Chapter Seven
Ryder
A ll day long, Elliot’s parting words have haunted me.
Life partner?
What the fuck does that mean?
Is she suddenly going to try and spin it that I secretly bat for the other team? It’s an interesting concept, if so, and I know plenty of gay men and women, none of whom fit into any stereotype, but I’m not exactly sure if anyone would buy it. Even for four weeks.
Still, I’m on the Bowery, at the cutting edge gallery where Sinclairs, in conjunction with one of the foundations Magnus set up to show he had heart, and that we’ve all donated heavily to, is having an event. An art show and auction that the hefty ticket price along with donations will go to doing good.
And I’m looking out for this life partner, as well as aware I’m being watched.
One thing is I’m not the focus of the local and national rags and blogs. I’ve another scandal that has nothing to do with me—thank goodness—to thank for that.
I catch my mother’s eye and she raises a glass of champagne to me. I offer a tight smile.
Her gaze shifts, her eyebrows rise, and I follow.
Oh. My.
The woman is tall with Rita Hayworth hair, now it’s down, and that body she hides beneath the wrong clothes is to die for. Curves and full and with that mouth painted siren red, Elliot Perry is a knockout.
It’s not even the looks, it’s her attitude.
And she’s heading straight for me.
The lick of lust dies as annoyance rises up instead. She doesn’t trust me, even here, and the hot shimmery black dress that skims those hot curves clings and offers me a view of cleavage I could lose myself in. Or not. I’m ready to battle.
She’s so close now that the effect of hot and confident siren is slammed down to the ground by the slight self-consciousness in her eyes. It should ruin it. It doesn’t. It gives it earthiness. Another layer. Like I’m seeing a secret. And that’s hot all over again.
Does this fucking place come with cold showers?
Elliot stops in front of me. “Ryder.”
“Wha—”
She slaps me.
Whatever I was going to ask is lost in the shock.
The slap doesn’t hurt; she cups her hand in such a way it makes a sound but doesn’t do anything more than send a slight jolt through me that’s almost pleasing. Well, color me all sorts of kink I apparently didn’t know about.
I grab her, sliding and arm around her waist and catching her hand as she raises it again. “What the fuck, Elliot?” I whisper.
“Just make this real.”
“That was real.”
Her gaze is both pleading and irritated. “I didn’t hurt you.”
“Maybe I’m sensitive.”
“And maybe you’re a man baby.”
I offer a small, low smile. “A man baby fuck boy? Now that’s a combination.”
She goes to pull away, but I tighten my grip to stop her, even though I don’t need to. Because her attempt to get away is for show. I’m not that dazzled by her Cinderella transformation to not grasp that. But I want to know what’s up her non-existent sleeves. “Ryder, you’re all over the papers.”
A flash goes off. “And I’m about to be again. This time starring you in the scandal.”
“I lead a very upstanding life!”
“I’m sure you do.”
Her eyes narrow and I’ve insulted her, but I’m not sure how. She isn’t about to be the type with skeletons anywhere and she isn’t a fame and fortune seeker.
“Yes,” she says with a healthy amount of bitterness, “and you should be glad. Now follow my lead. I’m saving your ungrateful ass. Right now you’re explaining Lacey kissed you last night—”
“Blah,” I say. “Blah, blah with added blah. Happy?”
“You have a reputation where the tarnish goes so deep it’s going to take my sparkly one to help you.”
“So we’re dating now?”
“Would that be so hard to believe?” Her intriguing mouth curls up in a smile that’s sweet and sarcastic and vulnerable. “If I said, yes, we are dating.”
“What’s this?” My mother is there, eyes big, expression cool as she takes us in. “Dating?”
I expect Elliot to fall apart, flounder, but she doesn’t.
“You must be Faye Sinclair,” Elliot says, pulling her wrist from my light grip. “So pleased to meet you. I’m—”
“Mother, this is my girlfriend, Elliot Perry.”
