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one to complain to.”
Her rogue was as disreputable as they came, and his mother looked like no slouch, either. As long as there was a chance to have her disgraceful man naked and on his knees for her, she was all in.
“I’ll come with you.” There were his lips at the back of her neck, letting loose a shower of shivers. “I’d like to meet your mom.”
“Not tonight. And no, you can’t come with me.” She pulled from his arms to face him, and he tugged gently on a lose lock of her hair. “I’m taking you to bed tonight, and I’m doing all the things you wanted, slow and thorough and devastating. And in the morning, I’m cooking you breakfast, but this is our last event together.”
“But we have a gala performance.” It was marked in their shared calendar.
“This is moving faster than I thought. I had a conversation with Baiba. She linked the purchase of the Kandinsky with government funds to the cancellation of Ketija’s dam project. The Ossovian parliament censured Cookie Jar and called for him to come home. He’s refused for now. He’s been censured a dozen times before. It doesn’t mean much, but it will when it comes out the painting is a fake. And keeping you out of the spotlight was part of our deal.”
It was the rule she’d insisted on. She had a moment of disquiet that he’d been the one to remind her, but she was far too lost in him. “Are you breaking up with me?” It would be a terrible version of the best thing for her.
He groaned and nibbled up her neck to her cheek. “I am mutually using you and then moving on, because I’m a dishonest con and not what you need in your life. If you’re with me, I can’t pretend not to want you, and I can’t protect you from the fallout.”
“I thought we’d have longer,” she murmured.
While Halsey went to work, Lenny circulated, trying to keep him in sight and losing him to clusters of people and waiters with trays of food and drink. When her phone chimed, she excused herself to check in case it was Mal. It was Mom. She was home, surprise, and wondering where everyone was. Lenny made a quick call, explaining what Mal was up to, and then lied her sex-starved tongue out. “I’m away for the weekend with friends. Back Sunday.”
With Mom home, Mal wouldn’t be alone. She and Halsey could hole up in a hotel, where she could spend the weekend wearing the complimentary robe, or just a sheet, and bear the cost of the walk of shame home on Sunday in her cocktail dress. On Monday, she’d smarten up and start putting this all behind her.
When Halsey wound his way back to her, with his eyes narrowed and his brow crumpled, she took hold of his suit lapels, concerned. “Everything go okay?”
“I need a shower.” She felt a shudder go through him. “That man is truly one of the greatest narcissistic psychopaths I’ve ever dealt with, and my whole working life is dealing with entitled evil pricks.”
“I think I can make you feel better.”
He kissed her forehead, his expression softening. “You do?”
“Slowly at first, with a lot of skin contact, and then faster with trembling and flashing lights and just the sweetest ever release for both of us.” She ran a finger over his eyebrow, and the smile he gave her made her nipples tighten. “You can shower either side or even during that, if you like.”
With a hand that trailed down the back of her beaded dress, and briefly, possessively spanned her butt, he said, “I like where your head is at,” with such grit in his voice she bit her lip.
“Sex hotel.”
He blinked hard, and she laughed. He certainly wasn’t uptight anymore. “If that’s what you want. How long are you going to give me?” he said.
She explained about the bonus of Mom being home, but the necessity to find somewhere to go to be together.
Turned out, Halsey had a loft apartment in Tribeca and complimentary robes. She knew he didn’t live in a shoebox in Queens but going to his home felt like crossing a line. Not that she hadn’t already crossed most of them with him, but she’d know him better when she saw how he lived, and there was every chance she’d love his style and that would be too awful, since even now they were on the verge of breaking up.
“What are you thinking, PowerPoint Girl?”
That she’d signed herself up for certain heartache. That it was stupid to worry about seeing how he lived. Stupid to try to guard her heart. Despite her better judgment and her hard-won resolve, she’d already given it to him. And since she believed in finishing what she started, there was only one thing to say. “Do you have a spare toothbrush?”
Chapter Twenty-One
The first thing Halsey showed Lenny when they got home to the loft was a new brush head for his electric toothbrush still in the packaging. He might’ve guessed she’d be more interested in his apartment.
“This is amazing. Now tell me you own it,” she said, her back to him, shoulders drawn up as she looked out at the street. “Purchased with the proceeds of crime.”
Coming here, she was meeting his life outside of the fantasy they’d contrived, and there was a chance it would be too real for her.
“Paid for with my salary and my company bonuses. I have a job with health and dental, stressful performance hurdles, and a demanding boss just like everyone else.”
And he was close to pulling off a once-in-a-lifetime heist that would put hundreds of millions of dollars stolen by Cookie Jar back into the hands of people who needed the money most. He’d been confident enough to attempt it because Lenny had been there beside him.
He was a better version of himself with her. More comfortable stepping outside his box, and he didn’t want to lose that new freedom so soon.
