Serena Bell - Hot and Bothered

She used his arm to swivel him away from the hostess stand and led the way to their table.

Haven was conscious, as she walked, of his eyes fixed on her back, boring into her. Her heart beat fast with nerves from the near confrontation.

She didn’t bother to wait for him to pull out her chair for her—she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She sat, and he dropped into his chair with a masculine nonchalance that made her breath catch. He shrugged the mangled bomber jacket off his shoulders and let it drop down the back of his chair. His fitted gray T-shirt revealed sculpted biceps and well-defined pecs. He’d apparently been working out, between bouts of hiding in dingy bars and getting himself photographed staggering drunk. She could do a lot with a body like that.

In the purely professional sense, that was.

She’d been at this restaurant Friday night with a very nice, painfully boring hedge-fund manager. All of her recent blind dates had been as stimulating as a trip to the grocery store. Haven had to admit that, as messy as Mark was making this lunch, it was a hell of a lot more interesting than any of those dates. He was a lot better looking, too. Gruff, badly dressed, in need of a shave, but he still had presence. Another point in his favor.

He pulled out his phone and studied it as if it was going to save him. From her?

From himself, she suspected. Because whatever had brought him to Charme today, he really didn’t want to be here.

Might as well get it out on the table. “You’re not meeting me of your own volition, right?”

“No.” He had nice eyes, gray-blue under slashes of brow, a mobile mouth and amazing bones. She’d have to make sure he got some sleep and quit—or at least cut back on—the partying.

“You want to tell me why you came?”

“They have some look-alike they say they’ll use instead of me for the tour if I don’t clean up my act. And apparently you are the official act cleaner upper.”

She smiled at that. “I am the official act cleaner upper.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

He wasn’t the first client to have said that to her, but he was the first to have said it with such belligerence. Most were apologetic. On the other hand, most hadn’t been photographed nude with five women at once or been kicked out of several newsworthy A-list parties.

“So you’re thrilled to be here.”

“Here in the specific sense of Charme—” he pronounced it “charm” with no hint of French “—or in the larger sense of in your hands?”

She wouldn’t mind having him in her hands in the nonprofessional sense. Yikes , had she actually thought that? He was so not her type, great body or not. “I meant in my hands, but clearly you’re not thrilled to be here, either.”

“That depends entirely on who’s picking up the tab.”

Oh, she did have her work cut out for her.

Haven had debated whether or not to take Mark on, knowing he was going to be a royal pain. She’d consulted some of her colleagues, who’d also been split on the question. Some thought it would be the perfect opportunity for another high-profile coup to cement Haven’s recent successes—her elevation of Amanda Gile and of party-girl Celine Carr. Others warned her that it was one thing to rehab the image of a rising star with some impulse issues and quite another to try to bring back a man who’d been a celebrity zombie for close to a decade.

What had finally convinced her to accept Mark as a client was the networking potential. She’d been trying to build a relationship with the band’s manager for years. If she could make Mark look good, there’d be other opportunities in the future.

If she couldn’t—well, there was no point in thinking about that. She hadn’t gotten this far by doubting herself.

“Lunch is on me,” she said mildly. It was like working with puppies. If you were calm and firm, and they didn’t sense your agitation, you’d be fine.

The waiter who approached their table managed not to react to her client’s garb. “Can I start you with a drink?”

“Do you have a beer list?”

The waiter rattled off the beers and Mark chose one. She ordered a glass of sparkling water with lemon.

“Do you need a few more minutes?”

“Yes—” she began, because Mark hadn’t even picked up his menu, but he interrupted her.

“Any kind of steak will be fine.”

“We have a very nice beef tender—”

“That’s fine.”

She ordered seafood pasta.

Mark’s posture was as angry as the rest of him, head down, shoulders hunched, protecting himself from the world. They could start there—but not today. Today she’d just talk to him. Loosen him up a little, if that was even possible. “So, the tour’s this fall?” It was March now—not a lot of time, but enough. She’d changed Amanda Gile’s life in six months.

“Yeah.” It was barely a word, just a notch above a grunt.

“Will there be an album?”

“We’ll release cuts from the tour itself as singles for download. If there’s enough good material, we’ll make an album.” He rolled his eyes to indicate what he thought the likelihood of that was.

“And everyone’s on board?”

He averted his gaze. “Not Pete.”

Pete Sovereign was the other guitar player. The one Mark had punched in the face ten years ago, leading to the band’s breakup. There’d been something about a woman, a groupie, they’d both slept with. The groupie had had unkind things to say about Mark afterward to the press. Haven couldn’t help being reminded of her own romantic past, even though the situations were different and hers hadn’t been public. Maybe that was where the unexpected twinges of empathy for Mark had come from. She probably needed to shut that down. A few similarities didn’t make them bosom buddies.

The two men hadn’t spoken since the incident—or so Google had informed her.

She doubted she’d pry any more info about that out of him today. And it probably didn’t matter much. She had her marching orders. Take one hostile, scruffy, washed-up musician and produce a creditable version of the pretty, dimple-faced boy he’d been.

At least Amanda Gile had cut and styled her hair regularly and worn fashionable clothes.

A thought occurred to her. “Who’s getting Pete on board?”

For the first time, she saw an emotion cross his face that might not have been pure anger, though she wasn’t sure what it was.

“Oh, God, they’re making you do it,” Haven guessed.

He nodded. “Those were the terms. Work with you and kiss Pete Sovereign’s ass.” Their eyes locked and she could see the emotion, for a split second, clearly.

Pain.

She didn’t know exactly what had gone down between him and Pete all those years ago, but whatever it was, it hadn’t been pretty.

She had her work cut out for her, but he did, too. Grovel to Pete Sovereign. Remake himself.

The compassion she’d felt when she’d first seen him in his raggedy clothes, haggling with the hostess, came back in a wave. Which was weird, because she rarely mourned people’s “old selves,” rarely had qualms about rehabbing their images. She believed in image. Image was its own armor, and donning it could make you ready for anything. Even so, people could be resistant. Sometimes they had ideas about wanting to be themselves or not wanting to be fake. In those cases, Haven reassured them that the right image wouldn’t be like that. It would feel as though they were showing their best selves to the world. Let me show you how to wear the real you on the outside.

She didn’t expect that argument to fly with Mark. He was too smart, too cynical. Too sure his best self was already showing.