“Only the best for you, my dear,” he tells me.
He opens the front door, gesturing me in. I hope for a second that he puts a hand on my back, but he doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter, because this place is fucking insane. My mouth hangs open at the luxury. The marble floors gleam under an enormous chandelier. There’s a spiral staircase that looks likeit’s floating. The entire thing has been gutted to be shiny and new and expensive. Everything is blinding white and glass.
“Don’t forget that rich people don’t gawk,” Mr. Flores whispers from my side. “They observe. Like they’re bored.”
Surprised, I look over at him. There is a new brightness in his eyes, a gleam of mischief flickering through them.Oh, hell yeah. He smirks at me. I fix my face, attempting to look generally affronted.
A sleek, blonde, and well-heeled realtor with a clipboard approaches, radiating suspicion and commission-driven charm. “Good afternoon. I’m Stephanie. Are you two familiar with the property?”
I sense something happening beside me. A gathering of energy, like the electricity in the air before a storm. Mr. Flores’s spine gets a little straighter, chest impossibly broader. He looks directly into Stephanie’s eyes, oozing charm from every pore. “Oh, quite. We’ve been evaluating properties in this range. Our summer home in the Hamptons has become so tiresome,” he croons, in a flawless posh British accent, to my absolute horror and delight.
There is a shocked silence. Both Stephanie and I are now staring at Mr. Flores, collectively drooling and melting, because there is no way a man like this could be real. I’m surprised one of us doesn’t faint from swooning so hard. I think I see Stephanie’s nipples harden through her blouse. Mine could cut glass.
Oliver looks at me, and I can sense he is close to breaking. I shake myself out of this sudden horniness, unwilling to let him steal my show. I clear my throat. “Yes, the Hamptons. Dreadful commute,” I add hastily, in a decidedly way worse accent. “We’ve been dying to get closer to... the MoMA.”
No one is convinced. Stephanie arches an eyebrow for a split second, but then professionalism takes over. “Well, you’recertainly in the right city for that,” she trills. “Let me show you around.”
I whirl towards my boss once her back is turned. He raises an eyebrow, daring me, like I did. “Only eight whole miles through bumper to bumper traffic to the MoMa, dear,” he says, a laugh in his voice.
I sniff and follow Stephanie’s clacking down the hallway and into the massive kitchen that might be bigger than my entire apartment, where she’s saying something about the imported marble of the countertops.
Mr. Flores comes up behind me, a solid presence at my back, and runs his hand over the top of the counter, tracing the pattern lightly with his fingers. Stephanie and I track his every movement. I’ve never wanted to be a piece of rock so badly in life. “What do you think, dear? Of course, we’d rip it all out. Italian marble is so... overdone.”
I nod, likeduh. I feign disdain. “Agreed. We’d probably commission... a bespoke artisan to handcraft countertops out of… reclaimed Icelandic volcanic rock. It’s very exclusive.”
“Fascinating choice,” Stephanie trills towards my boss, blinking her very long and beautiful eyelashes at him.Hey.
I am suddenly overcome with a sharp wave of possessiveness over my fake rich English husband. Fuck you, Stephanie. This ismyfake husband.
I wind an arm around his waist, all but baring my teeth to Stephanie, but this is a terrible call. I am appalled yet again, to note that his abdomen is rock fucking hard. His arm is awkwardly trapped between us, and he shifts it up and out of the way. I expect it to land on my shoulder, the only natural place.
It does, and I feel its weight almost immediately, but then he takes it an unexpected step further.
He wraps his hand around my throat. Lightly collaring it.
I swallow against hisfingers.
The rough pad of his thumb lightly traces my Adam’s apple.
I think I have all but soaked through my panties.
I glance up at my boss, who is now looking at me intensely—something sharp, almost predatory in his gaze.
Stephanie, who I completely forgot was here, is saying something about moving to the terrace.
“What do you think, dear?” he murmurs to my mouth. “Have you had enough?”
NOT ENOUGH, I want to scream,take me right here on this piece of rock that costs more than my down payment; let’s give this Stephanie bitch a show.
And then I remember that this is my boss, and he nearly fired me and I’m just a teacher trying to keep her job and not a member of a posh Manhattan sex club. So I take a step back, breaking the moment. He tucks his arm back at his side, clenching his hand into a fist.
“I think so,” I breathe.
“Perhaps you’d like to see the wine cellar? It’s two thousand square feet. Perfect for an extensive collection,” Stephanie says.
“Oh, that’s a deal-breaker,” he tells her seriously, back to his stuffy Englishman persona. “We need at least three thousand. Our sommelier insists.”
He takes my hand and tugs me back towards the front door.
