“The party at Eddie’s.”
She glanced at me, her lips in a flat line. “Amber has everything ready, of course.”
Out. You know…for a drink. Dinner. We’ve never done that.
Her words from last week rang in my ears. I don’t know why. But they did.
The dull look in her eyes, followed by ice.
Of course, we’re having lunch in. I’d planned on going out, but…well. Fuck that idea.
“I’ve got a number of things to get done before the next appointment arrives,” Aleena said, skirting to go around me. “And I’m sure there are things you need to do.”
I caught her wrist. “I thought perhaps you and I could attend Eddie’s party…together.”
“I wasn’t planning on doing anything more than making a work-required appearance. I wouldn’t want to take away from your fun.”
Pieces fell into place. Every time she’d tried to get us to go out somewhere, I’d shut her down, wanted to stay in. Because I hadn’t wanted to share her. But she didn’t think that. She thought I didn’t want anyone to know we were together.
“I’d prefer to have you there with me the whole time.”
Aleena’s eyes flew to mine and she stumbled, all but crashing into my chest. My arms automatically went out to catch her and I couldn’t help but think how naturally we fit together.
She looked surprised, but still wary. I managed a smile and had to clarify my previous statement. I wasn’t ashamed to be with her, but I wasn’t making some sort of commitment either. “It’s a dinner party, Aleena. We both have to attend. Why not go together?”
Chapter 8
Aleena
Why not go together?
Easy question, right?
Except when I still didn’t know what ‘together’ meant.
Now, after all those days of brooding and wondering why we hadn’t ever gone out on a date, here I was, standing in front of a mirror, brushing makeup onto my eyelids and half-wishing I’d told Dominic to find somebody else.
Somebody like…oh, Penelope Rittenour.
She would have loved to have gone to this party with Dominic. I could practically see her picking out wedding patterns. In the past couple of weeks, Dominic and I had traveled back and forth between New York and Philadelphia so often, I felt like I was running into my own shadow and when I wasn’t running into
my
shadow, I was running into hers.
She seemed to have developed a radar and knew exactly when to be in the New York office, coming in just as we were or leaving a nearby spa just as we happened by. She’d dropped heavy hints about spending a day in Philadelphia and it would be so lovely to have some companionship.
I, of course, had been completely ignored during these conversations. I hadn’t really minded, not wanting to waste the breath it would have taken to speak to her.
The phone rang, pulling me out of my thoughts and I took the call, putting Molly on speaker so I could finish my makeup.
“You haven’t gone and chickened out yet?” Molly asked. I chuckled under my breath and Molly laughed. “Come on. You’ve been wanting him to ask you out on a real date and now he’s doing it. Why are you so nervous?”
We’d been up until midnight talking. I’d thought it would help settle the nerves. It hadn’t.
“I don’t know,” I said, sighing. Straightening, I studied my reflection, angling my head left, then right. I’d made an appointment with a stylist the concierge had recommended. I hardly ever bothered paying somebody to do my hair, but this dinner party was important. Besides, I’d hoped the small bit of pampering would make me relax.
It hadn’t.
But at least my hair looked damned good, smooth and straight, pulled up and back into a complicated twist that I’d never have been able to manage on my own. Butterflies, bunny rabbits and buffalos seemed to be dancing around in my belly and I pressed my hand to it, hoping they’d get the point and settle down.
“I should have said no.” Hindsight was such a bitch. “I mean, come on, Moll. He didn’t really ask me
out
. He was pointing out the fact that both of us had to go and that he’d want me there the whole time. Of course he’d need me there. It’s an important business venture.”
“You’re being stupid. Of course you’re both working. If he didn’t want you to think of it as a date or anything, he just wouldn’t have said anything about it. He wanted to make sure
you
knew it was a date and wasn’t planning to bring anybody.” Molly explained everything with the same tone she’d use when talking to an idiot.
Rolling my eyes at the phone, I thought about arguing with her and pointing out all the holes in that argument. But I caught sight of the time. Groaning, I said, “I need to finish getting ready.”
“Oh, please do…hey, I’m hanging up. Wait! Face-time! I wanna see your dress.”
