Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

Without skipping a beat, Chloe slipped her arm through mine and pulled me forward as a tall, older gentleman led us from the foyer to the main living areas.

“You okay?” Chloe asked.

“I’m not sure this was a good idea.”

I heard her inhale a sharp breath and then she said, “Actually, that may be true.”

I looked up and followed her attention across the room to where Max had walked in, just behind Will.

He wore a tux, similar to the one he wore at the gala weeks ago. But tonight the vest beneath his jacket was white and his eyes were flat. His mouth smiled in greeting to everyone in the room. But the smile never made it into his eyes.

There were maybe a hundred other people looking at his art, wandering into the kitchen to grab a glass of wine, or standing in the center of the room, talking. But I felt frozen near the wall.

Why had I worn red? I felt like a wannabe siren among the muted creams and blacks. What was I hoping to accomplish? Did I want him to see me?

Whether or not I wanted him to, he didn’t. At least, he didn’t seem to. Max walked around the room, talking to his guests, thanking them for coming. I tried to pretend I wasn’t staring at his every move but it was useless.

I missed him.

I didn’t know what he felt, what was real and what wasn’t. I didn’t know what we had really been.

“Sara.”

I turned at the sound of Will’s uniquely deep voice.

“Hi, Will.” I hated seeing him so serious. I’d rarely seen either Max or Will unsmiling. This looked all wrong.

He studied me for a beat, and then murmured, “Does he know you’re here?”

I looked across the room at where Max stood, speaking to two older women. “I don’t know.”

“Should I tell him?”

I shook my head and he sighed. “He’s been such a useless bastard. I’m really glad you came.”

Laughing a little, I admitted, “I’m still undecided.”

“I’m really sorry,” he said quietly.

I met his eyes. “You don’t have to apologize for Max’s indiscretions.”

His brow furrowed and he shook his head once. “He never told you?”

My heart fell and then immediately began thundering. “Told me what?”

But Will took a step back, seeming to reconsider saying anything else. “Oh, you really haven’t talked to him yet.”

I shook my head and he looked over my shoulder, to where Max stood. Will put his hand on my arm. “Don’t leave without talking to him, okay?”

I nodded and looked back to Max, who was standing with a beautiful brunette. She had her hand on his arm and was laughing at something he said. Laughing too much, trying too hard.

When I turned back around, Will was gone.

Suddenly needing air, I turned and walked down the closest hall. Down here, there were no caterers carting trays of food, no guests mingling. Just a wide hallway lined with closed doors. Between each were beautiful photographs of trees and snow, lips and hands and spines.

Where was I going? Was there more Max to discover here? Would I stumble into a room filled with a woman’s things? Was the reason he’d always been so amenable to staying away from his place the fact that it allowed him to have a private space for someone else?

Why was I even here?

Hearing footsteps, I quickly ducked into a room at the end of the hall.

Inside, away from the crowd, it was so quiet I could hear my pulse whooshing in my ears.

And then, I looked around.

I was in an enormous bedroom, with a huge bed in the middle. On the bedside table, which held the only lit lamp in the room, was a framed photograph of me.

In it, I stood, staring at the camera, with my fingers poised on the button of my shirt, lips parted. I looked at once surprised and relieved.

I remembered that exact moment. He’d just told me he loved me.

Whipping around, I looked at the wall behind me. More photos: My back as I reached behind me to take off my bra. My face as I looked down to unzip my skirt; smiling. My face looking up at him in the morning sun.

I stumbled forward, wanting to escape the realization that I had messed up, hugely. That there was more here for me to understand. But past another door was an expansive dressing room, and if possible, it was worse.

The room was exploding with intimacy. There were probably thirty pictures of us, all black-and-white, all different sizes, artfully tiered and layered across the simple cream paint.

Some were chaste and simply beautiful. A picture I’d taken of his lips pressed against the top of my foot. His thumb sweeping across a small exposed strip of my abdomen as he pushed my shirt up my torso.

Some were erotic but restrained, suggestive of a moment where we were lost in each other, but not showing how. My teeth biting his earlobe, only mouth and jaw visible against his skin but with me clearly gasping, close to climax. Or my torso, beneath him. My fingernails dug into his shoulders and my thighs were pulled up high to my sides.

A few were downright filthy. My hand wrapped around his erection. A blurry shot of him moving in me from behind, in the warehouse.

But the one that stopped me dead in my tracks was the one taken from the side the night at my apartment. I didn’t even realize Max had set his camera on a timer but it was an awkward angle, with the camera sitting on my bedside table. In the picture, Max was over me, his hips flexed as he pushed inside. One of my legs wound around his thigh. He was propped above me on his forearms, leaning down over me as we kissed. Our eyes were closed, faces devoid of any tension whatsoever.

It was us, making love, caught in a single perfect image.

And, beside it, a picture of his lips open around my breast, his eyes gazing up at me with naked adoration.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“No one is meant to be in here.”

I jumped, pressing my hand to my chest at the sound of his voice. Closing my eyes, I asked, “Not even me?”

“Especially not you.”

I turned around to look at him but it was a mistake. I should have taken a bigger breath, prepared myself somehow for how he would look up close: crisp, put-together, unbelievably gorgeous.

But at the edges: broken. Dark lines circled his unsmiling eyes. His lips were tight and pale.

“I was having a hard time out there,” I admitted. “The room, the couch . . .”

He looked up at me, eyes hard. “It was like that for me when I came home from San Francisco, you know. I wanted to buy all new furniture.”

We drowned in a heavy silence after that until he finally looked away. I didn’t know where to start. I had to remember that his phone had pictures of other women on it, ones more recent than those of me. But here in this room, he seemed more hurt than I did.