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Carina
"Come along, darling. They are about to start. This is your first meeting. You don't want to be late, do you?"
My mother's voice pulls me away from my thoughts, and I turn to smile at her as we walk through the stainless steel, marble, and leather-decorated lobby of the foundation.
"Of course not, Mom," I say, trying to force a smile.
My mother stops clicking away on her vertiginous varnished designer heels and gives me a long appraising look.
I feel both her hands coming up to cup my face affectionately. "Sweetie, you've been so distracted for the last two days! Don't tell me you're letting that bastard Jonathan and his band of ill-mannered thugs upset you again?"
I shake my head. No, this has nothing to do with Jonathan or those two idiots at the party. This is about Derek, whoever he is.
The man I had sex with at that very party. The stranger who seemed to know me better with a single look than most people have ever come close to in a decade. The man who thrilled me with his touch and bewitched me with his eyes.
The one I let too close to me. The one that has been keeping me awake at night for the past two days and that I’m never going to see again. “No, Mom, I’m not. Don’t worry. I’m used to his second-hand delivered, cheap barbs by now, you know.”
She nods, but I’m not sure I convinced her. “There’s something else, though, Carina. I just know there is! You don’thaveto tell me, but youcantell me if you want to. All right?”
I give her a small smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
She smiles back. “In the meantime, I’m going to have alengthyconversation with Rachel Baldwin —the editor that directly supervises theMMBB List— and let her know what I think of them including that Lowson fellow in it! Such a disgraceful young man! I would have never thought!”
I make a fewhmmsounds in reply, my mind miles away.
She shakes her head, unaware of my distraction, and goes on with a pinched expression on her face. "I don't know in what kind of society such a lout could be considered a catch! Shoulder to shoulder with the finest bachelors in Boston… it's shameful, really!" she tuts, disgustedly.
I roll my eyes. “Mom, I hardly think it’s necessary...”
She scoffs. “Humph! Not necessary, you say?! After the way, he spoke to you? It’s practically my civic duty!”
I look upward, and there's nothing I can do. When Angelica Bunter-Preston's mind is made, there’s no changing it.
There’s no way Julian Lowson is going to escape a public thrashing if my mom has anything to say about it.
She hasn’t told me anything, but I think she even feels a little guilty about the whole thing —unreasonably so— because that jackass was amongst the bachelors she dissected and ended up praising to the skies while talking with me —or, better yet,at me— during our lunch last week.
"Okay, Mom. Do what you've got to do. Just leave out my name, and don't go too much overboard, please."
She sniffs primly, looking innocently at her shiny, perfectly manicured nails. "Who me? I will be the soul of discretion, you will see, and I will ask Rachel to keep our talk between us, of course."
I laugh at that. "I'm sure you'll make quite a point of asking her that. The problem is, I'm onto you, Mom. The only reason you would do that is because you know only too well that once you ask her not to talk about it, she’s going to print it.”
My mother smiles. "Darling, I am hurt! Really, I'm notthatdevious!"
I raise one of my eyebrows to match hers, our identical green eyes staring into their mirror. “Of course not, Mother.”
She pats my hand, managing to hide her grin from me but not the crinkles at the outer corners of her eyes.
“Let’s get in, dear.”
I nod and open the door to the huge, predominantly glass and mahogany conference room, ready to join the fray and wear my much-practicedIce Queensmile.
The only problem is that said smile melts on my lips the moment I see the man sitting at the head of the long dark table.
The imposing shoulders, the broad back blocking the light from the window, the expensive suit and pristine white shirt opened at the neck, a neck my lips have nibbled on, the short black hair, the perfectly groomed dark beard, and the intense, deep gray eyes staring into my soul.
There's a little sexy smirk on his lips, and the embers of a fire that has singed me before are burning in his smoldering gaze once again.
