“Ah,” I say. It makes sense now.
“Yeah, and he would make me watch so many films when I was younger. Like, so many. All the classics. All Hitchcock, all Preminger. Lots of foreign films, too. He was obsessed with Ingrid Bergman.” Her smile fades a bit and her voice drops. “Anyway, he left when I was ten years old. Fell in love with a younger woman. Maybe he was trying to emulate Roberto Rossellini, I don’t know. He moved back to France. And my mother became a single mom. She did not like that. Her self-esteem problems multiplied, and they were already pretty bad.” She shakes her head to herself, her eyes taking on a faraway look. She sighs and grabs the bottle of Scotch. “My mother is quite the character. You’d hate her. Sometimes I think I hate her too, but mainly I feel sorry for her. Which is kind of worse.”
“I think I understand that.” My relationship with my brother Lachlan has sometimes taken that route.
“You know what my mother used to say to me when I was younger?” she says, leaning in. “She used to say I better not be prettier than her when I’m her age.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, talk about giving me a fucking complex. At the same time, all she would do is praise my looks, along with the daily bomb about how I need to lose weight.”
“You don’t need to lose weight,” I can’t help but say. “You’re perfect the way you are.”
She gives me one of those wry, embarrassed smiles that tells me she doesn’t believe it. “Then, at the end of high school I joined the track team and I did start to lose weight. She pushed me into doing modeling, then some acting. The acting was fine, the modeling was a bore, and when track was done and I graduated, the weight started creeping back. I mean, I was never fat. I was pretty much what I am now. But boobs and ass and thunder thighs do not a model make. Nor an actress for that matter, unless you can score a gig on Mad Men. No matter what I did, I couldn’t please her. When I was thinner, she got jealous, and when I was back to normal, she’d find some way to insinuate that I was fat.”
What a witch, I think to myself, feeling protective over her. What I told her was true. I do find her perfect, at least in my eyes. She does have curves and she’s not skinny, but her waist is small and her arse is unreal, and her eyes threaten to take me away somewhere. Somewhere new and very beautiful.
Flashes of heat and guilt compete with each other. I take in a deep breath and force my thoughts to behave.
“Did your mother ever remarry?” I ask her.
She starts twirling the Scotch bottle on the desk. “No. But she’s tried. She can’t be alone, ever, that’s her other thing. She always has a man in her life, usually some idiot. When they cheat on her or break up with her, as they invariably do since what man wants to feel second to her narcissism and ego, she moves on to someone else right away. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her single for more than a few weeks.” She sighs, blowing a strand of dark auburn hair out of her face, and stares up at the ceiling. “Man, I wish I smoked.”
I tap the desk. “I have a cigar.”
She perks up. “Really? Care to split it with me?”
I grin at her. Lachlan gave me a box of cigars on my last birthday, and I usually only smoke them with him or my father on special occasions, though I have a few of them in my desk. It would be nice to share one with her. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I used to have a few with my dad in Marseilles.”
“You sound so cultured,” I tell her, opening my drawer. “A woman of the world.”
I bring out the box and pick up a couple of them, smelling them and checking for dryness. When I’ve selected one, I start rummaging for a lighter.
“I got one,” she says, reaching into her jeans and pulling out a Zippo. I give her a questioning look and she shrugs, giving me a lazy smile. “A woman of the world should always be prepared.”
She tosses it to me, and I catch it with one hand. I smirk proudly at my achievement, glad I didn’t fall out of my chair trying to impress her.
“And what else does a woman of the world carry?” I ask her, smoothly flicking on the Zippo and watching the flame dance.
“A notepad and pen, for writing love letters. Or hate mail. Or grocery lists. A mirror because I always have stuff in my teeth.” At that she rubs her fingers along her teeth and bares them at me.
“You’re good,” I tell her.
She continues. “Also floss. For the same reason. And you can use it tie shit together. Gum, because fresh breath, and in case you need to MacGyver yourself out of a situation. Hand cream that smells pretty. A passport in case you fall in love with a foreign man who sweeps you off your feet.” She pauses. “And condoms.”
I raise my brows. Jesus. I’m both strangely jealous of the idea of her using condoms because it means she’s not using them with me, and turned on because…well, now I’m imagining the two of us in a situation that would require one.
“Now, are we going to smoke this thing or not?” she says, straightening up.
I nod, clearing my throat. My cheeks feel hot. “We’ll have to take a stroll somewhere. I can get away with some Scotch in my office, but smoking a cigar is something else.” I get out of my chair and grab my leather moto jacket. It’s late June, but the evenings have been chilly lately. As I put the jacket on, I ask her, “So, what is the Zippo for?”
She wraps a burgundy scarf around her neck that matches her hair and smiles. “In case Professor Blue Eyes wants to smoke a cigar with you.”