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“Good,” she said cautiously. “Then... What did you do?”
“This.” He pulled a teardrop sapphire pendant, ringed with smaller diamonds, out of his pocket and held it up in front of her. It settled right at the hollow of her throat as he fastened the clasp of the delicate, glittering white gold chain.
Jenna gasped. “Oh, my God, Drew. I can’t accept this.”
“I found it a couple weeks ago. I thought it would look perfect with the ring. That was why I pushed for blue, even though the other dresses looked great on you, too.”
“But... It’s against the rules.” Her hand went up to touch it delicately.
“Sometimes rules have to be broken. That nugget of wisdom brought to you by Michael Wu, who has finally kicked my underperforming ass up to level eight. He advised me to be bolder and risk harder, or else I’ll just keep running around in the same circles.”
She gazed at herself in the mirror, wide-eyed. “Very smooth,” he said. “Video game wisdom, to manipulate me. You know that Michael is my soft spot.”
“I love manipulating your soft spots,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll use whatever works. But Michael’s logic makes sense to me. Because I think we’re ready.”
She turned to look up at him. “For what?”
“The next level,” he said.
They just gazed at each other. The air hummed with emotion. Endless possibilities.
He took her hand, and kept kissing it until he felt that subtle shift of energy, like the wind ruffling the grass. They were so attuned to each other. God, how he loved that.
Her eyes dropped. “This isn’t a conversation to have when we’re late to an important function,” she said. “Let’s, um, hit Pause. Pick this up later.”
He let out a sigh. At least it wasn’t a flat-out no. But he wanted so badly to nail this down and close the deal. “You will wear the necklace, though, right?” he wheedled.
She narrowed her eyes at him, fingering the pendant. “You are sneaky.”
“Always,” he assured her.
“Hmmph. This time,” she conceded. “I have to go find my evening bag. I think I left it in the studio.”
The skirt swooshed and rustled past his legs as she swept out, leaving him alone and secretly exulting. It was a huge deal that she was wearing jewelry he’d gotten her. She was so prickly about the billionaire-plaything vibe. Every little silly detail made her twitchy.
He looked around for his tux jacket and found it on the bed, with Smudge curled up on top of it, purring loudly.
As Drew approached, Smudge rolled onto his back and stretched luxuriously, flopping this way and that, making sure to cover the entire jacket. Then he flipped over and began digging his claws into the shiny black lapels, kneading them. His golden eyes fixed on Drew’s face, waiting to see how he took it.
Drew sighed. “I need my tux jacket, cat.”
He picked the cat up and dropped him on the floor. Smudge hissed and stalked away with his tail high to plot his next move.
The jacket was hot, creased and crumpled and covered with a layer of downy gray fluff. Drew got the lint roller, an item that now hung on the closet door for easy and constant access, and rolled the cat fluff carefully off from his jacket.
This was next-level stuff for sure.
The first part of the evening passed in a daze for Jenna. She had to hope that her mind was functioning on autopilot during the mix-and-mingle part of the evening, because she’d talked with what felt like hundreds of people and had not the slightest memory of what she’d said to them. She just kept touching the pendant at her throat and trying to keep herself from dancing with excitement.
Next level? What exactly did that mean, other than the screamingly obvious? She didn’t dare get it wrong. Could she have misunderstood, projected, overshot his intentions? She was head over heels in love, and he kept luring her deeper into his life.
And it was so much fun. She slept at his house every night. Weekend mornings were coffee and sex and brunch, then more sex. Evenings they cooked dinner together, cuddled on the couch or on his terrace on the lake, sipping a glass of brandy under a cashmere blanket, legs wound together on the hassock. He’d dedicated a studio for her so she could work weekends from his house. He’d installed a cat door in his kitchen for Smudge. He’d designated a huge closet for her, as if she had a wardrobe vast enough to fill it.
And then, relentlessly, he was filling it. Like this gown, for instance. It was stunning, but it was total billionaire-plaything nonsense, the very kind she’d forbidden from the very beginning. Now the sapphire pendant, for God’s sake. To match the ring.
He was getting bolder.
She wondered if she’d be required to spend obscene amounts of his money on dressing herself at the next level. Hmm.
