Beautiful Stranger (34 page)

Max was still out saying good night to the last of his guests to leave when I slipped back into his bedroom to
look at the photos again. They were so revealing of our emotions, they almost made me feel bare all over.

I heard him come in behind me and quietly shut the door.

“How could you stand it?”

“Stand what?” He stepped behind me and bent to kiss the back of my neck.

“Seeing these pictures every day.” I pointed to his wall. “If they’d been on my wall while we were apart it would have hurt so much I would have gone fetal and subsisted entirely on Cap’n Crunch and self-pity.”

He laughed and turned me to face him. “I wasn’t ready to get over you yet. I was miserable, but would have been more miserable if I’d admitted it was over.”

And that’s what he gave me, a reminder that the glass wasn’t just half full, it was overflowing.

“It’ll exhaust you sometimes,” I said, “having to be the optimist for both of us.”

“Aaah, but eventually I’ll bring you over to the light side.” He reached behind me, unzipped my dress, and slipped it from my shoulders. It fell in a puddle at my feet and I stepped out of it, feeling the pleasure of his eyes on my skin.

When I glanced up at him, he looked so serious it made my stomach lurch. “What’s wrong?”

“You could break my heart. Just know that, yeah?”

I nodded, swallowing a thick lump in my throat. “I know.”

“When I say ‘I love you’ I don’t mean that I love what being with you does for my career, or I love how often you’re willing to shag. I mean I love
you
. I love making you laugh, and seeing how you react to things, and getting to know the little things about you. I love who I am with you, and I’m trusting you not to hurt me.”

Maybe because he was so tall, and broad, and constantly smiling and impossible to offend, Max
seemed
so formidable, as if nothing could actually break him. But he was only human, too.

“I understand,” I whispered. It was so strange to be on the other side of messing up, and to be the one who was given another chance.

He kissed me and then stepped back, slipping out of his jacket and hanging it on a coatrack in the corner. I spotted his camera on a shelf in the opposite corner of the room and walked over to pick it up. I stared down at it, found the
ON
button, raised the camera, and adjusted the lens.

I aimed it at where Max stood, watching me and tugging at his bow tie.

“I love you, too,” I said, zooming to take a close-up of his face. I clicked a few more pictures in rapid succession as he stared hungrily at me. “Undress.”

He pulled his tie away from his collar and dropped it, eyes growing darker, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Click.

“A warning,” I murmured from behind the camera as he pulled his shirt open. “I’ll probably need to lick every inch of your chest tonight.”

A smile tilted his mouth.
Click.
“Fine by me. I might insist you lick a little lower, too.”

I took a picture of his hands at his belt, his pants on the floor, his feet as they stepped right in front of mine.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, reaching to take the camera away from me.

“Taking pictures for
my
bedroom.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Get on the bed, Petal. Apparently you need a reminder of how this works.”

I climbed back, feeling the cool sheets as the mattress dipped below me. He reached down, adjusted my leg, studied me.

Click
.

“Look at me,” he murmured.

The light from the Manhattan skyline slipped across my body, illuminating a strip of skin on my ribs. His finger ran up the inside of my thigh as I looked up at his face, partially hidden by the camera.

Click.

I exhaled, closing my eyes and smiling.

New life. New love. New Sara.

Not a single word of this book could have been written without the support of our husbands, Blondie & Dr. Mister Shoes. We are constantly shocked by the coincidence that the two of us happened to find the two best men on the planet. Thank you for everything you do to support this crazy gig.

Our agent, Holly Root, is most likely made of magic and cupcakes and stardust and unicorn tears. We aren’t sure, of course, but it just seems impossible that someone so amazing could come from this humble planet.

Thank you to Adam Wilson, our hilarious editor and the name we most love to see in our margins. The list of our favorite Adamisms is getting so long we had to start a spreadsheet. Thanks for putting up with our ridiculousness, and for making us want to do it right the first time.

Thanks to Mary McCue and Kristin Dwyer, our publicists at Simon & Schuster Gallery. Your excitement and support already have buoyed us immensely
and we kind of just want to sit across your desk and gaze at you adoringly. To everyone at Gallery: Jennifer Bergstrom, Ellen Chan, Natalie Ebel, Julia Fincher, Liz Psaltis: thank you for everything you’ve done to edit, promote and support
Beautiful Bastard
and
Beautiful Stranger
. Simon & Schuster must be a fantastic place to work because you are all gems.

To our writing buddies and readers: Erin, Martha, Kellie, Anne, Myra, Amy, Tonya, and Moi: thank goodness you loved it the first time around because we don’t think we could have rewritten it in a week. HA! HA! ::drinks:: We don’t love our books until we’ve fixed what you say is wrong with them.

Alison and Anya, many thanks for your help with NYC, even though it may horrify you to know what we’ve done with the information. (Who are we kidding—you’re aware.) Helen, thank you for taking the time to help with the Britishisms. And Ian: yay for getting drunk with Lo often enough that she can imagine every single curse word in your accent! Spangly, your help in the art world was invaluable because, if left to our own devices, we would have referred to only the
Mona Lisa
and imagined sculptures made from beakers and nail polish. Lauren Suero, thank you eternally for all your work on the promo side. You are a wealth of knowledge (and awesome shoes).

More love than we can express to our readers, both
old and new. Thank you for cheering us on and for your continued support. We couldn’t do any of this without you. If you prefer to keep your panties intact, at the very least we hope you get ravished in a library.

And finally: Christina, you are the calm to my wild. Lo, you are the wild to my calm. Doing this together is the most fun. Let’s have cake.

A
LSO BY
C
HRISTINA
L
AUREN

Beautiful Bastard

On Sale July 2nd—
Order Your Copy Today!