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Anica blushes a bright red and turns to accept a glass of champagne off Max, who offers her a smile of encouragement. When Mandi turns and moves to look at the view of WashingtonSquare Park, Anica presses a hand over her eyes, clearly mortified.
“That was totally embarrassing, wasn’t it?” she moans to no one in particular. Max’s encouraging smile widens to an actual grin, and he chuckles. Anica lowers her hand at the sound.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s a major bitch.” He holds out one of the chairs at the table for her, gesturing to it.
Anica takes the offered seat, looking confused. “Okay.”
I snort as I drop into the chair beside her. I bet she’s wondering why Max invited a bitch to a nice dinner. I mean… it’s kind of obvious. How innocent can a woman get?
“She’s terrific in bed,” Max points out the obvious. Anica’s face slowly turns the same color as her favorite ugly red sweater.
“Oh,” she says faintly. Anica glances over at me, but I offer her a shrug.
“Don’t look at me. I’ve never met her before. I have no idea what she’s like in bed.”
Anica’s blush deepens, and she takes a large swallow of her champagne. Maybe that was a jerk thing to say, but making her blush is fun.
Anica
Maxwell Anders Westerhaven’s Fifth Avenue condo isnotwhat I imagined. I guess I thought a nephew of Bill Westerhaven, especially one who ran a finance company on Wall Street, would live in a glass and steel building all fancy like David’s. But his place is actually kind ofcozy. Wooden floors, bookshelves,books, all those guitars. Apart from the address and this crazy view, it really doesn’t look like I would have expected the home of a Westerhaven to look.
David wasn’t kidding when he said that tonight would be eye-opening for me as to what he was like as a person. He and Max joke around a lot. They curse and flip each other off. A lot. In fact, they act kind of like frat boys. But they’re clearly quite close. Which is kind of endearing. He might come across as an arrogant playboy, but David Brooks Westerhaven clearly cares deeply about his family.
That’s an important aspect to consider for this design. There’s a warmth about him when he’s joking around with Max that is absent when he’s at his office or alone with me. It makes sense. One is a place of work, and the other is hanging out with a stranger.
Mandi, the Covergirl model, doesn’t contribute much to the conversation. She mainly takes a lot of selfies. Probably for Instagram. I bite back a grin when I remember David telling me at dinner on my first night in New York that I could whip my phone out at the restaurant and take Instagram selfies if I wanted to. He must date women like Mandi a lot to be expecting all women to do that kind of thing.
I think I have enough information about David’s personality around his cousin to incorporate it into my design. I might as well enjoy the rest of my night and thisview. Wandering away from the group a little, I lean my forearms against the railing, smiling to myself. Imagine living somewhere where you can have coffee and look at this any time you like. It must be nice. It’s going to be so hard to go back to Chicago and look at the brick walls again.
Mandi is taking selfies again behind me. Her phone camera makes a shutter noise every time she takes one. I have been attempting to shut the noise out. I’m here to focus on David, not a freaking supermodel. Also, I never know what to do when people are taking photos of me.
It’s harder to ignore the annoyance in her tone than the camera shutter noise. “Ugh, I can’t usethatone.”
I glance around, wondering what was so wrong with her picture, and look dead into the stink eye she’s throwing my way.
“I want a good shot. So you need tomove.”
My cheeks flame. Oh. I only wanted to enjoy the view. Humiliation washes over me when I remember we have an audience. My eyes dart over to where Max is laughing. David struggles to bite back a smirk as his fingers wrap around my wrist and tugs me out of the way. I let him guide me to where I will not get chewed out again, and his fingers slide down to cover mine, squeezing them gently before he clears his throat and moves to refill everyone’s glasses. No. I imagined it. There’s no wayDavid Brooks Westerhavensqueezed my hand in apology. There’s no way.
I manage to stay out of Mandi’s selfies for the rest of the night, and I’m quite subtle in yawning into my champagne glass, but relief courses through me when David claps Max on the shoulder, rising from his chair.
“We’ll get out of your hair. You two have a nice night. We know the way out.”
I jump to my feet, collecting my purse as Max grins, winking at David and smiling broadly at me.
“Thank you so much for having us, it was wonderful.”
Max waves aside my thanks. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with to reflect David’s personality.”
I’m pretty sure he’s mocking David, who flips him off, placing a hand on my back and guiding me inside. We’re barely through the double doors into the kitchen when a light squeal and a moan follows us through from the terrace, and David hurries me along. Oh my gosh!
“Are they, uh….” My face is tomato red as David closes the front door firmly behind us.
“Yep,” he laughs, grinning down at my mortified face. Wow. That didn’t take long. We weren’t even out of thecondo.
“How long have they been together?”
He laughs harder. “They’re not. Not like that.”
