Before Daylight Page 4

  Lola’s tenderness, on the other hand, was palpable, and it made it difficult to stay angry at her. Even though she’d caused a major inconvenience for Laura.

  She pulled away from her grandmother, unable to bear her pity. “I’ll fix it.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “I think you’ve helped enough.”

  * * * *

  Laura was hoping that Charlie wouldn’t pick a trendy restaurant for their first and last date. Her hopes were dashed when he called her and told her that he’d made reservations at Juvia, a trendy spot near the beach with a rooftop dining room.

  Any hope she had of not being seen by any gossipmongers was dashed when he’d suggested it. She was sure he would have picked another place had she put her foot down, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The notion that this wasn’t a real date was dashed when she picked up the phone and heard his deep, raspy voice. He didn’t even have to be in the room for him to affect her on a primal, physical level. She’d never felt like that before from just words, and it was disconcerting.

  The man she’d married tested her hard-won equilibrium over the phone, but he blew it to smithereens when she walked out of her condo building to find him standing by a sexy, black sports car, wearing a suit that looked as though it had found fabric nirvana just resting against his skin.

  Her husband was seriously sexy, which made it all the more imperative that he sign the papers folded neatly inside her handbag. She couldn’t afford to let the warm feeling that overtook her whenever he was near steer her off course.

  Not after all these years of sacrifice. Now that she was finally at the pinnacle of her career—or close to it—she couldn’t afford to slide back down the face of the mountain. Because who would she be without ballet?

  Probably someone like her mother, who had no passions of her own. Her mother had lived through her father’s success. She hadn’t done anything with her considerable intellect, and she was miserable. Her mother’s misery filled her parents’ house, and Laura could barely stand to be there. Half the time, she thought that the will to become a professional dancer had come from the sheer desire not to be at home.

  And, despite the disparaging words from his ex-wife, Charlie was the kind of man that women threw away dreams for. Against that dark thought, Laura squared her shoulders and approached him as though he wasn’t a walking live wire, ready to shock her carefully constructed life to death if she let him touch her.

  “You look gorgeous.” Such a cheap line that worked when it came from Charlie, with his pretty eyes and roguish smirk.

  “I know.” He gave her a full-on smile at that.

  “Of course, you do.” He opened the car door, and his hand went to her lower back.

  She startled, but he didn’t move his hand away. And she swore she could hear a sizzling burn from the touch of his hand through her filmy sun dress. It was God-awful hot this time of year, but the humid air wasn’t the only reason she was sweating a half hour after getting out of the shower.

  She took her seat, half to get away from his touch, half because she didn’t want him to stop touching her. He must have just arrived because the interior of the car was still cool from air conditioning. Still, she wanted to fan herself to get the flush to leave her skin. One little caress and he had her heart beating as though she’d just rehearsed a solo piece for an hour. He got in and started the car again.

  He looked over at her for a second when she reached toward the air vents to capture some of the cool air. Even that had a tinge of heat. She’d underestimated his appeal from the start, thinking he would be good for a fun night on the beach. A wedding fling. She hadn’t realized that he was dangerous to her peace of mind.

  “Are you hot?” He didn’t keep the amusement out of his voice.

  The problem with a guy like Charlie was that he snuck up on sexy. He was like a chili pepper that didn’t hit the taste buds right away, but turned into a five-alarm emergency after thirty seconds of slurping up whatever it was in.

  “It’s 95 degrees and a hundred percent humidity.” She glared at him, angry that he could see how disheveled she felt around him. He made her feel as though someone had ransacked her insides. “What do you think?”

  “Aren’t you used to that, growing up here?”

  “I never spent much time outside as a kid.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  She shrugged. “I was busy dancing.”

  “You sound sad when you say that.” Irritation had her digging her fingernails into her palm, a habit she’d picked up to deal with jerky dance partners to prevent herself from yelling at them and risking one dropping her on her ass at the first opportunity.

  “I’m not sad. It’s the truth.”

  He moved his right hand to the top of the wheel, sort of creating a shield between him and her. She should like the fact that she’d put him on the defensive, but it disappointed her. Part of her wanted him to probe and find out more about her. She wanted to know more about him. Sure, they were getting an annulment as soon as possible, but she should know something about the man she’d married other than the fact that she was going to regret not consummating the marriage.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “Just outside of Chicago.” His body loosened, encouraging her to ask for more.

  “Not quite as hot there.” She looked down at her hands, not sure what she should say next. She didn’t really know anything about this man, and she was curious as to why she’d done something so terribly impulsive with him. “What’s your family like?”

  He shifted his hands on the steering wheel again, and his body was more open to her. “Really normal.”

  She snorted. “What’s that like?”

  “Your family seems pretty normal to me.”

  “You haven’t met my parents then?”

  “No, just Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez.”

  “The Delgados are nothing like the Hernandezes.”

  “Really, how so?”

  She paused, not quite ready to open up. “I asked you about your family. Tell me about normal.”

