Beneath Beautiful
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Beneath Beautiful
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Allison Rushby.
Edited by Lauren McKellar
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, stored, scanned, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, including but not limited to mechanical, printed, or electronic form, without prior written permission of the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.
Contact information:
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Cover art (girl neck) © by Mooney Designs. All rights reserved.
Cover art (girl neck and lights) © by Najla Qamber Designs. All rights reserved.
Cover art (girl seated) © by Berto Designs. All rights reserved.
This book contains adult situations and is meant for readers 17+.
Other New Adult books by Allison Rushby
“C
all me Ishmael . . .” The voice startled Cassie, drawing her out of her much-thumbed copy of
Moby Dick
. She looked up through a mess of wind-blown hair, leaving sea salt and whales behind. Suddenly aware of the real world once more, she shifted on her concrete perch and took him in. Tall. A flop of blond-ish brown-ish hair. Greeny-brown eyes to match. Skin that wasn't shockingly white, as was her own, but that wasn't really olive, either. No outstanding features to speak of. He would be a good decade and a half older than her almost twenty-two years, and dressed entirely in black for the chilly autumn day. Shoes, socks, trousers, shirt, jumper, coat, scarf, satchel . . . Black, black, black.
“Goodness.” She ignored his opening line. “Are you in mourning?”
He burst out laughing at this. “Maybe.”
“Oh, God. I'm not sitting on your grandmother or something, am I? I've done that before, you know. I've even been ejected from the cemetery once.” Cassie scrambled off the flat, low grave.
“Ejected from
Père Lachaise
. How rock star of you. Jim would be impressed.”
Cassie grinned slightly. “It does sound amazingly cool, but then I remember I'm also in the exalted company of the flasher I had ejected myself the very next week, so . . .” She cleared her throat. “Is that who you're looking for? Jim Morrison?” It was always Jim Morrison they were looking for in the famous Parisian cemetery. Or Oscar Wilde. Rarely anyone else.
“Actually no. It's Théodore Géricault I'm looking for. But he doesn't seem to be on this useless map.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it slowly, meticulously. “And I thought that seeing as you were reading, rather than wandering around aimlessly with an equally stupid map, you might have an idea where the more obscure dead people might reside in this place.”
In all the years Cassie had sat in
Père Lachaise
and read whichever favourite books she had brought in her suitcase with her to her grandmother's Parisian apartment, no one had ever,
ever
asked her where Théodore Géricault's monument was. No one had ever quoted the first line of the book she was reading, either. Suddenly, she saw this man in a whole new light. In that moment he became more than a black outfit, a haircut and mixed features. She immediately abandoned her book on a plinth and took a step toward him, a moth to his flame. “Cassie,” she said, holding out her hand. “Well, Cassandra, but no one ever calls me that. Not unless I'm in trouble.”
“Cameron.” He took her hand in his. “So, I'm taking it you do know where Monsieur Géricault is. Again, I'm impressed. Perhaps even slightly more impressed by that than by your ejection from the cemetery.”
Ejection. The word stopped Cassie in her tracks now and made her flush, thinking he'd said something else entirely. Not a person who usually thought along such lines, it took her a moment or two to slide back onto the tracks of their conversation and realise he'd said nothing at all suggestive. Or had he? For a second she wondered if it had been a deliberate choice. But no—she had used the word first, hadn't she? And, unlike her, he didn't seem at all flustered. Instead he stood before her, clear-eyed and unabashed, useless map in hand.
How embarrassing. With her mind busy running off on sexual tangents, she hadn't even answered his question. His two questions, to be precise.
“Um, yes. Yes, I do know where he is. Sorry, it's just that I'm . . . surprised. Théodore Géricault isn't someone people go looking for, which I've often thought is rather unfair, especially after they've probably just seen
The Raft of the Medusa
in The Louvre.”
He raised his eyebrows at this. “A painting you like, I take it?”
“Oh, yes. It's amazing. I mean, you almost want to climb right in there and start waving for the ship yourself, don't you?” Cassie felt herself babbling, half-distracted by the undercurrent of questions running through her mind. Where was he from? He had a very nondescript mid-Atlantic accent. Still, he was American, she was sure of it. Maybe he had studied in England? Come to think of it, he seemed familiar somehow. Maybe she knew him vaguely, perhaps from Cambridge? But he was so much older and, anyway, surely he would have said if they knew each other?
“It's the composition, you see. That makes you want to climb in. It's based on two overlapping pyramids . . .” He smiled and stopped himself with a wave of one hand as he stuffed the map back into his pocket with the other. “But I'll bore you.”
“No, really. It's fascinating. Were you an art major? In college?”
“For a while.” He glanced away.
“Oh. Well, um, shall we? I'll walk you there if you like.” Cassie pointed in the direction of Géricault's monument. It was only then that she grasped the fact that she was offering to walk into the bowels of the cold, quiet cemetery with a complete and utter stranger. She narrowed her eyes slightly and turned to him. “Wait. You're not an axe murderer, are you?”
“I don't think so,” he replied. “But you never really know until you're in the heat of the moment, do you? I don't have an axe about me right now, if that makes any difference.”
With this, he opened his coat to demonstrate this fact, and Cassie caught an almost imperceptible whiff of him—clean and masculine, perhaps freshly hotel-showered. She didn't know how to explain it, but in books it would say the smell made her knees weak. The truth was, her knees felt just fine. It was more her stomach and her head, which was suddenly filled with all kinds of odd, fuzzy, abstract thoughts, ranging from,
Why on earth is he really wearing so much black?
to
I wish I'd worn my yellow coat and a nicer scarf
, and even,
Despite the age gap, he's someone my sister might actually think was worthy of me, which would be a first
. Cassie attempted to collect herself. “Well, I suppose that's all right, then. And if you've had the good sense to leave it behind Géricault's monument for later, at least you're an axe murderer with some foresight.”
He laughed at this. “Very true. I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps
you're
the one between the two of us with the axe murdering tendencies?”
There it was again. Surely her mind was playing tricks on her?
“Between the two of us.”
Cassie felt his suggestive words run through her from head to toe.
She took a deep breath. “So, um, shall we?”
She bent down and grabbed her book, attempting to center herself before she stood once more and looked him squarely in the eye. As if she wouldn't rather suggest they go back to his hotel room, and . . . well, you know. See? That was the kind of girl she was. She couldn't even admit to something like that in her head, let alone do it.