Beautiful Scars Read online

  Just a few. But she preferred to block that period of her life out.

  Realizing her chance to pry loose some details about Marc was about to walk out the door, Chaili jumped up and jogged over to the door, all but barring Shera’s way. “Let me do it.”

  “Do what?”

  Chaili just stared at her friend, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Finally, it clicked and Chaili watched as Shera’s mouth dropped open. “You’re not serious.”

  Her instinct was to hunch up her shoulders. Instead, she gave a half shrug. “Hey, why not? It’s not like I don’t know how to talk to him.”

  “He won’t be the problem. He’s going to a big party thing up on the Mile.”

  Chaili arched her brows. “I’ve been to parties up on the Mile before,” she drawled. More than she cared to count. Cocking her head, she smiled. “If that’s the plan for the night, I’d actually be perfect. I know how to make small talk. I can dress up all nice and pretty and Marc knows me.”

  That was all Shera’s service provided, really. Companionship, conversation. Chaili could chat pretty damn well, if she had to, and she could also dress up pretty. She had a few pieces—a very few, that would work for a party on the Mile.

  Shera hesitated.

  “Come on. Let me help you with this,” she said.

  “Not a good idea, sweetie.” Shera edged around her, heading back to her office.

  “Why not?” She strolled along after Shera, her longer legs keeping up with Shera’s fast strides easily. She wanted to do this, damn it. It was just a date. One date. She could have one date with him, right?

  “It’s just not.” Back in her office, Shera dropped into her seat and glanced up at Chaili. “I’m going to be busy for a while. I need to go through my files and figure out who isn’t going to drive him totally insane.”

  “Why? I would work.”

  “No.” Shera glared at her. “Damn it, Chaili, I know you’ve got a thing for him, but it won’t work. Trust me, the two of you would have…incompatibilities.”

  Incompatibilities. Chaili sighed. “Look, I’m not asking you to arrange a marriage. It’s just a date. He needs somebody for the party, right?” Forcing herself to smile, she shrugged. “Why not me?”

  The two women just stared at each other as seconds ticked away and finally Shera groaned. “Shit. Fine. All right. I’m being stupid, anyway. It’s a date and you’re right. You’re probably the best qualified to go out with him, considering the only other women I’d trust to do it are already booked. The others…” She trailed off, grimacing. “They’d love to do it and then they’d see who he was, try to get his pants off and then despite the confidentiality clause, they’d blab their mouth. I’d have my hands full shutting their traps and…”

  “Shera…?”

  Shera snapped her mouth shut.

  Chaili smiled. She absolutely was not going to say that she’d love to get into Marc’s pants. She wasn’t going to say it. She might think it. She might dream about it. Often. But she wasn’t going to say it. And even if that miracle ever happened, she’d sure as hell never blab about it.

  “So…what all am I supposed to do?”

  “You really want to do this.”

  Settling into the chair across from the desk, Chaili tried not to look too eager. That wouldn’t be good. At all. Crossing one leg over the other, she smiled. “Sure. It’s not like we can’t order pizza tomorrow. And I like Marc.”

  Love him. I’ve always loved him…

  Shera stared at her, grim-faced, but although she might have seen straight through Chaili’s lie, she didn’t call her on it. Instead, she bent down, opened a drawer. Ten seconds later, Chaili found herself staring at a contract.

  “Sign it.”

  Chaili arched her brows. “Seriously?”

  With a narrow look, Shera leaned forward. “Yes. If you’re doing this, you’re doing it by the book…including the contract. You’ll get the standard fee, because yes, the few times he’s come through here and needed to use the place, he has paid. It’s all on the up-and-up and you know I don’t allow any bullshit in my place. That goes for you too. If you’re serious about doing this, sign the damn contract.”

  Chaili rolled her eyes. And as she reached for the pen, she hoped her fingers weren’t shaking.

  “Now, what do you have to wear?”

  Chapter Two

  At the piano, head bent, Marc lost himself to the music.

