Untangling The Stars (11 page)

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Dinner?”

“Yes.”

“In there?” He nodded his head toward the room.

“Okay.”
Yes, yes, yes.

“Okay.”

He moved his hands away from her face and Andie took a step forward, letting herself be led back into the hotel room. The door was still hanging ajar, a sliver of the glow from downtown’s lights filtering through the open crack. She half expected him to lead her through the door with the same caution that he had the first time, but Guy swung back around, and in a quick movement, scooped her off the ground and into his arms and carried her through the doorway. Laughter flitted through Andie’s lips despite herself, and Guy laughed with her, and then kissed her quickly—fiercely—as he elbowed through the door open and kicked it shut behind them.

***

Guy hadn’t been exaggerating. The food brought up from the hotel kitchens was spectacular. Whatever they were using in that kitchen, the strawberries in her salad were the sweetest she thought she’d ever tasted, the wine so crisp, it was like it had slivers of ice sprinkled through the cool liquid. As they dined, Andie found that the kiss in the hallway had been some kind of magical anecdote for the huge amount of awkward that had been the status quo of their previous few interactions. It had changed the air between them, exchanging the pop and sizzle of bridled passion into something much more comfortable. Suddenly being in Guy’s company wasn’t nervous or full of cryptic looks and tangled thoughts. It was almost easy.

Guy, too, seemed at ease possibly for the first time since they met. He had pulled open the curtains over the picture windows, and the lights from downtown twinkled in at full brilliance, lighting up their dinner like candlelight. The windows weren’t the only thing that had come open over the course of the evening; Guy had also untucked and unbuttoned most of his shirt, letting it billow loosely around him. He was lying propped up on his side, across from her on the blanket that he’d spread into a makeshift picnic on the living room floor. It might have been pitifully cliché, but Andie didn’t care. It was kind of sweet actually.

Besides, Andie had changed clothes, too. Guy had given her one of his t-shirts—the blue one he’d been wearing when she first came to meet Dickey Valentine in his hotel room—and an oversized pair of hotel sweats that had probably been meant for him but managed to stay on her hips if she rolled the waistband up a few times. She lounged comfortably on the blanket, sipping wine and trying not to stare at Guy like some lovelorn teenager on a date with her high school crush. It was almost surreal, being able to look into Guy’s eyes without feeling spellbound. He didn’t even feel like
the
Guy Wilder anymore, just Guy. A guy.
I wish I would have known that it was possible to stare at this man without feeling like my heart was going to come out of my throat
, Andie thought to herself.
It would have made things so much easier.

“So, tell me,” Guy teased, pouring them both a fresh glass of frosty wine. “What do you do when you’re not tricking unsuspecting actors into enrolling back in college?”

Andie rolled her eyes and took the bait. “Oh, because
I
tricked you.”

Guy laughed. “You don’t do yourself justice. Let the jury show that I honestly had no idea. I am an innocent man.” He held his palm up in the air as a proclamation.

She shook her head at him and returned to his original question. “Not much, I guess. Teaching college students isn’t as easy as you might think. But when I’m not doing that, I work with
A Book of Her Own
. It’s a literacy group for women in the greater Denver area. Right now we’re planning our annual fundraiser—it’s kind of a mess, actually.”
Crap, the gala.

“Sounds like a noble cause.” A hint of sarcasm traced his words, though she had no idea why.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. “And just what noble cause do you get to when you’re not being Big Bad Silas Dove?”

Guy winced. “Now, now, Andie. Let’s play nice.”

“Oh, I always play nice, Mr. Wilder.” She sipped righteously from her glass.

“It’s a lot more…involved…than you might think,” Guy sighed. “Unfortunately it’s not as easy for me to be able to do what I want as you might think. I'm a bad guy, remember? That role doesn’t just shut off when the director says cut. I have to stay the bad guy. Part of the package.”

Andie realized that she had mistaken sarcasm for sadness. Like many people, perhaps she’d made the faulty assumption that stars had it all—fans, money, status. But she’d read the supermarket tabloids, seen how the paparazzi enjoyed smearing people’s personal business—flaws and all—across the glossy pages of smutty magazines. There wasn’t a person alive (at least, not in this country) who hadn’t seen movie stars’ marriages crumble on cover articles, or read the bizarre details of so-and-so’s latest lawsuit. It wasn’t always the easiest thing to remember that those people in the pictures were people, too—not just the parts they played on television. Maybe Guy Wilder hadn’t yet been blasted in the headlines, but what a shadow of fear to live in. Always waiting to find out what personal moment went viral.

“Maybe you should quit, or something? Find something else that makes you happy? A different role, or a different position in the industry?”

Something sparked in Guy’s eyes and he looked away. Andie had struck a nerve. But whatever it was, he wasn’t sharing.

“And who says it doesn’t make me happy?” Guy set his glass down and lifted himself up on his arms, pulling his body up and over the empty plates between them to Andie’s side of the picnic blanket. He hovered over her for a moment, and then took her wine glass from her hand and set it far out of her reach. He stared down at her. Andie was so focused on keeping her eyes locked in his gaze that she almost didn't notice his hands close in circles around her wrists. The heat as his body washed over her like a warm, welcoming blanket. “In fact, it’s something that I enjoy very—
very
—much.”

“Then do your worst, Mr. Dove.” It came out in a purr, but sounded like a dare.

“If you insist, Alessandra.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I can’t believe I spent the night with Guy Wilder.

