If Michelangelo were alive today, he’d use Nigel as his one and only model for eternity. If we lived in Regency England, he’d be a duke. If Nigel had gone to Hollywood instead of following in his grandfather’s footsteps,Peoplewould’ve retired the “Sexiest Man Alive” feature because Nigel would’ve won every single year for his whole entire life.
And I fucking hate Nigel.
I’m not sure I realized just how much I hated him until right now, and there’s a large chunk of guilt and shame swelling up in my chest over acknowledging to myself that I hate him—hate is for the wicked, Sloane—but I do.
I. Hate. Him.
“Welp, now that you’ve seen that Davis and I are happy and engaged, you can leave,” I tell Nigel.
“I need to hear it from him,” Nigel says.
Tillie Jean makes a choking noise. “Because you don’t believe a woman?”
“Because I know how Sloane can be.”
Davis’s grip on me tightens. “Watch yourself.”
The quiet authority in his warning makes me shiver.
The good kind of shiver.
The kind of shiver that I’m never supposed to shiver for a man again because if I shiver this way over a man, and we fall into the sack, and we start dating, I’ll discover he’s secretly taking pictures of my feet to sell on that GrippaPeen video-on-demand subscription site, or he’ll give me a sob story about how his mother’s dying of cancer and he needs five thousand dollars to pay her bills and I’ll be the dummy who gives it to him even though he’s already told me before that his mother’s dead, or he’ll convince me that my apartment smells like pickles and we have to move, only to find that he’s somehow removed me from the lease, thus leaving me homeless when we break up.
I shake my head while Davis and Nigel have a staring match. “Can we please focus on what’s important right now?”
“You mean this lie?” Nigel says.
Once again, it’s Davis to the rescue. “It’s not a lie.”
I suppress another shiver and look up at him.
And my belly drops.
He stares straight into my eyes, and for a guy who keeps a pretty straight expression most of the time, he’s being very expressive right now.
I owe him an explanation.
This isn’t a small favor.
I’m going to pay for this.
He wants something in return.
And I need to quit thinking I can read anything at all in Davis’s expression becausewho does that?
We’re practically strangers.
“And as you said, my love, we have bigger issues.” Davis breaks eye contact and looks at Nigel. “Were you invited?”
Oh, I can answer that. “No, he wasnot.”
“How did you get past security?”
“That’s anexcellentquestion.” Tillie Jean turns to Nigel again. “Howdidyou get past security?”
Nigel quirks a brow, which makes him look like a dark-haired Prince Charming from the Shrek movies. “I’m hardly a threat to anyone.”
“You walk in here trying to break up my best friend and her fiancé, and I’m going to classify you as a threat.”
