Ian nods, though I don’t think he’s even listening to his mother. His eyes are locked on me. I’m the outlier here, the newcomer who grabs interest, and with my red hair, I’m used to attention. Connor, however, places an arm across the back of my chair possessively like Ian’s sniffing around his territory a bit too much. “Good to see you, Ian. What’re you up to these days?”
Before Ian can answer, Audrey jumps in, bragging about her son. “Oh, Ian purchased another five properties this year. That brings it up to fifty now, I think.” She looks to Ian but doesn’t wait for him to respond. “He’s quite the real estate tycoon. Real estate investment is the only way to go these days,” she tells me arrogantly. “It’s the smart money.”
“That’s true,” Connor says generously. But then, he sends the bomb he set himself up for. “All you need is Mommy and Daddy’s money to buy property and a management company to do all the work. It’s a foolproof gig, if you can get it.”
It hits home, and Audrey makes a sound of huffed displeasure. “Well, it’s better than being a thug.”
“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” Connor says, refusing to be drawn in at Audrey’s level. “We’re all stealing in our own ways. I’m sure the people Ian buys from think he’s quite the con man, buying their houses for bottom dollar, slapping a couple of hundred bucks’ worth of paint and some polish on them, and then renting them back out at top dollar. At least I’m honest about what I do.”
Not thinking, I place my hand on Connor’s thigh and squeeze. “What you did, sweetheart. You’re reformed now, remember?”
It feels good to remind Connor of the story he told me he’d shared with his parents, of a fiancée who helped him find the straight and narrow and become a business consultant.
I wonder what it would it take to make Connor’s lie a reality.
He looks down at my hand on his leg. His very muscular, thick thigh that I want to squeeze again. As I’m trying to decide if he wants me to remove my hand, Connor covers it with his own, holding me in place. “Yes, reformed. But let’s be real . . . business is a cut-throat world, and we’re all crooks to some degree.”
He sounds more dangerous with that statement than with any other I’ve heard pass his lips. So why do I stay in my chair, sitting at his side primly with my hand on his thigh, and not run from the danger in the room? Because he’s tracing my fingers gently, slowly, almost reverently as he utters the growled threat.
He might be a crook. He might be dangerous, for all I know. But that touch tells me that he’s not dangerous to me . . . but he might be dangerous for me. In a good way.
It’s a very subtle and very intoxicating difference.
Debra tries to break the awkwardness and returns to a seemingly safe topic . . . weddings. “Oh, Poppy . . . I didn’t get to see your ring. May I?”
“Oh . . . uh . . .” I stammer, clenching my hand under the table as if that could make a ring suddenly appear. “Well, I don’t have it tonight. It’s—”
“At the jewelers,” Connor says quickly. I give him a look, lifting one brow as if to say, ‘Is it that easy to lie?’ His answer is to blink slowly and take a casual sip of his wine like he’s handing the rest to me.
“Yes, sorry about that. It’s at the jewelers. Connor said I could get the ring of my dreams, so they’re custom-designing the wedding band to go around the solitaire and getting it all sized for me because once I put that baby on, I’m never taking it off.” I smile sweetly at Connor, doing my best to make it look like I’ve got heart bubbles in my eyes.
See, I can do this! I tell him silently. But you’ve gotta work with me.
“That’s so sweet,” Caylee gushes, clearly vibing on the romance of the whole evening. She’s got love, so her brother has to have love too, right? “Custom rings?”
“He’s probably making layaway payments on it,” Audrey quips under her breath, but I’m sure she intentionally said it loud enough to be heard. Ian chuckles, smirking at Connor like his mother got one over.
Debra, with some surprising bite of her own, sugar-sweetly asks, “Isn’t that what Harold had to do with your ring?” Then she waves a hand, “Oh, silly me, I forgot, you bought it yourself, didn’t you?”
Jeez, this family’s a soap opera in the flesh.
Audrey looks like she sucked on a lemon covered in warhead powder. “I did. Because I married for love. Not for money.”
She looks from Debra to Robert with disdain, and next to me, I can feel Connor vibrating like a racehorse about to burst out of the gate . . . except I think what he’s holding back from is letting his rage explode all over this room.