“Aurelia, there you are.” My mother appeared beside me, circling like a hawk. “That color is much too loud, darling. The crystals make you sparkle like a chandelier and that slit? Good heavens, no.”
I wasn’t really listening to her, though. Because Harrison was on his feet now, his lips curved into that wicked, devastating smirk that said he’d already thought of at least twelve inappropriate things to whisper in my ear. I’d seen it the other day in the conference room, too.
As he started moving, I suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was about to come talk to me. My heart started hammering. Sure enough, he strolled right over, his hands in his pockets and this insanely casual, yet weirdly intense air about him as his eyes remained glued to mine.
“I didn’t picture you as the Bergdorf type,” he said when he reached me, his voice low and amused. “If I’d known the flight you had to catch was headed here, I would have offered you a ride. Christmas shopping?”
Tendrils of heat licked my insides at the sound of his voice, and the way he was looking at me through those bluish hazel eyes wasn’t helping my cause. Before I could even begin to forma response that would catch him as off guard as he’d caught me, Regina’s hand clamped onto my arm.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said crisply, giving him a dismissive kind of glance that she usually reserved for overeager sales associates. “This is the ladies’ department.”
“Mom—” I started, but Harrison just grinned, utterly unfazed by her rudeness.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, not moving so much as a muscle.
Regina narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps you should also keep in mind that this is a private conversation.”
“Mother.” I took a breath, trying to keep my voice even as I finally managed to break eye contact with him for long enough to look at her. “This is Harrison Westwood.”
Regina froze. She blinked hard once. Then her entire face lit up like she’d been handed a Cartier box. “A Westwood. How interesting.”
I tilted my head, waiting for an explanation, but she was already smoothing her coat and glancing around like she was looking for something. Finally, she looked back at me. “I’ll be by the shoes when you’re done changing, darling.”
She glided away without another word, not even to say hello or goodbye to Harrison, but he still smiled at me like I’d just turned his entire day around.
“Well, that wasn’t awkward at all,” I muttered, my head shaking as I watched her go. “What are you doing here?”
“Shopping,” he said as if that explained his presence in the ladies’ department of a store thousands of miles away from home. “Why are you here? Are you on a mission to try on every glittery thing in the city?”
I turned on my heels and headed back toward the dressing room. He followed as if I’d invited him, leaning casually againstthe door after I’d shut it and smirking at me in the reflection of the mirror. “For what it’s worth, that dress is perfect.”
“You don’t even know what it’s for.” I huffed, tugging at the zipper that refused to budge.
“It doesn’t matter what it’s for. It’s still perfect.” His chin lifted a little higher. “Trust me, I’m an expert on these things, but fine. I’ll bite. What’s it for?”
“My mom’s throwing a party. A Christmas Ball,” I said, still struggling with the zipper. “She insisted that I come shopping with her even though I have mountains of dresses at home. Apparently, none of those will do. I’m supposed to look like, I don’t know, festive arm candy, maybe? Don’t judge me.”
His dark eyebrows swept up. “Arm candy? Dude, if you show up in that dress, no one is even going to notice they’re at a party. Besides, I would never judge. It would make me too much of a hypocrite.”
The zipper refused to cooperate, but I wrestled with it until my shoulder ached before I gave up. “This thing is stuck.” I turned to him and pointed at my back. “Do you mind?”
“Do I mindunzippingyou?” A soft scoff came out of him.
The heat of his hand brushed against my spine as he tugged the zipper down in one smooth motion. My breathing hitched, my lungs proving themselves to be as traitorous as the rest of my body.
“There,” he murmured, still standing close enough that his warm breath ghosted across the back of my neck. “It sounds like we’re both in New York against our wills.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder, fighting a smile. “You came with your mom, too?”
He grimaced, but then he pumped his eyebrows at me once and took a step back. A tiny one, but it put enough space between us that at least I could breathe again. “Guilty as charged. It’s our annual bonding trip, and by that, I mean she bonds with everyhigh-end boutique while I become intimately acquainted with their waiting chairs.”
I laughed, and suddenly, being trapped in a dressing room with Harrison Westwood didn’t feel like such a punishment. Turning my attention back to the mirror, I pretended like the goosebumps on my arms were from the draft in the small room rather than from the memory of Harrison’s hand trailing down my spine.
“I know what you mean,” I said, holding the dress up so I wouldn’t accidentally get naked in front of him. “These last few years, I’ve been managing to get out of it, but not this time.”
“I commiserate.” He finally started backing away and stepped out of the cubicle but stayed right against the wall outside. I could see his shoulder in the crack he’d left in the curtain. “We should get a drink tonight. Take a break from the maternal pressure and potentially get someone to ice our feet.”
I gathered the edges of the dress so I could step out of it. “I should say no. My mom has a mile-long list of things for us to get done.”
