Chapter 8 - Fitz
FITZ
“You’re not even fashionably late. You’re just late,” Crawford drawls when I walk in an hour after the party starts, on my third cognac.
“You could go down there. All the women are pretty, looking for love.” He nudges me.
“Eh.”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about that poor girl you’re stalking.” Crawford’s hand is a vise on my arm. “You’re not in love with her. It’s a sick obsession. Go find someone willing. You need to settle down.”
“You need to settle down.” I shake him off.
“I’m too busy making sure you all don’t end up in jail.”
“Did you bring any of our little brothers?” I change the subject to something safer, happier. “Don’t you have some of them interning?”
“This is an extremely prestigious event, even though it was your brainchild.” He’s acerbic. “So I brought the A-team.”
“Oh.”
I suddenly want my family there with me. Well, the cute small members of my family, anyway.
Crawford ruffles my hair like he can read my mind. “Faulkner’s down there somewhere.”
“You let him in?” I scoff. “I put him on the banned list.”
Crawford smirks at my scowl. “Of course. He’s family.”
I see it as I head down the stairs to go find Faulkner and toss him out in the alley—the pinprick of red in the sea of suits and slinky black dresses.
She’s surrounded by men. Wealthy, powerful men.
I have more money than all of them, I think petulantly. Who the fuck do they think they are, talking to my girl at my own fucking party?
The crowd parts. I feel the hands of the hundreds of eligible women invited as the evening’s entertainment pull at my clothes.
“Mr. Svensson,” they croon.
I ignore them. My attention’s honed on her. I want to pull back the shaggy bob that brushes her shoulders, kiss her neck, untie the simple velvet choker with my teeth.
Unlike the other women dripping in diamonds, extensions down their backs, who simper at the rich men, talking softly, demurely, like how my father always liked his women, Winnie is balanced on one heel, the other foot tapping as she loudly and energetically talks to a group of corporate developers hanging on her every word.
More crowd around her.
“…course, you’re conservative with your finances,” she’s telling one idiot who’s got three brain cells and all of his daddy’s money.
“Yeah, I mean, my investment guru says I need to have, like, amenities, you know?”
“Like a coffee shop or cupcake shop, but, like, unless it’s Starbucks, they all fail, right?” she pitches. “Not mine. But I come from the business world—ten years in investment at Rainer.”
They all make appreciative noises. I wait like a predator in the shadows, watching her.
The dress she’s wearing is sinful. The little straps holding up either side of the scrap of fabric stretched over her tits look like they could give any minute. The back of the dress dips low. Someone just has to pull it down half an inch—a quarter of an inch—to have a face full of her ass.
She’s not wearing any underwear under that dress. The thought’s a baseball bat to the head.
“We’re introducing evening activities—sip and color, book clubs, that sort of thing. We want to be open and busy from five till ten p.m. since we have an alcohol license,” she explains.
“Do you run bars?” another guy asks.
“Definitely. We can talk about pop-up wine bars, and book-and-wine pairings.”
“Hey, we wouldn’t have to provide those types of community activities!” The developers are excited since they found a woman to do what they are too lazy and stupid to do.
“Could we work out a partnership?” one begs.
I see her about to do it. I know her, know her better than any of them, know her better than she knows herself.
I snatch the wrist of her fluttering hand before she can lay it on the suit jacket of the billionaire next to her who reeks of flavored vape smoke. The wine in her glass sloshes.
“Uh, Mr. Svensson,” he stammers then corrects himself. “Fantastic party! You’d think with all these pretty girls, you wouldn’t be able to do business,” he brays, “but looks like I’m about to make the bank happy.”
“Do business with each other. Not with her. Cupcake tycoon? Let’s go.”
“What is your problem?” Winnie stumbles after me, the wine in her glass spilling as I drag her through the party to an out-of-the-way alcove. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“So you crashed my party to find some rich man?” I snarl.
“Your party?” she chokes out.
“Who else do you think is going to get a bunch of rich men and the women who worship them all together in one room? An influencer? A cupcake queen?” I sneer.
“But,” I add off the cuff, trying to stay casual so I don’t throw everyone in the party out, finally let us be alone.
