Play Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) (4 page)

Not only was he half her age—two-thirds?—but
he also had graded every one of her papers. Average. By
his
standards. She’d played the doe-eyed college girl act before. It
didn’t feel good.

“Nice to meet you,” Brooke managed. One final
glance of him, his eyes, his hands, his broad shoulders and narrow
hips, she left, belly in full force flutter. Impossible or not,
there was something delicious in being pursued by a guy like him,
in walking away. In leaving a man slack-jawed and wanting. Her feet
patted away little white tufts all the way to her car.

Chapter Three

Unbelievable
!

Elliott shook his head as she rounded the
corner and out of sight. He stabbed his hand out, her paper
clutched in it, as if to ask, “Did you see that”? But no one was
there to see him do it, let alone answer. Hell, he doubted if one
other person still haunted the building at this hour. He’d be long
gone himself if not for half a stack remaining of grading a week
behind Bernie Shope’s strict deadline.

He’d finally gotten her out of his head and
worked. Then, poof. She’d appeared outside Shope’s door distracted
and glaring. A whole array of reactions had sung through him.
Disbelief. Elation. Then, boom, disappointment—the gut punching
kind—when she caught sight of him and stared, aghast.

She’d completely ignored him, too. All the
while letting him hear her plan a date, every word. Was it with
whoever called her earlier? No. He’d bet money her affectionate
“babe” earlier had been fake. So, someone else then. Someone she
really wanted to see. Fine. Good. She’d shot him down. But, then,
to leave and not even give him her name?

Unreal! Elliott snorted. That’s what he got.
He’d acted on a naïve, romantic impulse buying her those books.
Sitting down next to her in the first place was a disaster. His
people watching, turned crush, turned what, he didn’t know. He’d
actually meant to save her today? Like an idiot. Joining her should
have been the nice thing to do. The honorable thing to do. His
version of a coat over a puddle.

Elliott shook his head skyward. The stack of
papers at his hip, shifted. If he hadn’t freaked her out before,
she certainly was now. Why hadn’t he played it cooler? Acted like
he didn’t even recognize her? Played hard to get.

Elliott stood and instantly regretted the
sudden movement. The tower of papers leaned, wobbled. Too late, he
turned to catch reams of ungraded papers. They crashed to the
floor, scattering on impact. With them, his evening’s plans. Why
couldn’t Shope be a stickler for staples instead of paper clips?
“Shit.”

He’d be up half the night just putting the
papers back in order.

If he hadn’t seen such a difference in her
whenever her friend was around, he might not have developed the
dumb crush to begin with. But he had. He’d witnessed firsthand,
again and again, how her hard edges melted away. And found the
transformation far too attractive. He began looking forward to
witnessing it each week, like being in on a secret. All pretenses
receding, right there where only he seemed to witness, revealing a
vulnerable depth that whispered to him across the crowded room.

Like a poem. No, like music. Hard, forceful,
then softer. Like really good blues. Didn’t matter now. She’d never
show her face again at The Book Exchange. Not when he might be
there. Where else could he possibly see her again anyhow?

Michelle’s curvy shadow fell across the
floor. Had he thought everyone gone at this hour? “It looks like
you could use a drink.”

Elliott looked up. A drink was sounding
better and better.
Michelle
certainly wouldn’t walk away
from him. Quite the opposite. She’d been jumping at every last
whiff of a chance for the last six months. Giving in didn’t sound
so bad after such a set down. Drinks with Shope’s niece might be
risky but his fellowship application couldn’t be on the line over
one beer, could it?

He’d just explain to her how he couldn’t
cross any lines, that he had a career at stake. She’d
understand.

Besides, Shope wasn’t his future’s deciding
factor. The guy wasn’t the type to give a raving review to any
assistant. In fact, Elliott had never counted on one. So, how much
damage could one beer really cause? Or Michelle herself, for that
matter? “Yeah, why not?” Elliott shrugged half-heartedly. “You ever
been to Ramone’s?”

~

“I think I should come with you,” AJ said
from the bathroom doorframe.

Millie shook her head and dabbed a smear of
pale gloss in the center of her lower lip. Two things she was sure
of. One, women’s magazines were full of it when they swore by the
trick she was trying. Pout? Yeah, right. Try stripe. And two, she’d
never get through dinner with AJ there. Her cellmate for this cupid
sentence would be far too distracting.

