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He took it and inspected it carefully before tucking them both in his pocket and nodding. “Thank you.”
Once again, my heart was in my throat. “I’ve never done that before,” I confessed.
Dex gave me a little smile. “I can’t wait to talk to you again soon.”
I stood and hurried out of the museum, back out into the spring night, and waited for the valet.
The night had been a whirlwind, completely amazing despite the momentary embarrassment of having to go on stage, and allI could do was hope that Dex would be true to his word and call me. Soon.
Chapter Six
Dex
With the napkin containing Bennett’s number securely tucked into my suit’s breast pocket, I watched him disappear through the doors. His silhouette was barely visible in the dark night as he waited for the valet to return his car to him. My heart squeezed tight and my stomach churned as the worry that I’d never see him again wormed its way deep inside me.
Stop worrying. He gave you his number. Of course he wants to see you again.
I stood as a server began clearing the table we’d been seated at, telling myself to quit dodging the truth. What I really was afraid of wasn’t that he didn’t want to see me again. It was that he only wanted me for my money. I hadn’t told him much about myself, but it seemed like it never failed that as soon as a man found out that I was sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth, he wanted nothing more than to snatch some cash out from under me, and I didn’t want that to come between us.
I slid my phone out of my pocket and spun it in my fingers as I considered dialing Jude. Instead, I headed to the front ofthe museum to wait for my driver, Frank, texting him to let him know I was ready to go. When the sleek black car pulled up in front of the art museum, I was more than ready to leave. I nodded to Frank as I slid inside the car and pulled the door closed.
“Evening, Mr. Thompson. Home?”
“Yes, please, Frank. And as always, you know you can call me Dex.”
Frank just smiled and nodded before steering the car out of the loop. He was old school and had called me by my last name since he’d started working for me ten years ago. He believed in drawing boundaries and said he couldn’t do that if he called me anything other than my last name. I didn’t love it—to me, it was uncomfortable to be called that by anyone I spent so much time with. We went through the routine regularly, the one where I asked him to call me by my given name and he refused, so it was more like a well-worn game at that point. Regardless, Frank was the best driver I’d ever had, and if it made him happy to call me Mr. Thompson, I didn’t really mind, even if I gave him the occasional nudge to let his guard down.
Once we were on the highway, orange-yellow streetlights zipping by the window, I called Jude after all. He answered at once, as always.
“Hello,” he said cheerfully, despite the late hour. “How was the banquet?”
“It was lovely. Thank you for asking. Ross and Eric did an excellent job of getting things together, as always.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Is there anything else I can do for you tonight?”
“Nothing in particular.” I had just called to debrief, to have someone to talk to—and I knew how sad it was that my closest friend was the person I paid to take care of nearly every need I had.
Jude knew me well, though, and encouraged me to keep talking. “Tell me more about the evening.”
I gave him a brief rundown of the event, the food and decor, the jazz quartet Eric had arranged for, the recipients and how much fun they seemed to have had. Well, most of them seemed to have had fun, anyway. I didn’t know how much Bennett had enjoyed himself, if at all. When I stumbled on my words, letting memories of Bennett infiltrate my mind as I spoke, Jude chuckled softly, knowingly.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Well, there was this one recipient that caught my attention.”
He hummed. “Really? Which one?”
“Bennett Cantrell,” I said, my mouth dry.
“Oh him. He’s pretty cute.”
I scoffed and tried to ignore the singsong tone in Jude’s voice, the way he extended the word “cute” into two syllables. “He’s perfectly fine, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing.”
“Which you clearly do,” he countered.
Flustered at how quickly he’d nailed it, I cleared my throat and tried to regain my composure. “He gave me his number.”
Another soft laugh came from Jude. “You didn’t need him to give you his number. It’s all in the files I sent you.”
