Chapter 1 #2
“In whatever it is you’re trying to achieve here,” I reply curtly, taking a sip of my champagne that’s still clutched in my hand, a little tighter now that I have company.
“I was just trying to give you your shoes back.”
“Oh, please, let's just cut the bullshit,” I snap, and his eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch at that. “You’re coming on to me, but as I said to the barman, I’ve just got divorced. A man is the last thing I want, or need.”
“Because you have your favourite fruit?” he asks, and now his smirk turns into a full wattage smile. A smile, I’m sure, would melt the knickers off any one of the women sitting in this bar staring at him like he’s God’s gift or perhaps the Devil’s henchman.
“Exactly,” I reply, not caring that he’d overheard my conversation with the barman.
I move to stand, but he rises with me, snatching up my shoes and moving his rather bulky frame around the coffee table until he’s standing in front of me.
“Stay.”
“Did you just give me a command?” I ask, arching my neck to look up at him.
I’m not a short woman, standing at five feet nine without heels, but he towers over me, most likely nearer seven feet than six.
Well, that might be an exaggeration, but he’s tall and built, and in any other setting, I might have attempted to knee him in the balls, but that feels terribly gauche for such a refined environment.
Instead, I go for the death glare, fold my arms across my chest and straighten my spine as a sudden spike of anger pulses through my veins.
“Stay,” he repeats, and I swear I can feel his command like a wall of heat.
“I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m done with men thinking they can walk all over me. Get out of my way before I make you,” I say, my voice calm and controlled. I’m pretty sure I hear one of the women sitting close to us say, ‘Doesn’t she know who that is?’
Again, his brows lift a little, as though surprised I have the wherewithal to refuse him. He must be used to people doing what he says. Well, he’s in for a shock with me.
“You’re quite an angry little thing, aren’t you?” he retorts, staring at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m being pulled apart cell by cell. I shake off the feeling.
“Don’t you dare patronise me. For one thing, I’m not little. I’m wearing Spanx for Christ’s sake. I’ve not been little since I was a teenager.”
“I’d noticed,” he responds, dropping his gaze to my now heaving chest, then lower to my hips.
“And,” I say, jabbing my finger into his firm pec before waving my hands over my breasts, “These are, in fact, just a handful. This amazing bra is doing all the work here. So, you can stop looking at them like that. You’d only be disappointed.”
“Pretty sure you couldn’t disappoint me,” he says, reaching for, I don’t know, a stray strand of hair or something.
I slap his hand away. “Hands off, meathead.”
“Meathead?” he questions, and for a moment I think I’ve gone too far, because his eyes narrow at me as his mouth does this weird jerky little dance, like he’s trying to hold something back.
That something, as it turns out, is laughter.
“Why is that funny?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest, and tapping my foot as I give him my best schoolmarm stare, the same one I use on my students if they get a little overexcited in class.
Honestly, I don’t even know what’s come over me.
I never act this way. I was terribly submissive in my relationship with my ex.
I was sweet, kind, thoughtful, forgiving, but rarely ever angry.
I don’t know if it’s the physical changes that are going on inside of me, or if I’m acting this way because I spent too many years biting my tongue and keeping the peace in my marriage, but I can’t seem to stop.
“It’s funny because no one has ever had the balls to insult me, at least not directly to my face…” His voice trails off as he tips his head to the side. “What’s your name?”
“Maud Buchanan,” I lie. It’s actually Edie Valenti now that I’m back to using my maiden name, but I’m not about to tell him that.
He raises a brow. “Maud, huh? An old name for—”
“An old woman?” I practically screech, pressing my finger back into his firm pec. “Now you’re really pissing me off. I’m only forty-four. You might be just out of nappies, boyo, but I’m not dead yet.”
Annoyingly, his laughter continues, except this time his whole body is shaking with mirth. That only serves to piss me off more.
“Oh fuck this,” I snip, climbing up onto the coffee table in an attempt to skirt around him, but of course I misjudge how slippery the highly polished table is against my stockinged feet and tip backwards, my arms cartwheeling as I try to regain my balance.
One minute I’m heading towards the most embarrassing moment of my life, and probably a mild concussion, the next I’m sitting across Dorian’s lap, his arm wrapped tightly around me.
“What in the lightning strike just happened?” I ask, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment as everyone in the bar, including a group of intimidating men who I hadn’t noticed when I walked in earlier, stares at us.
“Lightning strike?”
“You know, kaboom,” I say, imitating a lightning strike as I look up at Dorian and notice that his eyes are in fact a deep shade of brown, so dark they’re almost black.
“What?”
“You were quick as a flash of lightning.”
“Ah,” he replies, his large palms gripping my hips as he lifts me until my legs are draped across his thighs, my form-fitting skirt slipping higher with the movement. Next thing I’ll be flashing my tummy controlling knickers. I’m sure that’ll get him going.
“Well, thank you for catching me. Now, if you’d just pass me my shoes, I’m going to bed. It’s been a rather long day,” I say, attempting to slide my legs off his lap.
“Not so fast,” he says, his hand resting against my thigh as his pinky finger grazes my leg just below the hem of my skirt. “I have something I want to say first.”
“I already told you I wasn’t interested,” I retort, ignoring the fact that my vagina seems very interested indeed. The hussy. I blame it on the champagne.
“Yes, you’ve made that very clear,” he replies, his gaze dropping to my thigh and his hand grasping it possessively.
Not sure why that makes my heart lurch, but it does.
It double-lurches when he looks back up at me, his eyes blazing as his hand slowly slides over my knees and down my shin until he eventually clasps my right foot.
“What are you doing?”
“Massaging your feet. They hurt, right?”
My cheeks heat, and that pisses me off, because despite my body quite liking how his thumb digs into the arch of my foot, my head is telling me not to fall for whatever this is.
A booty call, clearly, and something I do not understand in the slightest, given the choice of high-calibre women dotted around the bar.
But instead of telling him to get his hands off me, I say, “There are people watching us right now.”
Dorian lifts his hand and clicks his finger, and within seconds, one of the scary-looking men sitting across the other side of the room approaches.
He’s tall like Dorian, but less muscular.
His dark hair is cut close to his head, military-style.
He, too, is wearing a well-cut suit. The man flicks me a look, his piercing blue eyes taking their measure of me and clearly seeing me lacking, given the curl of his lip that slants across his beautiful face.
“Clear the bar. I want everyone out.”
“Dorian, she’s—”
“She has a name, Logan,” Dorian replies, rather menacingly, “And it’s Maud—”
“Actually, it’s Edie Valenti,” I say, shrugging when both men snap their attention to me.
“Edie and I need a moment alone.”
He’s clearly some kind of criminal who’s used to getting his way, because less than a minute later the bar is cleared and we’re alone, and suddenly I don’t feel so brave anymore.
Shit.