Some Like It Perfect (A Temporary Engagement) (14 page)

“If I see one I like. I do have a new condo to decorate.”

“I’m going to charge you five times more than I think it’s worth.”

He stood. “Good. Let’s go take a look at them.”

She stayed seated, her face scrunched up in pain and fear.

“Delia, you’re never going to have enough if you don’t sell your product.”

“Stop calling them assets and products. They’re not.”

He said softly, “I know. They’re pieces of your soul.”

“Do you feel that way about your paper?”

“No. But I’m not an
artiste
.”

“But you are, unfortunately, hard to work for.”

Jack lifted her by the elbow. “That’s because I like to get my way.”

“That’s because no one ever says no to you.”

He’d get his way in this as well. He just hoped her paintings weren’t chicken scratch.

He glanced back at the ceiling as he escorted her out of the office and thought he probably didn’t need to worry about the quality of her paintings.

And he was looking forward to getting an up close look at something she’d painted. Getting a look at those shadows.

Justine was thinking about heading home when night security called her, letting her know Delia was downstairs waiting for her. Justine threw the rest of her work in her bag and went downstairs. Delia was chatting to the security guard, on first name basis already, and Justine waited until there was a pause in the conversation before she pulled Delia away.

Delia waved goodbye to the guard and shoved her hands into her pockets.

Justine sighed. “Oh, God. Did you get fired?”

“No.”

“That’s your ‘I got fired’ face.”

“It might be. It’s also my ‘I got propositioned by my boss’ face.”

Justine shook her head. “Why does this happen to you? I don’t know anyone who’s been propositioned by their boss. I don’t know anyone who would want to be propositioned by their boss.”

“I didn’t want to be propositioned by him.”

“I just meant that he’s gorgeous instead of being fat and bald like most of us are stuck with.”

Jack and Gus had helped Delia move her pitiful amount of possessions and all Justine could think was Delia had been right. He was beautiful, there was no other word for it. She sighed, remembering, and said, “His eyes.”

Delia nodded. “I know. Melted chocolate.”

“Though how chocolate can be cold, I don’t know.”

“He’s not cold. He’s uptight and he tries to do everything ‘right’. It comes out as cold.” Delia snapped her mouth shut and Justine flicked her eyes at her.

Delia shrugged. “He warms up.”

Justine narrowed her eyes and tapped her chin. “I bet. What kind of proposition are we talking about? Maybe something that could lead to a nice settlement?”

Delia laughed. “No. He hasn’t touched me. He hasn’t made me uncomfortable. I told him no.”

“Then why are you looking like Christmas got canceled?”

“Because I said no!”

And Delia never said no, to anything. She was like that movie, saying yes to everything because life was short.

Delia said, “He bought two of my paintings. One for his condo, one for the office lobby.”

Delia handed two crumpled up checks to Justine and she squinted at them. She choked when she finally made out the amounts.

Delia said, “I told him he couldn’t buy me.”

Justine laughed, picturing her friend waving her finger in his beautiful cold face, her other hand clenched around the checks. “What did he say to that?”

Delia took the checks back, stuffing them into her pocket. She walked down the subway stairs and finally said so softly that Justine had to lean in to hear, “He said he didn’t buy them to get me to sleep with him. He said he bought them because he needed something colorful and happy and feisty in his life.”

Justine thought if Jack Cabot had said that to her, she wouldn’t be standing here. She’d be pantsless in the back of his car. And she thought he was a cold asshole.

She wasn’t sure how Delia had summoned the willpower to walk away from him.

Justine hooked her elbow through her friend’s. “I know what my job is here. To get you nice and drunk.”

Delia nodded.

Justine said, “To make you forget all about Mr. Smooth Chocolate When He Wants To Be.”

Delia nodded again.

Justine vowed to herself that his name would not pass either of their lips the rest of the night. She said, “We’ll go back to my place, you can sleep on the couch like old times, and we’ll keep you occupied until the danger has passed.”

“What about Paul?”

Justine shook her head. “We’re still on weekends only.”

Gus let out a long breath. “Then I think that’s a good plan. I don’t think Gus would know how to keep me away from her brother tonight. Or even that she should.”

Justine said, “How is living with the sister?”

“Were we ever that young? It’s like watching a baby chick crack out of its shell. It’s adorable watching her shake her feathers and realize she has room now. Room to figure out who she is.”

Justine mentally put away any thought of getting any more work done tonight and said, “Teenagers are just not described as adorable enough.”

Justine and Paul had gone to his sister’s for Thanksgiving. Justine had held Little Princess in her arms and had tried not to squeeze her to death.

Karen had plopped the baby in Justine’s arms, saying, “She doesn’t care who’s holding her as long as it’s someone.”

Justine had smelled that baby smell, felt that heavy warmth in her arms, and when Karen had taken the baby back, it had taken all of Justine’s willpower not to rip the child back.

Justine didn’t know what she was doing, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d held a baby.

Three years ago? Four?

Her experience with children was limited. She hadn’t done any babysitting in high school, she didn’t have friends with children.

She honestly didn’t know why she even wanted any. Rationally, she shouldn’t.

