For a man who had over ten million dollars, a $100 dinner was just 0.001% of his total assets. A far more comfortable indulgence than someone like her—who had perhaps $30,000 to her name, including her 401k—could fathom, when a $6 burrito was 0.02% of her total net worth.
She worried that Nicholas had done a similar calculation in his mind. That some of these latest efforts of his weren’t just courtship attempts, they were a buy-out.
“Accia’s fine,” she said, suspecting this would annoy him.
“They have a new vegan carpaccio.” He started the engine without looking at her, but there was tension in the tanned skin of his face. “It’s made with watermelon radishes and beetroot, with an almond butter and soy yogurt sauce.”
She felt herself falling into the silence that followed and gripped her battered old purse as if it were a lifeline. He was looking at her, as if for her approval.
Let him take care of you.The voice sounded like her mother’s.It would be easy, and he wants to. Would it really be so bad?
“Did they pay you to write their ad copy, too?”
“No, blue jay.” He sounded amused, even though herattempt at light-heartedness came out sounding flat and hostile. “I just know you too well.”
The car hit a divot and his ring bounced off her collarbone, striking her sharply on the chin.
“Great,” she said again. “I can’t wait.”
Of course it will be easy. And as soon as it becomes hard to love me, he’ll stop.
Nicholas parked the car. They were downtown and he’d parked on one of the less busy streets. They were far from the glowing street lamps throwing Main Street in a constant blaze and the neon sign from a closed sushi bar was the only source of light, the red neon gleaming off his profile.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m fine.”
He leaned over the center console—as if he were going to check, she thought, hysterically. His palm slid up her leg, calluses catching on the thin silk. He snapped the strap of her stockings against her inner thigh. “Stop saying ‘fine.’ You’re not fine. Is this about your mother?”
She tugged her skirt down. Over his hand, because he didn’t move it. Her stomach felt like it was going into freefall. “No. I missed a meeting with Arthur, that’s all.”
Nicholas didn’t look convinced. “An unimportant one?”
“That’s not the point. I’ve been distracted, making mistakes. I don’t want—”
Her voice broke off when she felt him touch her through her underwear.
He doesn’t care about your problems. He just wants to fuck his mistress.
“Come here,” he said.
She leaned reluctantly into the wavering band of neon separating them. In the shadows, his mouth curved before he closed the rest of the distance.Oh god, thought Jay, gripping him tightly by the back of his neck as he tugged her bra down through her blouse. Cool watery silk rubbed against her bare skin, sending a pleasurable frisson of sensation to her nipples.
“Tell me what’s wrong, little bird.” Nicholas spoke against her mouth, squeezing her breast and kissing her so deeply that responding became impossible. She felt him begin to undo the small buttons of her blouse. “Why are you distracted?”
Because of you. She thought of those women, and the way that Angie had looked at her with such dry, knowing amusement.
They were probably envisioning something exactly like this.
“I feel like such a failure,” she sobbed.
“You’re not a failure.”
“Then why do I feel soawful?”
“I don’t know.” Her skirt had ridden up again, exposing her garters. He put his hand on her upper thigh. The pressure of the seat on her swollen clit made her shift her hips as he bent to her again, pushing her shirt open as his lips grazed her bare throat. “Maybe I can kiss it better.”
An unsteady breath left her just as a shadow floated over the car and she realized, with a cold wash of horror, howshamefulshe looked with her legs splayed, skirt pulled up to her hips, blouse undone. What if someone was out there watching, while she was offering herself up to him like a—her brain short-circuited as she felt his breath stir against her exposed left breast.
