Chapter Thirteen
Kingi
When Orson first nudges me and gestures across the lobby, I look down the line of guests waiting in the queue, wondering who he’s seen. And then my gaze screeches to a halt at the sight of a woman waiting on her own, not talking to anyone as she studies the rest of the guests.
She’s average height, although as I watch, she lifts the skirt of her gown a little, revealing that she’s wearing high-heeled sandals. It looks as if her ankle strap has come undone, and she drops the skirt and frowns as if she’s trying to think how she’s going to do it up.
The gown is Mermaid-style, so it cinches right in at the waist, clings to the hips and thighs, and flares out at the bottom.
It’s also off the shoulder, its tiny sleeves just about covering her upper arms, but the bodice is low across her generous breasts, exposing a large amount of the pale, creamy skin of her neck and shoulders.
But it’s the color and fabric of the gown that really stand out.
It’s velvet, and it looks almost black until it catches the light, and then it shines a deep ruby-red.
Her hair is down, hanging in curls all the way past her shoulders, the beautiful Titian color accentuated by the ruby gown. Her lipstick matches her dress and fingernails, and I can see she’s wearing long fake eyelashes.
She’s absolutely stunning.
I leave the line of Midnight members who are greeting the guests and cross the lobby, only half-conscious of the photographers on my left, taking shots of the clientele, and the other guests who are watching me pass.
I stop in front of Chessie, and she looks up at me with her breathtaking green eyes. The emerald green shadow along the top of her lids sparkles in the lights.
“What are you doing?” I find myself saying.
She blinks, those long dark lashes lowering gracefully before rising again. “Nothing. Just standing here.”
“You’ve been standing in the queue?”
“Um, yes.”
My lips curve up. “You’re such a crazy girl.”
Her eyebrows rise. “I didn’t want to jump in front of everyone else when they’ve been waiting…”
I chuckle, move closer to her, and cup her face with my hands, looking into her eyes. “Look at you,” I murmur. “You take my breath away.”
“I brush up okay, don’t you think?”
My smile fades a little. She believes she looks good tonight. But she thinks it’s the costume that makes her look beautiful. She doesn’t realize all it’s done is bring her natural assets to life.
Her gaze slides away, then comes back, and color appears in her cheeks. “Everyone’s looking at us,” she whispers.
“They’re looking at you.”
“And you. You’re pretty good looking without all the hair.” She looks aside again. “There are photographers here.”
“I know—I organized them.”
“Oh.”
“They’re here to promote the charities, and also because we’re going to announce the engagements.”
“Of course.”
“Everyone’s keen to see which stunning woman has landed the mighty Kingi.”
“Like a fish.”
“Kinda.”
“Hooked in the lip and dragged to shore.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Carla gave me a glass of champagne at the shop because I was shaking so much.”
“On an empty stomach?”
“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I stifle a laugh at her indignation, and stroke her cheeks. “So… photographers… you know what this means?”
Her eyes widen. “Oh!”
“Are you ready?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” I lower my lips to hers.
She stands there stiffly as I kiss her, obviously too self-conscious to relax.
A cheer goes up around us, and I hear Orson laugh…
I can almost hear her panicking at the thought that she needs to act ‘natural’ and return the kiss and convince everyone we’re madly in love, and I’m sure her head is whirling with a thousand thoughts, worrying that everyone watching is thinking I must be mad to be getting married to a girl like her…
I lift my head, look into her eyes, and say, “Just breathe.”
She exhales in a whoosh, and my lips curve up. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” I murmur.
She blinks. “Oh.”
I lower my lips again, and this time, she closes her eyes and relaxes a little. I only kiss her lightly, not wanting to wipe off her carefully applied lipstick. She smells gorgeous, of a sensual scent, no doubt recommended by Carla. Her lips are super soft.
When I finally move back again, I blink a few times. That backfired on me. I can’t go getting hard in front of everyone—there will always be one sneaky photographer who’ll capture it.
It occurs to me then that she’s alone. Where are her friends and family? I look around and say, “Where is everyone?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t come alone, surely?”
“Um, yeah.”
My eyebrows fly up. “What? Why?”
“The people I know wouldn’t feel comfortable here, Kingi.” She lifts the front of her skirt and examines her left sandal. “My strap has come undone. I need to fix it.”
