“But I promise to leave that one up to you. You can be as handsy as you like, all as part of the role.” I lift my glass in a toast. “Bottoms up.”
“Even if Bo is about?”
“There’s a lesson I won’t need to learn again.”
“Because that’s not happeningagain.” She smiles around her tiny straw, and my mind turns deviant.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You might have those baby blues,” she says, “but that innocent look doesn’t work for you.”
“I’ve gotten away with it this far.” I give an unmanly flutter of my lashes, prompting her to giggle.
“You should stick to that haughty brow thing you love so much.”
“My what?” I murmur, doing the exact thing she’s talking about.
Her smile is sudden, wide, and genuine and makes my heartbeats fall in quick succession.
“That’s the one ... that makes me want to shave the sucker off.”
I almost choke on my drink. Coughing into my fist, I clear my throat, then set my glass down. “That would leave me in a predicament.”
“Or looking like a groom after a bachelor party.”
“There’s little chance of that ever happening.”
“How am I meant to convince people we’re heading for big love when you say things like that?”
“Because I’m saying it only to you.” As I also remind myself.
“You don’t think it’ll ever happen?”
“That I’ll have my eyebrows shaved off at a bachelor party?”
“That you’ll fall in love again.”
Again.Another Lucy assumption I suppose.
“My life is already quite full. It’s not something I devote a lot of thought to.” People don’t fall in love. It’s a choice, not accidental.
“If it happens, it happens? And if it doesn’t, we’ll just murder your harem and bury them, and you, with your pots of money when you pass.”
“No harem.”
“And no Saint Lucy,” she murmurs, quickly taking a sip from her glass.
“You wouldn’t call Lucy a saint if you knew her.” I wonder where this has come from.
“Well, I don’t know her, and I’m clearly not her.”
“And for that, I’m very glad.” I pause, choosing not to correct her assumption. “If you want to know, you only have to ask.” Not that she will.
“I’m not interested.” She flicks her shoulder. “It’s not like I can trust your answers, anyway.”
“I’ll tell you the truth. You just have to know the right questions to ask.”
“Like I said. I don’t care.” She paints on a fake-looking smile, and I’m sorry for it. But what I’m sorry for, I can’t bring myself to admit. “If I can’t make you a celibate monk, who can I make you tonight?”
