‘You’re nervous again.’
Her eyes flex to mine. ‘A little.’
‘Why?’ I lift my finger to her perfectly painted, beautifully shaped lips. ‘Don’t tell me. Because you haven’t done this in a really long time.’ Her eyelashes are incredibly long, like wings hovering just above her eyes. They flutter as a bird might flap and I stare at her, transfixed, until Jake reappears with the drinks. He places them on the table and, without looking at him, I say, ‘Close the curtains.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Imogen’s eyes flare, anticipation in their depths. I shouldn’t play with her—she’s too sweet and way too inexperienced—but I pull away from her a little. ‘We don’t want anyone to see us.’
Her lips part a little. ‘See us doing what?’
It’s just a question but it might as well be an invitation to lift her up and fuck her right here on this table.
I’m seriously tempted. But I’ve got the night planned and, for a reason I can’t really fathom, I care about showing her what her social life should be like. Maybe it’s like passing a baton, enlisting an apprentice right before I hang up my New York shoes and go back to England?
‘Dating, of course.’ I grin.
‘Right.’ She swallows, her delicate, pale throat tensing with the gesture. ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’
Something switches inside her, and the nerves are gone. She sits a little straighter, reaching for the champagne glass without sipping it in what I now recognise is a prop technique. She likes to hold something. To stop herself fidgeting?
Her fingers curve around the stem. ‘Go on,’ I prompt, matching her gesture, pulling my own soda tumbler towards me.
‘This whole dating thing.’ She pauses, a furrow on her brow. ‘We need to discuss it further.’
My lips quirk but I take a drink to hide the smile. I don’t think she’d like to feel as if I’m laughing at her. And I’m not, really, more just thinking how cute she is like this—trying to bring her impressive business mind to a social agreement.
‘Okay, so discuss it.’
‘I’m serious,’ she murmurs, her eyes forcing mine to hold hers.
‘What is it?’
‘I was thinking, earlier, about how crazy this is and I think we need to have some more rules in place.’
‘Rules?’ I jerk my brows without meaning to. ‘Out of nowhere, I’m thinking of a headmistress and I’ve got to tell you, Imogen, it’s very hot.’
She grins, leaning forward and pressing her hand to my shoulder. ‘Maybe later, Mr Rothsmore.’
Oh, crap. Role play. With her? Suddenly, she has about a thousand upper hands as I start to imagine her in all sorts of costumes and can barely think straight.
‘My business means everything to me,’ she says, her smile slowly falling from her face. ‘It’s not just... It isn’t just something I’ve worked really hard to build. It means a lot. To a lot of people. And part of that is my image. I really can’t have anyone find out about us.’
‘We’ve already dealt with this.’
‘I know.’ She nods a little jerkily. ‘But what we didn’t talk about is what happens after.’
After? ‘In a month?’ I never think more than a day ahead. Even planning to see her until I leave was somewhat paradigm-shifting for my mentality. Planning beyond that is not something I have the skillset for.
She nods. ‘We’ll see each other again. It’s inevitable.’
‘So?’ I lift a brow. ‘That’s kind of fun.’
‘No.’ It’s like a whip, cracking across me. ‘I don’t want this to be something that goes on, where we see each other in Monaco and decide to pick up where we left off.’ A moue of disapproval shifts over her lips. ‘That’s messy and inelegant and definitely leaves room for discovery.’
Her summation is adamant, but she has a very good point. I could see me spying her from across the room at an event and finding an excuse to drag her into a hallway to have some fun, only to be seen by a passing member. It’s risky.
‘We need a line in the sand,’ she goes on carefully, as though she’s thinking on the fly. ‘The Christmas gala should be our last night together. After that, we’re civil, polite strangers. If you see me at an event, you say “hi”, and keep moving.’
There’s nothing in her suggestion that worries me. I know what my future holds and it is far away from Imogen Carmichael and this wonderful world she’s created.