  “When I was growing up, my dad ran a newspaper, which is now a media conglomerate. All my brothers work for him.”

  “But not you?” Charlie’s brow furrowed, and Laura wanted to run her finger across his forehead, smoothing the creases. She wanted to soothe him, but didn’t know how. It wasn’t often that she didn’t know how to fix something.

  “I didn’t exactly meet my father’s expectations.”

  “They were demanding?”

  “Yes.” He sighed and moved his hand as though he was about to touch her, but stopped and put his hand back on the wheel. They were close to the restaurant now; traffic had been mostly quiet. Laura had this feeling of time slipping away, as though she was about to lose an opportunity to really get to know this man.

  “My parents didn’t expect much.” She said it, hoping maybe that if she showed him a bit of herself, that he would do the same. It didn’t make any sense—this prying—but she had to know more about this man who filled her with delicious feelings, even though any involvement with him would be deeply inconvenient.

  “But look at what you’ve achieved.”

  “It’s not really important.”

  “More important than what I do.”

  “Maybe.”

  They both went silent, but she felt bad about him thinking that his work wasn’t important. As a dancer, she often felt like something pretty and frivolous. A luxury, not a necessity. With previous boyfriends—few and far between as they had been—she’d felt like a trophy. Guys liked to say they were banging a ballerina, but they didn’t so much like the long evenings alone. Every relationship she’d ever tried to start had stalled when the guys realized that ballet was her true love.

  And she didn’t dare date other dancers. The compet
ition and vanity didn’t make for anything healthy.

  Sitting in the car with Charlie, talking about their families, felt kind of nice. Normal. She’d never even thought she’d get married and have kids when she was done dancing professionally. But the thought of it often made her feel as though she was facing down a prison sentence.

  Normal for Laura felt like a punishment. From the few words Charlie had said on the subject of his normal childhood, they didn’t see things so differently.

  Chapter 4

  Charlie wasn’t sure where this date had gone off the rails. Maybe it was when she walked out of her front door, looking stricken by the sight of him. Her fear had thrown him. The last thing he wanted was for her to be afraid. Maybe it had been a mistake insisting that she go out to dinner with him before signing off on an annulment. She did look gorgeous, but she’d winced when he told her so. She seemed to be the only woman he’d met in the last few years who vexed him completely.

  He had trouble forming whole sentences around her. His palms were sweaty, and not getting a hard-on when touching her lower back had been a feat. He was never this uncouth. After his ex told the whole world that he was a terrible lover, he’d tried to re-build his reputation. Never a dissatisfied customer.

  But he had a formula, and he purposefully never talked about anything controversial. Nothing that could get too deep. And that was why none of his relationships ended up very deep.

  He’d thought he liked it that way.

  And then she had to go and ask about his family. The people who thought he was a commitment-phobic dilettante. His older brothers and his parents thought that moving to Miami had been all about putting off growing up. In reality, it had been the opposite. He wanted to settle down and have roots somewhere. But he didn’t want his roots to be underneath the stifling canopy of being a Laughlin in Chicago. His father’s reputation was so overpowering and lofty that it would always overshadow anything that Charlie did.

  Her asking about them hit a nerve, and he was at a loss for how to respond.

  Instead of trying and failing to make conversation during the rest of the ride to the restaurant, he brooded about his family instead. Laura sat with a serene demeanor, having no idea that she’d picked at something that had been bothering him his whole life.

  His father’s shadow didn’t bother Jack, Danny, Sean, Jamie, and Michael as much. But it bothered Charlie. He wanted something of his own. And what he did might not be important journalism, but he liked the programs he was working on right now. He was letting people travel without leaving their living rooms.

  He snuck a look at Laura through his peripheral vision. She was goddamned gorgeous. Elegant and utterly appealing. If she hadn’t been drunk the night of Jonah’s wedding, she never would have looked twice at him. She was the kind of woman who married a shady billionaire, not a bro from Chicago who owed his career to his dad.

  He’d thought he would meet the right woman once he moved down here. Someone different from the women his mother thought he should be connected with—rather who his mother thought the family should be connected with.

  He never thought he’d accidentally get married to a woman like Laura—gorgeous, talented, even Catholic—his mother would be over the moon. Except they weren’t going to be married for long. She didn’t want him, and that was a knife, deep in his gut.

  When they got inside the restaurant, the maître d’ showed them to a table near the corner of the roof. He’d asked for a private table because Laura had seemed hesitant about being seen in public with him. He’d wanted to bring her here because he’d heard her when she’d said that she didn’t get many nights off, and he wanted to take her someplace special. He had to balance that against her desire to keep their brief marital affiliation private. Taking her out—even if that meant showing her off—had won out.

  But when they sat down, it felt like a business meeting. Especially so when she reached into her purse and pulled out papers. Heat crept up his neck, and he clenched his jaw. This wasn’t a real marriage, and he should be surprised that she wanted out of it as quickly as possible. Still, he couldn’t help but feel rejected. He didn’t have to feel that way very often anymore—not unless he visited his family.

