by Amelia Wilde
It’s such a genuine statement, not a hint of a double meaning, that I take a second to look at her. She’s still looking toward the windows, the last of the sunset reflected in her face. Isabella catches me watching. Her green eyes go serious again. It was probably a way for her to buy some time, let her racing heart slow a little bit. The pulse fluttering in her neckline isn’t quite so hard now.
At least it wasn’t until she looked at me.
Isabella Gabriel might be the most audacious woman ever to shove past my secretary and demand a meeting with me—if I’m honest, she’s the only woman who’s ever done that—but this cannot possibly be what she thought she was getting into. Hell, I’m not sure I even realized what we’d be getting into. It’s a sheer delight watching her cheeks heat up.
“Well, now your dream has come true.”
Isabella laughs, but there’s an element of her nervousness there that she can’t hide.
“Moving along.” She hasn’t pulled her hand away from mine, so it’s a simple matter of tugging her in the direction we’re going—through the sunken living room, to the left, and up another two steps into the hallway there. Isabella takes a big breath in and lets it out slowly as we move down the hallway. Energy is radiating off of her, heating up the corridor, and it’s like she’s dying to ask me where this leads.
The hallway opens into...
...my dining room.
Isabella hesitates for the first time as we cross the threshold. She does more than hesitate, in fact. She stops dead, two steps in, her eyes flicking suspiciously across the space.
Because the dining room isn’t exactly empty.
My massive dining table, which can seat twelve, has been replaced with a smaller one just in front of a window boasting another spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline. The rest of the space has been converted into a kind of sitting area, a sofa and a wingback chair arranged around a glass-top coffee table reflecting the light of the gas fireplace, turned on low.
If she was expecting the master bedroom, or some kind of playroom, this is not it.
The final touch is the uniformed waiter bending over the table, pouring white wine into our respective glasses.
Isabella presses her lips together like she’s trying not to smile, but her eyes are narrowed as she takes it all in with another sweep of her gaze. It’s all I can do not to keep from laughing. The arrangement we made was not for a private meal, although I never said it wouldn’t include one. This has to be the final straw, the thing that pushes her into full-blown confusion. There’s no way she was expecting this.
She takes her bottom lip between her teeth, then steps closer to me. What is this? I’d bet a thousand dollars that those will be the next words out of her mouth.
“So,” she says, her tone soft and sensual, like she’s still kneeling on the carpet in the entryway, looking up at me from the floor. “Where do you want me? On the table, or on the sofa? Oh—or the chair?”
Damn. Is she completely unshakeable?
“Seated. At the table, not on it.” I lean in so that I’m murmuring right into her ear. “You can keep your clothes on…for now.”
That puts a little more blush in her cheeks, but she lets me escort her over to the table without another word. “Mr. Pace.” The waiter, Conrad, straightens as we approach. “Ms. Gabriel. Are you ready for the first course?”
The first course is my personal chef Lucas’s favorite salad—something involving candied pears—and I can’t wait to watch Isabella eat them, the shining fruit against her perfect lips. “Yes,” I tell him. “Bring it out.” He moves smoothly away while I pull Isabella’s chair out from under the table so she can sit. I’ve just taken my seat when Conrad comes back, the small plates balanced in his hands.
Isabella looks over the delicate arrangement. “Impressive.”
“Not as impressive as you,” I say, not missing a beat.
She smiles at me across the table. “I haven’t done anything impressive yet.”
“I disagree. You barged into my office without an appointment.”
Her shoulders relax a little, and a fraction of the tension goes out of the air. “So this is a date?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh…office talk. A dinner in your private dining room. It doesn’t seem like—” She breaks off, as if searching for just the right word.
“The kind of arrangement where I possess you for an entire month?”
She picks up her fork, looking up at me with fire in her eyes. “No. It doesn’t seem like that.” I’m guessing this is as close as she’ll get to admitting her surprise.
“An arrangement like that can’t include dinner?” I grin at her, picking up my own fork and spearing a section of candied pear. “My goodness, Isabella. We hardly know each other. Shouldn’t we get that out of the way first?”
Isabella cocks her head to the side. “I’m not the kind of woman you can get to know over the course of one meal.”
“We’ll see about that.”
She laughs. “What about you, Jasper Pace? Are you the kind of man who can be summarized in a single dinner?”
“Depends on what you want to know.”
“I want to know what makes you so relentless. I checked up on you during our…time apart. You’re terrorizing all of New York City with your insistence on gutting all the best buildings.”
“If by best you mean in most need of improvement.”
“Whatever lets you sleep at night.”
“What’s your lullaby, Isabella? Is it the sound of all the cash you’re raking in from Gabriel Luxe?”
She narrows her eyes with a smile. “You did your research, too.”
“Of course I did. What I couldn’t find was why.”
“Why what?”
“Why are you so hell-bent on expansion? How did you get into fashion, anyway?”
Isabella purses her lips. “I’m not just into fashion. I’m into…fitness. And business. And utility. I think clothes should be simpler, and higher quality.”
