Chapter 6
Ava
I sat in a stylish chair, sipping a glass of champagne as Dane stood in the middle of the room, getting measured by a tailor at one of the most expensive menswear stores in Chicago. All around us were racks of custom suits, ties, and shirts, as well as books of fabric samples. In order to get the most accurate measurements, the tailor had asked Dane strip to his boxer briefs. Dane had grumbled, but eventually he’d done it. So now I toed off my heels and flexed my sore toes as Dane stood in the middle of the room, nearly naked, his back to me.
“Are you having fun?” he asked, as if he had eyes on the back of his head and could see me lick my lips.
“I’m working,” I said, enjoying the view. I let my gaze crawl over his shoulders, the sleek muscles of his back, watching the mysterious ways they moved under his skin. I stared at the way his ribcage tapered to his waist, and then I fixed on the perfect shape of his butt beneath the black underwear. The tailor needed an arm measurement, and Dane lifted an arm, making everything ripple all over again. I took another sip of champagne.
“Are we almost done?” Dane griped.
“No, sir,” the tailor said, earning my gratitude. “We still need to do the waist and the legs. If you could please turn around.”
I quickly raised my phone so Dane wouldn’t catch me ogling him as he turned. “You’ve been working out, I see,” I said casually, scrolling through my phone numbers and acting as if the sight of him was almost boring.
“A little,” Dane said. I wasn’t looking at him, so I couldn’t tell if that was humor in his voice.
“And what else?” I said, as if I was making idle conversation and I wasn’t burning to know. “Contact lenses?”
“Laser eye surgery.”
“Um,” I said. If I looked just above the top of my phone, I’d get a direct view of his package in those boxer briefs, but he’d catch me looking. Damn it. “You went to a lot of trouble.”
“I got tired of being a nerd.”
“Took you long enough. I suppose you wanted a date for once.”
“Something like that.”
I kept scrolling, looking for a particular number. I had so many numbers in my phone, and most of them were for people I barely knew. “Aidan says you finally got a girlfriend or something,” I said.
“I’ve had a couple of girlfriends, though I don’t have one now.”
“I see. Were they serious?”
God, I was so obviously fishing. Well, screw it—I wanted to know.
Dane took a second to answer—a second that lasted way too long—and then he said, “No.”
I looked at him at last, making my gaze go straight to his face instead of all the other places I wanted to stare at so badly. “You don’t sound very sure.”
Dane shrugged, which made the tailor make a tutting noise, since he was taking a measurement under Dane’s armpit. “The women thought it was serious,” he said, ignoring the tailor. “I didn’t.”
I snorted. “I’ve dated a few guys like that.” Too many. That was my problem—I always thought it was serious, and the guys never did.
“Really? I hope you dumped them.”
I said nothing, unwilling to admit I never dumped anyone. I was always the one who got dumped. “When it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”
“I get it,” Dane said. “That means the sex was shit.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to lie again—the sex was usually very much shit—and then my gaze dropped. Damn it. I looked at Dane’s chest, the muscles of his pecs, the dusting of brown hair on his taut skin. His flat stomach. Even his belly button was hot. The tailor put his measuring tape around Dane’s waist, moving into my line of vision, and I looked away before my gaze could drop lower.
I had a sudden memory of one afternoon that magical winter when I was nineteen. The other three left the apartment, and Dane and I jumped each other. The apartment was empty for barely forty-five minutes, so Dane fucked me on the kitchen table, consequences be damned, both of us crazy high with pleasure. It was pure insanity, and when we both came we nearly broke the table. It was only afterward that I realized we’d torn my panties, and I had to stuff them in my pocket and go bare under my jeans until I could go home and change.
Despite everything that came afterward, it was a happy memory, one of the best. For a breathless second I could still feel him inside me, the distinctive feel of him, the way he moved. No one since had ever moved quite like Dane.
This was my problem: I always cared too much about these things. Dane had probably forgotten.
“You have a boyfriend now?” Dane asked. Fine, it was his turn to fish. I’d take it.
“Not right now,” I said.
“What happened to the last one?”