I went to argue, but she’d already hung up. The phone chimed again and when Molly’s face appeared on the phone, I made a face at her.
She wolf-whistled at me when I put the phone back down and turned to get my dress. “Love the panties, Aleena. So much sexier than what you usually wear!”
I ignored her and tugged the dress off the hanger.
I’d found it online a few weeks ago and bought it on a whim. It wasn’t a designer piece—or, well, it was, but not the sort of designer piece that Fawna had taken me shopping for. It was a retro-styled ivory silk wiggle dress and thanks to the built-in shape-wear, it fit like a dream and outlined every curve I had.
It took some wiggling to get into it and I was grimacing by the time I smoothed it into place. “I wonder if that’s where the name for the stupid design came from,” I muttered, turning around and looking into Molly’s grinning face.
“I feel like I should be tucking a dollar into your bra or something,” she said.
“Pervert.” I stuck my tongue out and looked at my reflection. “How do I look?”
“Like some starlet straight out of the glamour days of Hollywood.”
I glanced at the phone and quirked an eyebrow at Molly.
She made a little
X
over her chest. “Cross my heart. You look amazing. I wish I had the
T
and
A
for that sort of style.”
“
T
and
A
?”
“Tits and ass, girl.” Molly wiggled her eyebrows at me. “You’re going to knock him dead.”
Sighing, I went back to studying myself in the mirror. I’d swiped out the chain on my grandmother’s necklace for a slightly longer one, leaving the pendant to nestle between my breasts but I looked…bare. The dress lay low on my shoulders and while my skin glowed softly against the ivory silk, I felt like I needed something else.
I didn’t have anything though.
“Aleena?”
“Yes?” I asked absently.
“Try to have fun, okay?”
“Yeah.” I smiled, but it looked as fake as it felt. This was going to be a disaster. I knew it. “Of course, I’ll have fun.”
***
I had the suite across from Dominic’s.
Our two rooms were the only ones on the top floor. His was the presidential suite, although
palatial
would probably have been more accurate.
Mine wasn’t anything to sneer at though and I wished I’d had the time to appreciate it more, but as it was, the only thing I’d done was collapse on the lake-size bed or collapse into the lake-size Jacuzzi tub or watch TV from the massive couch. That is, when I wasn’t working my ass off, which had been ninety-nine percent of the time.
Right now, I was standing at the window, staring out over the skyline of Philadelphia. It was so different from New York. They were both old cities, but so much of the new in New York had swallowed up the old. In Philadelphia, they blended. Two things that should have been at odds, that shouldn’t have looked right side-by-side, came together in this wonderful, enchanting city.
I pressed a hand to the glass, warmed by the sun and tried to will away the tension knotting my shoulders.
Dominic had told me that he’d like to leave at five. The party started at seven, but he wanted to go over everything with Eddie and have time to get his pieces in position. I wondered if he liked to play chess.
The door to my suite opened. Dominic. He had a copy of my room key. Tucked inside my wallet, I had a copy of his too. Not that I’d felt inclined to use it. Things still felt so unsettled between us.
I felt uneasy and the sensation grew as his gaze settled on the nape of my neck.
Slowly, I shifted my attention to the wavy reflection the window provided. I could just barely see Dominic’s outline, but I didn’t need to see him to know what he was doing. He was watching me. When he started toward me, my heart skipped a beat and then started to race.
He stopped just a few inches behind me and rested a hand on the curve of my waist. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you.”
“Part of me wants to tug on this zipper…”
I shivered as his fingers brushed the tab.
“Peel this dress off of you and bend you over.” Dominic murmured the words into my ear. As he did so, he took one of my hands and pressed it to the glass. “This way…”
He caught the other hand and guided it into place and then nudged me low. “I could take you like this.”
I shuddered as I felt him rub his cock against my covered ass.
“But I think I’ll wait until tonight.”
The hand he’d put on my waist slid around and I gasped when he pressed two fingers against me. Involuntarily, I shuddered and rocked against him, drawing out a slow, startled moan. He rubbed me through my clothing, teasing me, taunting me.
When I started to pant, his motions grew quicker, and panic cut through arousal. Abruptly, I pulled away. Moving a few feet to the side, I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
“The party,” I reminded him.