  Once upon a time, he’d let himself get lost in other places, hadn’t worried about anything but the moment. He’d just…lived.

  The last time had been years ago—it had ended with Lily. He didn’t let himself think about her often, because that had been a hot fucking mess. They’d worked together—she’d been his manager for years and they’d been friends.

  Then he’d been stupid enough to let it become something more. He’d thought it was all just fine too. Six good months. Actually, six wonderful months, then he’d walked in and found her in a rather compromising position—her on her knees with her mouth wrapped around another man’s dick, her hands tied behind her back. It wasn’t the position he minded—but the fact that she’d been going down on another man, well, that posed a problem. And the guy had also been a friend of his.

  Both of them had tried to convince him he’d taken it too personally.

  Then Lily had tried to convince him that if he walked…

  The music broke around him and he stopped, closed his eyes and let his hands rest on the keys for a minute. This was why he didn’t let himself think about that. It wasn’t even that she’d fucked around on him. He’d been cheated on before. It sucked and he hated it, but he could have handled that.

  It was what she’d tried to do after.

  How messed up things had gotten.

  That was why he didn’t let himself go anymore. It just wasn’t safe.

  Better off not to lose himself like that anymore. Unless it was the music. He could trust the music.

  Clearing his mind, he focused on the song he could almost hear in his mind. The melody was clearer now, and it came easily. The words, though, he was still waiting on them.

  Inner demon

  How you fight…

  Another line of it came to him and he stopped playing to jot it down before going back to the keys. Before another sixty seconds passed, his phone beeped. His connection to the world, that stupid thing. Sometimes he hated it. Mostly he needed it. Ilona kept it up to date, all his appointments and everything programmed into the calendar. If he didn’t have something to remind him where he was supposed to be and what he needed to be doing, he’d be screwed.

  Although he’d rather not remember he had plans for tonight.

  Fuck the party.

  So what if his manager thought he should go to that damn party? Bryan had taken over Lily’s job a few years ago, and Marc had to admit, the guy did a good job. He knew what he was doing, business-wise.

  He was okay. Marc liked him. The guys from the band liked him. He generally knew what he was talking about, too, when it was came to the PR shit. A few weeks ago Bryan had called him—there was a benefit going on for autism and Marc should go. Marc would rather not go to any damn party and had tried to just send a donation, but that wasn’t what Bryan wanted. So Marc was going to the damn benefit. The one thing about the party that didn’t entirely suck—it was being thrown by another friend, Caleb Wickham. Seeing Caleb wouldn’t be bad and at least the guy didn’t throw boring parties.

  But Marc would much rather stay home.

  If he’d known how things were going to turn out—Selene dropping him at the last minute, hell… He would have told Bryan to shove the benefit up his ass.

  Even with a date lined up from his sister’s service, the night was going to be a pain in the ass. Staying at home sounded so much better. He could work on his music. Maybe even just go over to Shera’s.

  A faint smile curled his lips as he pushed back from the piano. It was Friday
, after all. That meant only one thing—pizza and movies.

  Chaili.

  He should have at least said hi to her earlier. She’d disappeared before he had a chance, but he’d been irritated, frustrated, pissed off. By the time he’d gotten around to thinking about anything more than the fiasco that was sure to happen tonight, he’d already been five miles away.

  He’d been in town for four days and he hadn’t even called her to say hi. They never talked anymore and he missed her. Hell, if he had half a brain, he should have just thought about it and called her for tonight. It didn’t have to be a date. He just needed a woman with him at the party, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to breathe, or move. The last time he’d gone to a party solo, one woman had actually paid a cab driver to follow him to his hotel and she’d tried to bribe the people at the front desk.

  Marc had actually been standing a few feet behind her—he’d managed to deactivate his damn keycard and needed another one. Lucky him, because the hundred-dollar bill the girl had pushed toward the guy behind the desk had apparently looked enticing. Although it might have been the D cups she’d been flashing.