“He broke up with me, then stopped taking my calls.” I’d called a lot of times, left a lot of messages. Too many, maybe. I was that girl.
“You’re better off,” Dane said. “Hey. Is it necessary that this guy grabs my balls?”
I looked back to see the tailor attempting to measure Dane’s inseam. “Just relax and you’ll be fine,” I said, lifting my phone and dialing a number. I didn’t want to have this conversation anymore.
Jewel answered on the first ring. “Honey, come have drinks in SoHo with me.”
“Can’t,” I said to her. “I’m in Chicago.”
“Chicago?” She nearly shrieked the word. “No one goes to Chicago. It’s nowhere.”
“A girl’s gotta work,” I said, watching the tailor measure the other inseam because it gave me an excuse to look between Dane’s legs. “Listen, I need a men’s hairstylist in Chicago, stat. Who do you recommend?”
“I’m not getting a haircut,” Dane mumbled.
I gave him a closed-fingers shut up sign and said into the phone, “I’m not working with much here. I need the best.”
“Well, there’s no scene in Chicago,” Jewel said, “but if you have to have someone, try Tyrell. He’s the only one I’d trust. Do you have a budget?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then I’ll call him and get him to call you. He won’t make time otherwise.”
“I’m not getting a haircut,” Dane said again.
I gave him the shut up sign again. “You’re a lifesaver, honey, thanks,” I said to Jewel, and hung up. “You’re getting a haircut,” I said to Dane. “Maybe your boring, clingy girlfriends like the man-bun, but it’s going.”
The tailor squawked as Dane pushed him aside, striding toward me in his underwear. He put his hands on the arms of my chair and leaned over me, his eyes on mine. I could see every inch of his naked skin. He glared at me.
“I get it,” he growled. “You’re pushing me. It’s what you do. Are you trying to see how far you can go?”
My voice came out breathy. God, I could smell him. “I’m not doing anything,” I said, and we both knew it was a lie.
“What do you want?” Dane said, thick with frustration. “Do you want me to say I’m sorry?”
My hands went cold and my breath stopped. “Sorry for what?”
“You know what. Sorry for what I did the last time I saw you.”
He thought he had to apologize for that? As if he had done something wrong? Had he thought that all this time? I couldn’t bear the idea. “No,” I told him. “Don’t say you’re sorry for that.”
He still watched me, his voice softening a little. “I’ll say it if you want me to.”
“Don’t,” I choked out. “Don’t.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, and then he shook his head, backing off. “Can I at least put my clothes on now?”
I didn’t answer, and he didn’t wait for it. He grabbed his clothes and shoes and put them under his arm. “I’m going to dress in the men’s room,” he growled. “I’d like some privacy for a second.”
I still couldn’t speak. Dane walked away, and I downed the rest of the champagne in my glass, gulping it. He thought I wanted him to apologize. That fucking man.
That brilliant, stupid, utterly infuriating man.
I put my heels back on and stood up, looking at the suits and fabrics in the room. Now that the measurements were—mostly—done, I talked to the tailor about cuts, fabrics, and colors. Dane would need two suits, I estimated, as well as several sets of dress pants, shirts, and ties, sport jackets, and half-zip sweaters. Socks and shoes. With a week’s lead time, nothing would be custom made, but we had time to alter existing pieces. Then my phone rang, and I talked to Tyrell, the hairstylist, about squeezing Dane in. Only after I hung up did I realize that Dane hadn’t come out of the bathroom, which was around the corner and down the hall.
“Would you like me to go find him?” the tailor asked politely.
“No need,” I said as suspicion bloomed in my gut. I walked around the corner myself, pushing open the door to the men’s room. “Dane!”
The room was empty.
“Fuck,” I said as the tailor came in after me. I turned to him. “Is there a back door?”
He looked stunned. Most likely, none of his rich clients had ever made an escape while getting measured for a bespoke suit. “At the end of the hall,” he said.
“Fuck,” I said again. I half-ran down the hall, moving as fast as I could in my three-inch heels. I slammed the back door open and saw nothing but parking lot.
Dane was gone.