He slips back into his suit jacket before running his finger down the length of my face. Then he’s pushing through the front doors and disappearing into the crowded streets of New York without another word.
“The rumors are true, then?” The clerk behind the front desk squeals, stealing my attention. Her hand is pressed firmly to her chest, and her eyes are glazed over like some giddy teenager. “Youaredating Holt Capuleti.”
I don’t even bother asking her what rumors she’s talking about. I already know.
I simply tuck my yoga mat farther under my arm and hope I can slip back into obscurity, but something tells me I won’t be able to contain the beast that’s been unleashed. The one that has my world quickly blending with Holt’s now.
TEN
SELENE
My body hasn’t stopped humming ever since I slipped into my two-piece outfit and locked the front door of Charleigh’s flower shop. I smooth my hands over the front of my linen top, the cool late fall air nipping at the exposed skin of my bare arms and legs.
There’s a lump in my throat, and I try to swallow around it.
Usually, when I’m in a pinch for an outfit suitable for a night out, I call for reinforcements. My best friends. Julianna’s connections in the high fashion world always paid off in a crisis. But tonight, I settled on a two-piece ensemble I ordered online and have had hanging in the back of my tiny closet ever since the day it was delivered. I couldn’t ask the girls for help. Not tonight, at least. This isn’t one of our usual circumstances. Not only because I’m going out with Holt Capuleti,alone, with no one else in our friendship group, but because I haven’t told Julianna yet.
Sure, I messaged her separately outside of our group chat, but she only gave me a short message in return, telling me she’d get back to me later tonight after several meetings she hadprescheduled with potential clients for an upcoming interior redesign project.
I understood, considering she told me her fundraising and event planning has been overtaking her interior design firm business and she’s hoping to rebuild that side of her life. For the past several years, Julianna has tried to balance her once crazy dating life with her business life. It’s nice to see her pouring herself into her work. After her reply, I swapped over to the girls’ chat, glad when we all agreed to meet this weekend.
I sigh and turn my phone nervously over my hand while glancing down the street for Holt. I’m not entirely sure what to be looking for. I have no idea how he’s going to show up. I don’t even know where or what we’re going to be doing on this date for that matter.
What I said yesterday in yoga class was true: Holt and I aren’t friends, despite being in the same tightknit social circle. We’ve never spent time alone in the eight years of knowing each other. Not any true alone time, anyway. We’ve never talked on the phone or texted separately. Everything I know about Holt is through the lens of his sister or the moments we spend in the group.
By the time a blacked-out car pulls up to the curb, and Holt steps out from the back seat, I realize I don’t know Holt Capuleti at all. Not truly. Not deeply.
And that realization makes me want to bail.
If I wasn’t wearing four-inch, pointed, black strappy heels, I’d sprint down the sidewalk and head toward the nearest subway station.
But then my remaining bit of resistance dissolves when he lifts his head and grins, and I melt all over again. His familiar aftershave wafts off his sharp jaw. Three lines crease in the corners of his mouth, revealing his blinding white, stain-free teeth.
Everything about Holt screams money. I’m suddenly feeling very inadequate and underdressed. I hate the feeling because it gives credence to what Adam said the day we broke up.
Holt takes a step forward to meet me on the sidewalk but stops suddenly. The bright lights of the city hang above, resting below the pitch-black night sky. Since we’re smack in the middle of fall season, the sun has completely disappeared by six o’clock.
Surrounded by the city lights, in his blacked-out suit, Holt lifts his arms straight out in front of him, spreading each thumb and forefinger to make a frame. He joins his two hands in front of me and closes one eye as he smirks.
Flushed, my heart races. I wrap my hand around the back of my neck and avert my gaze from his. “What are you doing?”
“Look at me,” he orders quietly.
With shallow breathing and flushed cheeks, I turn my face up.
I’ve been on dates before, and considering I just ended the first relationship I’ve had in years, I’m no stranger to going out with a man. But I’ve never had a man look at me the way Holt’s looking at me right now.
I have the same mixture of excitement and dread filling my gut as I did when I was on stage at the auction. But instead of an audience of strangers, the only audience is Holt.
He still has his head tilted to the side with one eye closed, peering between the frame he’s made with his hands.
“What?” I ask, stamping my heel. Instinctively, I reach up and finger my grandmother’s necklace.
Holt chuckles, then lowers his hands to stuff them into his pockets. His smile hasn’t faded, but he’s now studying me with two widespread, blue eyes. Blue eyes that make me dizzy.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as beautiful as you are tonight, Wallflower. I can’t look away. I don’t want to.”
My shoulders drop, and I snort, rolling my eyes. “Oh, come on. You’ve been with a million women. That’s impossible.”
