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Her beautiful eyes hardened when she saw it was me at the door.
“What’s up,” she replied dryly.
I smirked, loving, as always, how feisty she was.
“Can we talk?” I asked, then seeing her about to protest, added, “I promise not to take up too much of your time since I have a flight to catch in”—I paused to glance at my watch— “an hour.”
Her perfectly arched eyebrows drew together in a frown.
“You’re leaving? Now? But, we aren’t due to fly out until this evening.”
Minutes ago, her body language had been tense and defensive. Now, she looked…concerned. There was hope for me after all.
Instead of answering, I asked, “May I come inside?”
She re-crossed her arms and rather begrudgingly stepped back, allowing me to enter the room.
It was a smaller, basic room. I doubted she’d let me upgrade her room for the rest of her stay, which was only about eight or so more hours.
The door slammed loudly behind me.
“You wanted to talk, go ahead,” Kerenza said. Her voice, usually soft and melodic, was flat and hard.
Clearing my throat, I carefully placed my hands in my pockets, the picture of calm, when really, my heart was beating out of control.
“You were right,” I began, figuring I might as well dive right in. “I have been keeping something from you.”
And just like that, the tension returned to Kerenza’s body. Her shoulders went stiff, and she went completely still.
“I knew it,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew it. You’re fucking around with Isobel behind my back.”
“Never. I would never do that. To you or to anyone,” I replied calmly. The worst thing you could do when being accused of cheating was get all up in arms, especially when the accusation wasn’t true.
Kerenza held out her arms. “Then what, then? What the hell are you keeping from me? Because I can feel it in my bones that you’re keeping something from me.”
I blew out a hard breath. It was time to tell her the complete truth.
“That day, at Underthingz, when you came up, introduced yourself and shook my hand—”
Impatient, she cut me off, asking, “What about it?”
“That wasn’t actually the first time I met you.”
A ‘v’ appeared between her eyebrows.
“What do you mean?”
“The truth is, I saw you, for the first time, nine months ago in LA.” Her pretty lips parted, but I had to keep going. I had to get everything out in the open. “You were on a photoshoot, modelling this…red number and I just…I was mesmerized.”
I paused, savoring the memory of that day.
“Right off, I was attracted to you. What man wouldn’t be? But it was more than that; I felt drawn to you. From there, I found you online. When I discovered you worked at Underthingz, I may have let it slip to a mutual acquaintance of mine and Gayle’s that I was open to taking on new campaign work. The rest is history.”
The longer I’d talked, the more Kerenza’s mouth morphed into the shape of an ‘O.’ Shock didn’t come close to describing the expression on her face.
“So,” she started, drawing the word out. “You saw me months ago.”
“Correct.”
