“I’m on my way,” Alex said, sounding like he was already moving. “We’re coming back right now. Can you try to get her back to our suite? It’s the one next door to yours.”
The call ended in a rush of overlapping voices and what sounded suspiciously like Nate telling Alex to try not to die of a heart attack on the spot. It brought a slight smile to my lips, hearing him with his brother when he was unguarded, thinking they were alone, but the call cut off when Alex started cursing at him to hurry.
Once things quieted, I went over to the bathroom and rapped my knuckles gently on the door. “Are you okay in there?”
“Yeah. You can come in.”
I opened the door just a crack, seeing Jane leaning against the counter, breathing like she’d just run a marathon. Relieved that I hadn’t interrupted her in a position she might’ve felt embarrassed about, I went inside and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you horizontal before your husband murders me for neglecting my duties.”
She groaned but didn’t argue. The trek to the door and the few steps down the corridor to their hotel room felt like a mile even to me. We reached their suite and I eased her onto the bed. Then I remembered the emergency stash in my clutch and I pulled out the small pack of pretzels I’d stolen from the private jet.
“Try one,” I said, offering her the bag.
“I will throw that at you,” she mumbled, her eyes already fluttering closed.
“No, you will eat it,” I countered, tearing open the bag and holding one out toward her. “You need to soak up all that churning stomach acid.”
Her eyes snapped open and she glared at me. “Please don’t mention my churning stomach acid. It’ll make me sick all over again.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Have a pretzel as a peace offering. Now you have to accept it.”
Jane shook her head with a little laugh and finally took the pretzel from me. She eyed it reluctantly before finally popping it into her mouth. A small noise of satisfaction came out of her. She glanced at me and held out her hand.
I fed her like a toddler, handing her pretzels one by one, waiting between bites until the color in her face shifted from alarming to merely miserable. By the time she’d swallowed the last one, she curled onto her side and smiled up at me.
“Thanks. That was a good idea.”
Her eyes were just shutting again when the door into their suite burst open. Alex rushed in like he was fleeing a natural disaster, his focus entirely locked on Jane. He dropped to the edge of the bed, brushing hair from her forehead and murmuring her name like it was the only word he knew.
Behind him, Nate stepped into the suite, but then stopped, openly staring at me. Gawking, really. It wasn’t a glance or a polite acknowledgment. His gaze dragged slowly from my pinned curls to the neckline of the gown, down the length of it, then back to my face.
Several seconds ticked by before he cleared his throat and shifted his attention to his brother and Jane. “Are you guys going to be okay here?”
“Yeah,” Alex said quietly, glancing at Nate over his shoulder. “Go. I think it’s safe to say that it’s just going to be the two of you tonight. Sorry.”
Nate shook his head at him. “Nothing to be sorry about. We’ll be fine. Just keep my little niece or nephew safe.”
“Thank you,” Jane said, while Alex nodded.
Nate inhaled a breath deep enough to make his chest rise, then turned to me. “I just need to change into my tux and then we should get going.”
I nodded, murmuring a goodbye to the others before following him back down the hall. Nathaniel Westwood in a tuxwas going to be the death of me—but as long as I got to see it before I went, I had a feeling I would die happy.
CHAPTER 27
NATE
Seeing Kate like this did weird, not-good things to my ability to function like a rational adult. She looked glorious. Drop-dead gorgeous didn’t even begin to cover it.
The dress clung in all the right places, soft blue silk catching the light every time she moved, and her hair?Fuck me.
Instead of the sleek, shiny blowout styled to perfection, she’d left her hair to curl in loose, unruly spirals and I was in serious trouble because of it. I’d always known Kate was hot. Obviously. I wasn’t blind.
But this? This was different. It was dangerous, the kind of stunning that was rewiring things in my brain that would’ve been better left alone.
I’d had her underneath me twenty-four hours ago. My brain helpfully replayed the memory of feeling her body writhe against mine in vivid detail while I stood in the middle of the hotel suite, pretending to be a civilized human being.
God, the way she’d looked all flushed and breathless. Those needy, almost pleading little moans that?—
