“Okay,” he murmured. “I live in a loft in a converted warehouse near the industrial district. I’ve barely moved in, but it’s got lots of space.”
“Well, that was more information than I needed,” she said. “I just wanted to know what area of the city you lived in. South, north, in the middle, east or west?”
“Okay, to be exact, west of the middle of the city in the area that they’re trying to redevelop. Now, where do you live?”
“Around that area.”
“Where exactly?”
She hesitated, the first time he’d seen her stop to think of an answer before she answered him. “A town house complex—yes, the Fortress—no, the Forestry. No, shoot, the Forest Lane complex.” She almost seemed flustered and color brushed her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I haven’t lived there very long. Do you know where that is?”
He knew. He passed by there most days. A park-like area of town houses being refurbished for upscale tenants. And it was close enough to his place to be “on the way,” if he took a slightly circuitous route. “Yes, I know where it is.”
“Then can I have a ride?”
He looked at her, his response as strong as it had been at first. It wasn’t diminishing. It had to be hormones, or maybe the fact that he’d been alone for quite a while now, he reasoned. Or lust. Maybe that was what this was all about. This woman was made to be lusted after, that was for sure. He could deal with that. Lust was a fiery explosion that faded almost as quickly as it came. He knew that from his own experiences in the past. Gone and forgotten. And he could deal with it easily.
“Okay, I’m parked in the parking garage.”
“Great,” she murmured and headed into the back hallway. When he got to the door, she was there, pushing it open and stepping out of the building.
He reached for the nearest light switch, flipped it, but it didn’t do anything. He’d have to go back to find a switch that worked, and he wasn’t going to take the time. Leaving the lights on, he went out after her, letting the door slam tightly behind him.
She’d stopped a few feet from the exit, looking back at him questioningly, and his whole body tightened. Yes, lust. Pure and simple. “Over there,” he said, pointing to his car. “The black Jeep.”
Brittany turned and walked quickly toward the car he’d pointed out before she lost her nerve or came to her senses. Her first lie about her name had come with amazing ease, but lying about where she lived was unsettling. She’d had to think fast, to remember where an old friend had lived in that area. Thank goodness, the complex was still there. But she still didn’t have a clue what she’d do when they got there. Fooling Matthew Terrel wasn’t a simple process.
She’d take his ride, learn whatever she could about the center. When he’d asked her about liking kids, she could have easily said she was totally ignorant of them. She’d never even thought about having any. There hadn’t even been a center the last time she’d been at LynTech. But with Matt’s information and her imagination, she knew she could do this. She approached his car; it fitted its owner perfectly. It was a huge sports utility vehicle with a perfect shine, chrome rims on huge tires, and darkly tinted windows. Strong and mysterious looking.
Matt hit the remote, the door locks clicked open, then he was reaching past her to grip the handle and open the door. Despite being fairly tall, Brittany had to step up and pull on a leather strap to get into the gray leather of the passenger seat. While she settled, she watched Matt stride around the front to get in behind the wheel, and she found herself looking at him, blocking out that response he immediately brought. She wasn’t going to look at him as a man. He was a means to an end. Pure and simple.
She looked away from him as he started the car, and she remembered what he’d said about Brittany Lewis just minutes ago. She let his snide remarks settle in her mind, and grabbed at the anger that had come with them. She stared hard out the window at the almost empty structure. The car moved and Matt spoke as they approached the exit ramp.
“Do you want to get started?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” she said as they left the garage.
“I thought you wanted to talk?”
“Yes, of course. I was wondering about that tree.” She said the first thing that came to her mind. “What’s the idea behind it?”
“Sort of a jungle gym, I guess. Tunnels in the trunk to climb in, and the platforms for play and napping. Part of the fantasy theme that Lindsey, the director, wanted. Personally, it would scare me to death if I was four years old waking from a nap and finding myself in there.”
She made the mistake of turning to look at him. If she’d thought he was disturbing before, in the close confines of the car he was downright dangerous. The low lights from the dash cut angles and planes of shadows on his face, and the sexiness was magnified. She turned back quickly, staring straight ahead. She would not make the mistake she’d made so many times in her life. That way she had of meeting someone, seeing something in him that blinded her, then, somewhere down the road, realizing that he was simply a stranger. Matt Terrel was a stranger.
“With the right backdrop, the tree could be magical,” she murmured.
“And that’s where you come in, turning a nightmare into a…” He paused. “What would you call it?”
“Just what you did, a fantasy, and one that revolves around the children. Or the children around it.” She braced herself, then looked back at Matt. She was thankful that he was turned away from her, looking to his left up the street at the stream of traffic. “The children dancing around it, laughing, enjoying the magic.”
He exhaled, still staring to his left. “Sounds good to me. Lots of kids’ stuff that reeks of make-believe.”
She could see the way his jaw was working, and she had no idea where that cynicism came from, any more than she had any idea why he had seemed so negative about the boy involved in their “incident.” “That sounds cynical to me.”
He turned to her as they waited for an opening in the traffic that filled the street done up in Christmas finery. “Cynical? No, just realistic,” he murmured.
“There’s a big difference between cynical and realistic.”
“Oh?” His eyes flicked to hers, narrowed in the softness of the lights. “And you’re going to enlighten me? Go ahead.”
“Well, a realist looks at that tree and figures it’s a toy, a plaything and isn’t expected to look like a real tree and accepts that. A cynic looks at the tree and figures it would scare any four-year-old and wants to tear it down.”
“I never said I wanted to tear it down,” he said as he managed to finally merge into traffic.
“Would you?”
“That’s not an option. It cost an arm and a leg, so it’s staying.”
“Money’s the bottom line?”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Cynical, cynical, cynical,” she murmured.
A Santa clone walked right in front of the Jeep to weave his way across the street, and Matt braked to a stop. “No, if I was that cynical, I would have taken out Santa Claus,” he muttered.
“No one would take out Santa,” she said. “Not even a world-class cynic.”
Matt laughed then, a sound that both startled and disturbed Brittany. It was soft and rich, wrapping itself around her in the close confines of the black car, an enticing pleasure that she wanted to push away. “I guess I’m not world-class,” he said, starting to drive again, but so slowly that they could have walked faster. “Just cynic enough to look at LynTech realistically and