Amy yanks Mom out of the window and I hear muffled yelling. I grab Declan’s hand and pull him to the limo door. The driver opens it and I climb in so fast and so inelegantly I hear my skirt split up the seam in the back.
Declan hears it, too, but sits back in the beige leather seat and ogles the vast expanse of creamy skin my mishap now exposes. A scene from a movie I saw recently, where a couple has sex in a limo, the woman in a ball gown, straddling the man, picks this exact moment to make a re-entrance into my psyche, plaguing me.
“Nice legs,” Declan says.
“I’ll bet you say that to all the marketing coordinators.” He starts to say something, and I add, “And to none of the marketing vice presidents.”
He thinks about that for a second and says, “You got me there.”
Chapter Nine
Our eyes lock.
“Where are we going?” It’s a relief to make simple small talk.
He names a restaurant I’ve always wanted to try, but needed to date a billionaire to afford.
Oh.
“Sounds good,” I say, nodding. Leaning back against the buttery leather, I try to take in my surroundings without looking like a major gawker. The leather seats hug my body better than any knockoff Tempur-Pedic memory foam like Mom and Dad have on their bed back home. A small fridge and a few decanters of what I assume are spirits dot the edges of the enclosed space. The limo looks like it could seat six comfortably, eight in a pinch.
With just two of us in here, there’s plenty of room to stretch out.
Go horizontal.
Or straddle.
I close my eyes, willing the sensual images that flood my brain to stop. Declan’s steady breath doesn’t help, cutting through me like he’s syncing it with the pictures in my mind. The scent of him fills the air between us and I feel charmed.
And doomed.
Declan chooses to say nothing, just watching me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. His eyes take me in and I wonder how I appear to him. Loose, long hair. Makeup mostly where it’s supposed to go. A curvy body in a dress meant to ooze sophistication. A tailored, feminine blazer that says I might be sexy underneath, but I’m all business on the outside.
My inner world is crumbling, brick by brick, and Declan’s holding the sledgehammer that demolishes me. Women like me don’t ride in cars like this. We don’t get invited out for a dinner—business or pleasure—by men like Declan. And we certainly don’t entertain wild ideas about happily ever after with men who will go so high in the business world that women like me are just, well…coordinators.
Whatever delusions I hold inside about his attraction for me are there only because he’s looking at me like he really means it. As if I am as beautiful and desirable as his look says.
He’s very good at pretending that I’m worth the attention.
His phone rings, making me jump. His breathing stays the same, and his sleek, fluid movement impresses me. Nothing seems to rattle him. With dulcet tones, he talks to someone named Grace, the cadence of their conversation quickly familiar to me. Scheduling helicopters and private jets may be out of my realm, but I know a logistics talk when I hear one. Grace is probably his executive assistant. Something about New Zealand, a reception, and then a return flight to the west coast pops up through their twenty-minute conversation.
I spend the time willing my heart to stay in my chest.
If I weren’t such a cheap date I’d knock back a shot of whatever is in the crystal decanter at my elbow, an amber liquid that looks good. But two drinks and I’m quite tipsy. Three and I’m drunk.
Four and I’m singing “Bad Romance” at full blast in a really cheesy karaoke performance. Whether there’s a karaoke machine or not.
Declan shoots me apologetic looks every so often, and I just smile without teeth. A shrug here and there helps communicate that it’s okay. I get it. And I do.
In fact, the phone conversation helps me to bring my overwrought self back to center. Business. This is business. I’m not on a date with him. We’re talking about a few million dollars a year that his company wants to spend for a specific value premise, and my company would love to receive that money to offer services.
That’s it.
This is a transaction. Not a relationship. And certainly not an affair.
“It’ll be at the restaurant?” Declan murmurs into the phone, then his face goes neutral but the skin around his eyes turns up a touch, like a smile without his lips moving.
Grace says something. Declan replies, “Good,” and hangs up abruptly. It would be rude if it weren’t shorthand. I’m sure Grace is doing a dance she and Declan know all too well, keeping the ship running smoothly through the careful discarding of unnecessary social expectations for the sake of ruthless efficiency.
He tucks the phone inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket just as the driver slows the limo, bringing it to a gentle halt. I look out the window. We’re here.
Except the entrance we use is most definitely not one for the hoi polloi. Wouldn’t want the unwashed masses rubbing elbows with the richie-riches, right? My own bitterness surprises me, and I have a hard time looking at Declan for a minute or two.
His eyes shift; he sees it, and wants to say something, but doesn’t. Instead, the driver opens my door and Declan’s hand comes out to take mine.
My heart seizes with the touch of bare skin on bare skin. Jesus. If the man can get me this close to an O holding my hands, I’ll stroke out if we ever make it to a bed, naked.
And there I go again…what is wrong with me? I don’t do this. I don’t think like this. Not only do I not randomly strip strange men na**d with my mind and have little p**n o movies in my head about them, I don’t even think about one-night stands.
The only guys I’ve ever slept with were friends first. Good friends. The slow, leisurely meandering to physical affection and something more, carefully measured out and talked through is more my speed.
I like to take things slow. To reveal myself layer by layer to men. To dip a toe in the water and pull back. I’m the kind of person who gets into a pool one inch of flesh at a time, pausing to shiver and acclimate.
Declan is the sexual equivalent of doing a cannonball. At 4 a.m. In March in northern Vermont.
As I climb out, my torn skirt shows so much thigh I might as well have given birth.
Declan’s eyebrow arches with appreciation. Controlling my breathing is becoming a second job. I stand and he reaches for me again, his hand on my back, and he smells like cloves, cinnamon, and tobacco. Not cigarettes, though.