40
Don’t Let Her Change Your Mind in that Dress — Dorian
Where the hell was James? It couldn’t take him that long to get another drink. Unless he somehow ran into his mother. Or my mother. Or Gretchen. They most likely had a running list of people that needed to be greeted who hadn’t been welcomed yet.
Hopefully he’d speed up the greetings because without him here, people thought I wanted to talk to them.
Little did they know, I wasn’t much for talking right now. Not when every thought I had went back to her .
You have to pretend that you never met me .
She couldn’t have cared less about letting me go. I walked into that bookshop, and she’d already made up her mind about us. It didn’t matter what I said. She was done.
After my heart was ripped from my chest, she simply returned to work, unaffected.
One half of me prayed she wouldn’t come tonight, for my sanity. While the other half had this innate need to see her.
In the meantime, I was trapped talking to this egotistical investor about his plans to “transform” my father’s movie into the next box office hit because James abandoned me.
“Action movies these days never have enough pyrotechnics. So I told your father, the more pyrotechnics, the better,” he said, pointing his overpriced pinky ring at me.
“Of course,” I repeated for the fifth time. They were always so busy listening to themselves talk, they never noticed. I could probably start responding with the ingredients to a meat pie and he wouldn’t notice.
I tried to tune his voice out with the ensemble of string music playing at the back of the room.
I watched velvet suits and glittering gowns enter from the grand marble staircase, down into the ballroom. I recognized many of the guests since they attended every year. Some were in the entertainment industry who worked directly with my parents, while others were from old money, politics, or friends of Mrs. Beverly’s from the fashion industry.
I didn’t see James by the stairs greeting anyone, but he could also be in the gardens right outside. It was too dark to tell, especially with the tall French doors at the side of the ballroom closed from the cold.
“Did you know it was my idea to keep that last scene in? Your father didn’t like—” The man’s mouth was moving, but I wasn’t hearing the words.
I could feel her in the room before I saw her.
Standing at the top of the staircase somehow looking more gorgeous than the first day I met her.
It was her , my heart pounded. She was here .
It was like seeing your favorite painting for the first time. This strong urge to feel it, wrap yourself in it, cover every wall in it.
She was my favorite painting.
I could see the shape of her waist and the outward slope of her hips. Even her chest was accentuated by the deep neckline and thin straps. As she took a step forward, a slit that ran up her leg was revealed. My jaw went slack as she rushed to keep the fabric closed at the top of her thigh. The bottom of the pale purple dress shifted like a field of lavender taken by the wind around her heels.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered, pulling at the tie gripping my throat.
Her gaze swept the room and suddenly … it stopped on me.
Her lips parted while her eyes sparked, roaming my figure. The grasp on my glass tightened.
You have to pretend that you never met me.
She whipped her stare away and picked up her skirts, taking the stairs with haste.
I handed over my drink. “Can you excuse me?” I started my strides before he could answer.
It was the masquerade all over again. I couldn’t control the instinct to find her before someone else did.
She was going to hate me. Probably more than she already did. But this could be the last time the two of us were ever in the same room.
No one can ever see us together.
Moving through the crowd, I adjusted arms, and shifted shoulders and skirts to get through. I lost sight of her the closer I got. But a few more dodges and I could see the bottom step, just as her heel hit it.
Before I could change my mind, I took her hand and pulled her into the center of the ballroom where everyone was dancing in unison.
“What are you doing?” she breathed.
I pulled her into my chest. With one hand on the middle of her back and the other in her palm, I was breathing fresh air and suffocating all at the same time. The feeling of her exposed leg through the slit of the dress against my thigh was causing the latter.
“I’m dancing with you, what does it look like?” I replied, trying to steady my heartbeat.
The air coming out of her nose, hitting my shoulder, was hot.
“Did I hallucinate the last conversation we had? Or did you hit your head off someone’s headboard and forget everything I said?” she asked impatiently.
“I try not to make a habit of hitting my skull off my headboard, thank you for caring though.”
“Oh no, I was more worried for the status of Victoria’s bedframe.” She smiled.
“You have a lot to say for someone who got to do all the talking last time,” I argued, but the chandelier light bouncing off her merlot-painted lips made it much more difficult to maintain my frustration.
“Not my fault we had a lot to catch up on. If I was prancing around London with other men, I’m sure you would’ve had more to say.”
“Is Adelaide Adorno admitting jealousy?”
“I hate you,” she seethed, squeezing my palm.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You’re a pig,” she scoffed.
“That’d probably be more believable if you weren’t looking at me like you wanted to kiss me.”
She looked away. “You’re predictable.”
“At least I’m not jealous.”
“Better than being obsessed.”
“Obsessed? You think I’m obsessed with you?”
“It wasn’t a question.” She looked up at me with a satisfied smile. “It’s the reason you foolishly pulled us into the middle of the ballroom, completely ignoring everything we agreed on.”
“Agreed on? Are we talking about the same conversation? Were you in the same bookshop?”
“So you admit to remembering the plan?” She searched my face.
“I heard the plan, yes. Didn’t mean I had to do everything you said though.”
She laughed. “That’s rich coming from the man who was begging for my say on staying in London for holiday.”
“Begging? Says that one who was begging for me to kiss her.” That wiped the smirk right off her face.
“I was not begging.”
“Fine—pleading.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It’s not like you hesitated.”
“I wasn’t implying that I had. I don’t regret kissing you.”
She focused her gaze on the gardens behind me. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can’t just forget about you—”
“I meant the dancing, Dorian. People are going to put two and two together.”
Now I was the one exhaling a hot breath. “It’s just dancing. Let people think what they want.”
The music continued at a brisk pace. As the woman beside us left her partner’s hold to spin, I let go of Adelaide to do the same before pulling her back into my chest. Her head fit into the niche of my neck as we swayed, watching the next pair repeat the same steps together.
“You could’ve left,” I whispered. The scent of vanilla in her hair was intoxicating to withstand. Usually, I could remedy the problem by stepping away or pressing my mouth to the side of her neck. But the former would result in a scandal. While the latter would also result in a scandal, but it’d be much more satisfying and accompanied by a kick in the shin.
“What?” she asked.
“You could’ve pulled your hand away. Not dance with me.”
“It’s not like you would’ve listened to me.”
“Adelaide, we both know I hang on your every word. I couldn’t ignore you if I tried. If you said no, then I would’ve let go.” My heart reached my throat as her eyes shifted to my face. I wanted her. Every fiber of my being craved her. I swore it was written all over my face in permanent ink.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
“The purse would’ve matched the dress,” I told her.
“Purse?” Her eyebrows shifted inward.
“Did you not get it?”
“You bought me the purse?”
“Is there someone else buying you gifts?” I tried to laugh but it died on my tongue.
“I—no. I just assumed it was James.”
“ James?”
“Well, it’s an original piece from Beverly. And then the note mentioned my birthday, but I saw you that day. I would’ve thought the keychain was my gift—”
“You thought that’s all I got you?”
“Apparently not seeing as you sent the dress too.”
“Dress? This dress?” I dragged my eyes up and down her figure trying to confirm this wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment purchase I made and sent while drunk. Despite loving to think about every curve of her body, I would’ve remembered buying this.
She nodded in confusion .
“Someone sent you this dress?” I asked.
Her mouth opened—
“Mind if I cut in?”