“Was that always a passion of yours?”
“No. Paying the bills was.” She slips a section of candied pear between her lips and swallows. “That’s damn good. Anyway, my mother had practically no money when I was growing up. I had to do something.”
“And that something was fashion?”
She shrugs. “She had a sewing machine.”
It’s a good thing she didn’t have a collection of tanks, because Isabella Gabriel would have taken over the world.
“Okay. I’ll admit it. I was wrong,” I say.
Isabella laughs. “About what?”
“This is going to take more than one dinner.”
Chapter 15
Isabella
I don’t understand the first thing about Jasper, that much is clear.
We move through the salad course and he asks me more about what it was like growing up. “Very luxe.” I give him a sage glance, and he laughs. “We had a one-bedroom in the Bronx, and we all shared the bedroom.”
“We all…”
“My sister Evie, my mom, and me.”
“You have a sister? Any brothers?”
“Yes, and no. Just the two of us. My dad didn’t stick around long enough for me to remember anything about him.”
“Wow.”
“Very courageous. A real man’s man.” More bitterness than I’d intended creeps into my tone, and I’m not sure why. “Your father seems pretty…involved.”
“I can’t complain about him. Sometimes I wonder what he’s looking for.”
“In terms of…”
A flash of frustration crosses Jasper’s face. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Everything is Pace, Inc. for him.”
“Just like it is for you?”
His blue eyes dance. “I’m here with you—doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“It tells me you’re honoring the terms of the deal.”
Jasper leans back for the waiter—whose name
I learned is Conrad—to slide small bowls of what turns out to be the best butternut squash soup I’ve ever had. “My father would never have made a deal that took up this much of his evening.”
So that’s where he gets some of his relentless attitude from. It’s just the way it’s always been.
“What about your mother?”
Jasper’s face darkens, just for a moment. “What about her?”
I have to tread carefully here, clearly. “Do you see her often?” I’m half-expecting him to say that she’s dead.
“Almost never.”
A heavy silence lingers between us then, and I lift another spoonful of butternut squash soup to my lips. It’s so damn delicious that I almost forget I’ve tripped some unseen wire in the conversation.
Right up until Jasper continues.
“She spends most of her time traveling in Europe.”
“And the rest of it?”
“God knows.”
I take a sip of wine. “We don’t have to talk about this if—”
Jasper waves me off. “It’s not a big deal. She had an affair when I was thirteen and my parents divorced shortly after. My dad didn’t even deny her alimony, which she took every two weeks until she remarried when I was in college. That guy’s dead now—heart attack—but she never gave up her traveling lifestyle.”
“My mother just retired last summer.”
A flicker of relief crosses his face. “What did she do?”
“She taught elementary school.”
Jasper makes a face. “I can’t imagine.”
“I can’t either. But it’s what she wanted to do. Half the reason we had no money for stretches of time growing up was because she went back to school to get a better job.”
“And while she was in school, you were—what, hunched over a sewing machine in some closet somewhere, making a fortune?”
I laugh. “It wasn’t a fortune at first, and I didn’t work in a closet. I worked in our front hallway.”
“Making…”
“Clothes.” He gives me a look. “I bought remnants from the fabric shops and made these clothes for the women who exercised in the neighborhood. They used to walk around the block, or around the park. If one of them had a baby they’d take the stroller, too. But they wanted to look cool while they did it, and nobody was making clothes like that at the time, with different patterns and colors. Everything I made was, obviously, a unique piece.”
“None of your lines now have wild colors.”
I grin at him, and he looks down at his soup. “You caught me. I browsed your website.”
“You had no choice. What if you were entering some kind of weird sex treaty with some kind of fashion serial killer? That has to come through in their designs.”
Jasper’s gaze is piercing. “It’s hardly a weird sex treaty.”
“Isn’t it?”
“We haven’t had sex yet,” he reminds me. I pretend to be absorbed in another spoonful of soup, but the turn this conversation has taken has me off-balance again, slick between my legs and slightly lightheaded. Sex with Jasper is guaranteed to be mind-blowing. Just the way he moves in his clothes, the way his grasp is powerful even when he’s just holding my hand, makes me certain of it.
“Yet.” My voice is too soft, and I clear my throat. We’re in Jasper’s penthouse, in his dining room, which is empty except for the two of us and occasionally Conrad. Yet could end at any moment, and my entire body is buzzing with the possibility. Images flash one by one into my mind: my own knuckles white on the edge of the table. My bare knees against the hardwood floor. The smooth leather of the wingback chair meeting my bare skin. We might be in the middle of dinner right now, but that doesn’t mean...
Conrad swoops in, clearing the empty bowls of soup and replacing them with the main course: steak so tender and perfect that it has to have cost a fortune. Every bite is a little taste of paradise.
Jasper goes back to asking me first-date questions, but that doesn’t make my heart beat any slower.
“Have you been dating for long?”
I laugh out loud, my fork clanging against the edge of my plate. “This is not dating.”
