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away.
    I blink, stunned. He’d just hired me, but he hadn’t even
asked me one single question. I hadn’t asked about hours or pay. I inhale a
sharp breath. I’d come here to find Rebecca, to make sure she is alive and
well. Instead, I am about to be Rebecca, or rather, be the Marketing Director
for the gallery. So I can find Rebecca, I tell myself. Something has
happened to Rebecca, and I have to prove it. That’s why I’m here. No other
reason.
     
     

 

    Chapter Four
     

     
    I am still standing in the middle of Chris Merit’s display,
in stunned disbelief, when something snaps inside me. I am hot and confused and
feeling like the world is spinning around me. I’ve spent money I don’t have on
the ticket for the night, but I can’t get out of this gallery fast enough. I
run for the door, not literally, but I might as well be. This heat I feel is
unexplainable, considering the gallery is chilly, and I need air desperately. I
need to think. I need to figure out what is going on inside me, because it is
nothing I know as familiar.
    Exiting to the street, I welcome the cool night air washing
over me. I turn quickly to my left and intend to head for my car, when the
strap of my purse catches and snags on the brick of the building and somehow it
snaps open. The contents spill to the ground. With exasperation, I squat,
trying to retrieve my items. This is so my life and there is a tiny part of me
comforted by my familiar clumsiness, by something that feels like me . I
mean, who else, can manage to catch their purse on a wall of all things?
    “Need some help?”
    My gaze shoots upward to find Chris Merit at eye level and
for a rare moment in time, I can’t find the words to ramble with my nerves.
While I’d felt comfortable with him inside the gallery, I am dumbstruck now
that I know who he is. He is brilliant. He is also incredibly good looking, and
squatting down on the ground with me, which somehow feels wrong. This night has
me feeling as if I am in the twilight zone. There is no other explanation for
how bizarre it is.
    “I...ah...no,” I manage. “Thank you. I got it. It’s a little
purse. Doesn’t hold much.” I scoop up my lipstick and a tiny wallet, and slide
them back inside the bag, before pushing to my feet.
    He grabs my keys and stands, towering over my five feet four
inches by a good foot. I hadn’t realized how tall he was when he’d been sitting
beside me at the Ricco event, or how earthy and deliciously male he smells, but
the wind lifts and the scent tickles my nose. He is different from Mark, not so
sophisticated and debonair, more raw, and yes, like his scent, earthy.
    He gives me another one of those devastating smiles he’d
used on me in the gallery and dangles my keys in the air. “You might need these
to go wherever you’re going so fast.”
    “Thank you,” I say and accept them. His fingers brush mine
and electricity charges up my arm, across my chest, and steals my breath. My
eyes meet his, and I see awareness in the deep green depths of his stare. Only,
I’m not sure if it’s the same kind of awareness I feel. Maybe, it’s simply that
I hide my feelings horribly and he now knows I’m reacting to him, and it amuses
him.
    “You’re leaving early,” he comments, his hands going to his
hips, which pushes back his blazer enough for me to see the stretch of his
black t-shirt across his impressive chest. I approve, as I’m sure the rest of
the female population does as well.
    “Yes,” I say and jerk my attention to his face, to a full
mouth that has me a bit breathless, but then everything has me breathless
tonight, it seems. ”I need to get home.”
    “Why don’t I walk you to your car?”
    He wants to walk me to my car. I’m not sure why he would
want to do that. He doesn’t even know me. Is it possible that he felt that same
electricity I did, or do I amuse him and he wants to continue the
entertainment? Mark did say he has a strange sense of humor. “Why didn’t