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“I don’t,” I say. “We ran into each other, and I thanked him for the tickets.”
“Right,” Alex says. “Later, do you think you can get me an interview with him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ll try.”
Alex nods and looks around, pleased that he’s here.
“Come on, let's sit down,” he says. “They’re going to do speeches soon, and then we can go to that fortune thing afterward.”
I nod. Alex orders a glass of whiskey before we walk to our table together, sitting down.
I glance to the table where Blake and Emma sit together. He talks, and everyone around the table hangs on his every word. When he reaches his punchline, everyone laughs. Emma touches his arms as she laughs, but Blake only cracks half a smile before it disappears again.
When he looks up at me, our eyes lock across the room. I look away quickly and my cheeks and ears burn. I was caught staring. God, I’m such a child sometimes! What poor form, staring at him like that when he’s with someone else. I feel like an idiot.
I don’t look at him again, but I can feel his eyes on me. At least he’ll forget about me in no time at all. It should be a consolation, but the idea that I’m nothing to Blake makes my stomach sink again.
I shake myself. I have no reason—and no right—to feel this way about him. He’s handsome, he’s powerful, he’s magnetic. But he’s also a client that I’ve taken through Ruby Blue, and I can’t read anything more into it. Even if he looked at me the way he did then. And offered me tickets.
He was just being nice.
“Are you okay?” Alex asks.
I nod. “Perfect.”
Because why shouldn’t I be? It’s not like I’m looking for anything right now, anyway. I’m single and happier than I’ve been in a long time. I want to build my career; that should be my focus. And in that regard, having a name like Blake Ford looks good.
That’s all that matters.
Who he is as a person and who he has on his arm doesn’t matter.
When I glance at him again, he’s talking to his little audience around the table and his eyes aren’t on me.
I avert my gaze quickly and force myself to focus on the first speaker that steps onto the stage.
But it’s a struggle not to keep looking at Blake.
Chapter 3
Blake
“Who is she?” Emma asks when we sit at the table and the others have gone to dance or to get more alcohol.
“Who?” I ask.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Blake. The girl you keep staring at.”
“I don’t stare at her,” I say.
Emma laughs, and her dark eyes dance with humor. “You can’t lie to me. I know you too well.”
She’s right. She knows me better than anyone. And she’s the only person I trust.
Emma Osborne started off as my personal trainer. She’s almost forty, but she looks much younger because she refuses to put anything past her lips that isn’t natural—including alcohol. In the decade she’s trained me, she hasn’t only gained my trust; we’ve become close friends.
She’s the only person I can talk to about anything and everything. She’s the only one that knows my past and why I am the way I am. And she accepts me for it.
“It’s not wrong to fall in love, you know,” Emma says, her laughter fading.
