Chapter Four #2
"No, you don’t." His gaze drags over me, cool and assessing, and my skin prickles under it. "You’d have to convince an entire city you’re in love with me. You’re too…" His eyes flick over my face, my body, as if he’s searching for the right word. "Soft. You’re not a good enough liar, Aria."
My chin lifts. "What does that mean? You think you’re better at lying than I am?"
"It’s a compliment, believe it or not." His tone stays maddeningly even. "I already have a reputation for being cold and unapproachable. No one would expect much warmth from me, even toward my fiancée. The burden would fall on my bride to sell it."
"I can lie, Everett." I hate how desperation still clings to my voice. I hate even more that he hears it.
He studies me for a long beat, like I’m a problem he can’t solve.
"What’s the money for, Aria?"
"That’s private."
He exhales through his nose, like he’s already finished with this conversation, and lowers himself into his desk chair. "You’re not the right fit and you're too young for me anyway. You can see your way out. I have work to do."
He turns toward his computer.
I step closer. "Too young for you…? We're only eight years apart."
"I'll be nine years older in a matter of weeks. But that's minor to the main reason." He reaches for a file on his desk as if I’m already gone. "This isn’t happening."
"I can do this. I can make everyone believe I’m in love with you. Just give me a chance."
His gaze lifts to mine. For one awful second, I think he’s going to laugh.
Instead, he leans back in his chair and says, "Prove it."
The words crack straight through me.
I move before I can think better of it.
His eyes sharpen as I get closer, but he doesn’t stop me.
I gather the tight fabric of my dress in both hands, dragging it up my thighs until the slit gives me room to move. Then I brace one hand on his shoulder, plant a knee beside his hip, and climb into his lap, swinging the other leg over until I’m straddling him.
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
"Aria—" My name sounds like a warning off his lips.
I don’t let him finish.
My hands slide up to his face, cradling his jaw, and for one suspended second I hover there, close enough to feel the heat of his breath, close enough to see the flicker in his eyes.
Then I kiss him.
At first, it’s just pressure. My mouth on his. A challenge. A dare thrown back at him.
His lips are warm and still for half a heartbeat, as if he’s letting me make the choice and refusing to meet me halfway.
So I kiss him deeper.
Not soft or hesitant. I kiss him like my father's quality of life is on the line. I kiss him like I have something to prove and nothing left to lose.
For one endless second, he doesn’t move. His hands stay locked on the armrests, knuckles whitening, his entire body taut beneath me.
Then his mouth opens under mine. Heat lashes through me so suddenly I almost gasp into the kiss.
He still doesn’t touch me, but he kisses me back now—thoroughly, expertly, with a restraint that somehow makes it hotter.
Like every ounce of control in him is strained to the breaking point.
I slide one hand into his hair, the other braced against his shoulder as I angle myself closer, pressing into the hard line of his body.
His mouth is devastating. Controlled for only a second before something darker and rougher pushes through. My pulse stumbles. My whole body lights up.
And still, he doesn’t touch me.
Not my waist. Not my hips. Not the bare strip of thigh brushing his tux pants.
His hands remain on the armrests like he’s holding himself back by brute force alone.
A knock sounds at the door.
I jerk.
The door opens before either of us can speak.
Jeremy stops short on the threshold. "Sorry. Am I interrupting something?"
Mortification burns through me.
I scramble off Everett’s lap so fast I nearly trip, yanking my dress back down with shaking hands.
Everett doesn’t rise.
Doesn’t look breathless or even remotely affected.
He only adjusts one cuff and says, in a voice cold enough to freeze the room, "No. Aria was just making my point for me."
My head snaps toward him.
The humiliation hits a second later, devastating in its wake.
Because even without his hands on me, that kiss had been molten. World-tilting. The kind of kiss that rewires something in your bloodstream.
And apparently it had meant absolutely nothing to him.
I glare at him, chest heaving, then snatch the paddle cards off his desk hard enough to send one skidding sideways.
"You’re right," I bite out. "You just saved me from a year of misery. I should thank you."
Then I storm past Jeremy and out the door before either of them can see how badly my hands are shaking.
Screw him, I think as I make a beeline for the elevator. Screw him and his billions.
I can’t believe I almost locked myself into a year-long marriage with that man.
Then again, I’d do anything for my father.
And apparently, that includes moments of catastrophic lapse in judgment.
Desperation makes girls do stupid things.
I just need to find Penelope and Cammy and get drunk on Everett’s dime at the open bar and forget this night ever happened.
