Priceless

“Eat your soup, Miss Hargreave, you’re not going anywhere for a while.” I winked.

She glared at me and then took a bite of what I guessed was a corn bisque of some sort. Watching her take a spoonful and then swallow, her elegant neck moving in reflex was quite the show. I waited for her to hit me back with something cheeky but she stayed quiet and took another spoonful of the soup.

“I phoned you and sent texts,” I said softly.

She kept her head down. “I wouldn’t know because I’ve been off the grid leading up to this wedding.”

“I was very sorry to hear you were ill.”

Finally she gave me her gorgeous face again. The words were sarcastic as hell, but at least I got to look at her.

“Yeah. I had to go to Ireland for this horrible job. Worst assignment ever. I got lost in a frightening storm and thought I was going to die. And then…once I made it to shelter, my boss was an asshole of such epic proportions my body just succumbed, I guess. He couldn’t decide if he wanted me to stay or go, and I think, was suffering from a case of insanity.” She pretended to ponder by tilting her head and nodding. “Yeah, completely insane I’m sure of it, poor man.” Another spoonful of soup. “I had to drive away from his estate with a raging fever the next morning, but I escaped with the help of a kindly servant.” She stonefaced me. “Mr. Finnegan was his name and I’ll never forget him. The insane boss? I’m trying to forget I ever met him.” She took a healthy swig of her drink and sighed dramatically. “It’s been really difficult for me because he keeps showing up in the same places as me.”

Ouch.

I shook my head. “I want you to know I feel really badly about that. About all of it. The part about making you wait in the storm, being an arsehole, about scaring you, and most of all, for not being the one to take care of you when you were ill.”

“Why?”

“I’m not a monster, Gabrielle. I hate that you felt the need to flee my home, and me, when you had a fever. You could have crashed your car and been killed on the road.” If she only knew how much the thought of anyone being hurt as a result of my actions really bothered me.

She lowered her voice. “No, I mean why didn’t you let on to the others that we’d met before?”

“It seemed the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Ha,” she scoffed. “You, a gentleman? That’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

“Probably, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

She frowned, biting one corner of her lusc

ious bottom lip. I wanted to lick it.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

Her gaze flickered over my face and I think, my hair, but she didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to wonder if she liked what she saw. I could tell she did.

“I tried to apologize to you by phone. Several times. If Langley had given me your address it would have been in person.”

“I told you I was sick,” she snapped.

“Yes…and now you’re better.”

She glared at me and drank more of her blueberry mojito. I wanted to stick my tongue in her mouth and taste the lingering flavors.

“And there’s something else you need to know,” I told her.

“You flunked out of Being a Human 101 but aced Assholery III?” The sarcastic sneer on her lovely lips was sexy as fuck and I couldn’t help laughing at the witty comeback.

“You’re coming back with me to Donadea after this wedding, Miss Hargreave.”

“It’ll never happen, Mr. Ever—” She lost the rest of my name in mid-speech and swallowed hard.

My cock liked that. A lot.

“I love to hear you address me as mister,” I said, “and we’ll work all that out later, lovely thing.”

My inner Dom was switched on instantly and ready to go off somewhere private with the submissive goddess in Miss Hargreave and take things to the next level.