How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Rules of Engagement

Her ex grabs her at her critique; she hits first and Arlen finishes it, then she kisses him in the car and he stops her.

My first lesson in being seduced by my own plan came in a Thursday critique.

I stood in front of my painting in the university's north gallery, and my professor, who wore three scarves in any weather, said the word "unresolved" four times.

I said thank you each time, because my head was somewhere else.

It was in the east wing.

Arlen had lived beside me for two days, and I had learned a list of things I did not want to know.

He sang in the shower, badly.

He ironed his own shirts at six a.m. with the radio low.

He had knocked on my wall last night, twice, and said through the plaster, "Phase two was a good robe, Willa. Please be careful with phase three."

Nobody had warned me that the enemy would be funny.

"Who is the man?" my professor asked, tilting her head at the canvas.

"What man?"

"There's a man in this painting. He's not in the composition. He's in the brushwork."

"There's no man."

"Then who's the figure on the pier?"

I looked at my own painting and swallowed.

The figure on the pier had silver at the temples.

I had not meant to paint it.

A voice at the back of the gallery said, "That's a gorgeous use of grey."

I knew the voice before I turned.

My ex had been my boyfriend for seven months and my problem for four.

He was twenty-four, a grad student in sculpture, handsome in a way he liked to remind you about.

He had texted me forty-one times since March.

"Hey, Will." He walked up the aisle like he owned the floor. "You look good. I came to apologize."

"Leave."

"Come on. Two minutes."

"I've told you what I think of your apologies."

"You told your father. That's why I got the warning from the dean."

"That's because you grabbed me in the parking lot."

"I did not grab you." He smiled for the room, then dropped it and took my wrist. "Don't make this a scene, Will."

His fingers closed hard.

I did not think.

I turned my hand out against his thumb, the way my self-defense teacher had drilled all spring, and brought my knee up as fast as I could.

He folded, and the gallery went silent.

"You little witch," he wheezed, and swung at me.

The fist never arrived.

A hand caught his wrist from behind, and I smelled soap and cedar.

Arlen stood there in his charcoal suit.

He looked bored.

He turned my ex's arm behind his back with the care of a man folding a napkin.

"You've got a good swing," he said mildly. "Wrong target."

"Who the hell are you?"

"A friend of her father's." He leaned in. "Ms. Chadwick's family has an excellent attorney and I have an excellent memory for faces. Do we need to meet again?"

My ex went the color of paste.

Arlen walked him to the gallery door with two fingers on his elbow and returned alone.

Eight students were staring at us.

My professor adjusted a scarf.

"Is this the man in the painting?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Yes," said Arlen.

He held the door, and I walked through it.

Outside, the afternoon was gold and sharp.

We reached his car, a dark sedan I'd never once been inside.

"I didn't need you," I said.

"I know. I watched your knee. It was excellent."

"Then why did you come?"

"Your father asked me to pick you up. I was early."

"My father asked you to drive me."

"He did."

"Because he thinks I can't be trusted alone."

"Because he thinks I can't be trusted with you." He unlocked the car. "He's got both of those backwards."

I stared at him over the roof of the sedan.

My hands were still shaking from adrenaline, and my mouth was dry.

The man who was supposed to be my target had just rescued me from the worst day of my semester.

He had done it with one hand and no heat, and he hadn't even asked if I was all right.

He'd just let me be furious in peace.

I got in.

He started the engine and didn't pull out.

The silence felt like a held breath.

"Willa," he said.

I leaned across the console, took his tie in my fist and kissed him.

It was not in the notebook.

It wasn't tactics.

It was a stupid, hungry, grateful kiss, and for three whole seconds he kissed me back.

Then he caught my wrists, gently, and set me away from him.

His breath was uneven.

"That one wasn't in your notebook," Arlen said.

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