I get a sharp look from both of them. Like I’d just announced I’m secretly a serial killer. Usually I’m way smoother than this, smoother than silk. But Elliot has a way about her. I don’t even know if she was planning on going this way, but hey, I might as well have some fun since I don’t exactly have any other outlets for the next few weeks.
“Girlfriend? You, Ryder? She looks out of your league.” Then she smiles up at Elliot. “He’s a good boy, but you could do better.”
I narrow my eyes at my mother and grip Elliot’s waist a little harder and I try not to think how good she feels beneath my palm, how warm and alive and vital.
“He’s on a thin rope right now. Although I can’t hold him too accountable for things that happened before we met. Can you believe he wanted to hire my PR company?”
“He could use it.” Amusement plays over my mother’s face.
“But he just finished explaining how that woman kissed him last night.”
“One thing he isn’t, is a liar.”
“I am here,” I say.
They both ignore me. “Perry? Don’t tell me you’re related to the Cape Cod Perry’s. Anastasia?”
“That’s my mother,” Elliot says.
And my mother is off, launching into how she knows Elliot’s mother through a network of friends—not close, but they move in similar circles. Then she asks Elliot about various people and it hits me she is related to them. Including an ex-quarterback who owns a team, and a model that I haven’t had the…er…pleasure of meeting.
But I’m looking at Elliot in a different light. Not because she comes from money—I do, too. It’s how she doesn’t seem to come from money. From the sound of it, her family is sprawling and she’s in the middle. I study her.
Elliot deflects with the kind of mastery that makes her the perfect mirror. Right now it’s a little deliberate, but I can’t shake the feeling it’s inherent in her, like she lets the rest shine.
After they finish chatting, my mother takes us around and she does Elliot’s work by letting it be known we’re together. Kingston is there and he just raises a brow at me, and the way he slides his gaze over Elliot annoys me on a level I don’t understand.
For some reason I don’t go over, and when my mother is distracted, I pull Elliot to a corner and shove a glass of champagne in her hand and lean in. “Was that your plan?”
“My plan was to save you from yourself. Hence the slap. It also felt good.”
I take the champagne I just gave her and swallow some down, before giving it back. “Yeah? It didn’t hurt.”
She looks at me, then at the glass, and turns it from where I drank from and then takes a delicate sip. I grab it again.
“It wasn’t meant to, Ryder. But it still felt good. The symbolism.”
I point the champagne at her. “I should fire you.”
“You should. But then you’d be without all those pretty little things you want, like the Sinclair jewels. And your family company.”
“It might be worth it.”
She smiles. “Then I’ll make everything come back and bite you hard on the ass. And I’ll sharpen its teeth first.” She shrugs. “I’ve put a lot of effort into you the past couple of days. Don’t fight the gift horse.”
“Why are you my fake girlfriend?”
“That was you taking my bait. This is strategic, Ryder,” Elliot says, sliding a hand down the buttons of my dress shirt. The move is slightly disconcerting and I don’t know why. Her touch is something that slides down beneath the skin to nestle warm against my bones.
“How so?”
“I slap you like an outraged girlfriend, we have words. Your mother spreads the seed of your reform with who you’re dating. There are photos of it, and…the latest scandal? This helps put the final nail in that disappearing. A woman was mad you didn’t want her back. You went home alone, and I turned up so if someone was watching, it all plays out in your hands.”
“So you believe me now?”
She shrugs again and takes the champagne back from me. “She was mad. Like I said.”
“Okay.” I’m not sure I believe her.
But she looks divine, and someone I’m happy to have on my arm. If I’m a little turned on, well, who could blame me? It’s been a while—for me—and she looks delicious. More than that, she’s intriguing and this time I’m not talking about just her mouth.
“Besides.” Elliot stares down into what’s left of the champagne. “No one’s going to believe you went for me for the usual reasons. It’ll be seen as a step into maturity, into the role you want to inhabit.”
I laugh.
“Just pretend.”
“First, no one’s going to believe I’m that mature.”
“I know what I look like, Ryder. No need to keep going.” She checks her watch. “We should get out of here—”
“Wait.” I take her arm and she stops right before she starts to spin away.
