“My team has one on retainer,” I say. “I had you investigated as soon as you sent me that email. You don’t think I would have agreed to just anyone offering me that proposition, did you? You’re an investment.”
“So you already know everything,” she says, and crosses her arms over her chest. “Did you have someone follow me, too?”
“No,” I say. “That’s more your uncle’s style.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “We don’t hire private investigators.”
“Sure, you don’t,” I drawl.She has to know,I think. I holdout my hand. “Give me those flashcards. Let’s see what you’ve prepared.”
She holds on to them for a few more seconds, like they’re precious. But then she hands them to me and reaches for the bottle of wine. “We’re going to need more alcohol if we’re doing this.”
I flip through the cards, going faster and faster. These are… meticulous. “Who’s the bettercook?” I ask.
“Yes. If we’re home alone one evening, what do we do? Who cooks?” She picks up her glass. “What do we watch on TV?”
“That’s so very…”
“Domestic? Real couples do things like that.” She takes a sip. I wonder if it’s getting to her head, much like it is to mine. “I’ve tried researching your dating history. All I found were two women over the course of almost a decade.”
“I’m private.”
“Clearly.” She says it like it’s an insult. “We need to know these things. Are you a good cook? I’m decent.”
“I know how to cook, yes.”
“Okay. So you do the cooking.” She taps her red-nailed fingers on the table. “What do we do to relax?”
I lift an eyebrow. “Not a single person is going to ask a newly in love couple that. Not if they don’t want to be?—”
“The answer isn’t sex!”
“And why wouldn’t it be?” I lift my eyebrows. “That’s what two people in the honeymoon phase do. Or do you have a different experience?”
Her cheeks look brighter. Victory flares through me, knowing she’s the one on the back foot. “I’m not talking about that with you.”
“This was your idea,” I say. “And you’re the one who left a sex toy on my bed. What did you buy yourself, hmm?”
She tilts her chin up. “A fewveryexpensive vibrators, andI mentioned at the cashier that my husband finishes very… quickly, let’s say. So we need the helping hand.”
Irritation slithers down my spine. I’d take my goddamn time with her, not that it’ll ever happen. “Remember what I told you. Don’t moan too loud. I don’t want to hear a single thing from your side of the hall.”
“That goes both ways, Montclair.”
“And just for your information, since you want to get to know me better—I wouldn’t finish quickly. No woman has ever left my bed unsatisfied.” I reach for another bottle of wine and start uncorking it with practiced movements. “I don’t do anything that isn’t excellent.”
“The arrogance!” she says. “You wouldn’t make me come, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t want to make you come,” I retort.
“Good.”
“Great.”
She grabs the flashcards from where I left them on the table. “Stop distracting me. Let’s see… Do you have any tattoos?”
“No,” I say, and pour myself another glass. “You do, though.”
Her eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”
