Description: Pike Setter has lost all patience with Julie hedging his advances, but Julie only wants to know whether her sister is in trouble. With Pike lifting the curtain from his act of innocence, Julie is finally about to see him for all he's worth.
Bright Lights, Big Dreams. PART 2.
Julie should have seen this coming. Her first clue was that Pike didn’t have a cigarette in his lips. That should have tipped her off right there, but apart from the obvious, there was a long list of cues that she had missed. Maybe it went all the way back to their train ride from Devon, when he had conveniently sat next to her and tried to place his hand on her thigh. Then when he had first approached her at the Hotel Star, he was playing the role of Sir Galahad on Eve’s behalf, but later claimed that he was doing it all for Julie.
After the cab driver had taken them on a rollercoaster ride through the streets of Manhattan, leaving Julie dazed and bewildered, he had asked to “see more of her,” almost forcing Julie to say yes just to get him away from her. Trying to shake him off, Julie had depended on going out with Eve that night, but Eve had been called to an “emergency” meeting. Julie wondered if Pike had set up the whole thing to lure her out. Then when they’d gone out to dinner, he ordered up lobster, clams, unlimited dinner rolls, and the most expensive wine on the menu and finally made Julie pay for it all at the end of the evening, claiming he had “forgotten” his wallet back at the hotel.
She knew he was losing his patience with her hedging his advances, but before tonight, for Eve’s sake, Julie had thought she could stave him off until the pageant ended and they could go their separate ways. Beyond his frightening head-nod and goofy stare, she was actually beginning to like him, to tell herself that okay, her wasn’t her 10 – maybe more like a 2 – but beneath the smoke and haze that continually surrounded him and stuck to his clothes, he could have been worse. Admittedly, his tuxedo get-up may have upped him to a 3.
But tonight, he let the curtain fall on his act of innocence. Tonight Julie would find out all she would ever need or want to know about Pike Setter.
Like a circus clown with no one else to bother, Pike was suddenly up in her face. “O.K., you like me,” he said, repeating what Julie had just told him. “Like me because I saved your little sister’s bacon, or because of my domineering personality?”
At first, Julie still didn’t get what he was driving at. The pageant started in less than an hour. Both of them needed to get to the contest as soon as possible, unless something had gone wrong. Pike had come up, claiming something was wrong.
“I told you before,” Julie said, “I’m grateful to you…”
Before she could react, Pike had rushed through her defenses faster than a hunter in the wild. With his left arm, he clutched her waist to his, and with his right hand, he tipped her head back at the neck.
“Then show it!” he said, his smoke-breath like a dragon over her mouth, not wanting only to kiss but to conquer.
Fear tore through Julie’s veins. “Pike!” she shouted. “Stop!”
“You stop,” he replied, pressing his lips hard to hers. “Can’t kiss a woman who chatters.”