  He chose to ignore the gauntlet she’d thrown down, disguised as some folded up sheets of paper. Instead, he picked up the menu. “The food’s good here. Do you like scallops?”

  Laura ignored him and pushed the papers over. “You should look these over—have a lawyer look at them before you sign anything.”

  Charlie looked up and stared into her inscrutable, nearly black, gaze. “Do you have a pen?”

  She didn’t look away, but rooted around in her purse for a few moments, pulling out a black pen. He placed the menu carefully over his table setting, wanting to toss it instead. He opened the sheaf of papers, aware of her watching him the whole time. Not taking the time to read the document, he signed and dated the bottom and pushed them back at her.

  He didn’t know why it bothered him so much that she’d brought the annulment papers out to dinner. In fact, he’d kind of expected it. She didn’t want to be married to him. They didn’t know each other, and he could almost feel her disdain toward him in the air when they were together. There was just some part of him that wanted to tap back into the kind of passion she’d had when she’d let go and danced with him the night of the wedding. He wanted more of that reckless abandon, that unfettered lust. Despite her cold exterior, he had the feeling that the woman he’d met in Bali was more of the real her, and he might be the only person who cared to coax her out.

  The icy ballerina served everyone else—the ballet company, her family, even the dancer herself sometimes. But he couldn’t shake the notion that she’d zeroed in on him for a reason, goaded him into doing shots with her for a reason, married him for a reason. He just had to keep her hanging out with him long enough to find out.

  “So, do you like scallops?”

  * * * *

  “You should really look that over carefully.” For a moment, when he looked at her over their annulment papers, she’d thought he wouldn’t sign them. There’d been so much anger and hurt in his gaze that guilt had rolled her stomach for a second. And then he’d signed them, pushed them away as though they were distasteful and asked her what she’d wanted for dinner as though nothing had happened. It was as though the pain shining out of him no longer existed.

  He wanted to act like this was a normal date?

  “Why do I need to look them over carefully? Did I just sign over a kidney?”

  “No, we each keep what’s ours.”

  He looked up from the menu again, this time a crooked smile on his face. His mouth was so fucking sexy. She wanted to taste him again. Wanted to pull his full lower lip in between her teeth and know she had him at her mercy. She wanted to roll around in the smell of him and fuck him. She’d never been quite so driven by the need to fuck as she was when she was around Charlie. She was a physical person, and he was objectively gorgeous—simply a well put together human—but there was something about him that drove her absolutely crazy.

  She could almost understand marrying him impulsively if she were anyone else, if she hadn’t trained the spontaneity out of herself with brutal, ruthless precision.

  When she didn’t stop looking at him, he winked at her, and her sex flooded. He was lethal and she would do well to forget it. She would have a nice, civilized meal with him. Keep it light—first and last date talk—and go home. She might run into him if she was hanging out with Carla and Jonah, but she didn’t hang out so her exposure to him would be limited.

  She cleared her throat and looked down at her menu. Everything looked delicious. She wanted to order everything and take a bite of each dish. But that would be decadent, and she doubted her pas de deux partner would appreciate the overindulgence at rehearsal tomorrow. So she went forward as she hoped to move on with
someone as scary-sexy as Charlie, she stayed safe.

  “I think I’m going to get the salmon.”

  * * * *

  It was the worst first date that Charlie had ever been on. Awkward silences, stilted small talk, and an overly attentive server who had the gall to flirt with his date set his teeth on edge. Of course, the waiter recognized Laura. Being a ballerina was not like being a pop star, but she was a principal dancer and gorgeous to boot.

  He really shouldn’t blame her for indulging the guy, but he wouldn’t fucking leave them alone, stomping all over his last nerve. But Charlie couldn’t help but want her to smile at him that way. There was no way he could charm his wife into dating him if she refused to pay him any attention.

  The only saving grace was getting to watch her eat. He’d been prepared for her to complain or order something boring and healthy off menu, but surprised him. She made noises when taking the first bite and the second which curled around his dick like one of her soft hands, making it hard for him to breathe.

  “Is something wrong with your dish, sir?”

  Charlie shook his head, hoping to clear some of the filthy shit in his head. “No. It’s delicious.”

  He put another bite of steak into his mouth, but it tasted like nothing compared to the memory of almost having Laura Delgado. Of having her panting and moaning and begging for him to finish her off. He wondered if she would let herself go like that again, or if Bali was a one-time thing. He wondered if she could give herself over, or if she’d suffered the same temporary insanity that had taken him.

  Finally, after what felt like an hour, the waiter left to see to his other tables.

  “Why are you so grumpy?” Laura winked at him. “I agreed to have dinner with you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you agreed to have dinner with me.” Why was he being such an asshole? He wasn’t usually an asshole. Or, at least he tried not to be. “Not the fucking waiter.”

  “Jealous?”

  “And if I was?” He looked at her purse, where she’d tucked in the annulment papers.