Free Untangling The Stars by Alyse Miller Page B

late night rendezvous in some neutral place. It was pretty damn sexy, except for the fact that film noir wasn’t exactly known as the place for women who intended to survive. It was femme fatale for a reason. Andie hoped that wasn't some kind of bad omen.
    Come to think of it, he had rushed her in through the door really fast. Was he hiding something? Or worse—was there something wrong with her being here? Of course, there was something wrong with her being here. The thought struck Andie like a slap in the face. A guy like Guy Wilder had to a have a girlfriend, right? Probably a supermodel, maybe one of those Victoria Secrets angels. Or, he’d at least have better options than some simple college professor dumb enough to think she could hang with a guy whose face was plastered over magazine covers. Shit, was he Pretty Woman -ing her?
    Whatever he was up to, “powdering his nose” was sure taking a lot longer than she thought it should. Maybe he’d let her in out of politeness to save face, and locking himself in some out of the way bathroom was some kind of slang for “if I stay hidden long enough she’ll get the point and get lost”?
    The past two days had alternated between the extremes of snail’s pace slow and light speed fast, and the vertigo for Andie was all too real as her mind traipsed through these possibilities. As it was, she had almost managed to convince herself that she had fallen off the deep end and now here she was, trapped inside Guy Wilder’s empty hotel room while he waited her out on the other side of a locked door. You watch celebrities on TV and fantasize about going on dates with them—you don’t actually go on dates with them. That was reality, and anything else was simply not how life worked. The swarm of butterflies had somehow morphed into wasps and were buzzing angrily in the pit of Andie’s stomach. She steadied herself with her hands on the back of a couch, which luckily saved her from crumpling to the floor.
    She sucked in one deep breath, two…three, four, five. Get it together, Foxglove . There was nothing sexy about hyperventilating. She spotted her reflection in a large ornate mirror that seemed out of place in the very modern hotel room. At least, she thought it was her reflection, but the girl in the mirror looked much more like a deer trapped in headlights. Forget her kidneys; Andie was more likely to die of a heart attack.
    Since she’d had no idea what the night would hold, Andie had decided to go classic and opted for her favorite little black dress—the one she’d hoped to wear to the gala. The smooth, woven sleeveless sheath—topped with sheer lace shoulders and paired wonderfully with the peep-toe watercolor heels—was the perfect LBD for any occasion. Now the smooth fabric was bunched and twisted around her waist as she cowered against the couch, staring at her own reflection in the mirror. Seeing herself like that, all trembling and cowardly, resurrected Andie. She snapped up straight, smoothing out the folds of her skirt as she rose.
    Oh, hell no! You will not be timid and miserable, Alessandra Foxglove , she scolded herself. You will put your big girl panties on and face this man like…well, like a man. Whatever . And if he doesn’t want you here, you are going to show him exactly what he is missing out on. He asked you here—don’t forget that.
    She nodded curtly at herself in the mirror and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. There, the logical Andie and the deer in headlines doppelganger were agreed. That little pep talk seemed to be just what she needed to pull herself out of the pathetic wallow of self-pitying insecurity she’d jumped into. She was ready to turn and march back across the room to bang on Guy’s shut door when his reflection slid suddenly behind hers in the glass.
    “Oh.”
    One glance told her exactly what had taken him so long. No longer in jeans and a t-shirt, Guy had been tucked away, transforming himself from rags to riches