Page 42 of Degrees of Control

Charlie swallowed. “So when you’re in high school, most girls are under a lot of pressure. You’re trying so hard to look and act the way you’re supposed to, or the way you think you’re supposed to, and there are people who react badly to that kind of pressure.”

“Like you?”

She knew lying would do her no good. “Yes. Like me.”

James stared at her. “Did you get depressed?”

“No, I was just really shy and awkward. I didn’t like my body much, it got me attention I wasn’t comfortable with.”

James’ expression grew dark. “What kind of attention?”

“Just stupid school stuff; people teasing me, boys yelling at me from their cars. Things pretty much every girl has to deal with. Anyway, when I was nineteen, I started doing yoga and it taught me how capable my body was. My teacher was really supportive, she helped me look at myself in a whole new way. Showed me I could be feminine and strong and graceful and calm all at once. She changed my life.”

Charlie felt her throat swell and her eyes burn. Great, now she was going to cry in a restaurant with an indoor fountain.

“Keep going,” James said in a low voice. “Keep telling the story.”

Charlie wiped a hand across her eyes. “There’s not much more to tell. Leisa helped me become a qualified teacher, she mentored me while I was doing my course and she and I had this idea of starting a six-week program for teenage girls, but we never had the money or the contacts to make it happen. Then she retired and moved to Bali and I knew if I was going to help girls like me, I’d have to do it on my own. So that’s what I hope to do.”

She hadn’t raised her eyes from the tabletop the entire time she was talking, but now she looked at James and found she couldn’t read his expression at all. “Please say something.”

His brow crinkled. “I can’t imagine you ever being unhappy.”

“Thanks, I guess. That means something’s working.”

“I mean it, you seem so, I don’t know—innocent. Like you’ve never been hurt before.” He frowned as though his words weren’t coming out the way he wanted them to. “Anyway, I think you’re beautiful, Blue-Eyes and I’m sure you’ll help heaps of girls once you get your program off the ground.”

Charlie’s face heated with pleasure. She felt all squelchy inside, like a half-cooked sponge cake. For a moment they stared at each other and then James’ expression melted into the world’s loveliest smirk. “You realize I can see your underwear through that dress?”

Charlie put her hands over her breasts. “I know. This is such a fancy place too. You really should have warned me!”

“And miss out on the view? Not a chance.” He squinted at her. “Are you wearing somethin’ sexy under that dress? It looks sexy.”

She was. The sky-blue silk panties and matching bra were the only nice set she owned. She’d been wearing it a lot lately, thinking of him… “It might be sexy.”

James downed the last of his wine. “I’ve got a room nearby.”

“Like a sleazy motel with an ice machine and drug dealers?”

“How tacky do you think I am? It’s a hotel. I want to go there with you, find out just how sexy that underwear is.”

Charlie should have been offended at his presumption. She wasn’t. “You don’t need to go back to work?”

“Not when you’re the boss, darlin’. You got a yoga class soon?”

“Not until seven.”

He looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes, every inch the handsome life-ruining playboy. “So come on, Blue-Eyes. Let me find out if that dress is as thin as it looks.”

Chapter 11

When Charlie was eighteen, she and her first boyfriend had split the cost of a hotel room. The two of them had thrilled over the complimentary teabags, the ironing board and the rock-hard bed. Everything about the act felt so incredibly grownup. If she and Benji had ever wound up in a suite like the one James had reserved, they would have lost their goddamn minds. It was enormous, twice the size of her apartment with a huge four poster bed and floor-to-ceiling windows. A bottle of champagne chilled in a silver ice bucket alongside a dozen blood-red roses. Charlie wondered if the hotel was obligated to provide a romantic atmosphere or if James had requested them to take the edge off the sleaziness. He’d been here before, that was clear from the way he moved around the room peeling off his shirt and placing his watch on the dresser. She wondered how many other women he’d brought to this place, charming them the way he was charming her.

You wanted to be charmed, Bell, that’s why you’re here.

Still, some part of her ached being just another brick in James Hunter’s wall. It had been hard enough to walk through the hotel lobby at midday, knowing what every single person must have thought.

Yes, snotty receptionist, this rich, stupidly handsome man is my lover and yes we are here to bone in the afternoon and yes, he will inevitably walk away without a second glance. You think I don’t know that, judgmental bellhop? Because I do.

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