Turn The Page (Kissed by A Muse Book 2) (4 page)

Besides, buying a new iPad meant that she’d finally be able to buy a NEW iPad- a bigger, fancier one with more storage space. Things were way more affordable overseas than they had been back home so, if she truly cranked up the optimism, Leigh could view herself as an incredibly lucky girl who’d simply misplaced her passport.

And you know what? I think I will go back down to the falls once I have a new iPad, and see if I can find the musician again and get his picture. The fans really will love it, and I’ll be able to apologize and hopefully, get a bit of dignity back… while wielding a much better quality camera!

Feeling cheered, Leigh tucked the book under her arm, jabbed the cigar between her teeth and made her way over to the table once more. She got her specs out of their case and pushed them onto her nose, and then appraised the ice bucket. The room was so cold that the ice had barely melted, and when Lee pulled out the champagne with its unfamiliar but fancy French label, it was freezing to the touch. She untwisted the foil top and then popped the cork, giggling when it shot out from between her fingers and bounced off the couch, and then made her way to the bed and climbed on top of it while the foam spray trickled over her fingers.

‘Here’sh to me!’ Leigh declared, the words coming out gritty and hard for the cigar clamped between her teeth. She lifted the bottle high above her head and got a good look at herself in the mirror, trying not to cackle and drop the cigar at the sight of the lunatic reflected back at her. She squatted a little and thrust her hips rudely, the way she’d seen her uncle Steve dance at his daughter’s wedding, and almost lost her balance when her knees locked in the skirt of the dress. ‘Shingle, shexy about to get rotten drunk alone, while I wait for Ryan Weaver or Gilbert Blythe to duel to the death over the right to do me… yeah baby!’ Still thrusting her hips crudely, Leigh spat out the cigar and lifted the bottle to her mouth, almost choking as her throat as flooded with bitter bubbles. She pressed her lips together and snorted, falling to her knees on the mint green bed runner, as a bit of champagne leaked out of her nose, burning her sinuses.

I am such a loser… but damn, it’s fun to be me sometimes!

The burning nose was painful but made her guffaw. Laughing at herself while sniffling, Leigh lay down on her tummy and wriggled forward to the edge of the bed, hanging the champagne bottle over one side, while she stretched for the cigar with the other. Her glasses slid down on the tiny bridge of her nose as they always did when she looked down, and she had to thrust out her tongue to catch them.

But before she managed to get the cigar, she became aware of two things: firstly, there was a cold draft on her backside from where her gown had ridden up to her waist, and secondly, that whistling draft was not loud enough to cover the sound of someone sucking in a breath to her right.

How can there be a draft, if the door is closed…?

Leigh gingerly turned her head toward the doorway as one would in a nightmare, when they sense something emerging from the darkness nearby, and she almost suffered her second heart attack for the day when she saw HIM standing in the threshold to her room- not the attentive concierge she’d half-expected, but the musician.

No. No. No….

But it was him, all six feet something of leather, ripped and faded denim and incredulous neon blue eyes. He was clutching a copy of The Hardest Fall in one hand and a rectangular white box and her travel wallet in the other, and his mouth was falling open at such a rate, that Leigh knew he’d soon have to drop her things in order to catch his jaw before it hit the floor.

Leigh froze as she was; bare-ass naked to the chandelier and holding her glasses with her now aching tongue, tasting overpriced Brut and lens cleaner, feeling only the anguish of terminal humiliation.

If I don’t wake up in my bus seat next to Greta in exactly two seconds, I am going to scream!

‘Um…’ the guy seemed to snap out of his stupor just as Leigh’s own took possession of her every nerve ending and thought. ‘Ryan Weaver, reporting for duelling duty?’ He leaned against her doorjamb, his unexpected grin quick and blinding, and his eyes vibrant with mischief. ‘But who the hell is Gilbert Blythe? Is he big?’ He wet his lips and treated her to a simpering smile. ‘Think I could take him?’

Leigh jumped as his voice tugged on every one of her nerve endings like marionette strings- and then she promptly somersaulted off the edge of her bed, feeling like she was falling in a nightmare and praying that that was the case.

Three

T
he carpet became the ceiling, the ceiling became the hem of her skirt, and Leigh’s ears were struck so hard by each knee on either side of her head that for a moment, all she could hear was the blood thumping inside her skull.