Frowning, I take her hand and walk her a few feet away to a row of chairs. She lowers into one, and I drop to my haunches in front of her. I lift the hem of her skirt to expose the sandal and raise her foot to rest on my thigh while I do up the strap.
“I can do it,” she protests.
I ignore her as I fasten the buckle. The symbolism of this doesn’t escape me.
Cinderella’s glass slipper was more than an item of clothing.
Obviously, it illustrated her journey from rags to riches.
However, it also revealed the connection between her and the prince, showing him that she was his one true love.
I shake off the thought. “What do you mean, they wouldn’t feel comfortable?”
“Kingi, they would never be able to afford clothing like this.” She gestures at us, then at the rest of the people in the lobby.
I look around. That hadn’t occurred to me. “You should have said something. I would have been more than happy to cover the cost.”
She gives me a strange look. “You can’t clothe all my friends and family, honey. They would never accept that. And they wouldn’t be comfortable here, don’t you understand?”
We’ve had this conversation before about our class differences. It irritated me then, and it irritates me now. “I didn’t realize you were such an inverted snob. Nobody here cares about your social standing except you.”
“Sorry, but I don’t agree with you.”
I grit my teeth as I lower her foot to the floor. “We can’t announce our engagement without any of your friends and family here. That makes no sense at all.”
“Nobody’s going to be interested in my friends and family,” she scoffs.
“Chessie, I was looking forward to seeing them again. It’s been years since I saw Mark and I haven’t seen your parents for ages. And if we were really getting engaged, don’t you think it would be odd that you’ve come here alone?”
“I’m not bringing my family here to have these snobs point their fingers at them. I don’t want to read the headlines tomorrow about which high street store they bought their clothing. It’s bad enough that I have to go through it; I’m not going to make them suffer as well.”
We glare at each other.
“Don’t you think you’ll hurt their feelings when they find out we’ve announced the engagement, and they realize they weren’t invited to the ball?”
She gives a grumpy shrug. “I’ll just say it was for club members only or something.”
“I’m going to have to meet them at some stage, honey. It’s only polite. What’s your father going to think about the fact that I’ve asked you to marry me when I haven’t talked to him about it? You did say he wondered why I hadn’t asked his permission.”
“I was kidding.”
“Even so. I’m very disappointed, Chess.”
She lifts her chin. “We’ll both have to live with your disappointment, won’t we?”
I hold her gaze, breathing hard. Her eyes flash in the light from the fairy lights.
She’s so stunning she takes my breath away.
I swallow hard and force my irritation down.
“Let’s forget about it for now. We’ll just have to say this is an official party and we’re having a separate informal get-together that includes your family. ”
“That makes sense.”
“It doesn’t,” I say, pushing up to my feet. I hold out a hand and pull her up, then keep a hold of it as we start walking back to Orson, “but it’ll have to do. Come on… unless you don’t think you need to be here either? Do you want to skedaddle now?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
We both force a smile on our faces as we approach the other members of the Midnight Circle.
“Everything okay?” Orson asks, his gaze sliding from me to Chessie. “Maybe I should ask the staff to turn the heaters on. The temperature’s turned a tad chilly.”
“It’s all good.” I smile at a couple who are waiting patiently to say hello. “Ruth, Jan, great to see you again. This is Chessie. Chess, Ruth is the CEO of Underwood Enterprises, and this is her wife.”
“Oh, hello.” She shakes hands with both the women and gives them a smile.
She’s trying. As they chat about the weather, I think about what she said, that her friends and family would feel uncomfortable here.
I look at the two women before me, noting for the first time the diamonds in their ears, their coiffed hair, their designer dresses.
Chessie wears jeans and T-shirts on a daily basis, as do all the people around her.
It’s no wonder she feels intimidated. And it’s not just what they’re wearing.
Chessie stands out because she’s not supercilious—she never looks down on others.
She’s not spiteful or cruel. The celebrity world must feel very different for her, where everyone is highly critical of every segment of your life.
Even so, I’m still cross that she didn’t bring anyone.
“Congratulations on your engagement,” Ruth says. “We were so surprised to hear that someone had finally lassoed the indomitable Mr. Davis. How on earth did you manage that?”
Her words imply a girl like Chessie isn’t enough to tempt someone like me. I bristle, and I’m about to say something when her hand tightens on mine.