“Beatrice,” Mom corrected, giving Irina a solid once-over. “You can call me Ms. Connor.”
This wasn’t going well.
“Wonderful. I forget things when I get nervous.” Irina made a goofy face like a cartoon character.
Impressive, and sort of cute.
He grinned at her. She grinned at him.
Mom, however, cleared her throat and wasnotgrinning. “May I come inside?”
“Of course.” Irina stepped backward, pulling Knox by his favorite Pantera shirt. The one he wore when he needed to remember that he was a rock star, goddammit. A successful one, at that. And he didn’t need his mother’s approval to marry a woman he planned to divorce in a year. He didn’t. She didn’t even need to show up. Except for photos.
Otherwise, totally unnecessary.
Irina wound herself around his arm, totally playing up the part of doting fiancée.
The shit of it? He liked it. Liked the touching, the way her lips grazed over his shoulder and her eyes sparkled when she looked at him. If he didn’t know she was acting, he’d totally buy that she was into him.
While his head fought the war over the legitimacy of her attention, his body didn’t seem to know the difference between reality and pretend. The way his ears buzzed with awareness and his lips tingled with the hope of a kiss? His body did not care if it was pretend or not.
“Would you like a cookie or something?” Irina asked.
“Not pie?” Mom asked, dryly.
Irina made an expression that looked like blah. Seriously, how did she do that?
“Burned,” she said. “But we have cookies?”
“I hope you don’t mind, I looked up your address.” Mom dug through her purse on the counter, then clipped it closed without removing anything.
“I do.”
Mom lifted an eyebrow. “I figured dropping in would be so much easier than attempting negotiations for a quick meeting, but I don’t know where we are at the moment if you live across the hall?”
Irina sighed. “My best friend has this apartment, but she’s in Denver and it’s—long story. The boys are staying here.”
“Knox too?” Mom asked, going in for the interrogation.
Knox pulled Irina close to his side. “Save the questions, yeah?”
Mom paused at his request.
“You’re not sleeping in the same bed?” Mom pushed, recovering quickly.
Irina did the wide eyes thing she did right before she lied through her teeth, which was a bad idea because this was his mother, and she was the queen of figuring out lies. Best to go with the truth.
“Knox’s bandmates are staying here while they’re in town.” Not a lie, good job. “And my mom is an artist. She prefers the lighting in my apartment for certain projects, so we decided to pop over here.”
“So we were chatting with the guys,” Knox tacked on. “But they scattered to give us privacy when you arrived.”
He needed their asses to show he wasn’t a Fibber McFibberton. “Mach, Tanner, come meet my mom,Beatrice.”
Irina snorted a little, and kissed his shoulder with adoration. Adoration and a heavy helping of teeth.
Nice. He liked the teeth.
“Hey.” Mach sauntered from the room, this time wearing a shirt,thank fuck. “I’m Mach.” He held his hand out to Mom. She shook it. “Pleasure.”
