what happened has me feeling sort of sick.”
Of course it did. Ike was her everything.
“We can fly back first thing tomorrow morning.” He’d planned on showing Reagan around town this weekend; taking her to his favorite haunts. Anger and guilt vied for first place as he realized that his mother and Lexi were partially responsible for putting the shadow on Reagan’s face. “Think about it. I’ll have the salon send someone up in an hour.” He checked his watch. “In the meantime, I’m going to pop into the gym and then go to the Crane NYC. Check on Dante. I’ll be back to change and then we’ll head over. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.”
She leaned through the crack in the door to give him a kiss. Better than nothing. Something had shifted between them. Hopefully giving her some space would change it for the better.
“What a bitch,” Kelly said through the earbuds stuffed into Reagan’s ears. Not that Brody was listening in—he had returned from the gym twenty minutes ago and had turned on the stereo. Low, soothing bass thumped from the living room. “You should have punched her in her perfect tits.”
Reagan chuckled as she swiped on a second coat of mascara. Even with full makeup, she hadn’t reached va-va-voom status, but she looked better than she felt.
“Don’t be intimidated by the crowd tonight. You were at his family’s swanky party, and you fit right in!”
“That was Chicago. This is New York City.”
“So?”
“There is a lot of money in this city, Kel.”
“Yeah, and Brody Crane has a substantial amount in his portfolio. You’re in good hands, and you are one classy bitch.”
Reagan laughed again, accepting the compliment. She’d allowed Lexi to crawl under her skin and make her feel small. Brody had lived a life before he was with Reagan, and Reagan had lived one before she’d met him. Who cared who he’d dated?
“How’s Ike?” Kelly asked between bites of popcorn. She’d been settling onto the couch to watch a movie with Matt when Reagan called.
“He’s good. I hung up with him right before I called you. Well, hung up with Dottie. He was napping.”
“I love that he’s amorous at his age.” The low rumble of Matt’s voice sounded in the background and Kelly filled him in on what had happened. Then to Reagan, she said, “Don’t worry about Ike. Dottie is there, and I am a phone call away if you want me to check on him.”
“I’m coming back tomorrow anyway.” Leaving ASAP would be best. “Surely he can behave himself until then.”
“You’re coming back so soon?”
“I have work to do.”
“I thought Brody was your current employer.”
“I can’t charge him for repairs while squatting in his house.” She sighed, the heaviness of the last handful of months weighing her down. It’d been a journey already and she was still in the middle of it. “I gotta go. Time to slip into a designer ballgown and hope I packed the right underwear.”
“Don’t rush home,” Kelly pled. “You deserve to have fun.”
Reagan wasn’t sure about that—the more fun she had, the less deserving of it she felt. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Kelly said with a sigh. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
Reagan left the bathroom and checked her nails. Still chip-free, thank God. The manicurist had advised her not to touch anything for forty minutes, and she’d dutifully obeyed.
She popped open the door to the guest room and peered out into Brody’s incredibly nice penthouse. Through the windows, the sun was setting behind the buildings, casting a warm glow onto his furniture, the floors and walls, him… The scene was breathtaking. Almost as breathtaking as the man who lived here.
Brody, in a white button-down shirt, boxers, and black socks, turned as if he’d felt her staring. “Caught me with my pants down.” He smiled a smile that always made her forget how many zeroes separated them.
So many.
“I came out to change the music.” He pressed a button on the remote, and smooth jazz filtered from the speakers. “Sophisticated, right? This will put us in the mood for a stuffy charity event.” He danced over to her, looking amazing and ridiculous half-dressed. When he scooped her up to dance her into the bedroom, she guessed she looked equally ridiculous wearing lingerie and a short gray cotton robe.
He twirled her in a circle and didn’t smash her toes in the process—impressive. “Help you with the dress?”
“Sure.” She released him and unzipped the garment bag. The floor-length black gown was covered with diamonds—some of them real, Dana had told her. When she’d argued that it was too over the top, Brody had insisted on buying it for her. She’d even offered to rent it and return it, but he’d admonished her with, “You, Reagan, deserve to own a dress like this. At least one.”
Deserve. There was that word again.
The deeper in with Brody she got, the more like Pretty Woman she felt. She’d realized today she’d been falling for him in spite of trying not to, but she had yet to see any signs of him suffering the same plight.
She stepped into the gown with his help. It weighed more than she remembered. “Do you miss New York?”
“I miss the convenience of bagels and lox in the lobby cafe.”
“Seriously,” she tried again, sweeping her hair to one side while he zipped her up. “The opulence. The glamour. We don’t have that in Merriweather Springs.”
“ Opulence is in the eye of the beholder.” Her hand in his, he gave her a spin. “You belong draped in diamonds.” He placed a kiss on her neck, holding her close for another dance. “Enjoy every second of tonight. No one is going to be able to take their eyes off you.”
All of her warmed at the compliment. Whenever she was in his arms, she couldn’t help smiling. Enjoying him had never been a hardship. “We can’t have sex right now,” she informed them both.
He feigned innocence, his shocked expression as fake as one of her gumball-machine diamond rings. “I didn’t say anything.”
She glanced at his boxers.
“I’m not in charge of that.”
Her laughter shook off any vestiges of melancholy.
“That’s more like it,” he praised, noticing.
Once she had slipped on the Louboutins, she smoothed her hand over the gown and admired her reflection in the full-length mirror. “It’s such a beautiful dress.”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said from behind her.
The mirror version of herself was more sophisticated than she’d ever been. Reagan was merely acting a part.
“Tux time.” He kissed her and then left the room.
She put the final touches on her makeup and hair and then stepped into the kitchen. Brody stood at the counter in a tuxedo and a bowtie, adjusting a diamond cufflink. His mustache and facial hair were trimmed, his hair neatly parted.
It struck her that he too had been acting a part. Only he’d dressed for the part of a jeans-and-T-shirt-wearing writer who mowed the lawn and cooked his specialty omelet.
The real Brody Crane belonged in a penthouse. Wearing a tux. Lording over a bustling city and surrounded by the opulence she’d questioned him about earlier.