Chapter 9
VIOLET
"It'll be just a moment." The hostess flashes us a smile before glancing down to the tablet in front of her.
I feel totally overwhelmed. And it's not just because the lounge where I currently am, a place called Vellum in the West Village, is as hip and expensive as they come.
It's because I'm here with Gianni Russo.
Vellum is one of those places that's so cool it doesn't even have a sign above the front door. Just a brass number and a velvet rope and the unspoken understanding that if you need to ask to get in, you're not welcome.
The ceiling is low, the banquettes are leather, and the moody lighting behind the bar glows like a shrine to booze. I don't even want to guess what the cocktails cost.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I slip it out. It's a reply from Rudi.
Stay out as long as you want, mija. Patrick and I are at the playground, dinner after, then bedtime. Have some fun!
Rudi is very serious about not paying her, but I make a mental note to pick her up some cookies from Levain or something. I heart the text, add thank you so much! and slip my phone back into my coat.
Fun. Is that what I'm having here?
The hostess looks back up. "They're resetting the table right now. Feel free to have a drink at the bar while you wait."
Gianni's brow furrows a bit. He leans over and speaks quietly to me. "Let me see if I can expedite this process. Go order something at the bar."
"Hm? Yeah. OK." The triplet of words comes out in a nervous tumble. God, what is wrong with me?
Once I'm seated, a bar menu in front of me, I look over to see Gianni at the hostess stand, speaking quietly. Even from here, the sight of him does something unreasonable to my nervous system.
He's wearing his dark suit from the office, but no tie tonight, the top button of his shirt undone so I can see the hollow of his throat.
He's leaning against the stand with one hand in his pocket, and the hostess is looking at him the way every woman in every room looks at him.
Like she's trying to figure out if he's real.
He is. Unfortunately.
"You waiting for someone?"
A deep voice intones to my right. I turn to see that a man has materialized beside me. Mid-thirties, good-looking in a generic finance-bro way, square jaw, expensive watch, the confident half-smile of someone who's used to women being flattered by his attention.
"I am, actually."
"Lucky guy." He leans against the bar, angling his body toward mine. "Can I buy you a drink while you wait? You look like a dirty martini."
"I look like a dirty martini? Don't you mean I look like I might like a dirty martini?"
He lets out an amused snort, as if I walked right into his little line. "No, I mean you look like one. You know. Sophisticated, a little dangerous. But goes down smooth all the same." His smile widens. "Am I wrong?"
Under different circumstances, I might laugh.
He's harmless, just a guy in a nice bar trying his luck.
All the same, I can feel Gianni's gaze on me from across the room, steady and heavy, and the awareness of it makes my skin prickle.
My breath shallows a little, and I find myself clenching my thighs at just the idea of him looking at me.
"You're not wrong," I say. "But I'm taken."
Taken. That can't possibly be the right word to describe my relationship, such that it is, with Gianni. Whatever. It'll get the job done. I can think about the implications of why that was the first word to come to mind later.
The man leans in a little, raising his eyebrow. I can sense he's up for the challenge of smooth-talking a woman away from her date. "Taken as in married? Or 'taken' as in you're sitting around waiting for some loser from Hinge?"
"Taken as in mine." Gianni's voice is low and unhurried and absolute.
He steps beside me, and his hand settles on the small of my back. Warm, firm, unmistakably proprietary. My skin breaks out into goosebumps at his touch, and I find myself biting down gently on my lower lip.
He doesn't look at me. He looks at the man, and whatever is in that look makes the guy's smile collapse like a tent in a storm. The man's confidence vanishes. His mouth is flat and he stands up straight, like a soldier waiting for an order.
"Right," the man says. "Sure. Have a great night."
He's gone before Gianni's hand moves an inch.
"Friend of yours?" Gianni asks, guiding me toward the back of the lounge.
"Brand new acquaintance."
"Mm." His thumb traces a small circle against my lower back, through the thin fabric of my blouse, and the contact sends heat radiating outward through my body like a match dropped in gasoline. "Our table's ready."
The booth is tucked into a corner, secluded, half-hidden by a curtain of dried eucalyptus. He lets me slide in first, then sits close enough that his thigh presses against mine under the table. I gulp hard, hating but loving the way I feel in equal measure.
Through the eucalyptus I see the guy who'd hit on me at the bar. He's glancing over in my direction.
A waiter appears, takes Gianni's order, two old-fashioneds, no discussion, and vanishes.
"So," he says. "Chapter twelve."
"Excuse me?"
"Your book. I went back to chapter twelve last night."
"You reread it?"
"Twice."
I shift in my seat, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Gianni Russo is rereading my book. I try to imagine it, him seated on some expensive couch in a penthouse apartment, his brow knitted as he reads.
Does he get hard at the steamy parts? Does he get turned on enough from my writing to...
"You alright?" he asks.