‘Fine.’ It’s easy to agree to that.
Seeing her obvious relief dents my pride a little.
‘Okay.’ Her smile is bright. ‘So privacy and a hard stop point.’ She nods. ‘Good.’
‘You forgot the third rule,’ I say, unable to explain why something is firing in my chest that feels a lot like impatience.
‘Did I? What’s that?’ She’s businesslike again, focussed on me and what she could have missed.
‘A whole lotta fun in between.’ I swoop my head down and kiss her, swallowing her surprise and laughing deep in my throat. Yeah, this is going to be fun all right.
* * *
He kisses as if it’s a sport and he holds all the world records in it. He kisses as if his sole purpose for being is getting me off. He kisses as if he were meant to be doing this.
I surrender to him, lifting a hand and curling it in his shirt, clutching onto him in case he gets it into his head to stop what he’s doing. I don’t want him to stop. Beneath the table, I lift one leg a little, onto his knee, and his hand curves around the leather, keeping it hooked there, his tongue duelling with mine as he kisses me harder, his other hand lifting to the back of my head and pushing through my hair, holding me right where I am.
I have no intention of going anywhere.
My head spins, afterwards, when he lifts away from me. He really is the quintessential English nobleman, so handsome, so swarthy and fancy yet masculine all at once. There’s something cultured and inaccessible about him that even someone like me, who grew up with Hollywood royalty and can generally move in all circles, finds intimidating yet fascinating.
‘Are you hungry?’
Am I? ‘I think I was when I was at home but, I’ve gotta say, Nicholas, you have a habit of pushing such considerations way down my list.’
He laughs. ‘I’m glad.’
I reach for his hand, putting mine over it without really thinking about it—funny how such a gesture can become natural so quickly.
‘So England, huh?’
Something sharp crosses his expression. Something very un-Nicholas that makes me feel concern for him, or worried for him. Something.
‘Yes.’
Okay, there’s definitely something here. Curiosity shifts inside me. ‘You’re not looking forward to going home?’
He lifts his shoulders. ‘It’s home,’ he says after a moment. ‘I always knew I’d move back, eventually.’
‘How long have you been in New York?’
‘Five years.’
‘That’s right.’ I remember reading this in his file. ‘You came here after—’ I stop what I’m saying, but not in time. His eyes zip to mine, his expression dark.
‘After my fiancée left me at the altar?’
I grimace. ‘Sorry.’
He flips his hand over and squeezes mine, then reaches for his drink. ‘It was for the best.’
It’s a comment designed to move conversation on, to shut down worry and any further line of enquiry. I don’t succumb to it. ‘Why?’
He takes a drink. ‘We weren’t well suited.’
I don’t know much about his fiancée. I can’t even remember her name.
‘Saffron,’ he supplies and I realise I’ve spoken my thoughts aloud.
‘She’s not in the club?’ Though our membership has grown, I know every member by name and sight and there are no Saffrons. We have
a Pearl and a Cinnamon, though.
‘No. It’s not her thing.’ His smile is indulgent.
‘No?’
‘No.’
Hmm. Another closed door. I don’t really like closed doors. ‘Why not?’
‘Apart from the fact she ditched me in front of five hundred of our nearest and dearest?’
‘But why? Why did she dump you?’
‘That’s the billion-pound question,’ he drawls, and for a second, his face is in the shadow of an almighty rain cloud and I want to draw the sun back out.
‘You never found out?’
‘Why she left me?’ He shakes his head. ‘But I can guess.’
‘Why, then?’
‘She was like a bird in an aviary,’ he says, after a moment. ‘Beautiful, smart, funny, but completely defined by who she was, who her parents were, by what was expected of her.’
‘And that’s marrying someone like you?’
‘Yes.’ He dips his head forward. ‘She hated it. I didn’t realise how much until she left me.’
‘Hate it or not, it’s still a pretty shitty thing to do.’ I wince. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, you’re right. I think she knows that. The problem is, she did love me, but she hated what marrying me would mean more.’
