Page 103 of Tangled Up In You

She was as stunning as the last time he saw her some six months ago when she’d tagged along with Sophie to Rogue’s New York gig. They had shared one fiery night together and left it at that, partly because she was living with her photographer boyfriend at the time. She was also very young. Barely twenty-one, if he remembered correctly. Now twenty-nine, he was beginning to feel age differences like that more acutely.

Tonight, she was wearing a filmy cream dress with black lace trim that fell short against her thighs and strappy heels that made her slightly taller than him. With olive skin, rich brown eyes, and a wild mane of chestnut hair, she was a knockout. The addition of long legs, slim waist, and large breasts explained her rapid rise in modeling.

“Aren’t you a vision,” Conor murmured to her as he leaned in and gave her cheek a tender, lingering kiss.

“Good to see you, too,” she said with a smile.

They had inadvertently set off a vigorous round of new photographs that would catch their revealing body language as they stood close together, her hand still on his forearm.

“Are you going inside or straight to the party?” she asked.

“That depends.”

“On?”

“You,” he said, as he pulled his sunglasses off to look her in the eye.

Colette watched him for a moment, and he knew she was prolonging this to tease him.

“That simple, is it?” she finally asked with a small smile.

“It is,” he replied matter-of-factly.

They stood staring into each other’s eyes for a moment longer, ignoring the cries of their names and the continued clicking of cameras.

“Then take me out of here,” she finally said, and Conor smiled in return.

“Mate,you missed a great party last night. Where’d you go?” Jackson asked over the phone.

“I, em, ran into a friend,” Conor said softly, eyeing Colette as she slept soundly next to him. They had spent a good part of the night exploring each other’s bodies, leaving little room for talk. Their chemistry was phenomenal. He had forgotten how much fun she was, and it made him wonder if she still had a boyfriend.

“I take it by the whisper that the girl is still there,” Jackson said with an amiable laugh. “Well, anyway, you weren’t the only no-show. I was expecting a girl—a woman—to come but, alas, I was disappointed.”

“I didn’t know movie stars got stood up,” Conor said with a laugh.

“No, you wouldn’t think so, would you? I’ll track her down yet.”

“So, who is the lovely?”

“She’s a model I’ve seen once or twice. Sophie probably knows her—Colette Devereaux.”

“Fuck me,” Conor muttered.

“What?”

“Seems we have a mutual friend.”

There was an uncomfortable silence on the line.

“I see. Well, there it is. No use getting upset about it,” Jackson finally said.

“I really had no idea, Jack. I guess I should have sorted it out, though.”

“No, there wasn’t anything to be sorted out. She’s slippery, Conor. At least with me she was. She couldn’t stand to think five minutes into the future. So I didn’t really lose much.”

“Still …”

“Fuck it, you know? There’s plenty more out there and it’s not like I went without last night.”

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