Beautiful Mistake

My apartment wasn’t very big, but it was clean and decorated in a shabby chic way that I loved. Caine looked around, taking in the crazy different patterns all over the place. Each chair at my small kitchen table was different. Two of the walls in the living room were painted deep red and lined with art or photos framed in matte black, while the other walls were nude and stark.

After a minute, he nodded.

“What?”

“This fits you.” His tone didn’t indicate whether that was a good thing or bad.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. It just feels like you should live here.”

“Because it’s a little crazy?”

His lip twitched. “Maybe.”

My hands went to my hips. “What exactly does your apartment look like?”

Still surveying everything around him, he seemed to give my question some thought. “It looks like anyone could live in the place. Lots of white, black, and stainless steel. I’ve lived in my house for five years and never realized it says nothing about me until I walked in here.”

Hmm. No idea what to make of that. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

Caine smiled. “You should. It was meant that way.”

I had been just about to get dressed when the bell rang, and I completely forgot what I was wearing until Caine’s eyes reminded me. He wasn’t leering or anything, but I watched as his eyes did a sweep up and down my body, and I felt exactly where they lingered. The sheer T-shirt I was wearing left little to the imagination, and my nipples had hardened as he stepped off the elevator. Watching him check me out, I could feel them saluting through the fabric.

“Okay…I’ll…uh…go finish getting ready. There’s coffee brewed in the kitchen, if you want.”

I disappeared into my bedroom. The outfit I’d planned on wearing seemed suddenly not good enough for Caine West to appreciate, and I wound up changing three times before I even started to dry my hair and swipe on some makeup. When I was finally ready, it was close to ten o’clock. I thought I’d find Caine tapping his foot, but instead he still seemed intrigued by my apartment. I found him studying the framed pictures on the wall.

“I’m so sorry. I lost track of time.”

“It’s fine. I helped myself to two cups of coffee.”

“Oh, good.”

As I dumped my thesis files and notes into an old leather tote, I noticed Caine had stopped in front of a framed black and white photo.

“Is this your mother?”

I’d looked at it so often that I knew every nuance in the photo, even without looking. She was sitting on a swing in the yard of the house I grew up in, a white daisy tucked behind her ear. Her smile sparkled so wide, I sometimes used it to brighten my day.

“Yes.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you. She was.”

He turned to me and studied my face. “You look just like her.”

“Cancer,” I blurted out.

I had no idea what possessed me to say it. To this day, I don’t think I’ve spoken about her to anyone but my sister. I’ve been friends with Ava since we started undergraduate school five years ago, she was my roommate for years, and she has no idea what my mother died from. It wasn’t a secret; I just kept a lot of things bottled up.

I stared at the photo. “Ovarian.”

Caine put his hand on my back and gently rubbed. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” I cleared my throat and pointed to a different picture. “This is my Aunt Rose and Uncle Nate—my mom’s sister and her husband. They raised me and my sister after…well, they raised us as their own after Mom died. My father wasn’t in the picture from the time I was an infant.” Even though I’d opened the bottle voluntarily, I wanted to cork it. “You ready? They serve lunch at twelve-thirty, and I don’t like to interrupt Umberto’s routine.”

“Just waiting on you. As usual.”

“Do you need to be back at any specific time? Sometimes I take a break and write my notes while he has lunch and does an activity or two. Then I go back and finish up.”

“Nope. I’m yours for the entire day.”

I liked the sound of that.

Rachel

Caine drove a stick shift, a little old Porsche that had been meticulously maintained. I don’t know anything about cars, but I suspected it was a classic and had more value than a new one. It seemed to fit him—expensive, yet sexy and understated.

I’d never been so happy to be stuck in traffic. Caine had to constantly change gears, and something about the way his large hand gripped the shifter just worked for me. Not to mention his forearm…and that damn vein. God help me. I was still finding a vein attractive.

Caine noticed me watching him. “Do you know how to drive a manual?”

“No. I tried once, and I hurt my nose.”

His brows drew down. “You hurt your nose?”

“I kept stalling, and the car would jerk. On the fifth or sixth time, I was letting off the clutch and starting to move, and then the damn tires screeched to an abrupt halt, and I lurched forward and hit the steering wheel. I thought I broke my nose.”

Caine chuckled. “I think you might be a little too tightly wound to drive a stick.”

“Me? You’re more tightly wound than I am.”

He side-glanced at me. “Did you forget how we first met?”

“That was different. I thought you hurt my friend.”

“So rather than determine if I was the person you thought I was, you jumped down my throat. You’re wound tight.”

My first reaction was to argue the point with him, which I realized would only prove his conclusion further. “Maybe you’re a little right.”

“Just a little.”

“You know, that’s how I became interested in musical therapy. Growing up I learned to use music to relax.”

“Did you have music on when you tried to drive the stick shift?”

I thought back. “You know what? I didn’t. I was nervous and didn’t want to be distracted, so I turned off the radio.”

“Maybe you should have left it on.”

“Hmmm…I never thought of that. Maybe you should let me drive yours and see if that works.”