Chapter 5 5
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” I dangle my jacket in the air between us. “Take it or leave it.”
She watches me warily for another long breath before she lunges for the jacket and slips it on.
Her skin disappears beneath the long sleeves and broad shoulders. The jacket absolutely swallows her, but I’m not laughing. Somehow, the image of her swimming in my jacket is even more tantalizing than her taut, naked skin.
She tucks the material around her middle and crosses her arms to secure it. “Thanks. For a second, I thought you were going to parade me out of here naked as punishment.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Don’t threaten me,” she retorts.
“Don’t act like it would be all bad. You’d be the center of attention.”
“Don’t act like all women want the same thing.”
I arch an amused eyebrow. “Don’t they? You got all dolled up and marched in here to sell your soul to Ivan Pushkin. Just like the rest of them.”
“Not you, too?” she murmurs. “Ivan this, Ivan that. Everyone can’t get enough of the guy. Who even is he?”
I join her at the window, gazing down at the partygoers below. “Everyone is here because they want to marry him.”
“I’m sure he thinks so.” She wrinkles her nose and points at a paunchy man standing by the shrubs. “What about that one?”
I clock the person she’s pointing at immediately. My mind whirrs and conjures up the relevant facts. Valmor Shundi. Albanian underboss. Likes his whiskey aged for seventeen years and his women for less than that.
“Him, too. The poor bastard has a nasty drug problem and is about to get caught for stealing money from his clients. He needs his daughters to secure a good match now before his name turns to shit.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know everything.” I point out the scrawny Italian man next to the stage. Again, my mind hums and pulls up what I need to know. Alfonso Marciano. A Rossi family underboss. Cokehead. “That one is into group sex with his boss and his wife.”
“No way,” she giggles. “He’s wearing a pink polo with a popped collar. How is he having threesomes?”
“Foursomes, actually. He brings his own wife along.” I point out the woman in the brown bedazzled dress who is scanning the lawn like a vulture. “Though I’m not sure you can criticize anyone else’s appearance, all things considered.”
She glances down at my suit jacket and winces shyly. “Fair enough. But I looked better before that asshole ripped my dress.”
“Agree to disagree,” I murmur.
I didn’t actually intend to speak out loud, but that slipped out before I could stop it. Her blush is bright enough to see in the gloom.
“What about that one?” she asks, obviously changing the subject.
I follow her finger to see her singling out the emaciated blond hair of the one man I would have most preferred not to think about. The laughter disappears from my voice. “Konstantin Sokolov,” I say quietly.
“You don’t have any dirt on him?” she teases. “He’s not, like, a terrible poker player or secretly into dressing up like a furry in his free time?”
No, I think to myself. He’s the father of the woman I was supposed to marry.
“He’s no one,” I said out loud instead. “No one at all.”
“Hm. Okay.” She turns her head to the side, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. “Final question: what’s your name?”
I have to admire her tenacity. She is really claiming she doesn’t know who I am. I’m still not sure I believe her, but it is nice to be anonymous. If just for a few minutes.
“Tell me yours first.”
“Or what?” she challenges.
“Or I’ll kick you out for trespassing.”
She narrows her eyes. “Are you sure you aren’t head of security? You’re on a real power trip.”
My gaze doesn’t waver from hers. The world shrinks around us. “I’ll answer when you tell me who you are.”
She hesitates for only a second. “Francia Delacour.”
I flip through my mental rolodex of names and contacts and allies and enemies, but there is no Delacour as far as I can remember.
Frowning, I turn to the bar cart and grab two glasses. “Care for a drink, Ms. Delacour?”
“God, yes. But you don’t get off that easily. You’re supposed to tell me if you’re the head of security or not.”
I hold up my glass and take a sip. “If I was head of security, would I be drinking on the job?”
“If you were bad at your job, you might.”
I pass the second glass to her. “I’m not bad at anything.”
“I hate that I actually believe you.” She tastes the drink and winces. “I also hate cognac.”
“That’s a three-hundred-dollar bottle.”
“Ah. Well, in that case, it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” She pastes on a big, fake smile. “Better?”
I’m sure I’ll never see her again after tonight, so what the hell? Marriage is looming, and after everything that happened with Konstantin and Katerina Sokolov, I’m positive it will be an absolute fucking hellscape. Might as well enjoy myself while I still have the chance.
I clink my glass against the edge of hers in a toast to wherever this night is going to take us. “Much better.”
6
CORA
The draft in this jacket is unbearable. It’s made even worse by the bedroom eyes the owner of the jacket keeps tossing my way.
Come to think of it, those bedroom eyes are exactly why the draft is so unbearable. No underwear, arousal, a draft—it’s a bad combo.
As I see them, the problems are several-fold. One, I’m butt-naked in a borrowed suit jacket. This is not what we in the female empowerment business like to call “the command position.”
Two, I don’t know this man. He could be head of security, he could be a clown out of costume, he could be a spy on a secret mission from the Kremlin. Who knows? Not me.
Third, and most importantly, I am butt-naked in a borrowed suit jacket. I think that point bears repeating.
My brain keeps drifting to how much Francia’s Vera Wang must’ve cost. Every time it does, I make myself take another sip of disgusting, expensive cognac and wonder how on earth I’m going to pay her back.
“More?”
The man’s huge hand is already halfway around the glass when I realize what he’s asking. His fingers brush mine and I jerk my arm back like I’ve been electrocuted. The only reason the glass doesn’t crash to the floor is because the man has Superman-like reflexes and snatches it out of mid-air.
“No, that’s okay.” I shake my head, cheeks burning. “Thanks, though. For the drink. The first one.”
And for sending my groper off with his tail between his legs. And for the jacket. And for not kicking me out the door in my birthday suit.
The debts between us are piling up. I should thank him for everything he’s done, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Because I could have gotten myself out of this mess.
I should have, anyway. Sitting back and letting a man swoop in to rescue me is so not my story anymore. No Prince Charmings. No Happily Ever Afters.
Admittedly, I do have one too many evil stepparents, but that’s as far as the similarities go.
Prince Testosterone is tinkering around behind me at the bar as I step over the destroyed dress and further out onto the balcony. The evening air is warm and balmy. A babble of cross-talking voices rises straight up from the crowd below.
