“Jason,” she murmured and twisted in his arms to peer up at him, her gaze heavy with unconcealed desire.
The kiss they’d shared roared back on a wave of unsuppressed memory and he ached to lay his lips on hers again. Her face tipped up, bringing her mouth within centimeters of his and paradise was within his reach.
But then she murmured his name again and said, “I’m absolutely okay with being really late to the gala. But are you?”
Rationality swamped him and cooled his ardor in a snap. “Yeah, no. Not really.”
He stepped back. Meredith’s mystifying and infuriating pull on him hadn’t diminished, that was for sure. He didn’t like it when someone had that much leverage over him, especially when he couldn’t envision how she’d use it to her advantage.
Best-case scenario, she’d use it to get him into bed and leave it at that. He didn’t ever count on best-case scenarios and besides, she’d have to try a lot harder to break his will.
His subconscious dissolved into gales of laughter and then reminded him that she’d been the one to halt what had almost turned into an invigorating reintroduction to the pleasures of his wife’s body.
“All right, then.” She smiled softly and he ignored the slight hitch it put in his gut. “Stop being so sexy and we’ll have a much better shot of getting through the door.”
He rolled his eyes. “The rest of the clothes are for you, too. I heard a rumor that you made a faux pas by wearing Alexander Wang your first day on the job. Allo is jealous of him. He wanted that Balenciaga job that Wang landed.”
If Jason had known that weasel of a vice president in HR would stick Meredith with Allo, he’d have specified otherwise. Too late now. He couldn’t risk pulling any strings to get her reassigned or someone might get suspicious. But he could help her earn some points with her extremely difficult boss and the new clothes would accomplish that like nothing else. Allo was a narcissist to the core.
Meredith raised a brow. “Why, exactly, did you need me as a spy when you apparently already have plenty?”
“Nobody gossips about anything relevant to my merger plans.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Only what people are wearing. Welcome to the world of fashion. And now you have a wardrobe worthy of the design floor at Hurst House.”
The new wardrobe was also a bit of a thank-you, and he hoped she liked what he’d painstakingly picked out among the castoffs from Fashion Week.
“Wait, there’s more than this dress? I figured the other bags held backups in case this one didn’t fit.” Meredith dug through the garment bags and squealed some more over the geometric dresses, skirts and angular tops from Hurst’s newest line. None of it was available in stores yet, either.
“There you go insulting me again. You can try all of it on later,” Jason advised. “We should leave. I have an out-of-the-way place in mind for a quick dinner. I’m sorry I can’t take you to Nobu, or some place you might enjoy more, but we can’t chance being photographed together.”
She gave him an indecipherable look. “You don’t have to take me to dinner at all. We’re not dating. Just married.”
“Which is why I should take you to dinner. Don’t you think a wife should be treated better than a woman I’m simply dating?”
“Well...yeah.” She tossed the four-hundred-dollar V-neck silk blouse on the bed. “But I thought you were Mr. No-Romance. Marriage is a tool, you said. I’m here to help you get a boring executive’s job so you’ll sign the divorce papers.”
Romance? Dinner wasn’t a precursor to seduction. Why was he torturing himself like this again? He threw up his hands. “Fine. Don’t eat, then. We’ll go to the gala and I’ll shove you out of the car three blocks away so you can walk. Sound like a plan?”
“Good thing for you new clothes put me in a forgiving mood. So I’ll overlook your bad attitude.” As she stepped into a pair of sky-high stilettos—Miu Miu unless he missed his guess—she shot him a sunny smile. “And I would love to go to dinner. Thank you for asking.”
Point taken. He groaned. “Meredith, would you like to go to dinner?”
She crossed to him and patted his cheek. “Maybe you should take some husband lessons if you hope to marry someone for real. Because, honey, you’re obviously out of practice. For someone who thinks of marriage as a tool, you sure haven’t figured out how to use it yet.”
Her husky voice put plenty of innuendo in the statement, making it crystal clear she thought he was a moron for not taking advantage of what she was offering.