I should leave.
It’s been almost an hour since I kissed Everett upstairs. I stayed for the silent auction, ate several serving trays of hors d’oeuvres and several glasses of champagne with Cammy. Now I should hail a cab and go home with my tail between my legs.
That’s the smart thing. The dignified thing. The thing a woman with an ounce of self-preservation would do after throwing herself at a man in his office and getting dismissed like an inconvenience.
Instead, I drain the rest of the champagne in my glass and spot Everett Kauffman slipping through the private exit like the devil departing a gala.
My pulse kicks.
He’s leaving.
This is it. My last shot.
I don’t think. I just move.
"Aria?" Cammy calls somewhere behind me, but I’m already weaving through tables, past waiters carrying champagne flutes and donors in designer gowns. My heels are impossible on the slick floor, so I kick them off mid-stride and grab them in one hand.
By the time I burst through the private entrance and out into the cool night air, Everett is halfway to the sleek black town car waiting at the curb. Media and paparazzi are already snapping shots of him as he and Jeremy head straight for the car.
His driver steps forward and opens the back door for them, and Jeremy slides in first, his eyes still glued to his phone, typing something as if the man works for Everett 24/7 and never sleeps.
"Everett!" I call out right as he’s about to slide in next.
He turns at the sound of my voice just as I start flying down the stone steps barefoot, my dress hiked in one fist, my heels swinging wildly from the other hand.
For one absurd second, I see his face register me in pieces.
His eyes flickering to the shoes in my hands, my bare feet, my hair wild from pulling out all the bobby pins at the bar that were driving me insane.
Then before I know it, I slam into him.
One hand fists in his lapel to steady myself, and before I lose my nerve, I rise onto my toes and kiss him.
It’s reckless and humiliating and absolutely fueled by one too many glasses of liquid courage.
I’m not drunk, just free of any inhibitions holding me back from trying one last time to make Everett believe that I’m fake-wife material.
For one heartbeat, I expect resistance. A polite refusal in front of the cameras.
Instead, Everett kisses me back.
Hard.
A startled sound catches in my throat as his hand slides from my hip to my ass and hauls me tighter against him, like he’s done pretending he doesn’t want to touch me.
My heels slip from my fingers and clatter against the pavement as his mouth takes mine with force I’d expect from a control freak like Everett.
This is not the careful, restrained kiss from upstairs. This is heat and possession and hunger that makes my knees go weak.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth, and I swear the entire world tilts.
Flash.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
The cameras are going off like fireworks around us, but I can’t think past the feel of his hand spread wide over me, the solid wall of his body, the sharp bite of his teeth catching my lower lip.
I gasp.
Somewhere beyond the roar in my ears, voices start shouting.
"Everett! Is this your girlfriend?" One paparazzi photographer calls out.
"How long have you two been together?" Another asks.
"Where have you been hiding her?" A third yells from his spot on the stairs, security blocking their ability to take another step closer to us.
He pulls back just enough for air, our mouths still almost touching, his breath warm against my skin. My chest is heaving. My brain has completely left the premises.
His eyes lock on mine.
Then, so quietly only I can hear it, he says, "Just remember, you asked for this."
A shiver races all the way down my spine.
Before I can respond, he turns us toward the cameras, one arm still locked around my waist.
"Yes," he says smoothly, as if I didn’t just fuse our lives together on the front steps of Hawkeyes Arena. "She’s my fiancée."
The reporters erupt.
Questions fly from every direction, words crashing over each other too fast for me to follow.
What?
Since when?
What’s her name?
Are wedding plans already underway?
My mouth is still numb from his kiss. My pulse is still pounding against my ribs.
Everett doesn’t answer another single question. He just dips his head toward the open car door and says, "Get in."
I blink up at him. "I’m leaving with you?"
His expression doesn’t change, but there’s something newly dangerous in it. Something that tells me that maybe six months with Everett might not have shown me every side of him.
"We have a lot to discuss," he says. His gaze flicks meaningfully to the frenzy of cameras around us. "Thanks to you."
Jeremy slides out of the back seat and moves to the passenger front, leaving the back of the town car for just Everett and me.
I should probably be regretting my decision to poke the bear in public.
Instead, still dizzy from champagne and adrenaline and the kiss that nearly melted me on contact, I bend to grab my shoes, climb into the backseat of Everett Kauffman’s town car, and realize I may have just changed the entire course of my life in under thirty seconds.