He rubbed at his top lip with his right hand, his eyes burning, pupils wide. “The party.” His gaze slid across me, the heat in it so powerful, I felt as though he’d physically ran his hands over me. He reached inside his coat and held out a box. “A gift. I saw your dress and thought you might wear this with it.”
I lowered my eyes and stared at the box. It was flat and white. White velvet, I realized, as I slowly took it from him. I gasped when I flipped open the lid.
What lay inside knocked the breath right out of me.
Diamonds. They sparkled like stars on a bed of gleaming metal and my fingers itched to touch, but I didn’t dare.
Snapping the box shut, I said, “I can’t accept this.” I pushed it back toward him.
“You can,” he insisted as he took the box.
I figured out why quickly enough. He took the necklace out and came to stand behind me, the jewels held in his hands. He put it on my neck with the skill of a man who’d done that sort of thing more than once.
“Dominic, I can’t wear this,” I said weakly.
“Yes, you can.” He trailed a finger along my neck, under the chain that held my grandmother’s necklace. He carefully unlatched it and set it aside. “You wear this one. Wearing another necklace is no different.”
“My grandmother’s necklace doesn’t have diamonds on it the size of grapes!” I turned and glared at him.
He seemed to have been waiting for just that.
Before I’d even realized what was happening, I was pressed between him and the window, and his tongue was in my mouth. Fuck. I couldn’t think straight when he was touching me. Despite the fact that I had so many reservations, that I had questions that needed answers, desire flooded me and I curled my tongue around his and sucked.
He curved his hand around my neck, his thumb pressing into the hollow in the base. He pulled back and murmured against my lips. “I want you to do that with my cock in your mouth.”
His blue eyes glittered down at me and I shuddered. Licking my lips, I tried to think of what to say, but he pulled back, the reluctance clear on his face.
“We need to go. Now.” His gaze slid over me and my nipples tightened, chafing against my bra. “Otherwise, we won’t be going anywhere.” He didn’t step back though. Instead, he turned his face into my hair and said softly, “I’m going to spend half the night thinking about that, Aleena. How it will feel when I finally have you on your knees in front of me, taking my cock into your mouth, one slow inch at a time.”
My mouth went dry.
It didn’t dawn on me until later that I’d completely forgotten to keep arguing with him about the necklace.
***
“Well, isn’t this…lovely?”
That voice grated on my ears and I was glad I’d had my back turned when she approached. Next to me, Dominic stiffened and I saw the surprise in his eyes when he looked at the woman who’d just descended the stairs of the hotel’s grand ballroom.
Eddie White, from what Dominic had told me, had been in the matchmaking game almost since before such a thing existed. He’d been one of the pioneers, quick, clever, and thorough. And somehow, it appeared that Penelope Rittenour had managed to con her way into being one of his few guests.
Eddie had given us the final headcount just a few days ago, told us the names of all the key personnel and mentioned while most of his people were married and would be bringing their spouses, a few would be coming alone or bringing significant others. We were just going over the list now and I saw she’d been added, her name glared at me from the bottom of the page.
“Penelope,” Dominic said, his tone neutral.
That didn’t slow her down. She continued her slow, sensual glide down the steps, never once looking away from Dominic’s face. It was like I didn’t even exist.
“I must say, I’m surprised to see you here,” Dominic said when she came to a stop in front of the small table where we had been discussing a few last minute details.
“Dominic.” Penelope touched her tongue to her lower lip. She wore a deep, deep shade of red on her pretty mouth, just a few shades darker than the dress she wore. The red was stunning against her ivory complexion and I had to admit, she looked amazing. Slowly, she slid her tongue along the curve of her lip and then she smiled and cocked her head to the side. “It’s wonderful to see you.”
“As I said, it’s surprising to see you.”
“Well.” Her lashes fell to shield her eyes for a moment and then she looked back at him. “I’d mentioned I had business here. I ran into Eddie and heard about his dinner party. When he mentioned you’d be here…” Her gaze slid to me and then away. “I’d love if we could have some time to talk. Alone. Eddie said you hadn’t made plans to bring a date.”