8. Willow
8
WILLOW
T he last time I saw him in person was that summer two years ago. I needed an internship for my MBA, and I innocently asked Cam if he could think of anyone in the city who’d take me on. He in turn suggested Dimitri, and arranged the whole thing for me.
Dimitri did his best to keep his distance, staying in his office and away from the reception desk where I spent most of my time—though I bounced between departments, making coffee for everyone.
I was honestly a pest. Spoiled, pushy, completely inappropriate. I see that now.
I didn’t quite have the E-cup now tucked into my cocktail dress’s corset, but I was busty, and I dressed to make everyone notice it.
It’s been two and a half years, and I can still remember the way those green eyes would flash with something that made me shiver from head to toes, before refocusing anywhere but on me. A phone, files, a computer, a window.
But now they’re staring right at me.
“Drink, sir?” a passing waitress offers breathlessly.
“Thank you.” Dimitri smoothly takes my seventh empty glass out of my hand, puts it on her tray, and replaces it with an eighth, before helping himself to his own drink. “I’m surprised to see you here, Willow. I thought you worked up the street. Who are your friends?”
He’s talking to me. He’s given me a drink. And oh, I think he asked a question.
I clear my throat. “Err…”
Intimately familiar with crippling shyness, Lucy saves me. “Lucinda Ward.” She offers him his hand. “This is my colleague, Tom Hughes, and his fiancée, Natasha Powell.”
“Ah, yes, the roommate.” Dimitri shakes her hand, then the other two, as my brain tries to catch up with what’s going on.
How the hell does he know Lucy’s my roommate? I’ve certainly never mentioned it to him. I moved in with them three months ago, and we haven’t communicated in two years .
Almost exactly two years since he announced his engagement.
He’s been married for eighteen months now. My eyes zero in on the hand holding his drink up, and I frown.
Because his ring finger is bare.
Were he anyone else, I’d say he was hiding his marital status to pull something behind his wife’s back, but he’s Dimitri Volkov. No one he marries would expect exclusivity from him. He’s the kind of man you’d see hosting orgies.
Why isn’t he wearing a ring?
None of your business, that’s why.
“I work for Eros Corps,” Lucy is explaining when I can bring my attention back into the present. “And tonight came with a plus-one ticket.”
“So, Willow’s your date?” Dimitri gleans. “Lucky you.”
I feel my skin catch fire. Just like that, I’m reduced to a bumbling sixteen-year-old.
My fingers tighten around the long stem of the glass. “Excuse me,” I croak. “Bathroom break.”
I’m not exactly running away. One doesn’t run in four inches heels. But there’s no denying that I’m legging it out of there as fast as the Jimmy Choo can carry me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the hell is he doing here?
Then again, I’m at the fancy New Year’s gala of a company belonging to a hot, young thirty-something CEO. Is it that shocking that an equally young, equally attractive thirty-year-old would attend?
I should have seen it. But then again, I don’t spend all my time asking myself where Dimitri Volkov is going to be. Not anymore.
In the bathroom, I lean over the sink, eyes on the mirror, and force steadying breaths.
He’s here. Oh god, he’s here, and every inch as delectable as I recalled. It’s unfair. No man should be this hot.
I can do this. I can get out of there and act like it’s all normal. Hell, he might be gone by the time I come back. He would have gone back to Caleb Cole, or someone else. Right?
With shaking hands, I touch up my lip gloss. I don’t dare attempt anything else, unsteady as I am, but to my relief, I look mostly okay, if shaken.
I practice a winning smile in the mirror. It’s so natural here. I’m good at performing in front of a mirror or a camera. In front of most people, too.
But this is Dimitri Volkov, the most beautiful, sexy man in the entire fucking world. Like, officially. They voted him Mr. Universe two years running. If he ever loses the position, it’s likely because he declined it to make room for someone else.
“I can do this,” I tell the mirror confidently.
Then, I pee, because I did have seven drinks, wash my hands and make my way back into the hall with determined strides.
“It’s not like you to hide,” Dimitri calls from the wall he’s leaning against.
Fuck!
I trip, and would have fallen on my ass, if not twisted my ankle, if a strong hand didn’t wrap around my middle, steadying me.
The moment he touches me, a jolt of energy zaps my entire body, freezing me in place.
Words, Willow. You can do it.
I force my jaw to unlocks. “It’s not like you to lurk outside the girls’ bathroom.”
Yay! I managed a full, logical sentence. It’s even on the sassy side.
Dimitri grins. “Oh, petal. I did miss that sass.”
Without asking, as though it’s the most natural thing, he slides the arm around my waist to my back, and leads me back toward my friend.
“I’m glad to have run into you. I meant to reach out soon.”
I blink. “I can’t imagine what you might want with me.”
That makes him pause, and turn to face me. “Can’t you?”
I’d like to say I’m more sophisticated than that, but nope. I’m blushing all over, again. There’s no doubt I’m the hue of a tomato.
“I’ll give you a hint. An overly cheesy lasagna, half a dozen plates, an empty chair. You keep missing Christmas.”
I sigh. “Not everyone is into Christmas, you know. Growing up, it was no big deal in the Brown household.”
“Well, your sister is trying to make it a big deal now, and your continued absence hurts her.”
Ouch.
When he says it like that, I sound like an asshole.
“They live in California. Not all of us have a private jet we can just hop on.”
“Your sister would happily pay for your travel and you know it. Besides, you’re very welcome to a seat on said private jet.”
“Maybe I don’t want my sister to keep footing the bill for everything I do,” I retort, not even addressing the second argument.
The very thought that I would ask him for a ride is ludicrous, and he knows it.
“And why is this any of your business, anyway? If Morgan truly minded, she’d tell me.”
“She told you, several times. I’m making it my business because you’re not listening.”
The fact that he’s so protective of my sister’s feelings triggers the hurt I’ve long kept behind thick walls and ignored. The feeling that no matter what I do, I’ll never be as loved, as cared for, as good as Morgan. Not to him. Not to anyone.
“Piss off,” I snap, wrenching his arm away from my back, before striding forward.
Except I can’t just storm away dramatically, leaving Lucy, so instead I just return to my friend, hoping against all hope that Dimitri’ll leave me alone.
To my surprise, he does, returning to his CEO pal instead.
But I can’t help it: my eyes return to him several times.
Each time, his are fixed on me.
This is far from over.