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“Micah!” Tess’s voice reaches me a split second before I see her. It’s always impressive the way her petite body confidently cuts through any crowd like butter.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” She stretches up for a kiss. I tip my head down to give her one. “Why didn’t you text that you were here?”
“You know how I feel about texting.” Roughly the same way I feel about root canals. Besides, now that I think about it, I left my phone behind in Conner’s truck.
Tess notices that we have an armed audience watching and flicks her hand to wave them off. “It’s all right. He’s with me.”
She wears a black dress that’s loose and cut too high for my taste. Her hair is pinned up in a clip that looks like a twin to the one she wore the night she tapped me on the shoulder in an east side bar.
Tess is always beautiful, but I’d very much like to get her alone, yank that clip out, wrap her hair in my fist and bend her to my will until she comes so hard she can’t speak.
But I sure can’t do that in a roomful of Ballerini worshippers.
“Hey, congratulations,” I say and I mean it. Tess works harder than anyone I know. That fucker who now gets to call himself the Emerald City mayor owes eternal gratitude to her for everything she’s done. He actually had the balls to offer me a job, a spot in his security entourage alongside Sledgehammer.
I took the offer for what it was; a bullshit showman act to impress his daughter. I didn’t tell him to go fuck himself, but I did turn it down flat without a pause.
“Thank you.” She smiles and then takes a closer look at me, skimming her hand over my face with concern.
She’s been to my fights and is fully aware of what I do. She just doesn’t like to see the less glamorous evidence.
A blonde woman wearing rhinestone jeans and a shirt that plasters the new mayor’s face across her tits barrels this way and seizes Tess like she might eat her.
“We did it!” She tries to jump up and down with Tess in her arms.
I spot the wrinkle of annoyance in Tess’s forehead but ultimately she slaps on a smile as she disengages, taking a step back. “And our PR team was absolutely invaluable so thank you for leading it.”
“Only the beginning,” the woman says, then notices that I’m in the area. Her dizzy gaze scans me with sudden interest. “And you are?”
“Nobody.” Not in the mood to make new friends.
But Tess doesn’t allow rudeness. She slips her arm through mine. “Katie, this is Micah Lyonne. We grew up together. His family owns Yellow Brick Properties.”
Why the hell did she say that?
No need to name drop to make me sound more impressive than I am.
The woman lights up, hand to her heart. “How are you related to Matilda?”
“Micah is Matilda’s son,” Tess volunteers before I say something obscene.
I’m not enjoying this version of Tess, less like the feisty girl I carry to bed, and more like the pretentious class president who hands out lists of chores and a timeline to complete them.
Right now she’d fit more neatly into Matilda’s circle than mine.
Either Tess senses my irritation or she worries I’ll verbally abuse poor Katie. She begins tugging on my arm and trying to sidestep Katie with a promise they’ll talk later.
Tess’s name gets shouted from other corners of the room and that fake smile stays on her lips as she calls out greetings. I know better than anyone what her real smile looks like and I can tell when she’s just going through the motions.
We pass the open door to the ballroom and it’s clearly the party destination, all decked out like it’s New Year’s freaking Eve. I’m glad when she steers me past that assault on the eyes and down a corridor. She opens a door to the sight of some more Sledgehammer clones. They’re hunched over a shiny table, playing with their phones and paying no attention to the screens that show various camera angles inside and outside the ballroom. Tess acts like she doesn’t notice that they’re slacking.
“Sorry to interrupt, but can I have a few minutes alone here?”
“Sure thing,” says one of the guards and then hustles out of the room with his buddy on his heels.
Tess waits until the door closes and then throws her arms around me. “I’ve been waiting to do this all day.”
I rub her back, inhale the scent of her hair. “You’re not the only one.”
