Dirty Headlines

I threw my hands in the air. “You’re engaged, psycho!”

“It’s not real.”

“It is to me.”

“Bullshit. You wouldn’t touch a taken man, and we both know it. We aren’t cheaters.”

“Does that mean we’re in some sort of a relationship in your weird mind?”

“Not a relationship, but an arrangement. Yes. Do you think you can handle that?”

I laughed bitterly. “I can’t fall in love, Célian. I’m broken.”

“Good. Let’s be broken together, then.”

He threw the phone into my hands. It was fully charged and ready to be used. It should have made me happy, but it didn’t. I enjoyed having sex with him, and butting heads with him in the newsroom, but what was the point of all this? Love might not be in the cards for me, but I was getting more attached, setting myself up to get hurt more than I already was.

“Open the glove compartment,” he said, still staring at the busy road ahead.

And yet again, I had the feeling he knew exactly what I was thinking. I opened the glove compartment. “What am I looking for?”

“Morrissey.”

I patted the mostly empty space, my hand coming to rest on the familiar shape of my iPod. I yanked it out and squeaked. My precious iPod, with the thousands of songs I’d collected over the years, was back in my hand, and it felt glorious.

“Did someone find it at the hotel?” I turned to him.

“Yes. I did. The night you bailed on me.”

I frowned. “Why did you never give it back?”

He shot me a look I couldn’t decode—maybe bewildered verging on annoyed. “You stole something from me, so I stole something from you.”

Huh. I sat back, considering this. He rubbed his jaw.

“Who’s Kipling?”

Kipling was my notebook. But of course, I didn’t miss an opportunity to mess with him.

“A friend.”

“A good friend?”

I nodded. “Very.”

“How long have you known him?”

I grinned at this. I didn’t know if Célian was aware he was jealous, but I saw it from the outside. “Long enough.”

We drove into Manhattan and parked at his building. He rounded the car, took a duffel bag from the trunk, and we went up to the ground floor and out to the street.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he flung the duffel bag over his shoulder, looking royally pissed and completely disturbed by what we were doing.

“On a date.” He sighed, like I was forcing him to hang out with me at gunpoint.

“Huh?” I laughed. I’d ignored him for just over four days, and he was taking me on a date now? Imagine what would happen if I actually went through with what my brain told me I should do on a daily basis and cut things off with him completely.

“I’m taking you on a date. What’s not to understand?”

“What’s with the duffel bag? Is that in case you’re bad at romancing and have to kill me before I tell anyone?”

We rounded the corner to Central Park West and headed straight to the meadow. He scoffed. “I can charm the panties off of a nun.”

“Charming your way into underwear and into hearts are two different skills.”

“I’m a good multitasker.”

“Not to mention I haven’t agreed to date you. You never even asked,” I pointed out.

“I thought it was a given.”

“Why?”

“You gave me backdoor access—a woman’s version of expensive jewelry.”

“Anyone ever told you you’re a delusional piece of work?”

He smirked. “Is that an actual question? I can count on one hand the number of people I know who haven’t called me that.”

“Just because I like it when you boss me in bed doesn’t mean I want to be with you.” I blushed, fighting the urge to look down and break eye contact. He stopped at the John Lennon memorial, where the word Imagine looked back up at us.

Imagine that Mom is wrong. That I am capable of falling in love. That I am heading into a collision of feelings. That lust and heartache are going to crash together soon, and tragedy will explode.

He laced his fingers in mine, turned me around to face him, and tapped my nose, his lips tilted up arrogantly. “You have skulls on your shoes.”

“You have skulls in your eyes.”

“Are we feeling morbid today, Chucks?”

“No. Just deadly.”

The park was swarming with people. Clusters of tourists, couples, cyclists, parents, and children. Even though Célian wasn’t clad in his usual expensive suit, we still looked so different. For one thing, he was ten inches taller, ten years older, and reeked of a privileged air I lacked in every way. I had dressed like a teenager. He’d dressed like a millionaire. And the way he stood, tall and proud, made people stop and stare.

He put his mouth on mine and kissed me in front of everyone—soft and slow and seductive. Kissed me like no one was around, like we were alone in this city, this park, this planet. He pressed a possessive hand over the small of my back and jerked me to his body.