“No offense, Max. But I’m not into men.”
He laughed. “Funny one, boss. But I get it now. Abby is playing the part of Ella.”
I nodded.
“Okay, you guys better get into character.”
Nick wrapped his arm around me. “I’m crazy about this woman. She simply takes my breath away.”
My pulse instantly skyrocketed, but fortunately, two years of professionalism kicked in just in time to save me. Choosing not to linger in the awkward moment any longer than I had to, I stepped forward with what I took to be a rather brave smile, and held out my hand.
“Shall we head back to the party?”
Max smothered another grin, while Nick looked at me in a way that told me he was still very much imagining me with my clothes off. A second later, he took my hand.
“We shall.”
Leaving the Italian bodyguard behind us, we headed back down the hall and out to the main ballroom—ignoring the whispers and stares of the entire stadium as we went.
It was a strange building. One that was built to accommodate everything from concerts, to plays, to athletic performances. Mostly, it was simply equipped to handle a great number of people. And right now, it seemed as though every one of them was looking our way.
“I don’t get it,” I murmured, gripping tighter onto Nick’s hand as we made our way into the ballroom. “How do you handle this, day after day?”
“Handle what?”
I snorted incredulously, as I glanced around the several hundred people in the room. All of whom seemed to be simultaneously glancing back at me.
“This. How do you handle all this? It’s overwhelming...”
With a little grin, he spun me suddenly around, pulling me into his chest as one hand wrapped around my lower back. I sucked in a gasp of surprise—relieved beyond words that my skyscraper heels hadn’t sabotaged me—and only then realized that we were on the dance floor.
“How do I handle it?” Nick repeated, offering out his other hand with a smile. “I have a great publicist.”
That was the last the two of us spoke for a long while. I placed my hand lightly in his, and together, the two of us began spinning across the marble floors in a slow waltz.
It didn’t matter that we were only ones dancing—the second we started, the rest of the room was quick to join in. It didn’t matter that the orchestra was playing a bit fast for the leisurely speed we were moving—the second they saw us, they slowed the tempo down. It didn’t even seem to matter that I didn’t actually know how to waltz. Considering the way Nick was holding me, I might as well have been floating above the ground.
“This is insane.” I giggled softly, glancing around at the couples dancing around us. They looked like paper dolls on parade—each more colorful and lovely than the next. “I was worried about just staying on my feet, but I think you’re starting an entire craze. Taking the city back to sometime in the seventeen hundreds.”
Nick chuckled, squeezing my hand tighter in his own.
“The seventeen hundreds was a good time. I would have liked the seventeen hundreds.”
“I bet you would have,” I scoffed sarcastically, as a thousand different Casanova scenarios flashed through my head. Did they have publicists in the seventeen hundreds? That man would have needed one for sure. “If you were rich—that is. The seventeen hundreds weren’t so great for the rest of the world.”
“That’s true.” Nick gazed out over the heads of the crowd, his eyes glassing over as he imagined it. “And I don’t know what you mean about ‘staying on your feet,’” he murmured as he released my hand, then spun me back into him, “you’re a wonderful dancer.”
“In a club, maybe.” I tossed back my curls and flashed him a smile. “But not all of us had ballroom dance lessons when we were a child.”
“Come on—this isn’t so bad.”
“You’re not the one doing it in heels!”
“Abby, you should know that I’m the one taking all the risk here.” He glanced down at our feet with a grin. “If you step on me even once in those things, I’m bound to lose a toe.”
We both laughed, as I made a conscious effort to pay more attention to where I was stepping. But I somehow knew that no matter what I did, Nick would never let it happen.
He would never let anything bad happen. Somehow. Impossible as it might seem.