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Yeah. Yeah, that was beyond wrong. Most people probably thought that behind the pearly white smile and the expensive suits he was a rich piece of shit. They might be right, but last time he checked, he didn’t have a giant gaping butthole in his forehead. His asshole was right where it was supposed to be.
“Not exactly,” Noemi breathed. “I can’t tell you when I’m still this sober. The wine wore off about ten minutes after I got here, and I can’t have this conversation sober.”
“In my experience, it’s not great to have it drunk either.”
“I was just thinking a little more buzzed. Not drunk. Don’t worry.”
“Are you sure? It’s not gentlemanly to take a drunk girl to bed.”
Noemi’s face turned a bright shade of scarlet. The brightest yet. Her eyes did that dance they loved to do, scanning everything but his face. It wasn’t lost on him that he’d just eaten out his would-be fiancé while she had no idea that it was him. And that while he knew he was the asshole of the century for playing dirty like that, he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
“Just one more shot. I don’t think three ounces of whisky ever got someone so drunk that they didn’t know what they were doing. I just want to take the edge off. All of the edge.”
For a minute, at least while she was thrashing and bucking against his face and his tongue was buried in the tightest, hottest, sweetest tasting pussy he’d ever had the pleasuring of putting his tongue inside, he’d forgotten that she was who she was and he was who he was and there was a world going on outside that she was running from and he was trying to embrace.
He passed over the bottle and watched while she poured herself her own drink. Her hands shook just a little. This time she didn’t throw it back. She sipped at it, like he did, leaning up against the espresso cupboards and white granite as if she needed them to support her.
“Your dad must have a reason behind doing what he did.” Byron actually didn’t know why that had just come out. It wasn’t what he’d planned on saying.
Noemi ducked her head, and the glass in her hand trembled, the liquid sloshing from side to side with the gentle vibration. “I don’t know. I’ve gone over it in my head. Over and over it. The only thing I can think of is that he wanted to see me settled and looked after. He’s not young. He and my mom had me when they were pretty much past their child rearing prime. My mom was forty-one. My dad was forty-five. He’s pushing seventy now. He loved my mom. Their marriage was one of those fairy tale kind of romances. They had their problems and it wasn’t all happily ever after, but they loved each other madly. Through all of it. I always wanted that. As a little girl I didn’t need the princess movies and stories that every other little girl loved. I just watched them. Always. My mom died a couple years ago. My dad misses her terribly. I think he wants me to find someone and have what he had. He’s worried about me. He’s just trying to secure my future.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know.” Noemi sighed. Her knuckles went almost white on the glass she had in her hand. “I have to believe that. He’s seriously not the kind of man who would just trade me off for a business deal and some money. He loves me more than anything in the world now that mom is gone. He would never do that to me.”
“Maybe he thought you wouldn’t mind. That if you got to know the guy, you’d be okay, and love would follow. If he loves you and knows you, he wouldn’t have picked out a monster or a real bastard.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I’m not ever going to find out now.” Noemi’s lips pressed into a thin line. Her eyes flicked up to his face. “What about your parents? Tell me something about them now that I’ve pretty much spilled everything about me.”
Byron choked back the yell that threatened to tear out of his throat. He never talked about his family. With anyone. Everyone he worked with knew better than to bring that shit up. Noemi didn’t, though. She stared at him with wide, innocent eyes, waiting. She. Didn’t. Know. She wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was just curious. Making small talk, which was natural after she’d spoken so intimately about her own family.
She deserved something in return.
This time, his sip turned into a swallow and he let the whisky burn over his tongue and down his throat, into his stomach. “My parents are both dead,” he informed her flatly. “My mom a long time ago, when I was still basically a kid. She got cancer. It was all over fast. My father died almost a decade ago in a car accident.”