"Fine." I clear my throat and sit up straight. Too straight, probably. "I guess I just didn't picture you as a rereader."
"I told you, I want to see how it ends."
I laugh. "Well, you might be waiting a while."
"Right. And that's where our partnership comes in."
Partnership. What that could entail, I can only guess.
He continues, his arm resting along the back of the booth just behind my shoulders. Part of me wants to lean back into him.
"Your hero takes her to dinner in chapter twelve. A place like this, actually. Candlelight, whiskey, a table in the back where nobody can see them."
His eyes hold mine, and I feel the heat of them all the way down to my stomach. Something in the way he looks at me makes me feel like I'm being read. Not the way you read a book, but the way you read a map. Like he's looking for where things lead, looking for what's hidden.
"Your hero," he continues, "tells her he doesn't trust easily, that he's spent his life building walls, putting up armor, and she's the first person who's made him want to take them down. It's a good line."
"Thank you."
"But is it true?"
The question lands softly and there's an undertone. He's not asking about the character. He's asking about himself.
There's no way I could know something like that about him. What he's asking, I realize, is about what I see when I look at him. He wants to know how much I've figured out, how much of the fiction is observation and how much is reality.
And he wants to see if I'm as good at seeing into people as I seem to think.
"Parts of it," I say carefully. "The emotional architecture is real. But the details, those are invented. I mean, he wouldn't be much of a character if he was just you."
"The emotional architecture." He almost smiles. "You talk like a writer."
"I am a writer."
"You're an office manager who writes."
"Same thing, but with health insurance and a steady paycheck."
My joke earns a smile. Just a little one. A slight curve at the corner of his mouth that makes something tense low in my belly.
God, he's beautiful. But not in the way that normally means. He's beautiful like a storm, like a mountain. Something imposing and powerful and a little scary.
Maybe a lot scary.
The drinks arrive and we tap the rims in a toast.
"What're we drinking to?" I ask.
He glances away, giving it a moment of thought. "To a fruitful artistic collaboration."
I smile. "I'll drink to that."
I take a sip. It's strong, smoky, perfect, and I feel the warmth of it bloom through my chest. It's delicious enough to make me forget about the fact that he ordered for me.
"Your turn," I say. "Tell me something else. Something real."
He considers this. The amber light catches the silver at his temples, and I find myself staring.
"I don't usually do this," he says.
"Do what? Take your employees to cocktail lounges and talk to them about their romance novels?"
"Take anyone anywhere." He lifts his glass, watches the light move through the whiskey. "I work, I run my business. I go home to an empty loft, and I don't think about whether that bothers me."
"And does it?"
"I stay too busy to think too deeply about it."
I wonder if he's telling me the truth. "Maybe that's why you stay so busy."
He lets out a light snort of amusement. "I'm enjoying your company, Miss Wolfe. Perhaps more than I thought I would."
"What, did you expect me to be a bore?"
"Not even a little."
His gaze drops to my mouth, and in that moment, I can read his mind and know exactly what he wants. My breath catches. My thighs press together under the table.
"You're staring," I whisper.
"I know." He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingertips trailing down the side of my neck.
The touch is light, barely there, but my body responds like he's pressed every button at once.
Heat floods between my legs, my nipples tighten against the fabric of my blouse, and I'm suddenly, painfully aware of how thin this blouse is and how close his hand is to me.
"Back to the book," he says. It's like he knows how easily he can get a rise out of me and takes sick pleasure in doing it. I push the matter aside. "There's a scene where the hero kisses her at a table in a crowded restaurant. And he does it in front of everyone. He doesn't care who sees."
My heart rate picks up. "The hero," I repeat. "It's funny you keep calling him that."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. I mean, he's not entirely a hero. He's got edges. And a little bit of a dark side."
"And what do you call him?"
"I don't know. Just... him, I suppose."
"Him." He says the word as if trying it on for size. "I like hero. Anyway, he kisses her. And he does it in a place just like this."
"This isn't a book."
"No." He reaches toward me again, tracing my jaw with his thumb. "And it isn't chapter twenty, either. I know what I promised you last night. This is better."
Then he kisses me.
It's not a slow or careful kiss. No. He kisses me like he's been thinking about it for hours, like every moment since the meeting has been foreplay and now he's done waiting. His mouth is warm and firm and he tastes like the old-fashioned he's been sipping.
His hand slides to the back of my neck and pulls me closer, and I make that sound again, a goddamn whimpering noise. I'd feel mortified if I wasn't so turned on.
All I can feel is him. The heat of his body, the grip of his hand, the press of his thigh against mine.
His tongue grazes my lower lip and I open my mouth for him, the kiss deepening, becoming slow and consuming.
The kind of kiss that makes the rest of the room and whoever might be watching melt away until there's nothing but his lips and his hand and his touch.
He pulls back, just far enough to look at me. "We should go."
"Yes. We should."