Playing Her Cards Right: Choose Me

“Naomi. Call Danny. I’ll send you the copy and photos in the morning.”

He disconnected before she gave him additional grief, and put his cell down on the coffee table. Bree hadn’t stirred an inch. She’d probably be mad at him for sending someone in their place, and he had no idea what he was going to do about tomorrow’s blog pages, but there was no way in hell he was going to wake her. Not now.

She needed to rest. There would be other premieres. He’d spin the story to his advantage. In fact … He had the perfect angle. Take that, Naomi.

He’d have a story for tomorrow, but for tonight, he was keeping Bree to himself.

BREE HEARD A DOG BARK AND while it was a real dog barking, it was a dog once removed. A television dog. But she didn’t open her eyes, not yet. She liked this place, the in-between where there was nothing at all unpleasant and no alarm was going to intrude. The subtle, woodsy scent of Charlie made her sigh and smile. He knew how to use cologne, not like some of the guys from work who showered in the stuff. There was always a hint of the man underneath with Charlie, and that was the best part.

She moved a bit, her head at a weird angle and it wasn’t her pillow at all, and oh. It was dark, very dark. Charlie’s window was right there, across from his coffee table and behind his big television. It was late. Wrong. All wrong.

“You’re up.”

She couldn’t exactly see as some of her fake eyelashes were now sticking to her cheek, but she looked up in the general direction of Charlie’s voice. “What’s going on?” As nice as it felt to be pressed against his chest, she pushed off, up, until her feet were on the ground and she was sitting like a person. “What time is it?”

“A little past nine.”

“Nine? p.m.? Oh, God, was the premiere called off? Did something bad happen? Is everyone okay?”

Charlie laughed as he rubbed his shoulder, the one she’d been nestled against. “Everything’s fine.”

“We were supposed to be at the theater at six.”

“You were tired.”

“I was …” She peeled the lashes off both eyes and settled them in her palm like two spiders. When she glanced back at Charlie he was still rubbing his arm, shaking it. She must have been sleeping on it the whole time. Hours. He’d undone his bow tie, the top button of his shirt, too. The apartment was darker than it had been because he hadn’t turned on more lights. She’d slept through the red carpet. He’d let her. “I don’t understand.”

“I bet you’re starving,” he said, as he stood. “I know I am. How does Thai sound? Maybe some Tom Yum soup?”

“Wait.” She raised her hand to stop him, but it was the hand with the eyelashes. “Wait. Explain please. Why are we here? Why was I sleeping?”

“I told you.” He turned to leave.

“No, you didn’t.” She stood up. She might be foggy headed and probably looked like hell, but she was going to get an answer. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

He kept walking to the kitchen, his tux jacket swinging loose, and she thought of watching him take it off slowly, seeing those perfectly cut trousers fall.

Her heels clicked on the floor and made her wince with each step. Holy crap, these shoes were the instruments of the devil. Speaking of which, her dress, the architectural wonder of a dress, looked like a badly folded sheet. Sveta was going to kill her. “Charlie!”

He paused. Turned around. Smiled at her. “There’ll be other premieres. I promise. I’ll make it up to you.”

“You don’t skip things. You never do. I’ve read your blog every day forever, and you’re always there. Even when you’re not, you have a really good excuse. Like natural disasters. Not that your arm was trapped under a sleeping person. So what the hell?”

Charlie sighed. God, he really did look hot in that tux. “Take off your shoes. It hurts just looking at them.” He kept walking to the kitchen, and she kept following, the pain in her feet making her blink.

“In fact,” he said, not bothering to turn, “just get into something comfortable. We’ll eat. You’ll have a decent night’s rest and so will I. We’ll go back to the madness tomorrow.”

They were in the kitchen proper and he’d flipped on the lights. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, to see he was holding a handful of delivery menus. Everything felt tilted sideways.

“Thai?” he asked. “Chinese? Pizza? Deli? There’s a terrific Indian place nearby that makes a hell of a chicken tikka masala.”

Bree inhaled, noticed that she really needed to brush her teeth, and that she was still completely bewildered by everything that had happened since she woke up. “Whatever,” she said, shrugging. “As long as it doesn’t have cilantro, I’ll like it. I’ll be back.”

She didn’t make it to the media room before she took off the shoes. The dress came off in the hallway entrance. When she reached the racks of clothes, she’d already decided to wear one of the kimono robes because dammit, she wanted to be comfortable even if she did have to dress to go home later. Not a teeny short robe, either, because she didn’t want him thinking she wanted that. They didn’t do that. It had been decided.

Besides there was a particularly beautiful long black robe with a crane on the back that felt like heaven over her bare skin and covered her more than her dress had. She didn’t even mind that it dragged on the floor. So what if she wasn’t an Amazon? She was compact. Efficient. Far more comfortable in airplane seats.

The bathroom was next, and she debated keeping the makeup that had taken such time and effort to apply, but in the end it was just no. It took longer than it should have, but feeling clean and herself was worth it.

She looked once more in the mirror and stalled. It made no sense that Charlie hadn’t shaken her awake. That they were here instead of Radio City Music Hall. The red carpet was long over now, of course, and that was the important part—not watching the movie. But there was an after party they could have attended.

It was highly unlikely that his excuse that she was “tired” was the real reason they’d stayed in. No, there had to be something bigger in play, but she was too fuzzy-headed to figure it out right now.

What she should do was get dressed, go home and go to sleep so that when she went into the office tomorrow to catch up on her real job, she might have an actual working brain cell or two.

On the other hand, a girl had to eat. That she got to eat with Charlie without a hundred people surrounding them was extraordinary. Unprecedented. They’d been on the run for what felt like months instead of days, seeing each other in snatches and in the blinding light of flashbulbs. The only truly personal moments had been in his bed on Valentine’s night—which she wasn’t allowed to think about—and last night in the back of the limo. She’d thought about that conversation all day. Not only about how different their worlds were, but how he’d opened up to her. It was as if she’d seen him naked again.

Screw it, she wanted to. Eat with him. Talk to him. Alone.

Her accelerated pulse and the rush of excitement that ran through her body merely thinking about what was next moved her out of the bathroom and into seeing dinner through. It was only her heart at risk, after all. And hadn’t she admitted, to him of all people, that she wanted her heart broken by callous men who wore gorgeous suits?

12 (#ulink_f83a60f8-b4dc-5acc-abf0-1d7bd0e268df)

CHARLIE GRINNED AGAIN. “So you’re a black sheep, too?”

Bree swallowed her mouthful of noodles and took a sip of soda before she could answer him. “Oh, yeah. I was supposed to marry Eliot. My high school boyfriend. It was a thing. Big. Tons of teeth gnashing and hand wringing. Comfort food played a big role. In particular, fried chicken.”

At the mention, they both ate for a bit in silence, which gave her time to go over what Charlie had told her about his struggles with his family. How was it possible for them not to be proud of his accomplishments? Maybe they were proud, but the family was crappy at communication. Rebecca had said that was an issue between her and her folks, and Charlie’s parents were cut from the same cloth. But then again, Charlie was driven. He put the implementation of his goals above everything else. As did Bree. “You know what I can’t figure?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“How come you’re nice.”

“Me? Nice?”

“Very much so. I expected you to be on the conceited side of horrible. You’ve been great.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Thanks. I’m glad you think so.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“There was absolutely no agreement in that response. To be clear, I meant nice in an Ohio sense. It wasn’t a dig.”

“Well, then. I appreciate it even more. Nice can go either way around here.”

“I gathered. How would you describe yourself?”