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“Just…” she grins. “Really. Keep that on the down-low for now, okay?”
“For sure.”
She grins, turning to snag two flutes of champagne from a passing tray and then passing me one.
“Cheers. To you, and to your long and fruitful career at Crown and Black.”
* * *
I endup having two more glasses of champagne with Taylor. Because how do you say no when it’s your boss, and when she’s just told you you’re getting the promotion of a lifetime, which, by the way, comes with about a four-hundred-percent pay bump.
Literally.
So by the time she gives me one last hug before going to make the rounds, I’m feelinggreat.
Which is to say,drunk.
Drunk enough that I flat out ignore Leo when he strides in with Gavan Tsarenko and glares at me from across the ballroom. Drunk enough that when hedoesmanage to corner me and try and grab me by the wrist, I simply shrug him off and disappear into the crowd.
No. I’m feeling too good right now to deal with his shit or his threats. They’ll still be there tomorrow, anyway.
Tonight, nothing can bring me down.
I make the rounds myself, talking to a few of our VIP clients. Alistair introduces me to a handsome older Scottish guy named Cormac Heath, a client of Crown and Black that I’ve never met before.
I’m stunned when I’m introduced to his wife, and realize she’s the super famous modern artist Ella Veers. I mean, I’ve seen her work hanging in the Tate Modern in London, for God’s sake. So when she tells me she loves my dress, it’s sort of a surreal moment.
I drink more champagne, and enjoy the conversation, and focus on all the amazingly good things in my life.
But then, laughing at something Cormac just said, I turn, and my eyes lock onto Hades, lookingsinfullyhot in a black tux.
…With a pretty brunette hanging off his arm in a dress that makes mine look like rags.
I shoot daggers at him, even if he can’t see me through the crowd. I’ve never seen Hades dressed up. His go-to seems to be dark jeans and white t-shirts, or occasionally, business casual slacks with a button up shirt, no tie.
But in a tux?
Sweet Jesus.
It’s positively criminal. He looks like a fucking movie star at the premiere of his superhero action film. It’s the chiseled jaw combined with the slightly longer dark hair and the piercing blue eyes. The high cheekbones. The broad, muscled shoulders.
The general “fuck the world” devil-may-care cavalier, cocky attitude that swirls around him like smoke.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that when I look at Hades, I see puresin. I see a man who has pushed me past every boundary I have and left me gasping there, aching for more.
Right this second, though, I see a man who has recently managed to occupy roughly eighty-five percent of my thoughts walking into the gala withsomeone else.
And it makes me furious, even though I know that’s not fair, and that I have no right to feel this way.
But fuck that. I do.
I grab a flute of champagne off another tray. I’m still glaring at Hades and the little princess hanging off his arm as I drink, before I realize the glass went downwaytoo fast.
Good thing there’s more champagne at this thing.
A lot more.
I only hope it’s enough to turn off the part of me that can’t stop thinking about him.
