Rock Kiss 03 Rock Redemption(41)

“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.