Elliot sounds smooth, classy, untouchable, but I can’t shake the feeling I insulted her.
“You look good tonight. Like someone I might go for.”
“Ryder.”
Her voice is a warning I ignore. I can get out of any situation, and this is a no brainer. She looks pretty under her usual severe hair and clothes. “I just meant you look pretty. You should wear your hair like that more often.”
“And smile?”
“Well…” I stop. “That’s a trick question.”
“No, it isn’t. I’m talking commonsense.”
I breathe out. “There are beautiful women who’d kill for me to say that.”
“That it’s a trick question?”
“That they look pretty.” She stiffens and I know immediately that was the wrong thing to say. Shit.
“We should go.”
“Elliot.” I catch her free hand and draw her closer. “It was meant to be a compliment.”
“Implying the rest of the time I’m ugly?” Her cheeks flush high. “I’m not fishing for compliments. I don’t need them or your practiced words.”
“I don’t practice that shit.”
“I should go.”
“All I meant,” I say, having another go, “is most women like it. That’s all. And I do not for the life of me know where I’m going wrong. Are you an alien?”
But Elliot doesn’t smile at my joke. Instead, she just presses her lips together a moment, then finishes the champagne. “Maybe you should try to talk to women like they’re people, not playthings.”
“I do both.” I stop. “That came out wrong.”
“No, Ryder,” she says after a long beat, “I think it just might have been one of the most honest things you’ve said all night.” Elliot hands me the empty glass and I hand it to a passing waiter with a tray. “Speaking of night. It’s late, I should go.”
I still have her hand and I pull her into me, just that little bit closer and she smells like gardenias. Clean and pure with a hint of earthiness that’s somehow erotic beneath it. “Stay. What if I get into trouble?”
“I think you can manage an art show.”
“They’re dangerous. Doubly so when they’re also fundraisers. Besides, they bring out creatures like that.” I gesture with my head at an old dowager who’s basically a walking skeleton with giant bakelite vintage glasses and jewelry that had to be worth a cool quarter million.
I think she’s also wearing a bright pink fluffy dog as a hat.
“You know who that is?”
“No.” I raise a brow. “Should I?”
“So you’re not after her for her money, just her looks. That’s Madame Cohen-Paisley.”
“I’m only after her for her sex appeal and beauty.” I smile at Elliot. “C’mon, Perry, stay. Save me and have some fun.”
She looks around and a slow grin blooms on that intriguing mouth. “Only because I don’t think any of these people will be safe.”
And for the next hour we study the art, have conversations with people we’ve made up histories for, and I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever had such a good time at one of these things.
Certainly not with my clothes on.
Definitely not without getting into trouble.
Absolutely not with someone I’m not into.
“You see?” I say to Elliot, “these stodgy people are what I’m rebelling against.”
She snorts laughter. “You’re not a rebel, Sinclair. What you are, is a sad man in need of help.”
“Oh, God. You’re going to lecture me?”
“Me? Never. I’m just pointing out you have problems. You’re not a rebel. You’re someone whose dick needs a support group. And,” she says, shooting me the kind of severe look a sadistic boarding school nun would salivate over, “before you say it, not that kind of support group, one where your dick gets a helping hand or something else.”
I wait because she looks so proper but this is some fucked up shit she’s saying and I’m really beginning to like her.
“No, Sinclair, you need the rehabilitation and abstinence kind of support group.”
“No whipping?”
She looks me up and down, and fuck if she doesn’t have one of the best poker faces I’ve ever seen. “Absolutely not. Someone as far gone as you would probably enjoy that.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Welcome to relationships 101.” She glances at a slender watch on her wrist. “I should go.”
“We should go.”
I don’t give her a chance to say otherwise. I get our coats and start to lead her outside when I spot the paparazzi, ready to get whatever shots of whoever is in there. So I decide to give them a show.
“Work with me, Elliot.”
And I slide her coat on, straighten the collar and before she knows what I’m doing, before I can second guess myself, I pull her up against me and kiss her.