The night drags on at a snail’s pace. Every moment that I have to spend promoting Apex and flaunting the company’s success and their heart for charity—which is a lie, because companies like this don’t give two shits about anybody—is painfully long. All I can think of is leaving, ripping my tie off, and grabbing a drink that actually soothes my nerves, not the watered down bullshit this pop-up bar is serving.
My mind is also on Amara.
I can’t help but wonder how she’s doing. How the massage went. If she’s feeling better or needs anything or?—
“Ransome, honey, you are a million miles away.” The wife of one of the other Apex bosses rips me out of the moment with her cackling voice. She’s in her sixties and wearing enough make-up to supply half a Sephora store, and it’s not doing her any favors.
“Thinking about work,” I say, picking up my glass with a staged smile that I can’t imagine anyone buys.
“Isn’t he always?” Jenica laughs. Meanwhile, her hand on my thigh travels north an inch.
I clear my throat, reach under the table, remove her hand, and place it in her own lap.
She stiffens again.
“These events are always so marvelous, but they certainly do take it out of you,” Granny adds. “I know my William is always spent after all the mingling.”
“I’m sure he is,” I bite out. But as much as I can’t fucking stand small talk, my tone isn’t directed at her. It’s in response to Jenica’s hand, which is once again on my thigh, this time even higher than it was when I removed it.
Again, I grab it, this time simply flicking it away.
“I want to hear more about the two of you,” another woman says. She’s dating one of Apex’s higher-ups. He’s in his fifties and she’s maybe old enough to drink the wine sitting in front of her. She has a lot of audacity to be speaking at all, considering she is most likely just his flavor of the week, but clearly she has no gauge for what’s appropriate in settings like this one. “How did the two of you meet?”
“Old family friends,” I answer before Jenica can say anything she shouldn’t.
“Wow. So always under your nose, but overlooked for so long,” the old lady romanticizes.
“Far too long,” Jenica jokes, and everyone laughs. She tosses me a smile and kisses me, and I am forced to endure it. Meanwhile, her hand finds my thigh again, this time only a centimeter or so from my crotch.
When I can actually feel her pinky on my dick, I draw the line.
I take her by the hand, but instead of shoving it away, I stand up, pulling her with me. Then I plaster on the fakest smile I can manage for the entire room to see. If attention is what she wants, attention is what she’ll get.
“Speaking of which,” I start in. “You’ll have to excuse us,” I tell everyone as I tug her away from the table.
“Ransome, darling, where are we going?” she asks through a clenched smile.
“I think we need a little privacy,darling,” I say to appease the crowd.
But once we are outside in the crisp night air, the nicety is gone.
“Have you lost your mind?” she snaps.
“No. But clearly, you have,” I snap back. “What the hell was that in there?”
Jenica’s eyes widen. “You mean me acting like a loving wife? Me talking you up all the while getting the cold shoulder?”
“There was nothing cold about it,” I argue. “You saw to that with the stunt you pulled under the table.”
“Oh, excuse me for trying to love up on my husband!” she cries out. “Do you know how many men would kill to have me on their arm?”
“So maybe you should be married to one of them,” I growl. “And relieve me of the burden.”
Jenica winces at that. Maybe it was too much. Too far. But honestly, she knows the agreement. It’s not like either of us wanted this. She’s never actually shown interest in me before. It’s staged. It’s required. It comes with the territory. It’s the only thing that keeps the people we actually care about safe.
She swallows. Replaces her look of hurt with a look of guarded anger. “Well, if that’s how you really feel, then you don’t need to worry about me pretending anymore. Obviously your heart is… elsewhere.”
“My heart isn’t anywhere,” I say. Which might be a lie, but it’s none of her fucking business. “What’s important is where my head is at. And my head is just trying to hold all of this together.”
