“I’ll hire a personal chef for you who specializes in New Orleans cuisine.”
“Sure.” I’m getting used to laughing off his grandiose promises. “Throw in a chauffeur, a team of housekeepers and a Swedish masseuse and you’re on.”
“Done.”
But now they’re bringing dessert and the Death by Chocolate is aptly named. Because I might literally die with ecstasy. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire freaking life,” I mumble between mouthfuls.
Dallas grins. “I’ll make sure your chef knows his way around a chocolate cake too, while we’re at it.”
“Make sure he can whip up a killer gumbo too. I love gumbo. You want to know something crazy?”
“Yes.”
“It was our gumbo that won our old chef the Michelin star. The whole menu was fantastic, but that was his signature dish. People used to come from all across the country just to get a bowl of it.” I don’t know why I’m rambling on about this, but he’s just so easy to talk to, and so beguiled by everything I do and say, it’s connective and endearing. And a little addictive. “People said you couldn’t get a Michelin star for what’s basically a soup. But Marcel proved them wrong. It was the perfect recipe. And one he never wrote down. So the new chef couldn’t replicate it after he left.”
“Why did Marcel leave?”
“He got poached by another restaurant. In Paris, of all places. Once you get a Michelin star, as it turns out, you’re in hot demand. And we couldn’t pay him what some of those other restaurants offered him. So he left. That’s when things started to …” I hate thinking about it. “Anyway, our glory years had a shelf life. Maybe the new owner will hire a better chef eventually.”
The head waiter appears and asks us if we want another bottle of champagne. Dallas tells him we’re good and hands him a black credit card. The waiter rushes off to take care of the bill.
I hate to think about how much this meal would have cost. And I hate that I have nothing to contribute. But Dallas, as though reading my mind, eases his warm hand under my hair to grip the nape of my neck, just holding it there. “I’d like you to come back to my hotel with me. Before we leave for the river cruise.”
“The river cruise is a dinner,” I remind him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to eat again until next Tuesday.”
“True. Maybe we can do that tomorrow night instead. It did say on the website that a favorite local jazz band plays live on the Sunday night cruises.”
“Oh.” There’s a lot of time between right now and tomorrow night.
“Come back to my hotel with me. We can have some more champagne. You can tell me about your plans for New York. It can be good to talk through options before you make any major decisions.”
I don’t have plans. But I have made a decision. And I think we both know what will happen if I go back to his hotel with him.
I don’t have a lot of prior experience with the feeling I’m inhabiting. I’m wearing the most gorgeous dress I’ve ever seen. I’ve just eaten the best meal of my life. I’m giddy with champagne. Not drunk, just … loosened. Like all my gears that have been wound so tight for so long have been given a quarter turn the other way and my equilibrium is still figuring out what to do with the magical slack.
I feel recklessly, wildly good.
I want it to be him.
“Okay, Dallas Wilder,” I whisper.
22
We comeout onto the street where the limo is waiting for us and it’s much later than I realized. The sun is low and golden, resting on the purple haze of just-off-twilight.
The thing about me is that, once I’ve made a decision, I tend to run with it.
And I’m not myself. I’m some unrecognizable version of it. One that lives in Lila Bailey dresses that fit like a dream. One who rides in helicopters and limos like she belongs in them. One who laughs easily and doesn’t seem to have a damn care in the world, like they’ve all just evaporated into thin air because Dallas Wilder has the magic touch. He somehow just—poof—forces them to fade out.
In this moment, my body and my soul have distilled themselves into only the good parts. The happiest, sexiest parts. The parts that are both carefree and brave.
The driver opens the door. Dallas slides in next to me, lifting me onto his lap as the door closes with that soft, sealed thunk that only very expensive cars make. The partition is closed so it’s just the two of us again in the amber quiet of it.
Dallas looks at me in the low light and he’s just so damn sexy I can’t possibly second guess him. Any sensible reason I might have had for keeping my distance has been steadily and methodically obliterated over the course of one extraordinary day, and what’s left without sensible reasons is just the truth.
The truth is I want him badly.
His lap is—oh my god—mostly a hot,giganticridge. The softness of my body cradles him intimately, and somehow perfectly. Like I was made to do exactly this. I squirm a little, to try to get more comfortable, maybe, or to get closer—I can’t be entirely sure. The champagne and the dress and the particular alchemy of Dallas Wilder have reassigned my center of gravity and demolished any willpower I have (not much at the worst of times and right now, absolutely zero). My hands are on his shoulders as I writhe lightly. My clit rubs against the hard heat of him and I gasp.