Something makes my voice a little high-pitched. ‘And you loved her?’
His eyes are swirling with emotion when they meet mine. ‘I did, or I thought I did. I don’t know. I have to tell you, the whole thing turned me off love and marriage for life.’ His laugh is husky.
‘So you’re a dedicated bachelor?’
‘I wish.’ He rolls his eyes and he’s Nicholas Rothsmore, playboy, careless sex god, once more, so I relax, relieved I haven’t sent him into some kind of grief spin by making him talk about his ex. ‘I have been recalled to the manor.’ He grins, showing me he’s joking, only there’s an edge to his words.
‘Rothsmore Manor?’ I tease.
He shakes his head. ‘Actually, our country seat is Becksworth Hall.’
Somewhere I remember reading that. ‘It sounds very grand,’ I tease.
‘Oh, it is.’
‘Like something out of Pride and Prejudice?’
‘Pemberley has nothing on Becksworth.’
I laugh. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Not much to tell. If you’ve seen one grand country home, you’ve seen them all. Ancient, huge, imposing, miles of windows, stables, a lake for trout fishing, strawberry patches for summer picnics.’
I can’t help my sigh. ‘That sounds idyllic.’
‘In some ways.’
‘Not in others?’
But he’s done being questioned.
‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’ My turn to sip my champagne and buy time. It’s delicious. Crisp and fruity all at once, with enthusiastic bubbles that tickle my mouth as I swirl it around.
‘You’re from New York?’
‘God, no, I wish.’ I laugh. ‘I’m a Cali Girl. Can’t you tell?’
His eyes sweep my face, my hair, my golden skin and he grins. ‘Now that you mention it...’
Heat fires in my veins, as hot as any day on a Malibu beach.
‘So why New York?’
‘I like it here.’
He reaches forward and tucks my hair behind my ear. ‘It seems a little unfair for you to demand me to open the wounds of my past and you not tell me about something as simple as a geographical shift?’ He says it in a way that’s light-hearted but I feel his will of iron beneath the words.
Only he doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand that my move to New York was bound up in the wounds of my own past. How linked it all is to Abbey and a need to flee LA.
I don’t realise I’m frowning until he reaches over and rubs his finger across my lips.
‘It made sense, for the business,’ I obfuscate. And I think he knows I’m not being completely honest, but he lets it go.
‘Where’d you get the idea from?’
‘For The Billionaires’ Club?’
He dips his head once in a sign of encouragement.
‘From a friend of mine—an actress, who was complaining about even the best bars being paparazzi haunts, and wanting to just get away. To have somewhere to let her hair down without having it splashed over the papers the next day.’
‘I would imagine a lot of actresses live for the attention of the paparazzi.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I say quickly. ‘That attention can be used to build an image, sure, but it’s a double-edged sword. And not being able to escape that hounding, it’s horrifying. Everyone deserves to be able to switch off their “persona” and just be themselves for a while.’
He’s watching me in a way that gives me goose bumps and makes my head feel light, because he’s looking at me as though he sees the real me, deep inside who I am, beyond my own ‘persona’.
‘You’re speaking from experience?’
‘Sort of. Not really. I like to fly beneath the radar as much as possible, but my parents, on the other hand...’
He waits, encouragingly, as if he doesn’t know about them. And maybe he doesn’t. I forget sometimes that I’m out of the East Coast bubble.
‘My mother’s an actress. Or was. Now I guess she’s a socialite. She never met a camera she didn’t like.’
Wow. I sound so bitter. So serious. And I am—God knows I carry a lot of resentments but I usually do a much better job of hiding them. It’s hard to hide things from Nicholas.
I force a smile to my face. ‘The club was only meant to be for a few people, but it just took off. I started with a single venue here in Manhattan but...’
‘You found a gap in the market, and the market rose to meet it.’