“No.” She met his eyes by way of his
reflection. She didn’t dare do more. “Thanks, though.”

The last thing she needed was to get lost in
those pale green eyes with less than fifteen minutes to get her
butt gone. Starry-eyed and in a twist would not help her negotiate
Brooke’s anger down. Plus Millie had a new plan. Maybe.

“What will you tell her?”

“I don’t know yet. I can’t exactly tell her
the truth, can I now?”
Brooke
,
I stood you up to
break
into
your condo so I could find you true
love.
Yeah. Right.

“Not the whole truth, but some, yes. You
could.”

What part? The part about Millie’s life
sentence by Heaven for “gross indifference” when she was her former
self, Kiki Kent? Millie gave AJ a look to tell him what she thought
of
that
idea.

Thankfully, AJ didn’t push it. He left her
looking at the face in the mirror that, after three miserable
years, didn’t startle her so much anymore. She doubted it’d ever
feel like hers, though.

When she thought of herself, she was still
Katherine Eleanor Kent, socialite celebri-tante. Kiki. Not the
mysteriously disappeared poor little rich girl, Kiki Kent, either.
Anyone born in the last four decades would know that scandal.
Anyone but her. She didn’t remember her actual disappearance. Only
afterwards, the being marched before God’s court of disapproving
angels area. Trial and sentence. Crime and punishment.

Kiki, what have you done now
?, her
mother would scold. Millie didn’t know. One day she was on her way
to rendezvous with Glen Mitchum before his wife came home. The next
she was in golden cuffs. She was cited with gross indifference.
Apparently doing nothing in life is worse than doing wrong. By
never interfering in the toxic lives surrounding Kiki Kent, she got
here. Here sucked.

Well, all of it except AJ. They were bound
together in their mutual sentences. He was far better a cupid than
she was, however, and if she didn’t match Brooke, AJ’d be
reassigned.

Millie touched her belly where it ached over
the very idea. This Millie in the mirror was shorter than Kiki,
plumper, with an ass that had a mind of its own. Every cosmetic
trick in the book wouldn’t change what God had given Millie. No
dropping jaws when
this
entered a room. No champagne
promises. Maybe a table lamp to the floor if she wasn’t
careful.

Why give her a different body? More
punishment? Or was utter lack of male attention supposed to help
somehow? Being desired came in handy. The right skirt and pouty
glance opened doors and closets. As Kiki, she’d have had this cupid
thing all sewn up and AJ in bed by now.

AJ walked past the bathroom door. One molten
look from him instantly bolstered her self esteem. She let out a
long breath when he paused, shrugged and left her to finish what
was surely an act of desperation, if there ever was one. If only
all that sex exuding from every gorgeous pore was only meant for
her.

It wasn’t. It was part of his own punishment,
his cupid magic developed over who knew how many years. He made his
matches, fast and easy, then was stuck with her until she either
got one right or Heaven intervened.

At least he didn’t mind helping her. From the
start he’d tried to explain how it all worked. Going into wondrous
detail about the chemistry of human attraction, of hormonal
compatibility and how compounds met and evolved in mortal love.
Millie generally lost track right after pheromones diagram A.
Watching his mouth move just did things to her. Tinkered with her
concentration. Plucked at her libido.

She needed to focus. Brooke. Dinner. The
break-in. Her seven slender gold bracelets, her cupid handcuffs,
jingled on her right arm when she powdered her not-so-pert nose.
They constantly reminded her. Brooke Munkle had to fall in
love.

Or Millie wouldn’t get back to her old life.
Or Kiki Kent might as well be dead instead of missing. Or she would
lose AJ.

Millie smiled tightly at her reflection. With
a fluff and a toss of mousy brown curls, she adjusted her meager
bust and exited. AJ stood behind his architect’s desk, scanning her
latest bunch of bachelor files. Mouse sized guilt squeaked inside
her. She should be doing that. Not only was he sex and lust, he was
kindness and consideration, too?

She couldn’t do this without him.

She pulled her coat on. “Any luck?”

AJ shook his head, tossing a file aside.
“Aren’t there any more parameters I can request?”

