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I raise my eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound like first date talk.”
“We do have a tendency to move quickly,” he acknowledges. “Once you're established with a girl, it doesn’t take nearly as much work to get in her pants.”
“Watch yourself, Van Koch.” I pick up my wineglass and take a sip to cover my reaction to the heated look in his eye. “If you don’t play your cards right, then there is no chance you’ll be seeing what I have on under this dress.”
His fingers brush the back of my hand, sending shivers along my skin.
“I think I’ll be seeing it,” he replies with a smirk.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“You love it.” He squeezes my fingers, an amused smile on his face. “If money impresses you so much, maybe I’ll buy you something pretty. I’ve been out of the dating game for a while. You’d look good naked and covered in diamonds.”
It’s Pretty Woman all over again.
“My father reactivated Olivia’s credit cards, though I’m sure that means she has new ones in my name. I can take myself on a shopping spree.”
“But I’m liking this idea the more I think about it, since we’re starting over and everything. The rich guy always takes the girl he’s trying to impress shopping in the movies.” He swirls the wine in his glass, watching me over the rim with a smirk. “Bikinis. Lingerie. Anything with an indecently short skirt. Whatever you want. Then I can take you back in the dressing room and fuck you up against a wall.”
Heat rises in my cheeks, and then spreads lower until it suffuses my entire body. The idea of him sneaking into a fitting room with me is scandalous in the hottest way possible. I have to look away from him before I’m tempted to leap across the table and tear his clothes off right now.
He keeps talking while I try to remember how to breathe. “And you’ll have to be very quiet so the sales girls don’t hear you. I know this is supposed to be a first date, but let’s just say I have it on good authority that, for you, not making an ungodly amount of noise when you come might be a struggle.” His fingers stroke down the stem of his wineglass, caressing it as gently as he would my skin. “Luckily, quiet when she comes has never been on my list of preferences in a woman.”
Our food arrives before I can think of a response. Drake smirks at me over his plate because he is more than aware of the effect he has on me.
Despite the low murmurs of conversation, it’s easy to feel like we’re in our own private world. The tables are spaced far apart, interspersed with pillars and half-walls. It gives each patron the illusion of privacy.
But we are out together in public. Free to do whatever we want without having to worry about who might see us. We’re not trying to trick each other or conspiring together in the shadows. We don’t have to pretend and we don’t have to lie.
My life could be perfection if I just let it happen.
If I’m willing to forget.
“Look what we have here.”
I freeze with a mussel balanced on the end of my fork and halfway to my mouth, which hangs open because I recognize that voice.
My gaze rises to the stony expression on Drake’s face, but his attention focuses on the person standing behind me.
I force myself to turn around because I don’t have any choice but to face him.
Brady Caldwell stands behind me with a cocky smile on his face. The girl on his arm wears a dress even shorter than mine and she didn’t bother to pair it with tights despite the frigid cold outside. My gaze moves to her face with a sinking sensation, because somehow I already know what I’m going to find.
Olivia.
* * *
“Why didn’t you tell me they were together?” I ask tightly as Brady walks away with his arm slung casually around Olivia’s shoulder. The brief conversation we had, if you could even call it that, was perfunctory and left a foul taste in my mouth.
Drake looks pained. “Because I didn’t know.”
I leave the table before he finishes paying the check, not bothering to wait for him. He doesn’t catch up to me until I’ve stomped halfway across the parking lot. I’m angry and I don’t even know why. But seeing that asshole Brady with his hands all over my sister sets me off for reasons I don’t even want to contemplate.
Brady already violated Olivia once. Why would she give him the chance to do it again?
Sensing him behind me, I turn on Drake with a growl. “Is it really just a coincidence that they showed up here tonight?”
“DiMaggio’s is the only decent restaurant in town. Everyone comes here,” he replies with a shrug. “Brady’s hotel is right around the corner.”
