I didn’t own a swimsuit. There weren’t many options for recreational swimming in Manhattan. Every couple of years my friends and I managed to get to the beach but the last time we’d gone I’d snagged my bikini bottom on a rock and I hadn’t replaced them. I made a noncommittal sound. No dirty dancing reenactment for me.
There was no doubt in my mind that if I said I didn’t have one Grant would snap his fingers and an outrageously expensive swimsuit would magically appear but that made me feel weird. The clothes were his idea. Swimming felt like my idea and he wasn’t my partner. He was my employer. It was an odd dynamic.
After he handed over his platinum credit card for the dress, we headed to Prada. Grant suggested I give parameters to the consultant myself. I really wanted to tell her I wanted to look like I was a dominatrix in Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. Fierce, but perhaps in purple. Somehow, I didn’t think that was the Hamptons house party vibe though.
“Can you make me look five inches taller?” I asked her. “I sprained my ankle and without heels I feel like a giraffe without its neck.”
She asked me a few questions then disappeared like smoke. I sat down on a sofa next to Grant and propped my bum ankle onto his legs. It was starting to ache.
He pried my ballet flat off. “Your ankle is starting to swell up.”
“You shouldn’t take my shoe off. We might never get it back on.”
“Then I’ll buy you slippers.”
I had to assume that Grant was used to money solving a large number of problems and that this was nothing more than that, but I couldn’t help but feel… well cared for. It was a dangerous feeling. This was nothing. It was casual. We’d had fun and now I was doing an acting job for him.
But as he gently caressed my bare skin, it didn’t feel casual. “I’m a size purple fleece.”
Grant laughed. “Duly noted.” He pulled out his phone and called someone. “I need you to send women’s purple fleece slippers, around a size eight or nine to Prada in the next twenty minutes.”
He ended the call. “Done.”
“Were you actually talking to someone or was that like when I was a kid and my father used to pretend to call Santa to tell him I was naughty and I’d scream and cry and grab for the phone?”
“That was Darren, my PA. The one who sent you a diamond bracelet.”
“Oh, fabulous. He’ll probably send me diamond-encrusted slippers.”
“Or vibrating slippers.”
That made me laugh. “If those slippers show up, I’m not sure I have the guts to stroll out of Prada in them.”
“Of course you do. You don’t seem like someone who cares about anyone’s opinion of her. You just live your life.”
That was true. “Thanks for noticing.”
Grant Caldwell the third noticed a lot of things.
I leaned closer to him and did something that was both impulsive and stupid.
I kissed him.
A real kiss.
Not for show.
And not a kiss intended to lead to sex.
A genuine, “I like you,” kiss.
Because I did.
Like him.
Damn it.
“Here we go!” the consultant said, before coming to a dead stop. “Oh! My apologies, Mr. Caldwell.”