“If I had any. Good credit, educated, no
felonies, weight, height. No wait, have we added weight? What do
you usually use again?”

“Selecting the Ms. Right is an entirely
different set of parameters.”

“Let me guess. Two, in particular, right?”
she asked.

AJ grinned. There was that, too. He got her
dumb jokes. A finger of heat rippled over her shoulders. She shook
it off, shrugging into the parka. It was snowing in Reno. Again.
Why couldn’t they land a gig somewhere tropical? Why did every last
one have to be in some cold or damp or dirty little city?

The jacket’s material hissed with her
movements. It smelled like swimming pool. “I shouldn’t be
long.”

AJ nodded, his attention back on the files.
Millie waited for something else to say. Today’s miserable failure
had left her drained. The only dirt she could find in Brooke’s
entire place was poor laundry skills and a photo of Brooke’s
wedding day. Zilch, in a nutshell, unless…she’d looked so happy in
the photo. “Has her ex-husband’s file come in yet?”

AJ shook his head. Millie let out a nice
long, loud sigh. Ahh. Forget it.

She was stalling and, while leaving AJ always
felt a bit like caffeine withdrawal, she needed to get to Ramone’s.
To Brooke.

To pinpoint why her wedding day was the first
thing Brooke needed to see when she came home.

Millie grabbed her keys and left. She half
wanted to forget the whole mess and let Brooke stay pissed. Buy
some time to send AJ with more parameters, time to brainstorm. But
Brooke would only get madder. This assignment didn’t need to get
harder.

Wouldn’t it be nice if she could just explain
the truth. “You see, Brooke, I’m a new cupid, a felon of sorts on
community service so to speak, and I’m crap at it. I haven’t made a
match in the three years I’ve been stuck in this mess. However,
you, Brooke, are in luck. I have vowed to find you love if it’s the
last thing I do. And it might be. So, while you were waiting for me
today, all embarrassed and angry, I was picking your lock, invading
your apartment and begging the universe for a break in your case so
I could isolate some schmuck to love you, ditch off one of these
bangles here, and get back to who I used to be. Fabulous. See? No
need to get mad. No need to fret. Get on board, help me help you.
All that shit. Sound good?”

Good.

Five minutes later, Millie swerved into
Ramone’s and parked. She spotted Brooke’s Acura. Steam wafted from
her mouth only to be sucked off by the wind. She shook her hands
out. Now or never. No wonder she still wore all seven gold bands.
Love just wasn’t her drink of choice. Give her a shot of like any
day. Lust on the rocks. She trudged up the wet slope of strip mall
parking lot to the restaurant’s door. Red checked tablecloths and
candle-dripped wicker wine bottles faked authenticity. Scents of
Florence sunsets, memories of Andalusia beaches, hovered in her
mind’s peripheries.

She stepped inside and the warm air gusted
her nostalgia back to nausea.

“Table for one?” greeted the Hispanic
hostess.

“I’m meeting someone,” Millie said, ignoring
the relief on the woman’s face. “I think she’s here already.”

“Ah, yes. Your friend. You are Maleficent,
no?”

A villainess? Well, close enough. Millie
nodded and followed her to the rear of the restaurant, her doom
climbing with each step. She pulled off her jacket. She could do
this. She had to do this. If she were ever going to get back to her
life, to those beaches, those restaurants--.

Brooke stood up so fast, she knocked her
chair over. The hostess scurried to correct it and Millie smiled
wider. Brooke flushed, rolled her eyes skyward, and for a moment,
not a drop of tension remained between them.

“Before you say anything, Brooke, let me tell
you again, I’m so sorry.” Millie sat. “I’m a terrible friend. I
should have called you and warned you that I couldn’t come today.
It was thoughtless. I should have been there to read your paper.
Something important came up at the last minute and I just didn’t
have time.”

“Honestly, Millie.” Brooke drank from her ice
water’s straw. The ice crashed against the glass. “I don’t really
care.”

“You don’t care?” Millie’s stomach hitched.
Benign words for her diffident air. Had she gone and done something
else wrong? “So, you forgive me?”

“It’s my own fault, really. You’re always
late. Me, getting my hopes up.” Her hand went to her chest. “My
counting on you is my mistake.”