No. No, no, no, no NO!

He was laughing, and his laugh was that of someone who knew they oughtn’t be doing that; husky as he attempted to swallow breaths big enough to smother it. For a moment, Leigh sat in the world’s most uncomfortable yoga pose, as stunned as a fish that had been struck over the head by an oar. But when she heard him move, she became Sonic the hedgehog and rolled her way out of the cramped position, by pushing off the mini-fridge with her bare feet and then wriggling back towards the picture window, snapping her knees together before getting them beneath her.

‘What are you doing in my room?’ she sounded like a six-year-old, felt about two and knew she looked about eighty in her get up. She spat out the glasses she’d caught with her teeth and shoved them into position. ‘How did you find me? How did you get UP here?!’

The guy stopped moving and his eyebrows lifted to match the shrieking pitch of her voice. ‘I came to return your things,’ he said, slowly raising his hands once more. ‘Your passport and stuff, and your hotel info was in there so I-’

‘And the concierge just let you UP?!’ she demanded, bypassing the relief to have her things returned to her, for fear for her life. ‘What kind of security is that?!’

The guy’s brows lowered, and his cheeks had gone from pale to rosy. ‘The staff here know me…and Bruce said that you’d be stoked to have your stuff back, and would wanna thank me in person…’ he turned his face slightly in profile, regarding her with one eye. ‘A bit of an overestimation on his part though, eh?’

Leigh was struggling to interpret his words. For starters, he spoke with a soft, smoker’s husk, and his accent and enunciation was wreaking havoc with her translation. The ‘stoked’ was Aussie, the ‘eh?’ was Canadian, but he pronounced every other word so carefully that he sounded more American than anything else. Confused, Leigh slithered to the right, getting back behind the bed and glowering at him over the flat plane of the comforter.

‘Who, and how, and just...’ she tried to phrase her questions but her thoughts were overlapping and her tongue was getting all tangled up in them. She didn’t know what was going on, and she really was beginning to worry that she’d lost the plot. Or in her case- gotten WAY too invested in the plot!

I’d almost convinced myself that I blew his likeness to Ryan way out of proportion, but just LOOK at him! He’s a stranger, but my memory is full of his face! And now he’s responding to the name as well? What the hell?!

‘Um… yeah?’ he prodded, but Leigh could only stare as he rubbed his jaw and stared back with a lazy gaze. Logically, she knew that Ryan Weaver couldn’t exist, but the physical evidence to his case was staggering- and so utterly divine that Leigh could barely think past his upper chest and how it looked in the clingy black tee that he was wearing like a boss- a boss who lifted weights for fun while tanning and apparently, having his skin polished until it shone.

The light of expectation faded from the doppelganger’s eyes when he seemed to realise that she wasn’t going to be responding to him any time soon. He swept his gaze over her once more, smirked and then shook his head, as though he were enjoying an in-joke alone.

‘Okay, the cat seems to have both your tongue and your vocal cords so… I can do this alone, I guess.’ He moved towards the bed and put down her things and the white box. ‘Listen; you might just be the strangest, smallest woman I’ve ever met, and I’m a little bit scared of you, so let me make this simple-’ he pointed to the bed. ‘You dropped your things when you ran away today. I found out who you were and where you were staying by peeking inside, I’m sorry, but it was necessary.’ He stepped back, raising his hands as though shielding himself from the eyeballing he was getting. ‘And I felt bad- the way you reacted to me smiling at you made it pretty clear that I’ve done something in the past to piss you off and so, to make up for whatever it is, and the fact that I don’t know your name or recall ever having met you before, I’m giving you this iPad, okay?’

Leigh inhaled cold air and too much of his minty, smoky, heady aroma for her comfort. ‘You’re giving me a...?’ She glanced at the bed, seeing the box with more focus now and recognising the pale, silver print on the side. It was an iPad box all right, and it still had the plastic on it! But then the rest of what he’d said sank in, and she became confused once more. ‘You’re seriously giving me an iPad to apologize for smiling at me and not knowing my name?’

‘Well… yeah, I don’t need it, so it’s yours,’ his voice was softer now, and Leigh wanted to step closer to hear it better. And to smell him better. And to maybe poke him in the eye to see if her finger sliced through air, or his socket.

