Ugh.I push out from his chest. “HJ! That dirty rotten dobber rat?—”
“The single malt on your breath, actually.”
“Oh.” Mortified, my eyes widen and my cheeks glow. “I had two,” I start to explain. “But I breastfed the boys first, and I wasn’t planning on feeding them again for a few hours, anyway. And I have yogurt and cheese and oth?—”
“I’m not angry with you.”
“You flipped this,” I sulk. “I’m angry with you!”
“Is that right? May I inquire as to why?”
I scoff. “Pretty?”
“Yes,pretty,”he purrs, his deep timbre a literal toxin that attacks my senses, pulping rational thought to mumbles of nonsense and my muscles to jelly.
“Oh.” I blush from my chest to my scalp. “It sounds so much better when it comes from your lips...” And I feel so ridiculous for my behaviour andfluffybrain. “I blame the whiskey, Sir.”
“As do I, sweet girl,” he says through that perfect mouth that does devilish things between my thighs.
“Sorry, Clay, I forgot my jack—” A woman’s sultry voice comes from the elevator, her presence abrasive, somehow grating down my skin. “Jacket,” she finishes.
My blood runs cold.
I step back from Clay and stare ather.
Long red hair ribbons over her shoulders, relaxed and messy—just like Clay’s. Her body is swathed tightly in a black evening dress—yet it’s only lunchtime.
My face goes numb as Lorna—Clay's ex-whatever-she-was—saunters over to a coat rack I hadn't even registered when I walked in. She plucks a long white jacket from it, then bends down with deliberate slowness. My throat catches when shestraightens, dangling a pair of scarlet stilettos from her manicured fingers. "Almost left without these," she says with a knowing smile too tight to be kind.
Why did she take her shoes off, Sir?
A sudden weight hits my chest, lungs squeezing under the pressure. Four words on repeat coat my tongue in bile.
Why. Was. She. Here?
His hand touches the small of my back, and it feels like a blade. “You remember Lorna, little deer.”
I nod slowly.
“So lovely to see you again,” she offers, completely fake—everything. Her brows. Her smile. Her fucking lip filler. At least four fingers of frozen forehead. Fake. “We met at Clay’s party for the Indonesian associates, remember?”
I’m still nodding.
“Dustin’s daughter, correct?” she adds.
My stomach spasms as if she just punched me. I seethe. “I…”What the actual fuck?“I’m…”
I’m his fiancé.
Say it, Fawn.
Scream it!
“Lorna”—Clay’s naturally rough voice is somehow darker, thicker—“don’t think for one moment that is acceptable. You know exactly who Fawn is.”
Her smile slides wider. “Well, excuse me. I don’t mean to interrupt.” She shuffles her coat and shoes in her arms and sashays towards the elevator, her feet bare but for black stockings.
I take a big breath, calming myself.
