Meanwhile, I live a cloud-walking existence.If only.Sex would definitely help the situation, but that’s not to say I’m not enjoying the challenge that is Eve.
I think about that night more than is healthy. The feel of her silken skin and the pleasure of her soft sighs. I tell myself my interest in her doesn’t need to be defined, that base lust is part of it. Revenge another. That her resistance piques my interest. But mostly, I think it’s just her.
“Oliver, you okay, there?”
Matt’s soft Irish lilt brings me back to the moment, and I realize my gaze has strayed to the entrance of the restaurant. I’m tense, I realize, but also oddly looking forward to what Eve will bring.Will she be the sunshine or the hurricane?
“Yes. Fine. I just have a lot of plates in the air in the moment.”
“Speaking of plates,” Fin puts in, “want to tell us why there’s an extra place setting?”
I lift my glass to my lips, then answer, “Not particularly.”
Fin’s posture changes, his expression suddenly animated. “You haven’t gotten Bellsand to come.”
At the man’s name, my stomach tenses.If Eve can’t convince my friends of our relationship, what chance will she have of convincing the man who owns Northaby?I push the thought away. She can, and she will.
“Look at him, creaming his knickers.” Matt chuckles. Leaning over, he smacks his hand to the back of Fin’s head. “Sometimes I think if you were any less clever, I’d have to water you twice a week,” he says, sounding distinctly Irish despite Matías Romero being a distinctly un-Irish name.
“Fuck off,” Fin retorts.
But Matt’s right. Mortimer isn’t going to turn up to an impromptu meal. He wants to be courted—wined and dined in style. I know of at least five other parties who’ve done exactly that only to be served a politeno thanksat their purchase attempts. But at least they got that far. I haven’t been able to get him to answer his phone.
Atherton, no doubt, had a hand in that.
“No offense to this place,” Matt adds.
I wave his apology away. None taken. We’re hardly sitting in a fleapit. The best of boutique hotels are noted for their sense of style, their character. They are an experience, not just a place to lay your head. I flatter myself that we have this here. But Mortimer is old guard. He thinks anything less than the Dorchester is slumming it. I’d wager he wouldn’t deign to drink from our cellar on principle.
No matter. I have something else lined up to impress him.Someone else.
“Well, what have we here?”
An awareness slides down my spine at the exact same time as Fin opens his mouth. Resisting the urge to drive my fist into his face at his tone, I push back my chair. As I turn, everything seems to slow for a moment, the sight before me whipping my breath away.
Eve’s red-gold tresses are piled to the top of her head, and she wears a dress of emerald silk that cuts across her clavicles. Cinched tight at the waist by a thin belt, it drops to her calves, where it swishes to and fro with every step she takes. My eyes devour her from the top of her head to the lofty heels I’d like to fuck her in.
“Sorry I’m late,” she murmurs, sliding me a coy look from under her lashes. Chairs shuffle, and my companions stand, not that I have an ounce of attention for them. Eve Fairfax is fucking beautiful—but that’s not news. And it’s not the whole of her. She’s a mixture of irreverence, mystery, drama, and sheer goodness. She’s the whole fucking package, and she’s far too good to be caught up in my scheming. But here she is, lovely and oblivious. And just for a moment, I hate that it had to be her.
“Ten minutes, you said.” My reply sounds like a playful reprimand. It could be the essence of our relationship, if it weren’t all pretend. Surprise causes a ragged breath from my throat as she presses a light hand to my shoulder, grazing her lips across my cheek. The scent of her is like fucking delirium, the tendrils of her perfume like beckoning fingers. “But I forgive you.”
Will you forgive me?
“Because I’m worth waiting for, right?”
“Absolutely.” I take her hand as it slips from my shoulder. I expected a performance—theatrics. Shenanigans. What she’s delivering seems to be, on the outside, the perfect girlfriend experience.
“Like my dress?” She gives a small, graceful swing of her hips: a demonstration of how it sways. “It has pockets.”
“Did you fill them with rocks?” I think her smile must reflect mine, the inside joke going back to that fateful Saturday.
“Should I have?”
“Not for me,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Sadly,” I add, turning back to the table and the stunned faces of my friends, “I can’t vouch for these two. Fin, Matt, allow me to introduce Eve Fairfax. Eve, these reprobates are my business partners and so-called friends.”
“He’s talking about him,” Matt laughingly protests as he gestures Fin’s way. “I’m a Boy Scout. Just your average guy next door.”
“What he fails to mention is he lives next door to a brothel,” Fin retorts.