His eyes sparkle. “I don’t think you’d have entered into this with me if you were engaged, or seeing someone seriously.” He cocks his head to the side, considering me for a long moment. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you would.”
“I wouldn’t.” The memory of Jason’s idiotic face swims up in my memory.
“Whoa. Is the steak not up to par?”
“No, that’s not—the steak is probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. You reminded me of—of the last relationship I was in.”
“I take it things didn’t end well.”
“You could say that.”
By the time our plates are empty and Conrad is carrying them quickly back to…well, the kitchen, I assume, my heart is back to hammering against my rib cage. And when Jasper stands up and offers me his hand, I have to take a big breath before I can bring myself to stand up.
“There was something I was going to suggest,” I say to break the silence while we walk back out toward the living room. Where is his bedroom from here? “I think you should come with me to another function I’m invited to. It’s tomorrow night.”
Jasper’s eyes go wide. “A public function?”
“Well, yes.”
I’m so busy waiting for his reply that it takes me a moment to realize he’s taken me right back to the front door, that he’s handing me my purse, that he’s leaning in to kiss me on the forehead.
When he steps back, I know I’m giving him a bewildered look. “I’m leaving?”
“Dinner was wonderful, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but—” I snap my mouth closed. “Yes.”
He presses the button for the elevator, and the doors slide open. “I’ll check my schedule for tomorrow.”
Then they’re sliding shut again, me on the other side, and Jasper’s face disappears from view.
Chapter 16
Jasper
Another bank of cameras, even more of them flashing in my face. Many more than were at Sebastian’s opening last week.
“You are such a liar,” I murmur into Isabella’s ear, a wide grin on my face. I know exactly how it’s going to play on the gossip sites when the photos hit later tonight—Billionaire Jasper Pace flirts publicly with new lover.
“I didn’t lie about anything.” She keeps her smile on, too, leaning in a little closer so that each of them gets a few shots of her practically nuzzling my neck. Isabella Gabriel’s new beau is a billionaire with ties to real estate...
We move a few more steps down the red carpet, which I personally think is a little much for an industry awards ceremony, but I’m not going to say that out loud. Not here. “You said this was a small event.”
“I said it was a smaller industry event.”
“As opposed to—”
“I don’t know, Paris Fashion Week?”
We both laugh together, her face illuminated in the camera flashes, and my heart turns over in my chest.
It killed me to send her on her way at the end of dinner. Killed me. I could have died from the sheer lust I’d been containing all through dinner only to end up blueballed and alone at the end. It was according to plan, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. At all.
I also wasn’t partial to the flash of understanding that moved across her eyes like a thunderstorm in miniature as the elevator doors closed. If she thinks she understood, then...
I don’t know. Maybe she did. That’s the infuriating and intoxicating thing about Isabella. I’m never sure where exactly we stand in this game, and I love it and hate it simultaneously.
According to plan, yes, but I didn’t make that decision until toward the end of the meal, when every cell in my body was screaming at me to take her back to my bedroom and fuck her until she was ruined for all other men. But something stopped me cold. It was the overwhelming sense that if I did th
at, we’d have crossed a line too early in the game, and it might send us rushing toward a premature end.
Not that I think Isabella is going to back out. But I couldn’t ignore the feeling. I couldn’t ignore it, so I sent her home. A move neither of us could possibly have expected.
I still don’t know why I care if she backs out early. I never thought she’d accept in the first place. Now we’re here, out in public, on a date that’s a thousand times more real than a behind-the-scenes dinner in my apartment, and I don’t hate it. I don’t hate the camera flashes. I don’t hate the fact that we’re going to be the subjects of all the gossip outlets in the city by morning, if not by midnight.
I can’t explain it. I wouldn’t even begin to explain it to someone like my father. He’d probably just remind me that nothing matters except business.
We step off the carpet and into the lobby of the Lincoln Center, where Isabella dives right in. I underestimated her when she first walked into my office. I might not know much about the fashion industry, but I know quite a few big-name designers and fashion house owners. Some of them are here, and all of them recognize Isabella Gabriel. She kisses cheek after cheek, holding hands with elegant woman after elegant woman in gown after eye-catching gown. They’re all wishing her good luck.
When I finally offer her my arm again, she’s glowing. “And you still think you’re not a liar?”
Isabella looks up at me with wide, innocent eyes. “About what?”
“You made me think you were just some down-on-her-luck fashion designer.”
“What did I ever do to give you that impression?”
All of my memories of her collide into a swirling slideshow, her voice overlaying the entire thing. It hits me like a tidal wave. She never said she was down on her luck. Maybe the timing with that building in Hamilton Heights wasn’t the best for her, but she’s clearly not a woman trying desperately to climb the rungs. She’s got a place in the world, and it’s a damn good one.
So why did she feel like she needed to say yes to me?
I don’t have time to think about it, because there’s a movement to the hall where the ceremony and dinner are taking place. Isabella makes conversation with just about every person around us on the way there, and the constant flow of conversation continues all through dinner.