“To say what? To suggest we pick up where we left off?” Because I totally would’ve been down for that. Maybe not so much right now. Who am I kidding? I would’ve crawled on my knees to Knightsbridge if he’d asked me to. I just want him, even when he’s making it hard for me.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. That Idon’twant to,” he qualifies.
Wow. An admission. But not one that makes me feel giddy when he looks as serious as he does right now.
“I’m not here to make you jealous, and that’s the truth. Now you tell me the truth. Why you’re here.”
“That’s easy.” His gaze slices up, his eyes more tiger-like than ever. “Whether you meant to cause it or not, I am jealous.”
I begin to chuckle. “You mean that works in real life? I’ve just got to go out with—”
“My brother. Who, you can’t fail to notice, wants to fuck you.”
My attention slides to the intrepid trio. I guess Whit’s plan has gone as he intended because it looks like El has decided the hot server is a better prospect. “He doesn’t seem too hung up on me.”
“Because he’s an idiot.” He rolls his shoulder, the fabric of his jacket tightening against the bulk of his bicep. But he’s still not looking at me, which just lights a fire under my butt. I had no intentions of going home with El, but I will not have my future dictated to me, not when I might have so little of it left.
Six months. Or what’s left of it.
“Is idiocy the curse of all Whittington males, or just you two?” I say as I stand. “Let me spell it out for you.” I yank my dress over my thighs, refusing to look at him. “You don’t want me going home with your brother. Fine. But I’m not in London for long, but I intend on getting thefull experience.” Now I raise my head, leveling him with a look that better say last-chance saloon. “So you better understand, if not him and if not you, I am going home with someone tonight.”
14
WHIT
“Well, that seemed to go well.”
I give Heather no more than a cursory glance as she places her glass down before taking the seat Mimi recently vacated. “You think?”
“Sarcasm, Leif. I know you live your life on a different cosmic plain to the rest of us up there on billionaire row, but you remember sarcasm, don’t you?” When I don’t answer, she adds, “I would hate to think you’d dragged me out to watch you sit and wallow after Mimi served you a slice of angry scowl and pointed finger.”
“I’m not wallowing.” I’m watching, staring at Mimi on the floor below. Her arms rest on the railing running around the dance floor, her body bent forward to reveal a slash in the fabric of her dress. She’s not flashing a lot of skin, yet my gut twists with the desire to slide my fingers there. To press my hands to the sinuous curve of her hips, to feel the softness of skin not ordinarily revealed. No, I’m not wallowing. I don’t actually know what the fuck I’m doing.
“Looks like wallowing to me.”
“I’m observing.”
“Well,observehow I’ve occupied our manwhore of a brother, leaving the path wide open for someone else. Someone else, say, like you, she says with a careless flutter of her fingers.
“That’s not why I brought you here.”
“Isn’t it? Come on, Leif. I know you didn’t ask me to come with you tonight because you were worried about our brother defiling your PA, sacred soul that she is, disrupting your office Zen. You asked me to come along because you have feelings for Mimi yourself.”
“I didn’t say that, either. I thought you went for drinks?”
She reaches for her glass. “Your drink will be along when El has stopped flirting with the server. And you didn’t need to say. I do have eyes in my head. They work perfectly fine, you know.”
“I might be worse than El. Worse for her, at least.”
“If you are, you hide it well. For a start, you don’t kiss and broadcast it. You’re not delusional, either. You don’t bang on about how you’re God’s gift to women.”
“El’s okay. He’s just young.”
“He’s notthatyoung,” she replies with a snort. “And he’s older than me.”
“Yes, but you and me were born with old heads on our shoulders.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is sensible. Well, I’m sensible. You’re a bit more reckless, but I think that comes with the penis-owning thing.”
