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Richard’s face turns an ugly shade of puce. “Scarlett, lovely to see you, as always. My condolences on your choice of groom.”
He stalks off in the direction of the private bar. I turn my gaze back to the tennis match. Crew’s hand remains on my back, searing through the thin material.
“Interesting choice in conversationalist.”
“I could say the same to you,” I reply loftily.
I can hear a smile in Crew’s voice. “She approached me.”
For some stupid reason, I feel obligated to respond. “So did he.”
“I know. I saw.”
“You were watching?”
“Always, Red.”
He can’t see my face, so I don’t bother to hide my smile.
After the tennis match ends, I promise Jacqueline I’ll meet her for breakfast tomorrow morning. She spent most of the match flirting with Henriq Popov, who is the odds-on favorite to win the French Open, instead of discussing business.
“Where to next?” Crew asks as we leave the private box.
“Um…” Truthfully, I don’t have anything definitive planned until dinner with Jacques tonight. Admitting that feels like a weakness, as stupid as that sounds. I rely on looking busy around Crew. Work is always an excuse, something I know he’ll respect. “I have nothing planned until dinner,” I admit.
“Dinner with who?”
“Jacques. He’s—”
“The super in-demand guy you skipped our wedding night for. Yeah, I remember.”
He sounds jealous. “You can come, if you want.”
“I don’t want to get in the way.”
I smile. “If anyone will be in the way, it’s me.”
His brow creases with confusion, interrupting his previously bored expression.
“Jacques is gay, Crew. If you come to dinner, I guarantee he’ll hit on you.”
Jacques’s sexual orientation is a pointless clarification, one I only make because I still feel guilty for lying to him about my pretend lover. His only response is to walk toward the exit. I scurry after him a few seconds later.
Crew weaves through the crowds without so much as a jostle. Even among people who have no clue who he is, he’s not the sort of guy you mow over.
He halts when we reach the sidewalk, leaning down to talk to a driver of one of the many cabs lining the street. After a minute, he stands and beckons me over.
“What are you doing?” I ask, pulling out my phone. “I can call—”
“Get in.”
“I have a car here.”
“I know you do. We rode here in it. Get in, Scarlett.”
Part of me wants to argue for the sake of it. I don’t like to defer to anyone about anything. But a bigger part of me wants to listen—craves the dominance Crew commands so easily.
Silently, I listen. He doesn’t walk around to the other side of the cab. I realize he’s waiting for me to slide over. There’s something normal about it, so different from the limo rides we’ve shared in the past. I slide, feeling the fabric of my dress bunch up around my thighs as I glide across the leather. Crew pays more attention to my bare legs than he did to the tennis match.
