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“Oh, you know.” I shrugged easily. “I might… buy a new house. Something small. Ten thousand square feet or so.”
“To display your tables.” Bash nodded solemnly. “Perfectly reasonable.”
“If you’d like, sir,” the friendly woman offered, “I can put you in touch with our designer.”
“Oh, no, I—” I began.
“Yes, please. That would be very helpful,” Bash cut in. “Whatever Mr. Chase wants, he gets.”
If only.
I rubbed my temple slightly as we waited for the woman to provide contact information that my helpful personal assistant stored in his phone. It was definitely time to come clean before I ended up on the hook for more than just a swanky hotel room.
Bash was unusually quiet as we made our way upstairs, and the silence was impossible to read. It wasn’t the same tension as on the ride to the hotel, but it for sure wasn’t the easy camaraderie of the polo match, and it set me further on edge.
Was he quiet because he was thinking about kissing me? Because he was hoping I wouldn’t kiss him? Because he knew I was impersonating a billionaire and he was planning to call the police?
“Rowe?” he called as we walked down a carpeted hallway. I turned around and saw that he’d stopped beside a heavy oak door, and I hadn’t even noticed. “Are you alright?”
“Mmm. Yes. Perfectly perfect!” I sang cheerily.
Just thinking about kissing. And prison. As one does.
“You sure?” Bash raised one eyebrow, his hand on the doorknob. “Nothing you want to share with me?”
“Nope! Noooope. I’msoperfectly perfect, in fact, this moment eclipses my previous most perfect day, which was the day I spent chatting with, um…” I cast my eyes around, trying to think ofliterally anyone, and spotted a black-and-white signed picture fromSome Like It Hot. “Marilyn Monroe.”
What. The. Fuck?
Bash and I blinked at each other, and I immediately shook my head. “Not… nottheMarilyn Monroe, obviously. I meant, um…” I scanned the hall again for inspiration and landed on an English landscape. “A… horse! A horse named Marilyn Monroe.”
I could practically feel my ball gown turning into rags and a pumpkin materializing at my feet.
“Your most perfect day,” Bash repeated with excessive patience. “Was a day you spent chatting with a horse named Marilyn Monroe.”
I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Then said, slowly and miserably, “W-would you believe it’s… one of my quirky billionaire eccentricities?”
“Right.” He pushed open the door. “Would you like a drink?”
“Desperately,” I croaked. I didn’t even care which of “Sterling’s favorite” concoctions he gave me.
He nodded and moved to the sleek kitchenette area of the suite while I glanced around at the spacious sitting room, looking for a place where I might quietly melt into a puddle of embarrassment on the thick carpet, but my attention was instantly snagged by the view. Clear glass windows lined one wall, showing off the neatly manicured lawn edged by a wilderness area dense with a mix of fir trees and hardwoods.
“So pretty,” I breathed, wandering closer to the view. “I didn’t realize you could be close to the city and feel like the rest of the world was so far away.”
After a moment, Bash walked up and handed me a bottle of cold beer before casually leaning against the back of one sofa.
I blinked in surprise at the drink in my hand. Had he remembered what I’d said about beer at the gala? I tried for a joke. “Is this Sterling Chase’s favorite beer?”
Bash tilted his head. “Shouldn’t you be telling me?”
I glanced nervously down at the condensation-wet bottle before taking a deep gulp. It was cold and crisp and delicious andnormal. Bash watched me drink with a kind of singular focus that made it impossible for me to think of anything to say.
“You should see this area in the fall when the leaves turn,” he said finally. “I have some distant cousins who live nearby.”
“Yeah? Most of my cousins are in Indiana,” I said without thinking.Fuck.“N-not all of them, of course! My cousin Joey’s family lives here in Quee—I mean.” Sweat rolled down my back. “I mean the Upper North Side.” Wait, was there an Upper North Side? “The UpperWestSide. East. East of the Upper West Side. You know, the nice area? That one. That’s where they live. Near the… park. Central Park, I believe they call it.”
I took a large gulp of the beer, waiting for an invisible clock to strike midnight and wondering where I might find a fairy godmother. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bash shaking his head, wearing that half-smile I liked, as if he wasn’t sure whether to be amused by me or not.