“I respect that you can hustle. Game recognizes game.”
“Gross.” She’s dismissive. “I didn’t crash. I have a ticket.” She opens up her clutch.
“So you’re here to drink and flirt and bend over and let a billionaire fuck you?” I spit out.
“Fuck you,” she snaps. “I’m here to do business.”
“That didn’t look like business. You practically had your tits out in that guy’s fucking face.” I circle her.
“It’s your own fault, yanking my lease out from under me. What did you think I was going to do? Come crying and begging to you for a favor?”
Her on her knees? Begging?
She’s just fucking with me. I elbow her back up against the column and settle my hand on her waist, the other on the stone behind her head. Through the thin fabric, her skin’s hot from the wine she’s been drinking. Even in the heels, she has to stare up at me.
That thing in me I try really hard to keep leashed wants out. My hand comes to rest on her shoulder.
Her bare skin under my hand is hot. I shove her against a marble column.
She slaps my hand. “You don’t own me. And since I’m here, maybe I will find a rich guy. I’m in my season of multitasking.”
I grab the back of her neck and turn her to face the party. “Yeah?” I whisper in her ear. “So which man with a big bank account did you want to fuck you? Wrong answers only.”
She purses those red lips.
“Tell me, just between friends. Who are you after?” I croon.
“No one. I do not like their vibe, and they are crusty. Nothing more. They’re in the business bucket, not the pleasure bucket.”
“You came here in that dress—you might as well have walked in here naked in nothing but those shoes and that bow on your neck with ‘fuck me’ painted all over your tits.”
“My grandmother bought the wrong-size dress. It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. I’m not here for male attention and validation.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me.”
She swallows hard. “I’m focused on my net worth. My financial house is in order. I don’t need a man to save me.”
She elbows me. Hard.
I grab her arm. “You don’t have a boyfriend. I know you’re lonely.”
I’m this close to giving it away, giving it up that I’m the one in her house, carding my hands through the dresses in her closet, that I’m the one she looks forward to at the end of a rainy, dreary Seattle evening.
“I could ask you the same question,” she hisses, wrenching to face me. “Which dumb model are you going to take back and fuck while they fake an orgasm for you?”
I’m careful not to let the rest of my body touch her. “Women don’t fake for me. My creampuffs are handmade.”
“You couldn’t tell the difference,” she whispers. She’s standing next to me, trailing her fingernails up my arm.
“You trying to flirt, Creampuff?” I force out, trying really hard to keep my eyes from rolling up inside my head.
I notice she got her nails done.
Her fingers latch on to my jaw. “Which supermodel is he after?” she croons.
I smell the smoky smell of the cognac on her mouth. Let her tilt my head this way and that.
“That one looks nice, malleable.” She nods to a svelte woman in a boring black dress.
“Shitty way to describe her. Maybe she rescues hamsters.”
“Please. I know women aren’t people to guys like you—they’re like expensive pets. Ooh, green dress, five o’clock? That’s someone you can parade on your arm.” She jerks her chin.
I’m mesmerized.
I’m not looking at the sea of women. I’m looking at her.
“Or silver dress? Seems just your style.”
“Does she have a rack like yours?”
Winnie glances up at me.
“If not, then I don’t want it.”
“Why do you have to be so difficult?” She tilts her chin up, daring me, and something in me pulls hard against its leash.
I shouldn’t touch her again, shouldn’t let her touch me—but I can’t seem to stop myself.
I’m close enough that I can count the freckles along her collarbone, catch that faint scent of sugar and coffee that clings to her no matter how late it gets.
I want to grab her jaw, tilt her head up, and find out what kind of sound she makes when she finally stops talking back.
I smirk at her, keeping my composure.
Even though I’ve been stalking her the last month, this is the closest I’ve ever been to Winnie.
I’ve been really good, really in control, not actually going into the house while she’s sleeping.
Not staring into her window when she’s showering, or changing, or rubbing moisturizer all over her curves.
But now?
It’s going to be hard to keep my hands off her.
To maintain those boundaries for my sanity… and her safety.