“It’s an expression.” Georgina grinned. “I’ll pick everyone up at ten. We’re going to The Row.”
Lillian smiled into her tea.
Bea shut the door behind her with her foot, breathless from dragging up the last round of shopping bags. The room looked like a luxury hurricane had torn through—designer tissue paper scattered across the bed, satin ribbons trailing from garment bags, shoes in neat but terrifying rows.
She stood in the middle of it, her hands on her hips, slightly dazed.
They’d gone to The Row, a luxury enclave just east of Northgate, nestled between the diplomatic quarter and the private banks. Home to couture and appointment-only showrooms, where the elite went when first impressions mattered.
There had been champagne. And Naomi’s running commentary. And Isabel trying to convince her to get a leather corset topjust in case. Just in case of what, exactly, Bea still wasn’t clear.
They’d walked into stores she used to cross the street to avoid. She’d bought things she hadn’t even known how to pronounce. Hopefully it was enough.
The knock on her door came. She didn’t have to ask who it was. No one else knocked like that.
Bea padded across the room, opened the door. Gage stood there in his three-piece suit, straight from work. His eyes dropped past her shoulder and caught sight of the room.
His gaze scrutinized the bags. Then he looked at her again. “You did it.”
“You told me to.”
“I didn’t think you’d actually follow instructions.”
“I don’t always disobey,” she teased.
His eyebrows raised fractionally. He stepped past her into the room.
Bea closed the door behind him, watching as he surveyed the mess with a peculiar kind of pride.
“Anything in here for me?” he asked, tilting his head toward the mountain of shopping.
“Everything here is for you.”
The words left her before she could filter them. But once they were out, she realized they were true.
That made him look at her.
“I’m going because of you, aren’t I?”
He crossed the space between them. One hand slid around her waist. The other into her hair. His head dipped, breath brushing her cheek, voice low. “Say that again.”
“I said?—”
But she didn’t get the rest out, because his mouth was on hers. Her body flared, all nerve endings and want.
He pulled back but didn’t go far. His forehead rested against hers. One hand still cradled the back of her head. “You spent my money.” His voice was like gravel.
“I did,” she breathed.
“You let me take care of it.”
She nodded, pulse quick.
“I like you like this.”
“Like what?” she whispered.
“Obedient.”
