A small smile. “I know where he’ll be tonight. There’s some party happening, and we’re supposed to go. I wasn’t looking forward to wearing a penguin suit for the rich and powerful in Tanglewood, but the evening will be a whole lot more interesting if you’re there.”
My eyes narrow in suspicion. “Why would you help me?”
“Perhaps I want to see you in an evening dress.”
I’ve been asked out a hundred times before, but never with the blunt self-assurance that this man conveys. It’s a strange combination of courtesy and outright lust. “Are you taking advantage of the situation, Sutton?”
His blue eyes dance with humor. “I’m an opportunist, and I think you might be one too.”
“Fine, I’ll take it.”
“I’d much rather pick you up. Maybe have dinner first.”
Have a date with Christopher’s business partner? He would probably have a heart attack at the idea that anyone would treat me as a woman instead of a child. “A gentleman would add my name to the guest list.”
“Did I give you the impression that I was a gentleman? My apologies.”
“Now I can see why Christopher went into business with you.”
He places a hand on his heart, and even a few yards away I can see the roughened skin of him, the calluses and the faint white scars. Those are the hands of a working man, for all that he wears a suit and works in a high-rise now. “Ruthless,” he says.
“If that means I have my own invitation to the party.” There’s something alluring about Sutton Mayfair. If I met him in New York City, if he asked me out in a bar, I would say yes. But I can’t trust him knowing he’s tied to Christopher Bardot. Not even for one night.
Really, there’s no end to the things Christopher will ruin for me.
“On one condition,” he says. “Show me what you’re holding.”
The paper. I’m wearing my power boots and a T-shirt that says, Feminist AF. Of course he would have noticed my one weakness. It’s the reason I’m here in this office. Here in Tanglewood. The reason I need an invitation to the party tonight.
Swallowing down my shame, I toss the crumpled ball onto the cherrywood. He picks it up and smooths it out, his large fingers unerringly gentle with the worried bill.
“Looks like someone didn’t pay this,” he says, one square-tipped finger running down the credit card statement. I have a prickling sensation that tells me he would be able to recite its entire contents despite his good-old-boy demeanor.
“And that someone will have to answer to me. Tonight.”
He folds the paper carefully in half, and then half again. When he hands it back, it’s almost completely flat. “Do you need money?”
“I have money.” Not the ability to spend it—one of life’s ironies.
He takes a step toward me, and suddenly I’m taking a step back. How did this man go from accommodating to dangerous in one second flat? “Christopher mentioned you.”
My mouth feels dry. I tell myself I don’t care about what Christopher says, that I don’t care what this man thinks of me. “Did he?”
“He made you sound about this high. A child.”
There’s acid in my throat. “Of course.”
“Now that I see you, I think he was holding out on me.” Those blue eyes look at more than just my body; they look inside me, finding the sensitive places—pressing on them, only a little. Enough to make me gasp when his gaze catches mine.
“I’m not a child,” I say, which only serves to make me sound like a child.
“No,” he says, his lips forming the word, almost soundless. “Do you think Christopher is really confused about that? Do you think he sees that mouth and doesn’t imagine all the things he could do to it? Do you think he doesn’t think about you when he comes?”
My cheeks warm. “How dare you.”
He gives me a smile that can only be described as indecent. “Maybe he is that blind.”
I follow his stark blue gaze down to my chest, where my nipples have become hard at the E and the A. Even while my mind denies what this man is saying to me, my body already agrees. Christopher has always treated me like a child, but this man… he knows I’m a woman.