Page 11 of The VIP Doubles Down
It was impossible to gauge his reaction, because he remained motionless until she had the pads and stim unit back in their case. “You can move now,” she said. “In fact, I’d like you to, so you can tell me how it feels.”
He tilted his head to one side and then the other. “It bends more easily.”
Pleasure glowed through her. “Think how much better it would be after a longer treatment.”
He held up his hand to stop her. “Jane thinks if I can get my muscles to release, my muse will come dancing out of hiding. But she has the cart and the horse in the wrong order. All your good work will be undone by tomorrow morning, because you can’t break through writer’s block with a clever little machine.” He stood and offered her a charmingly apologetic smile. “It’s been a delight to meet you, Allie. I’m the worst sort of patient, so count yourself fortunate that you don’t have to deal with me any further.”
Disappointment and a touch of panic stifled the glow inside her. She placed the stim unit case back in her duffel bag and zipped it closed. She straightened to look Gavin Miller right in his ocean green eyes. “Mr.Miller, it’s the worst patients who need help the most.”
He went still again, his expression turning somber. “You are a wise and determined woman, but you are overmatched here. I am far more pigheaded than you could ever be.” He picked up her duffel, hefting it with a pained look. “You’re also strong. What do you have in here ... gold bricks?”
She gasped and reached for the handles. “You should not be lifting anything heavy with your back problems. Please give it to me.” Her fingers grazed his, so she felt their warmth as she tugged at the bag.
He resisted for a split second before relinquishing it to her and rubbing his shoulder. “My chivalrous impulses are few and far between for good reason.”
“You shouldn’t attempt any jousting or sword fighting, either,” Allie said, following him into the entrance hall. His snort of laughter gratified her, but it didn’t lift the sense of failure that made her feet feel like lead. The duffel was indeed heavy, and she didn’t look forward to hauling it the many blocks back to the subway in abject defeat.
Miller swung open a door concealed in the dark wood paneling to retrieve her coat from the closet. As he held it for her to slip her arms into, his fingers brushed the bare skin of her neck under her ponytail, making her hiss in a breath at the intimate contact. It was the same spot where she had laid the pads on his neck, and she wondered if he had felt even a shadow of the same sensations that were zinging through her body, leaving a trail of heat behind them.
She stepped away from him and turned to zip up her coat. Before she pulled on her leather gloves, she held out her hand. “I wish you the best of luck, Mr.Miller. Your books are terrific, and I look forward to the next one. After your fallow period, I bet it will be the best yet.”
Miller took her hand, his grip strong and warm. “From your lovely lips to God’s unresponsive ear,” he muttered. But then he smiled, and this time it reached his eyes, turning the stormy green to rich jade. “Perhaps your little shot of electricity has indeed penetrated my thick skull and reset my brain.”
Allie nodded and withdrew her hand with a sense of loss. She marched out the door and down the steps with her head held high, as though she hadn’t just lost her one and only client. She’d seen the security cameras on the front of Gavin Miller’s brownstone, so she kept marching down the block until she could turn out of sight onto Madison Avenue.
Only then did she slump against a storefront and let the tears of desperation stream down her cheeks.
Chapter 4
In the narrow, dingy hallway of her apartment building, Allie yanked the mail out of the bent metal opening of her mailbox and flipped through it to find both credit card and phone bills. How the heck she was going to pay them she had no idea. Her divorce had cost more than she had budgeted for, she’d gotten fired from the rehab center, and now Gavin Miller didn’t want her back. “Nothing like piling on an already bad day.”
Grabbing her heavy duffel, she trudged up four flights of steps and unlocked the array of locks on her apartment’s battered door.
No cat greeted her. “Pie?” she called, dropping the bag. Her gray rescue cat was elderly and had a myriad of health issues, so Allie worried about her. As she jogged down the hall to the living room, she heard voices and realized the television was on.
She came to an abrupt halt as an unsettling cocktail of fear and fury boiled through her. Pie had not met her at the door because the cat was curled up on Allie’s ex-husband’s lap.
“How did you get in here? You said you gave me all your keys.”
Troy had the grace to look shamefaced as he hit the “Mute” button for the television. “I found another copy I’d made when I thought I’d lost the original.”
“Do you understand what a restraining order is? You could go to jail for being here.”
Troy set Pie on the couch and stood up, his expression beseeching. “We both know that was just because I was drunk. I’m cold sober now. And I never hit you or anything like that.”
“No, but you came to my workplacetwice, harassed the patientstwice, and lost me my job.Andyou were drunk.” Allie was torn between throwing something at the gorgeous, self-centered face that she’d adored since freshman year in high school or turning on her heel and fleeing. “Leave now. Or I’ll call the police.”
But she wouldn’t call 9-1-1. She still couldn’t do that to him. It was true that he had never been physically violent, just verbally abusive. Which, in some ways, was more insidious. If he’d struck her, she would have left him a lot sooner.
“Allie, sweetie, I just wanted to share my good news with you.”
“Unless it involves winning the lottery and splitting the jackpot with me, I don’t want to hear it.” She folded her arms and jerked her head toward the door. She didn’t want him to know that her throat had gone tight with nerves. He was an expert at exploiting any weakness in her.
Evidently, the news was too good for her to ruin his sunny mood, because he smiled and walked around the coffee table. “I sort of won the lottery. I got a gig on a soap opera. Just a minor character, but I’ve been promised three episodes. And maybe more, if viewers respond to me.” His deep blue eyes lit up. “This is the break I’ve been waiting for.”
“That’s great.” The flatness of her voice contradicted her words. She’d heard this song and dance before.
He took her by the shoulders and smiled down at her, a curl of his streaked blond hair falling onto his forehead. A little tug of memory reminded her that she used to love brushing that curl back. Now she wanted to grab a pair of scissors and chop it off. “This isn’t an audition,” he said. “I have a signed contract.”
