Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
A riel flounced ahead of Cooper into the studio, not bothering to turn on lights, other than the two elephant lamps she’d picked up for a bargain at a local vintage sale. “You do know the only reason I let you drive me home was because I couldn’t get a taxi or Uber for half an hour?”
“I didn’t think it was for my scintillating company, considering you didn’t speak and pouted the whole way.”
“I didn’t pout.”
“No? Then what’s that pursing thing you’re doing with your lips right now?”
Before she could blink, Cooper leaned forward, his thumb gently brushing her lips, eliciting a tingle spread that throughout her body, lingering in places that hadn’t tingled in a long while.
“Nothing to say?” He smirked. “That’s a first.”
Ariel couldn’t speak if she wanted to. Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth at the sheer shock of being touched by Cooper as if he desired her, as if she was more than the enemy to him.
Besides, she was too scared to speak. If she opened her mouth, there was no telling what she might do with his thumb in the vicinity of her mouth, her main impulse being to nibble it.
His thumb skidded across her bottom lip and drifted lower, tracing a slow, leisurely path along her jaw and back, making her knees wobble and her body sway towards him.
“Guess I better go before you ply me with any of your herbal concoctions, huh?” He cupped her cheek, his hypnotic stare mesmerising, as if the last thing he wanted to do was leave.
Or was that her misguided interpretation? Was she wishing for something that wasn’t there, considering he made her feel like a desirable woman, an equal, someone he admired?
When he touched her like this, looked at her like this, she could almost forget the huge, yawning gap between them, a gap that attending the party tonight only reinforced.
Cooper belonged in the rich, uppity crowd she would’ve shunned given half a chance, and she didn’t. She never would, and that was fine by her. He knew it, she knew it, so what was this tender act about?
In that moment, it hit her.
The proposal.
Cooper, a ruthless businessman, would probably do anything to get what he wanted.
She’d had a plan for when he dropped her home. Give him a chance to deliver his almighty proposal, refuse, send him away, and concentrate on sorting through the business cards that had been discreetly palmed her way this evening. Sofia had been right. People were interested in her painting, though realistically, even if she worked night and day for the next few months, the commissions wouldn’t stave off the inevitable.
She needed money, a lot of it, to keep the gallery running, and right now, with Cooper staring at her with a speculative gleam in his too-blue eyes, reminding her exactly why he was here, she knew she was fast running out of options.
Discombobulated by his touch, she was about to shove him away when he lowered his hand, regret etched across his striking face.
“Mind telling me what that was all about?”
“I think you know,” he said, his gaze travelling over her from head to foot, slowly, lingering, making her shiver with need as if his hands had skimmed a similar trail. “But until you’re willing to admit this attraction between us exists, I’m not going to do anything about it.”
He held up his hand before she could protest. “And no, before you belittle it, pretend it doesn’t exist, or imply I’m schmoozing you to get close to you to undermine you, this buzz between us has nothing to do with business and everything to do with the way you drive me crazy.”
For the second time this evening, Cooper left her gob-smacked as he walked away.