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I reach into my pockets. A billfold. An old pocket watch. A handful of coins.
The quarter flips off my thumb and across the room. I didn’t give her enough warning, but she captures it anyway. Delicate fingers smooth across the warm metal. “Twenty-five cents? I suppose I could add foam to my Starbucks order tomorrow.”
“Have a wonderful meal,” Sarah Morelli says.
Eva kisses her mother’s cheek.
When she approaches me, her chin is high and her bearing regal, but there’s a hint of vulnerability in her eyes. It’s what pulls me to her. She’s so damn strong, holding up her entire family like Atlas holds the world. But who rubs her shoulders at the end of the day?
I offer her my arm, and she takes it. Very formal.
There’s nothing untoward about us. My body doesn’t give a fuck. It reacts with a violent sense of victory. Mine, it says. The way her arm rests in mine, the heat of her body—it’s like she was made to stand at my side.
Or maybe I was made to stand by hers.
Which is all just my body’s way of telling me I’m down to fuck.
I don’t think that’s in the cards for me tonight, but I find I don’t mind that much. The challenge is more appealing. The challenge to make Eva Morelli have fun. I escort her out of the room. We’re all the way down the hall when she starts second-guessing herself. I feel it enter her limbs like stiffness. Like fear, even if she’d never admit it.
“We don’t actually have to go anywhere,” she murmurs, as if she’s letting me off the hook. As if I should be relieved that I don’t get to take her on a date.
“Chickening out already?” I ask.
Her glance is sharp. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what this is, right? You’re afraid I might actually make good on my promise. That you’d actually have a good time, while your family has to fend for themselves.”
Rose blooms on her cheeks. A deep breath draws my attention to the shadowed space between her breasts. Indignation looks sexy on her. “Unlike my mother, I know that there weren’t any real plans. You only said that to shock her. This is a game for you.”
“A game?”
“A game,” she says, “like everything else in your life. You have money and women and cars, and not a single problem that can’t be solved by a check.”
Anger blisters through my veins. Followed by grief. “If you say so.”
“My mother’s going to expect me to come up with fantastical tales of this surprise date I somehow managed to land with the charming and handsome Finn Hughes.”
“You think I’m handsome?”
An exasperated laugh. “She thinks you’re handsome. I think you’re annoying.”
“You think I’m charming, for sure.”
“And full of yourself.”
I grin. “Come on, Morelli. Have a good time. I double-dog dare you.”
She throws up her hands in the middle of the large, darkened hallway. “I can’t even imagine leaving in the middle of a gala. What if something goes wrong?”
“Let it burn. We’ve got plans.”
She shakes her head, a half-smile on her face. It’s not refusal. It’s the look of a woman who’s going to let me show her a good time. I take her hand and lead her away from the bright lights. We leave through a side exit. Gargoyles watch us from the crown of the house as we go down. My Bugatti is already waiting there. I texted the valet before I even entered the drawing room. She’s already purring in the gravel drive.
“Your car is already waiting?” Eva says, a laugh in her voice.
“What? I don’t do half-assed promises. I stole you away for the night. You’re mine for the next five hours. What will I do with you? I have ideas, of course. Hundreds of them.” I sweep open the door and hold it for her.
Eva hesitates for a heartbeat. Then she lets me hand her into the deep seat.