  Scowling at the memory, he headed into the bedroom to check his reflection one more time. Thanks to his assistant, he didn’t have to worry about just wearing T-shirts, jeans, and black or red nonstop. His sister and a few others knew he was color-blind.

  Personally, he figured color deficient or something would be more accurate. He could see plenty of colors. Reds were awesome. He could see them just fine. Blues worked. He liked blue too. Oranges, though, they blended to red for him. Yellows were a mess, and so was green. Greens all blurred into blue for him.

  It didn’t matter personally to him and it wasn’t a big deal, the way he saw it. Yeah, he’d had some trouble in school with it until he’d picked up on the variation in hue and brightness. Plus, reading the color on the crayons and shit had helped.

  He hadn’t even realized he’d had the problem until later in life, anyway.

  The biggest issue it caused for him was accidentally pairing a yellow tie with a green shirt or something. Easiest if he could stick with black and red, and he tended to do that a lot.

  The clothes had labels and everything was coordinated. Goes with jacket #4, #16, #22, etc., etc. Made it easy on him. But tonight he hadn’t been in the mood to root through the damn closet. It wasn’t a date for him and he didn’t care what his “companion” thought. She was getting paid nearly a grand to put up with his cranky ass and to keep her mouth shut about it.

  As for the people at the party…they wouldn’t care anyway. The black silk shirt, a pair of black jeans…that worked well enough for him. The black leather Italian shoes were an indulgence he allowed himself on pretty much any occasion that suited. A party was definitely an occasion. A quick look in the mirror showed a familiar sight. Him, his hair too long, stubble—he’d forgotten to shave. Again. He didn’t have time to mess with it now. His sister would kick his ass if he was late.

  “Shit, knowing her, she’d charge me double,” he grumbled.

  Not that he couldn’t afford it, but after so many years of growing up with barely enough money to scrape by…yeah, he wasn’t going to pay that kind of money just because she felt like charging him.

  And again, he could have avoided it if he’d given Chaili a call. He doubted she’d mind wasting a night at some dumb-ass party. Wasn’t like she ever did much other than pizza and movies with Shera, right?

  They could have caught up. Had a decent night and he would definitely have had more fun with her than whomever Shera had found.

  He frowned, wondering if it was too late to call the companion thing off. So what if he had to pay for it? He could call Chaili and ask if she had plans…

  Then he sighed.

  It was already after six. He was supposed to be at the office at seven.

  Under his breath, he muttered, “Any reason why you couldn’t have this idea, oh, say, four hours ago?”

  There was no answer. Just the endless, empty silence of his house.

  Chaili smacked at Shera’s hands as she went to adjust the halter-styled bodice of the white cocktail dress Chaili had ended up picking from her miniscule selection. The bra she had to wear with it was irritating the hell out of her, but if she didn’t wear it, it wouldn’t fit right.

  That, on top of Shera’s fussing, was just edging on her last nerve.

  “Would you leave me alone?” Chaili snapped. Damn it, Shera was fussing over her like a mother hen. You’d think it was her first date or something. It’s not a real date, she reminded herself. He’d paid for it. And he didn’t know she was the one going out with him. Taking a deep breath, she went back to staring at her reflection. Oh, hell. She wasn’t really doing this, was she?

  “Stop being a bitch,” Shera said. “And breathe, damn it.”

  “Stop being an old mother hen!” Nudging her away, Chaili went back to staring at her reflection. The woman in the mirror was somebody she barely recognized. She hadn’t seen much of this woman in the past few years. Back when she’d been married, she’d had to do the cocktail party round often. Tim had been big into socializing and she hadn’t much cared…at first.

  The woman in front of her didn’t exactly look the same. And she wasn’t. She was leaner. Harder. Stronger.

  And scarred.

  Not that the scars were easily seen, but still…

  She adjusted the dress, smoothing it a little and twisting to make sure it laid the right way. “It looks pretty good, don’t you think?”