She didn’t sleep with Guy that night. Well, that wasn’t
exactly
true, if you wanted to be literal about it—which Andie did. To her, it was an important distinction, because if (and it was indeed
if
with a heavy amount of emphasis) she shared the details of her evening with anyone, it would definitely be a worthwhile point of clarification. Andie Foxglove was no dime store floozy, even with someone as slut-moment worthy as Guy Wilder. So, if you meant sleeping as in eyes closed, lights out, and off to Neverland, then okay, yeah sure, they’d “slept” together. The two of them had dozed off on the living room floor at some point before dawn and woken up when the rising sun flooded through the window.

But if instead you meant sleeping together in terms of those other nocturnal activities, then no, Andie’s proper sensibilities were intact. Sure, there was
some
kissing and a fair bit of over-the-shirt fondling (Guy’s chest was
remarkably
chiseled even coated in a layer of thick cotton), too. But not sex—not yet.

It hadn’t been easy either. In fact, Andie wasn’t sure how she had managed to resist the temptation. Nine times out of ten she couldn't resist a plate of Oreo’s if put in front of her, and this man was a hell of a lot tastier than any cookie.
I will not be
any
man’s one-night stand
. It had been a mantra of sorts last night, especially when she actually had the wits about herself to remember that she—boring, unsophisticated Andie Foxglove—was tangled inside
the
Guy Wilder’s arms and lips. And not even that, but in a penthouse suite, five hundred feet above Denver.

Not that Guy had pushed her. He hadn’t. Actually, he’d been the perfect gentleman. He was tender, accommodating, and attentive—probably a better first date than she would have ever taken him for. And if she was being completely honest, as amazing as it had been to make out with the man inside Silas Dove, that wasn’t even the best part of their time together. The feeling of his mouth, hot and wet, against hers, or his arms laced around her back as he held her against him—yeah, that was pretty fantastic.

But, even more satisfyingly intimate had been the other moments that were full of laughter and easy conversation. The spark was there—oh, was it ever—but for all intents and purposes, Guy seemed focused on exactly what he had said—to get to know her. Imagine that! This guy was on the fast track to becoming a keeper. If he stuck around, that is.

The best part of their date night in, Andie reflected as she walked in the cool morning air to her classroom, might have been when they watched midnight TV and laughed themselves to tears over a shared bowl of popcorn at the infomercials. Guy had even called in a few times, and was routinely hung up on since no one believed
the
Guy Wilder would really order two dozen glow-in-the-dark hair rollers or several of those timeless late-night classics, the Shake Weight. Or, maybe her favorite moment of the evening was when Guy had invited her to slow dance, only to admit that he was a horrible dancer—
after
he’d stepped on both her feet almost knocked her to the floor. It was worth honorable mention, too, when at three a.m., Andie had remembered she’d ditched her heels in the hallway, and like a white knight, Guy had rushed out to retrieve them, only to find himself in a confrontation with a very upset housekeeper, who accused him of stealing women’s shoes. He’d even had to attempt to try them on to prove they didn’t fit.

Actually, the only rough spots of the entire evening—which had lasted ‘til just before that hour when it stopped being a date and became a Walk of Shame—had been whenever the subject of Guy’s day job came up. There didn’t seem to be anything that Guy didn’t want to talk about less than his life on camera. This ran counter to Andie, who found great pleasure in babbling on about academic life, or her students, or even launching into long diatribes on recent research that had a history of leaving even the most attentive of listeners glassy eyed and nearly comatose. Guy had actually encouraged her by asking for more details on that birthday surprise he’d heard about in his visit to her class.

So naturally, she’d assumed that he would also at least have
something
positive to say about his work. Hopefully he hadn’t thought she was fishing for fodder to sell to the tabloids, because she’d been genuinely interested when she’d asked about his process for remembering lines, or how he interpreted his character. But he’d shrugged off every question, and finally—when she’d been ballsy enough to press the issue—he’d given her a sharp eye and said firmly, “Trust me Andie, you don’t want to know any more than you already know.”

It was cryptic, and only served to whet her curiosity even more, but it had been an obvious cue that the subject was off limits so she’d dropped it. There would be other nights to break inside that carefully polished mask of Guy Wilder.

At least, Andie hoped there would be. Maybe she was being presumptuous. A great first date doesn’t guarantee a second one. But it wasn’t as if leaving that morning had been an easy thing to do. Guy certainly hadn’t exactly shoved her out of the door either.

“Stay just a little longer, Andie. Take the day off. Call in sick,” he’d practically begged.

“I wish I could.” She’d meant it, too.

“Okay,” he had finally relented, taking her hand, and pressing her palm to his lips. “But don’t forget about me.”

Andie had only laughed. If forgetting Guy Wilder were a possibility, then perhaps winged monkeys were real, too!

***

A small tap on the doorframe pulled Andie’s attention back to reality. She’d been spacing out again, apparently—replaying the reel of last night’s memories over and over in her mind. It was really pretty impressive how comfortable she’d become with Guy after only a few hours with him. She wasn’t immune by any means—thinking about those flashing blue eyes and chiseled cheekbones still made her insides feel like putty. But there was something to say for being okay with that feeling, right?

The knock on the door was one of Andie’s favorite students from her TV and American Identities class, Hilary Nguyen. She was fifteen minutes early for class, and looked beyond nervous to be in Andie’s office between hours. Perpetually shy, normally Hilary sent any questions by email.

“Professor Fox, I have a question on the essay you assigned earlier this week.”

Essay I assigned earlier this week, essay I assigned earlier this week… I assigned an essay?

Andie cleared her throat to buy time and pushed her bangs behind the arm of her glasses. Her damned contacts had been murderous in her eyes after a long night in, so she’d opted for her frames today. Besides, it was classic moon-eyed afterglow behavior to twist an arm of a pair of glasses between one’s teeth and stare off into space, smiling dumbly. Today, it was more or less a requirement.