And she knew, she wasn’t rational about it.

She saw a baby in a stroller and she smiled like she’d never seen anything so wonderful, as if having a baby was really the point of life.

As if not having a baby made everything else in her life worthless.

Justine knew Mother Nature was merciless. Mother Nature wanted one thing. To survive.

Justine stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, pulling down her little round container of pills and thinking that even if you could outsmart Mother Nature, she had other tricks up her sleeve.

Paul had come home with her after dinner, was waiting for her in bed.

Justine closed her eyes and felt once again that baby filling her empty arms.

She wanted that. She wanted that more than anything, more than
anything
. She wanted that more than she wanted to like herself.

Justine popped the pill out of its foil and stared at it. She heard Delia screaming at her to not do it. To not trap him, to not make this decision without him. To not make this decision when she wasn’t sure herself.

She remembered Paul’s sister saying kids weren’t what you thought they were going to be like. And how she’d wished she’d done it sooner because the older you got, the harder it was. The more you gave up for them.

She thought of Paul saying how he wished the decision would just be taken out of his hands. A good old-fashioned shotgun wedding.

Justine listened to them all, and she looked at that little pill. And then she dropped it down the drain.

It had taken the ever efficient Ms. Charles a few days to get Delia’s painting framed and hung, Thanksgiving had interfered, but finally, it was there. Front and center in Jack’s lobby and Delia stood in front of it, grinning.

If you were thinking paper, like most people who came through the door would be, that’s what it looked like. Brightly colored specks of paper, flying, like a brisk wind had just flown in through an open window and flung the papers in the air.

And they did look colorful and happy and feisty. They looked joyful in their one moment of freedom.

Jack had asked what she called this painting and when she’d said, “
Supernova
,” because she thought she’d been painting an exploding star, he’d said, “Now it’s called
Paper
.”

She hadn’t even argued with him. He was right, it was paper. She thought she’d been painting the stars and it had turned out to be paper.

And that seemed just about right.

Delia floated to Jack’s office. She couldn’t decide what she was happier about, having her painting
there
or having the check deposited in her bank account.

They were all really, really great feelings.

And this week, Jack’s desk and bookcase would be moved to the other side of the office and Delia would start painting the other half of the ceiling. Half-way done.

Delia smiled at Ms. Charles and breezed into Jack’s office. When she found it empty, she deflated a bit, but realized this was probably for the best.

She was just entirely too happy to trust herself around him.

Delia pulled off her coat, pulled on her booties, and realized something was wrong.

It was 9:23, and there was no Jack. He could have been in a meeting but his computer was on, his chair was out from behind his desk instead of pushed in neatly.

Delia said into the empty office, “Jack?”

“Up here.”

She climbed the scaffolding to find him laying on his back studying the ceiling.

“What are you doing?”

He tipped his head to look at her and said, “Looking at Lucifer’s brothel.”

She sucked in a breath. “I think you’re imagining it.”

“I assure you I couldn’t imagine the things I’m seeing up here. You’re the one with the overactive imagination.”

He pointed to a spot that from far away would look like a cloud and her face turned red.

He said, “Is that me?”

“No. That’s Lucifer.”

“Lucifer looks like me.”

“Oh? Do you have a tail?”

“No. I especially don’t have a tail that is shaped like a phallus at the end.”

Delia looked away from the ceiling. “Okay, let’s go down. This scaffolding really can’t hold two people.”

Jack pointed to what would look like, from down on the ground where he should have been, two clouds stuck together and said, “And look, here I am again. But this time my tail is in use.”

She started making her way down and he said loudly, “And just what is that I’m pleasuring? A donkey?”

She muttered, “It’s Lucifer’s brothel. It’s not really about pleasure.”

Delia jumped down the last step and looked up to find him leaning over the side. He said, “I’m really getting the impression you don’t like me.”

“It’s not you.”

“So you’ve said. Are you up here?”

“No.”

His lips tipped up. “Mm. I don’t think I believe you. That donkey is slightly red.”

“That cloud is just close to the setting sun. It’s a red sky. Things are red.”

He smiled. A smile that made her stomach twist, that made the fire flicker in her belly.

Delia turned away. “I’ve got to go. Don’t kill yourself climbing down the scaffolding.”

When she got to the door, she turned to find him still watching her. Still smiling.

And she ran.

She ran to the stairs, flying past the elevators and down three flights before she slowed. Another three flights of stairs before she stopped to sit wide-eyed and unseeing on the slate gray step.

She sat, and she told herself what she’d been telling herself since she painted him up on that ceiling doing indecent things to a four-legged animal.
Don’t be an ass, Delia. The ass is not enjoying it.

Oh sure, it
looked
like it was having a good time. It
looked
like it had forgotten its name and never needed to remember it again.

But it was just fire. He was just fire. It would burn out. She would just wait here until it had burned itself out.

She sat there for over an hour and then climbed back up a few flights to Gus’s floor.

Delia waited for Gus to finish helping a new hire and then said, “I’m not going to lunch with you guys today.”

“Why not? Jack said he was treating us to the best steak in Boston to celebrate having your painting hung.”