  “Yep. That’s a great style on you, sweetie. And you practically glow. I’d kill to tan like that.” Shera smiled and rested her cheek on Chaili’s arm.

  “Sunless tanner works just fine, ya know. Not all of them turn you that carroty orange.” She reached up and brushed her fingers through her hair. The choppy, asymmetrical cut fell right back into place, framing her face. She’d let Shera do her makeup and she had to admit, the woman knew her stuff. The bronze and blue eyeshadow wasn’t anything Chaili normally would have done on her own but it worked, accentuating her blue eyes, which were admittedly her best feature.

  That and her mouth. She had a decent mouth, wide and soft, and right now it was tinted a deep, lush wine color. Again, not anything she would have chosen herself, but Shera knew her stuff. It was a henna-based dye that would supposedly last all night. Not that Chaili expected to do anything to challenge the dye’s staying power. Slicking her tongue over her lips, she took a deep breath and sighed. “Here goes nothing, I guess.”

  She squared her shoulders and met Shera’s gaze in the reflection. “He’s not going to freak out when he sees me, is he?”

  “A little late to worry about that now, isn’t it?” Shera flashed her a grin. Then she shrugged. “Relax. You two are friends. It will throw him for a minute, I bet, but he needed a date. I didn’t really have anybody available that wouldn’t end up in a disaster, so this is it. Relax. We’re good.”

  We’re good. Chaili squared her shoulders. They were good.

  But the butterflies dancing in her belly weren’t exactly comforted. She placed a hand over her abdomen to calm them and turned away from her reflection. No matter how long she stared, she wasn’t going to change the woman she saw staring back at her anyway, right?

  The office was tucked away not far from his home in Lake Forest. Marc knew most of the people in the area had an idea just what Escortè did, and he suspected a few of them also thought there was more to the companionship service that his sister offered. He also knew she had her hands full chasing away the idiots who weren’t convinced by the office policy. He’d seen their mother dealing with it before she retired, had watched Shera handling it off and on, had listened to some of her stories, ranging from the funny to the fucked-up.

  Personally, he was glad he had an in to the place.

  It made his life easier.

  He could play the dating game okay, but he got tired of trying to do it. It was easier for him to
keep it impersonal, professional. After Lily, he’d tried a few casual relationships, the just friends sort of thing, but those hadn’t ended up any better than any other fucked-up relationship in his life. So he’d quit trying for a while and used Escortè.

  There were similar services in other cities where he did the same thing. Kept it all nice and simple.

  Then he hadn’t had to worry about it for a while.

  He’d met Selene. They clicked. They were compatible—in bed and out, and he hadn’t had to mess with this shit.

  Now? Starting all over again.

  He tried not to feel aggravated. It was just a business thing. He paid for a date, had a woman with him for a few hours, spared himself the headache of dealing with some of the nightmares that came from being single at some of these parties. He also spared himself the nightmare that came from trying to have a friendly relationship that would just end in a disaster.

  Really, this was for the best, right? All he had going with Selene was friendship anyway—granted, it was the friends with benefits sort of thing, but that could be found elsewhere.

  Impersonal as hell. Yeah, that bothered him, and right now it was bothering him more than normal, but he’d finally found a way to balance his life and he didn’t need anything rocking that boat.

  You need to stop being so negative, he told himself. But it was damned hard considering every relationship he’d been in since high school had gone from hell to hella-bad in a blink.

  “No.” He threw the Porsche into park and climbed out, leaning against the side. “Not thinking about that.” Part of the reason he hated coming back here. And that pissed him off. Chicago was home. It was home, and he avoided it like the plague except for rare visits home to see his sister, all because coming back here made him think of…

  “And you’re doing it again.” Shoving away from the car, he pocketed the keys and headed toward his sister’s office. It was quiet around here at night. During the day it was busy, but at night it was mostly vacant. Just a few random cars scattered in front of the other businesses. He recognized his sister’s car, parked in front of the office, but he didn’t see another one close to hers.