‘But… but it’s an iPad,’ Leigh was lost and nothing he was saying was helping her find her way. ‘An iPad three, to boot!’

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and the small chain attached to one of his belt loops clinked against the pewter ring on his right pinkie. ‘I was given it as a gift a few months ago, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea about how to work it, so it’s just been sitting there.’

‘So… so return it! Or learn to use it!’ Leigh looked back at him now, trying to wrap her brain around his, well, everything! What kind of conman went around doling out free iPads to strange women? And what kind of busker didn’t have a close personal relationship with a pawnbroker? Her gaze drifted between him, the iPad and her open door. Had she left it open? Damn the Yankee multiple door latch thing! ‘That’s worth about eight hundred bucks, you know.’

‘It is?’ He strained his wrists into his pockets and shrugged, while Leigh wracked her brain, trying to recall if Ryan the character had worn a pewter ring- while her eyes kept flickering over to the iPad box.

‘Wow. Well, you’ll be able to keep your room, and I’ll be able to sleep tonight, so it’s money well spent.’ He leaned towards her, burrowing his hands deeper into his pockets and hunching his shoulders, trying to get in her line of vision- or maybe just shrink in general because she was making him feel like Gulliver. The silver chain around his neck swung forward and caught the light. ‘So… are we good?’

Leigh had no idea what sort of state she was in, but she was hovering somewhere between gleeful and horrified. Why were people always giving her hand-outs that she hadn’t earned? And why was it an iPad she had to turn down, not a cocktail or something? She bundled up more of her blanket in her arms and studied him reproachfully. ‘I can’t accept that, no way!’ She shook her head. ‘It’s too valuable.’

‘Not to me, it’s not, and it is to you- so it’s technically a perfect trade.’ He stood taller again, a trace of annoyance pulling down on his eyes and mouth. ‘I didn’t want to get rid of it, because the woman who gave it to me really, really wanted me to have it… but giving it to someone who is eyeing it, the way you are eyeing it right now, feels good. You said that you needed it for work or something, didn’t you? Then accept it, not as a favour, but as a professional or whatever.’

Leigh hadn’t known that she was still staring at the box, but his words called her attention to the fact that she’d been reading the specs and breathing heavily with excitement. His iPad had almost twice as much gig as her last! And it was the latest model she’d intended to buy! She wanted to accept it- and badly!

No, uh-huh lady no candy from strangers, means no candy from strangers you’re contemplating nibbling on like candy!

Heartsick, Leigh turned her face to him and tried to look bored. ‘No- really, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with this. I appreciate what you’re trying to do but-’

‘Look-’ He ran his hands through his hair and Leigh’s eyes followed the swirling, tattoo lines inked onto his wrist before it vanished into his sexily messed-up hair, holding the back of his head as though she were stressing him out. ‘-Leigh, is it?’

Leigh nodded mutely, annoyed that he knew so much about her now, while she was still trying to deduce if he was corporeal or a figment of her imagination- though the glimpse of the tattoo had definitely activated her rational brain cells a little more.

Ryan didn’t have a tattoo! Ha! There’s something, Leigh! Grab that anchor point and cling to reality woman!

‘I don’t know where we’ve met before,’ he began, removing his hands from his hair and biting down on his thumbnail, looking vulnerable and… well, like someone she wanted to be bitten by. ‘But I can see from your passport that this is your first time overseas. So I’m guessing that our paths crossed in Australia last, yeah?’

Leigh’s mouth popped open. ‘Our paths?’

‘Yeah. You know…’ The guy twisted his thumb over, biting down on the enamel of his nail. ‘When we…’

‘When we WHAT?’ Leigh demanded, alarmed.

‘When we hooked up...’ he winced as a full stop, pulled his hand from his mouth and pressed his fingers into his eyebrow, looking perplexed before adding: ‘Sorry…’

‘Oh my god!’ Leigh was appalled to the point of wanting to break the iPad over his head. ‘You think we had sex?! That’s what you’ve come to apologize for?’

