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She blinked at Princess Ketija, who was smiling excitedly, a beam to dazzle electrons and tame currents. “My shoes?”
“She’s very taken with them,” said a deep, accented male voice to her right.
Lenny nearly fell out of her much-admired shoes when she realized that was the voice of a man who’d stolen her charity’s money and spent it on an old car.
Chapter Seventeen
I’d start with kissing her back. Those were Zeke’s words of wisdom, and Halsey needed to ignore them. He’d been wanting to touch Lenny since he’d arrived to collect her, and she’d tied his tongue in a knot by dazzling him. She was a beautiful woman, but he wasn’t ready for the perfection of her in that dress.
He’d wanted to kiss her since she’d cleaned up his hand.
All the bruising was gone. He flexed it—only some puckering across his knuckles left over from the scabbing. He’d wanted her in his bed since she’d pelted glassware at him. He felt like jamming his fist into the wall behind him to wake himself up. All he’d managed to do was avoid looking at her, finger the hem of her dress like he had a fabric fetish, make the most ridiculous conversation, and whisk her through this place as if his hair was on fire.
He should turn himself over to the cops if he couldn’t do a better job of being a fake boyfriend to a woman he admired more each time he saw her. To a woman he wanted more each time, she was near enough to touch.
And that was the problem.
He’d started out resentful about having to be involved with Lenny and her accounting. That’d lasted right up until Easton arrived, and then he’d felt concerned for her. But since their combative, combustible back and forth, since she’d agitated and challenged and flustered him, he was hooked. The fact that she knew the truth about him was part of it; he didn’t have to rely on lies. By itself that was a high, but the novelty of that hit had long passed.
This was something deeper and more troublesome, and he couldn’t separate it from the effect she had on him. She made nerve endings buzz and pleasure sensors skate over his skin at the thought of taking her hand. He could barely get his lips to function for wanting to work them up her neck, and his tongue just gave up the fight from the knowledge it wouldn’t ever get to taste her.
They were a ridiculous match, aligned as they were on either side of the law. Lenny’s every motivation was to restore her social standing, be seen as a respectable, trustworthy person, and his was built on generations of lies and deceit. He needed to keep his reality check topped up. He was everything she was trying to get away from, and the curse of it was he’d do everything he could to help her succeed.
Still, all things considered, it simply wouldn’t do for Lenny to think for a fraction of a second she wasn’t the most beautiful, most determined, resilient, and wonderful thing in the room.
He’d start by holding her hand, by kissing her cheek, and telling her she was the only princess here he was interested in. And if that was too much for her, he’d play it off as part of the con. No point denying duplicity had its uses.
He was moving before he could talk himself out of that plan, taking the direction Lenny had taken. A waiter got in his way, and when his path cleared, he saw the moment Ketija stepped in front of Lenny with Cookie Jar stalking her. He got to Lenny’s side as she lifted a foot and waggled it, and Ketija said, “Bunions. I have to have my shoes made.”
He slipped in behind Lenny, tipped his fingers to her waist, and felt her start. “Thought I’d lost you forever, Cinderella.” She gave him a quick, wide-eyed glance, and he used the turn of her head as the invitation to nuzzle her temple. Up close, she smelled like a garden paradise he could live in, notes of jasmine and orange that brought a rush to his head.
“Oh, that’s just what they are. Cinderella shoes. I want them, in my size of course,” Ketija said.
Lenny’s hand went out and met Ketija’s. “I’m sure Dolce and Gabbana would oblige. I’m Lenore Bradshaw. I manage a not-for-profit called Dollars for Daughters. We fund projects in Ossovia, and this is my, er, this is Halsey Sherwood. Halsey is in finance.” Halsey moved to Lenny’s side and shook Ketija’s hand as Lenny turned to Cookie Jar and offered hers. “Mr. Prime Minister, I’m excited to meet you. My charity is a Heroes League donor.”
Cookie Jar took Lenny’s hand and held it. “You must tell me about your charity. Heroes League is so very close to my heart.” He put his other hand over where his heart was meant to be, a consummate con, then turned to Halsey and offered to shake. “You are a financier. I hope also a man who gives to those less fortunate and can buy his woman the incredible shoes she likes.”
Nothing in their handshake said fight to the death, but that’s where this was going. It would be civil, and it would be savage. As an antidote to the flood of testosterone, he reached for Lenny’s hand, enfolded it in his own, and let that thrill of skin contact wash over him.
Cookie Jar was a more sophisticated psychopath than Easton Bradshaw. Halsey needed a different strategy for dealing with him, not aggression and not deference. “Lenore doesn’t need anyone doing her shopping for her,” he said.
“What woman does?” said Ketija.
Cue polite laughter. Lenny didn’t let it distract her, homing in on Cooke Jar with a question about aid funding. Halsey lost her hand and felt it’s absence as she engaged Sonny.
“You are in finance, Mr. Sherwood?” Ketija asked.
“Call me Halsey. Yes.”
Ketija touched his forearm and angled them away from Cookie Jar and Lenny. “Are you in the kind of finance I could use to build a power grid, perhaps?”
She clearly didn’t want the question overheard, a
nd his senses prickled. They had no information to suggest Cookie Jar was a sexual predator, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. “Is there anything I can do to help you?” He framed the question deliberately vaguely. If he was wrong, he wouldn’t embarrass the princess.
Ketija looked briefly over her shoulder at Cookie Jar. “You’re very kind to be concerned about me. I am not in any personal difficulty. I need the prime minister to sanction the budget for my project.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It means pandering to his ego. I have a bodyguard, and he does not care about power grids or egos, only about my safety. Would that all women had such security and the kindness of men who have no reason to care. Miss Lenore is lucky to have you at her side.” She straightened up and flashed him a radiant smile. “But you should know that if she and I were the same shoe size, this might be a very different conversation. Are you any good at breaking up fights?”
He smiled. “I fear not, and I think Lenny has that covered. If I were in a position to finance a power grid in Ossovia, you’d be the only engineer I’d want to build it.”
