One Night Wife (The Confidence Game 1)

“What garter belt?”

With quick fingers, he twanged the elastic over her thigh, before dragging the back of his hand up her body to cup her breast. She wore a pushup, padded bra, so he got more than the usual handful.

“There’s someone in a Cat Woman bodysuit down there, and I saw a schoolgirl Britney Spears and a half-naked Tinkerbell. You’re dressed all prim and proper, neck to knee, and you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s so getting your getaway car ridden hard tonight, slugger.”

He kissed her forehead and held her cigar so she could clamp it in her teeth. “You are my getaway car. I’ve got the world at my feet with you by my side.”

She almost bit the end of the cigar off. “That’s so corny.” She pushed him away, but he snatched her hand and dragged her close.

“I love you. That’s not a costume I can take off. I’m stuck with it, and so are you.”

She kissed him so boisterously his hat fell off.

It was a damn shame they had to work. They made a circuit of the room together, and then Cal left her to go talk up his newest investment deal. She was at ease in situations like this now. She could strike up a conversation, ask for a small favor, and talk about D4D without it feeling like she was adlibbing herself into a corner. She didn’t need Cal’s support but tonight she felt his absence. She moved about the room, with one eye to where he was, until she stopped trying to circulate alone and stilled to wait for him to be free.

When his eyes found hers, she pulled on her earlobe to ask him if he was okay.

He detached himself from the group he was with and made prayer hands, signaling he needed to be rescued.

They both moved making their way to each other through the crowd. Fin got stuck behind a Yellow M&M, Cal was blocked by a Johnny Cash hand in hand with his June Carter. She skirted a Harry Potter and a Kim Kardashian with her Kanye West, and a man bellowing, “A Lannister always pays his debts,” moved aside, but she lost Cal. She turned in a circle, unaccountably disappointed. It wasn’t as if they weren’t about to go home to his place, race up the stairs to his huge bed, and fall into each other.

A hand to the back of her neck. Cal’s lips in her hair. The trail of his fingers down her spine, I love you. “I want you,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I have something for you.”

He wouldn’t tell her what it was, so she guessed at ridiculous things: a diamond-studded collar for Scungy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a baby grand piano, her own private jet, a burger named in her honor.

In the sitting room off his bedroom, he made her wait. Not long, he was back, without his hat and coat. He put a small red velvet box on the side table and sat beside her on the loveseat.

Her heart took up residence in her ears. “Is that what I think it is?” He nodded. She pointed to the floor in front of her.

He laughed and palmed her cheek. “I will. I’ll get down on my knee. I’ll ask the question. But I owe you some answers first because there can’t be secrets between us.”

Uh-oh.

“You need to know I’m fatally in love with you. I never want to hurt you. I will never put you in danger or lie to you unless it’s for your physical safety.”

Her safety? What was he talking about? “Are you saying you have lied to me?”

“One or two white lies.”

He’d fudged the truth about setting her up to be Marilyn. “Everyone tells lies. You taught me that.”

“But I haven’t told you the entire truth, either, and you need to know it.”

“I can live with whatever is in your wild and reckless past.” Whatever it was had given her Cal as she loved him today.

“You typecast me as Clyde Barrow. But I should’ve been Robin Hood.”

She plucked the strap of his braces and let it go. It made a slap sound as it hit his chest. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m Caleb Sherwood, and I rob rich bastards to give to worthy causes.”

She took his hand and interlaced their fingers. “You told me startups fail all the time, that most of them fail. If Everlasting fails, that’s not robbing a bank.”

“There never was an Everlasting, and there isn’t a Brainstorm.”

“I don’t understand.”