Cheeks creased in a huge grin, Noah said, “What did they do?”

“Mom looked over and said, ‘Kit, dear, not now. Your father and I are discussing something.’”

“Discussing something?”

Shoving at his arm when he snorted with laughter again, she giggled. “Well, I guess they might’ve been, but I just backed out and shut the door. Then I went and found a sock and put it on the door to warn the staff and my grandparents, who’d just arrived. It was Christmas—which might explain the red ribbon tied into a big bow below my mom’s breasts.” She shuddered again. “Mom was holding another ribbon. I do not want to imagine where that was intended to go.”

“Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas to Parker.”

She was the one who snorted this time. “Shut up.”

Noah was still grinning when he pulled into a parking garage off Rodeo Drive, the open, unshadowed pleasure on his face threatening to undo all her resolve.

Careful, Kit. He’s not for you.

She had to repeat that until it sank in, until she could look at Noah and not feel that hole inside her tear open all over again.

Chapter 13

Walking out of the garage, they made their way to the street. A skinny, black-haired photographer with an improbable handlebar moustache popped out from seemingly nowhere seconds later and began to click away. “Come on, Kathleen! Give us a smile, love!”

Kit complied because it was the easiest way to get rid of this particular pest. “Enough, Basil,” she said when he continued to back down the sidewalk, camera pointed at her and Noah. “There’re only so many places that want photos of me dressed down in jeans and a white T-shirt.” She was well put together, her hair brushed back in a sleek tail and her face lightly made up, heels on her feet and the T-shirt fitted, but it was hardly tabloid gold.

That was on purpose. Kit had studied actors and actresses who managed to land big deals without being constant paparazzi fodder, intended to follow their lead: be classy, be elegant, don’t hang out at the celebrity hot spots, and don’t wear things that shouted for photographers to take snaps.

“Why do you do this to me?” Basil put a hand on his heart, his English accent incongruously posh. “I don’t suppose you two will hold hands? I can sell it as a secret romance. It’ll be great for both your profiles.”

Noah, dressed in ripped black jeans and a black T-shirt featuring a band he loved, paired with his usual scuffed boots, gave the photographer the finger instead, careful to time it so it was between shutter clicks.

Basil swore but walked off to stalk more financially rewarding targets. Forgetting him because, in truth, Basil was one of the more reasonable paps Kit ran into on a regular basis, she nodded at an upcoming boutique. “In here.”

There were four other women inside already, including a glossily put-together clerk. Every single one—from the eighty-something matriarch with a face kept youthful by an excellent surgeon, to the ten-year-old in sparkly sneakers—took a deep breath when Noah walked in behind Kit, having held the door open for her.

Kit couldn’t blame them. He was impossibly beautiful, but he wasn’t pretty. No, he had that hard edge that said he’d break hearts and beds too. Women gravitated toward him. Was it any wonder that he took advantage?

Hand fisting at her side, she forced herself to smile as the clerk came over.

“Ms. Devigny,” the clerk said, her curly hair ruthlessly tamed into a neat knot and her body clad in a black tunic-style dress. “It’s so good to see you. I have a lovely dress I think you might like.”

“Thank you, Hailey.” Accompanying the rail-thin part-time model to the back wall of the boutique, she examined the jewel-green sheath dress with a gorgeous design element on the right side of the lower half.

“The beading is hand-stitched,” Hailey told her. “Just a touch, so it’s light enough for daytime but can be dressed up for the night if you’re going day to night.”

“I like it,” Noah said from behind her, her body prickling with a primal awareness of his masculine presence. “It’s too long for you though.”

He was right. The dress looked as if it would hit her at the wrong part of the calf, and it couldn’t be brought up without ruining the beading. “I’ll try it anyway, just in case.”

When she did, she found her and Noah’s doubts were justified.

“Hey, Kit,” he said from outside the large changing room. “Fashion show.”

Opening the door, she stepped out to twirl with a hand on her hip. “Definitely too long but I wish it wasn’t.”

“You make it look gorgeous,” Noah said, and for a moment, as their eyes caught and held, it was too much, too painful, too beautiful.

Thankfully, Hailey hurried over right then to exclaim over the dress, though she, too, had to admit it was the wrong length. She showed Kit three other pieces, but nothing worked.

 “Next stop is on the other side of those traffic lights,” she said to Noah after they left the boutique.

“What’s with that dress?” He was pointing toward a designer piece in red leather in the window of an exclusive salon. “It looks like a deranged serial killer took a shredder to it.”

“Fashion, darling,” Kit said in her best fashionista voice. “You clearly have no taste, no je ne sais quoi.”

“Nope,” said the gorgeous man who constantly wore disreputable jeans and whatever T-shirt he could find, and looked hotter than any other man on the planet. Right now he had a thick metal chain going from the front left pocket of his jeans to the back. That was dressing up for Noah.

Dropping the phony accent as her traitorous, addicted-to-Noah body threatened to focus on the way his butt looked in those jeans, she said, “The dress is a monstrosity. Want to go ask the price?”

“They let you ask the price?”

Kit shrugged, they looked at each other, then went in. Keeping a straight face at the five-figure price tag was difficult, but they managed it until they were outside and past the shop.

Barely.

“What are you wearing to the gala?” Kit asked once she’d caught her breath and they were safely across the street. “I assumed it was black tie.” Thea had already lined up a couple of designers who wanted to put Kit in one of their gowns.

“Yeah, it is.” A sigh. “I’ll put on a fucking penguin suit because it’s my aunt’s deal.”

“I’ve never seen you in a tux.”

“And you probably never will again,” he muttered as he pulled open the door to the boutique that was their destination.

She saw the dress at once: a dark, dark pink that was almost red, it was sleeveless and had a classic A-line set off with a thin black belt. The neckline was almost straight across with the barest curve while the back zipped up all the way. It had a 50s vibe to it that appealed to Kit. Paired with the discreet diamond earrings her paternal grandparents had given her on her twenty-first birthday, it would be perfect for the luncheon.

This time she didn’t come out and show Noah the dress. Because if he complimented her again while looking at her as he’d done in the other boutique, the anger and frustration and love inside her might erupt into a scream, her fists pounding at him as her fury spilled over.

Shaking, she took a deep breath and put on the mask again.

Noah was smiling when she stepped out, but it faded almost immediately and she knew he’d seen the mask. Too damn bad. “Got it,” she said, and took the dress to the counter before the clerk could come over.

The two of them left the boutique in silence after she paid.

“Noah!” The call came from two excited female voices.

Figuring they were fans of the band, Kit waited a few steps away so Noah could sign autographs. Except these women didn’t want autographs. The top-heavy brunette threw herself into Noah’s arms. “Tuesday night was a-mazing!” she squealed.