“No,” he replies the second I stop speaking.
“It’s an art auction.”
His grip on my wrists tightens. “No.”
“It’s one evening,” I huff.
He shakes his head. “That’s one evening where you’re visible to everyone.”
“You know Livvie has a security team around her, so that’s a weak argument.”
“There’s no argument when I’m telling you it’s not happening.”
Frustration creeps in, and I try to wriggle off his knee until he tugs my hair and brings my face closer to his. “I don’t want some fucker taking a shot at you, Tierney.”
The edge in his voice makes me pause for half a second.
“And I just want to look at something other than your apartment walls.”
“Our apartment, princess,” he corrects. “Your place and mine.”
“If you want me to like you, then give me a reason to. Let me go outside, spend the evening with Livvie and come back here feeling less like a prisoner and more like a…”
My words trail when his pupils flare and he thumbs the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse.
“More like my wife?”
“I was going to say a normal person,” I lie.
He studies me for a long beat, weighing his decision.
“Fine,” he says at last. “You can go with her, but you’ll have your own security detail. And you don’t leave Livvie’s side. Promise me?”
“I promise,” I whisper. “There’s just one problem.”
He releases my wrists, lets go of my hair, and runs his hand down my spine. “I’m all ears.”
“She told me to wear a cute dress.”
His fingers slip beneath the hem of my T-shirt and skim my back. Goosebumps erupt across my skin, and I hate that a whimper almost shoots out of my throat.
“Do you want to wear a cute dress?” he asks, voice lower now.
I shrug, pretending indifference while my pulse betrays me. “I’m not really a cute type of girl.”
“No,” he says thoughtfully. “You’re the fucking sexiest little hellcat I’ve ever met.”
The auction is in a converted warehouse in Tribeca, the interior is all exposed brick and soft lighting.
Livvie walks beside me, sipping champagne, the diamond on her finger so large it looks less like a stone and more like a planet.
“That dress really suits you,” she says, her gaze sweeping over me. “I can see why Bronx agreed to trade in his wild nights for you.”
The emerald satin clings to every curve, thin straps lifting my cleavage just enoughto look fitted rather than desperate. Bronx zipped it up for me because I couldn’t contort my arms far enough to manage it myself.
He’d chosen it too and had it delivered with ten pairs of sandals lined up for me to try on with it.
He can be helpful when he wants to be.
