“Cleo, everything okay?” asked Stewie, my ever-loyal lawyer. “Everything okay in there?”
I smiled reassuringly at him, taking a big breath.
“Thanks Stu, yeah everything’s fine,” I said with what I hoped was a boss-like manner. “I’m going to step outside with Mr. Markham here for a cup of coffee, we’ll be back in half an hour.”
“So … what should we do without you?” asked Stewie. “You want us to put in a bid? You know they’re not going to stop the clock for us.”
But before I could answer, Drake interrupted.
“I’ve asked to postpone the auction for an hour,” he interjected smoothly, his face impassive. “The judge okayed it already.”
I gasped, turning to him. Daddy had so much power that he’d already put in a call to the judge, pulling strings just like that?
But Drake winked at me, his hand on the small of my back, so hot that it scorched my skin, guiding me towards the exit once more.
“The judge is a classmate of mine from law school,” he said under his breath. “Now let’s go, Cleo, now.”
And with that, we exited the room to the stunned looks of the audience behind us.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Drake
She was even more beautiful than I remembered. That red dress … it was so wrong, yet so right at the same time. Completely inappropriate for a business meeting, but totally appropriate if you remembered who was wearing it. Because Cleo was the queen of smut remember? A millionaire many times over, laughing all the way to the bank as we downloaded her products, watched her perform on-line.
But I wasn’t about to go to Starbucks just to be ogled by passing riffraff.
Instead, I pushed her into my waiting car at the sidewalk, scooping that curvy figure into the backseat of the limo.
“Wait!” she gasped. “There’s a Peet’s around the corner, we don’t need to drive, I can walk.”
But it was too late because I was already in the backseat with her, directing my driver to head to my condo. “Home,” I growled before raising the partition between us.
And it was then that I turned to look at the redhead. She was gorgeous, even curvier than I remembered. The years apart had allowed her to fill out into a woman and what had previously been Double Ds were even bigger now, those creamy, luscious curves practically falling out of her the vee of her dress. And her legs … oh god, those legs. They were revealed through a high slit in her dress, smooth, long, with the meaty thighs that I liked, the kind that you can bite into. In fact, the slit went so far up that her snatch was practically bared, which only made my cock punch out harder.
“Baby, we’ve got a lot to discuss,” I said smoothly, my expression giving nothing away despite my body’s heated reaction to her.
“But why are we here?” she gasped, trying to arrange her dress to cover her legs, the miles of smooth flesh. I found it funny, kind of. After all, you could find her in her birthday suit on her website, in countless vids and pics, all available at the click of a mouse. But I guess real-life is different for everyone, even strippers. They don’t want to be on display if they don’t have to be.
So it was endearing to watch her scramble, pulling the glittery fabric over her knees. Except that there wasn’t enough material, so she just held what she could in place, crossing her legs to cover as much as possible.
“Honey, don’t you think it’s too late for that?” my eyebrows arched. I didn’t mean to be cruel, just realistic.
And that really set her off.
“You have no idea,” she spat, a beautiful flush crawling over her chest. “You have no idea!”
What was the redhead talking about? She’d left a life with me, a life in the lap of luxury, to dance at a seedy joint. Suddenly, I was pissed too. What the fuck?
“You better get a grip girlie,” I warned, my expression grim. “Because you’ve had more than enough chances.”
“More than enough chances!” she shrieked. “What are you talking about? About the time that you booted me out of your house, too cowardly to tell me about your other woman?”
Okay, at least we were on the same page. Neither of us was interested in discussing Hustler, we were interested in re-hashing the past.
“What other woman?” I growled. “And I never kicked you out of the house … you left.”
That made her pause for an instant.
“Don’t pretend,” she said tightly. “I know all about her. About Marie.”
“What about Marie?” I said, my expression frozen, willing myself to give nothing away. There was a lot of history surrounding the dog-walker, but I wanted to figure out what Cleo knew first to minimize any damage.
“She’s the mother of your child,” said Cleo scornfully. “What, you won’t even acknowledge that?”