Mr. Mayfair (Mister)

I’d completely thrown myself at him, and though I’d been drunk, I could unfortunately remember every moment of it. I pressed my palm against his chest to get some space. “We’re here to introduce you to Henry, not to be . . . you know.”

He pulled me closer and kissed me again. “Business comes first. But I really like kissing you.”

I pressed my fingertips over my mouth to hide my smile. He really was an excellent kisser. And in the sixty seconds since it had happened, I’d not thought about Matt or Karen or their betrayal once. Apparently, kissing Beck was like pressing a temporary delete key in my brain. I nodded. “Me too.”

The sound of breaking pottery brought me back to where we were, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Florence staring at us. I was going to have some explaining to do. Not that I had much to say. It was just a kiss. “I should get back to . . .” I grimaced. “Painting pottery.”

“Sounds fascinating. Once you’re done, do they fling them into the air for us to shoot?” he asked. “These people do the weirdest things for fun.”

“These people?”

“You know. People with money.”

“Do I need to remind you that we flew up here on a private jet you use all the time?” I asked.

“Yeah, but my money isn’t old money. I’m not one of these people,” he said. “I don’t shoot at inanimate objects for fun. I like good food, sport, and sex. I’m a simple man.”

I laughed—I wouldn’t have made the distinction between Beck and these people. But I suppose there was a difference. Most of the boys I’d grown up with had been wealthy, but he was right. There was a difference now that he’d pointed it out. It wasn’t obvious, but beneath the surface, there was a hunger, a drive Beck had that I didn’t see often. “Simple pleasures are the best,” I replied.

“Absolutely.” His mouth twitched at the corners, and his eyes sparkled with a hint of wickedness. “I have to get back to clay pigeon shooting. I wonder if how they have sex is as unsatisfying as what they call sport.”

Like a fourteen-year-old girl hearing the word sex, I shivered as he spoke. I couldn’t imagine sex with Beck could possibly be unsatisfying. I glanced at the ground, hoping to hide the heat I felt in my cheeks. “Yup. We both have to go and enjoy ourselves.” At least I’d managed to sit on a table with people I loved and away from Karen, but now being away from the boys for the day didn’t seem so much of a relief as it had on the coach ride over here.

“So, I’ll see you back at the hotel?” He dipped to catch my eye, as if his question carried more meaning than it first appeared.

I nodded and folded my arms, turning away but feeling a pull toward Beck that hadn’t been there before.

It had been so long since I’d been kissed the way Beck had kissed me. In fact, I wasn’t sure, I’d ever felt a kiss so deeply before. With Matt, we’d been too young to realize what a kiss could mean—how it could be the promise of something, good or bad. Beck’s kiss had been so powerful that if it was the promise of something, it would either be catastrophic or the best thing that had ever happened in my life.

I wasn’t sure I could withstand either.

I wandered back to the tables, carefully avoiding looking at Karen’s table.

“How’s Beck?” Florence asked, grinning at me as I approached as if she was just dying to tell me she’d told me so.

Bea and Jo were both looking at me like baby birds waiting to be fed scraps of gossip. “Oh, you know—tall, dark, and handsome.”

“He most certainly is,” Bea said. “And a phenomenal kisser by the looks of things.”

There was no doubt about that.

“Let me help you choose what you’re going to paint,” Florence said, springing up from her chair and shooing me over to the shelves stacked with the different types of pre-prepared pottery.

She handed me a vase. “Oh my God, what’s going on?” she asked in a loud whisper.

I glanced back at our table to see if anyone was watching or close enough to hear, but they were all engrossed in what they were doing.

“Nothing, I mean—”

“Stop that right now. Don’t tell me that was nothing. That wasn’t a kiss for show. Are you sleeping with him? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this even though I completely knew it was going to happen.”

“No, I’m not sleeping with him. This is as far as it’s gone—what you’ve seen is the entire extent of what’s happened between us.”

“Wait—that was the first time you’ve kissed? What’s going on?”

“He said he’d been running this morning and had realized he wanted to kiss me.”

Florence narrowed her eyes, silently accusing me of not telling her the entire story.