“This looks cozy.”
“Doesn’t it though?” she said. “Did you even know you had candles in your uber-tidy drawers?”
“I didn’t,” I confessed, selecting a bottle from the wine fridge. “But they look good.” I pulled two glasses from the cabinet and uncorked the wine. And then I caught sight of what Parker was wearing.
A shorter-than-short red skirt, matching lipstick, and what looked suspiciously like one of my white business shirts.
Whatever she was heating up on the hob, she looked like a mighty fine main course. I wanted to stalk over to her, circle my hands around her waist, and bury my face in her neck. I wanted to knee her legs wide and reach up under her skirt and rip off her underwear.
I needed to muster a little self-control. I wasn’t a horny teenager. Typically, I loved to charm and flatter women. A good bit of flirting made a woman feel sexy, and that confidence was my catnip. It felt unnatural for me to hold back with Parker, but I’d resisted so far. Still, there was something about her that just drew me in, made me want to listen to what she had to say, and watch as she tucked her hair around her ear, enjoy the blush that crept up her cheeks when I made the most innocent of remarks.
I’d always seen flirting as a way of creating a connection, but maybe all this time, I’d been putting up a barrier. Although I couldn’t understand why I would want to.
“I like your outfit,” I said, skirting dangerously close to being flirtatious.
She spun around from where she was facing the hob and grinned at me. “You don’t mind?” She tugged on the collar of my shirt that she was wearing. “It was hanging in my wardrobe.”
I could see a corner of her white lace bra, where she hadn’t done the buttons up high enough. My cock twitched.
Shit. Arthur’s daughter, you creep.
“You don’t have to pretend you haven’t snooped,” I teased. I knew she hadn’t. I had a security system in my house that told me when each room of the house had been accessed.
“What are you talking about? Of course I haven’t snooped. Granted, only because I assume the place is full of hidden cameras. You’re so paranoid, Tristan.”
I chuckled. “Maybe. Better to be safe than sorry. Speaking of, I noticed you haven’t had any more unauthorized payments leave your account for the last couple of days.”
“Nope. Maybe whoever they are have gone to bother someone else. Does that mean I can go back to my flat?”
I hadn’t managed to find details on either of the companies that had been filtering funds from the charity bank account, but neither had I found anything concrete that I could point to and say, “See, that makes me uncomfortable.” There were just a few things that lay like sludge in my gut and told me that I should say no. I should say anything that would keep her here. Safe with me.
“Let’s talk about it over dinner.” Hopefully she’d get distracted by the emerald I had burning in my pocket and she wouldn’t mention it again. “What are you making?”
“Man food,” she said brightly. “Beef bourguignon.”
My stomach rumbled. “Smells good. You’re a great cook.” I was terrible unless I set aside the entire day, and even then I had to carefully follow a recipe. Cooking for myself at the end of the day was just time out of my working day that I resented. It was why I ate out a lot.
“Thanks. I enjoy it.”
“It isn’t a real strength of mine.”
“Why is it that when you say it like that, I can’t help but think of what isn’t a strength of mine? Like . . . I’m really not into home organization.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.” Her flat was stuffed full of things like it was some hoarder museum. “At least you’re small so you don’t need much room among your junk.”
“Hey. That junk is my junk.” She grinned at me. “It’s all sentimental stuff.” She glanced around. “Can you hand me some dishes?”
I handed her the white bowls my interior designer had picked out for me.
“Your china is really nice,” she said as she ladled in the stew.
“I can’t take any credit,” I said. “The woman who designed the interior picked them.”
She turned to me. “I guess it makes sense you didn’t pick everything out. You’re busy and I’m sure it’s not top of your priority list, but it’s all so you. It fits you perfectly.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” So me? I liked that it was important to her that things people surrounded themselves with reflected who they were. I hoped she thought the same thing about the ring I’d picked out. It was how I saw her: simply beautiful. I hoped it was how she saw herself.