‘Um, yeah?’ He look embarrassed, but not nearly enough for her liking. He scratched his head forward and Leigh wished he would stop fidgeting or at least, looking so freaking cute as he did, like an abashed child. ‘I mean, that’s why you’re pissed with me, isn’t it? Because I didn’t recognize you earlier? Just like all the others...’

‘The others?!’ Lee was incensed. Where did he get off, assuming that his little Ryan act had only offended her so, because he’d nailed her with it and then forgotten her? How dare he try and lump her onto the pile of naked, used women he’d accumulated while impersonating her literary soul mate? Leigh wasn’t that kind of girl at all, and he was NOT so hot that she’d write off her self-worth for one night with him! ‘How many iPads have you had to give out, mate? Do you have a stack of them next to a box of condoms back home, or what?’

He gave her a sullen look that almost took Leigh’s knees out proving that yes, he probably was hot enough to throw caution to the wind for. The pout, paired with those narrow and heated azure eyes, was too much! Still, she was fairly certain that she wasn’t the kind of girl who would fall for that sort of malarkey- a conviction she needed to keep, by getting him out of her room!

‘No. This is the first time,’ he said shortly, folding his arms and looking defensive. But then, his eyes softened and Leigh’s knees followed suit again. ‘Anyway that’s not the point. I’m here to say that I’m sorry if I was like, dismissive or didn’t call you back or something… I don’t have an excuse for that, and I can’t do anything to take any of it back- but pray that you weren’t like, underage at the time-’

‘Stop talking!’ she interrupted him, knowing she’d tear out clumps of hair to look as pathetic as he was painting her to be if he didn’t knock it off. ‘Listen mate- firstly, I’m twenty-three and small boned, not a damn leprechaun and secondly- I have no idea who you are, where you’re from or what your real name is! But I know two things for sure; there is no way that your name could be Ryan Weaver, and you and I haven’t had any sort of ‘we’ interaction in the past! On home soil OR this soil!’

He reeled back. ‘Say what now?’

‘You heard me! Maybe you can’t keep track of your lovers or your aliases, but its no sweat for me buddy! I may be a fan, but I’m not a whore!’

‘What?’ Leigh had expected him to be embarrassed for the snap judgement he’d made, but he surprised her by responding with a hostile glare to match his tone. ‘Well, if I haven’t fucked you before, what’s with the attitude?’

Leigh flinched at the f-word, which was one of those words she could handle easily in print, but not one she was used to people throwing around in her company. Ryan swore, the fictional Ryan that was, but he always managed to make it sound hot when he did it, and rarely crude like the guys who hung out at the pub she waitressed at on weekends.

Unfortunately for Leigh- fake Ryan had also wielded the word with a buttery tongue and just enough steam to make her sweat and now, there was a visual in her head of being fucked by him, and she was finding it hard to breathe around the thought. She looked up into his eyes, and was overcome with lust. Not enough to make her reach for him, but too much for her to break the spell he’d cast on her by moving away.

I wonder if he tries to mimic the novel in bed, too? You know, for the fantasy? Is he controlling? Does he have a tongue ring? Is he well… oh my goodness woman! SNAP out of it! Look at the size of the guy for starters, where would he even put it?

‘Well?’ he prompted her. ‘I’ve been walking around for hours worrying about you, but if I’ve done nothing to or with you, then why are you being such a bitch? And why did you drop your iPad when I smiled at you? And how do you know that my name isn’t really-’

‘Are you kidding me? How do I know that your name isn’t Ryan Weaver? Get out of here! I can understand you taking advantage of the groupie thing, if they’re willing participants in the fantasy- but mate, if you think you’re actually fooling these women into believing that you’re whom you’re masquerading as, and then you’re the biggest ditz of all! Don’t apologize to them- feel sorry for yourself!’

‘What masquerade?’ he demanded. ‘What are you talking about?’

Leigh rolled her eyes and turned for the bed, snatching up the iPad box. The fact that he’d basically admitted that he was using a fake name and the women who liked it was annoying, but the fact that he didn’t give the women he was bedding enough credit to understand that they saw through the lie did her head in. Women who read were the least likely to fall for a guy’s bullshit- that was probably why so many of them were single! If the ‘others’ were acting out against Ryan afterwards, then it was probably because he’d sucked between the sheets and had blown the fantasy- not because they were waiting by the phone for a call until the next Sylvia Day novel dropped!