It sounds so cynical when, actually, it wasn’t at all. ‘I studied business at college—I thought I’d get a job out this way but, once I got here, I found I didn’t really want to spend my time working hard to make rich people even richer.’ I smile to take the sting out of the statement. ‘Then, the club took on a life all of its own.’
‘And you have your charity too, right?’
My smile now is natural. ‘Chance, yeah.’
‘It does something for kids?’
‘Excuse me, sir?’ a voice calls from beyond the curtains.
‘Yes?’ Impatience curves Nicholas’s expression.
The curtains open and the waiter reappears, placing a platter on the table top. ‘Compliments of the chef.’
Oysters—one of my favourites—with a variety of toppings, and caviar atop thinly sliced cucumber. It breaks the serious mood that had descended on us, and I’m glad. Glad for the reprieve. We promised each other a whole lot of fun and talking about broken engagements and my parents is hardly fun.
Beneath the table, I brush my hand over his knee. He turns to look at me slowly, but that doesn’t stop the slash of heat that steals across my body.
Dating was his idea and I really liked it but now all I want is to be back in bed with him, exploring the desire that fogs the air around us.
I am hungry only for Nicholas Rothsmore.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I’M NOT SURE if it’s the champagne I’ve been drinking, or the incredibly decadent Belgian mousse we shared after dinner, or the fact we’re walking hand in hand through New York with the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge twinkling in the background, snow dusting down from an inky black sky, and Christmas lights twinkling overhead, but suddenly I feel as if I’m floating.
‘So, is this a normal first date, Nicholas?’
His fingers squeeze mine. I love how he does that, as if it’s his way of agreeing with me or something. ‘I mean, we’ve already had sex on two separate occasions, so I’m not sure we can classify this as a first date?’
‘No, no, no,’ I de
mur with a grin. ‘Those weren’t dates. It was fucking.’ Champagne has taken away any of my usual tendencies to hesitate. ‘And you told me fucking is different from dating.’
His laugh is like a caress. I close my eyes and let it wash over me.
‘It is.’
‘But you don’t really date.’
It’s not a question; I know the answer.
‘I date,’ he corrects, pausing before leading us across the street.
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Sure. I date like this—when I know it’s just for fun, with no chance of becoming more than what it is.’ His eyes meet mine for the briefest second. ‘But not a lot of women are interested in that.’
‘Really?’ I pull a face. ‘Because you’re such a catch they insist on a wedding ring on the first night?’
He laughs. ‘Something like that.’
‘I can actually kind of believe it.’
‘I wasn’t serious.’ He drops my hand so he can put his in the small of my back, guiding me further down the street. It’s a perfect, perfect New York winter’s night. Bundled up in my jacket, with Nicholas at my side, I feel warm, safe and as if I just don’t want the night to end. ‘It’s just hard to meet someone who understands that I really, truly don’t want to get involved.’
‘Beyond sex.’ I am definitely emboldened by champagne.
‘Yeah.’
I look up at him thoughtfully. ‘Is that what the tattoo means?’ I blink and see those words I am my own written over his heart.
He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand me. ‘The tattoo means a lot of things.’
‘Yeah?’ Curiosity barbs in my chest.
His smile is self-deprecating. ‘About a year after the wedding—the wedding that never happened—’ he laughs ‘—my dad came to New York and he was livid. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that. We argued—which we don’t do. It’s very un-British.’ He grins, so sexy, so full of passion that I think Nicholas flies in the face of any stereotype regarding stiff, unfeeling upper lips.
‘What did you fight about?’
‘My lifestyle, which he hated. The nickname “Playboy of Manhattan”, which people delighted in calling me.’ He expels a sigh. ‘He did everything he could to get me to go home, but at the same time I think he knew the business here needed me. So in the end, he issued an ultimatum. Sow my wild oats, get the partying out of my system. Then, at thirty, get married and come home to settle down.’
The Deal--A Sexy Billionaire Romance Page 8