I... was not prepared for what that build looked like in the latest designer fashion. In my defense, I’m not sure how one would prepare for such a thing. And, I was totally staring right now, wasn’t I?
The weird, half-strangled ‘guh’ noise that came out of my mouth when I tried to speak was my first clue that my jaw was hanging open. His eyebrows went up.
“D’you like it, then?” he asked, doing a brief, side-to-side twist in place as though he truly had no idea what he looked like.
Did I like it? That was like asking if the Pope was Catholic, or if bears shit in the woods.
The ‘it’ in question consisted of a pair of slim-cut wool trousers in charcoal gray that were basically making love to his ass, along with a white shirt with the top two buttons undone, and a fucking corset vest. Crisscrossed lacing wove down the smooth curve of dove-gray silk covering his back, accentuating the way the breadth of his shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and hips. The matching charcoal suit jacket was slung carelessly over one shoulder, and a pair of black Italian loafers completed the ensemble.
With difficulty, I dragged my gaze up to his face and re-engaged the speech center of my brain. “Huh. The guyliner is a nice touch,” I managed. “It brings out the blue in your eyes.”
“Consider it my minor act of rebellion against the ‘rich douche’ sensibility,” he said, shrugging into the perfectly tailored jacket. A red pocket square in exactly the same shade as my dress peeked out at his left breast.
I smiled, unable to help it. “Well, that and the hair,” I teased. “Maybe we should change your cover story from ‘startup co-founder’ to ‘the hot rock star I’m sleeping with.’ So, are we ready? I hate to say it, but I’m starving.”
“One more thing first,” he replied, reaching into a trouser pocket and retrieving something. A length of gold chain with a heavy pendant hanging from the end slid through his fingers. “Turn around, love.”
I did, a frisson slipping down my spine as his cool fingers swept my hair out of the way. He fastened the necklace so that the square-cut diamond settled into my cleavage, quickly warming to my body temperature.
“Okay, wow,” I said, fingers brushing it as I looked at my reflection. “You know, I just finished giving myself this great mental pep talk about how I was over being freaked out by the whole ‘throwing money around like water’ thing. Apparently I should have held off with that for a bit longer. Please humor me and don’t tell me how much this rock-on-a-chain cost.”
His eyes met mine in the mirror. “Pretend it’s cubic zirconium if it makes you feel better,” he teased, a bit of his natural humor shining through the dark cloud surrounding him.
“It’s totally not cubic zirconium, is it,” I said, resigned.
“No, it definitely isn’t,” he agreed. “So, next on the agenda—food, and mingling with wealthy arseholes. Let me know when you get tired of the second part.”
“If the wealthy assholes have burgers on hand, then consider tonight my debutante ball,” I assured him. “Trust me, once I get some calories in me, I can do passive-aggressive small talk with the best of them.”
ELEVEN
OKAY, SO RANS and Guthrie hadn’t been kidding. Most of these people were shitwads of the highest order. Apparently, the combination of me being both female and not one hundred percent Caucasian meant that I was automatically dismissed as having any value beyond tits and ass.
I briefly debated the merits of making an issue of the casual racism-slash-sexism on display, only to dismiss it in favor of pulling animus from every entitled sonuvabitch who couldn’t seem to keep his gaze above the level of my collarbones. Meanwhile, I gained a sort of twisted amusement from watching them try to figure out Rans, who appeared content to play the role of urbane metrosexual while slipping casual little barbs into the swirl of conversation surrounding the evening buffet tables.
On the positive side, the burgers were good. Though, honestly, they would have been even better without the ‘paté de fois gras in a truffle reduction’ smeared between the micro-greens and the top bun. Regardless, though, the combination of all-you-can-eat haute cuisine and horny, sexist assholes ogling me meant that I was pleasantly full of both food and stolen animus by the time Rans suggested we wander through the various shops lining the mezzanine level, before returning to our suite.
I strolled along with him, my arm looped through his. He’d shed his jacket again, and was getting as many admiring looks from the women as I’d been getting lascivious ones from the good-ol’-boy crowd. He appeared completely oblivious to the attention, still trapped in his own private darkness, and I knew it was past time for me to call him out on it. I bumped his shoulder with mine and met his distracted blue gaze when he glanced at me.
“You’re really worrying me now,” I told him frankly. “I mean—there’s just tons of material here for sarcasm and bad jokes. Not like you to let all of it go to waste, lover. Talk to me... please?”
This was still new territory for me. In my admittedly not very plentiful experience with relationships, trying to get a man to open up was generally the prelude to hearing a litany of my many failings, and subsequently getting my ass dumped. I was taking it on faith that what Rans and I had was something different, but that didn’t stop my flutter of nerves at the idea of prying at his current mental state.
He glanced at our surroundings—perhaps trying to judge the level of interest the self-absorbed people around us might have in our conversation. I suspected the answer hovered somewhere in the vicinity of absolutely none, and he seemed to agree. With a sigh, he led me to a stretch of wall between two shop fronts. I
