Page 174 of Twisted Knight

For whatever this is.

Over the next two and a half hours I am pampered within an inch of my life. A relaxing massage at a glass window with the world around me. A quick shower and then a mani-pedi. My hair done. My makeup done. Several sets of lingerie to pick from followed by a rack of ridiculously expensive dresses.

“That man’s got it bad if he’s going through all this trouble for you,” the lead stylist, Anissa, murmurs softly so that Holden can’t hear.

I laugh. “No. We’re not like that. We work together. We…”

“Sleep together,” she finishes for me with a chuckle and a knowing look. “It’s obvious in the way he keeps looking at you. Like he wants to eat you up and then come back for more. Girl, you can tell yourself all you want that you’re just having a sexy little fling, but this”—she points to the entire room set up solely for getting me ready—“says a lot more than that.”

“He’s just an over-the-top guy.”

But that’s the thing. Holden isn’t. He’s stoic. Not flashy … and yet he hired a team of women to pamper me.

“Uh-huh.” She nods to the five boxes of Christian Louboutin heels set on the table in front of me. All in my size, all apparently mine to keep. “You just keep telling yourself that.” She looks me up and down and whistles. “I do think you made the right decision going with this dress,” she says as she adjusts my bra strap.

It’s a deep, dark blue. The cleavage is low and the drape at the curve of my ass even lower. It’s sophisticated and classy with just enough sexy. And I feel incredible in it.

Anissa is fixing the hem some as I stand looking at my reflection in the mirror. Holden comes into view over my shoulder. He’s wearing a tuxedo that’s clearly custom tailored and only adds to how handsome he is. Our eyes meet and he smiles in a way that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Mesmerized. Taken with me. Pleased.

How did we go from me being lethally jealous a few weeks back to this? Just … how?

I turn to face him. “You like?”

Anissa somehow fades away like the true professional she is as he moves the short distance to me and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Breathtaking,” he murmurs in my ear. “I’m one lucky man to have you on my arm tonight. But I do think these might complement the dress a bit more.”

I laugh when he pulls the sapphire earrings out of his pocket. “Breaking into my house these days?” I tease.

“You left them in the top drawer of your desk. Not a very safe place to keep something so very important.” He stares at them and then back up to me. “Will you wear them for me tonight? Just this once?”

With my eyes on his, I take the first sapphire earring from the velvet case and put it on. Then the next. He turns me around so I can look in the mirror. He’s behind me like a second skin and as much as the earrings are stunning and complete the entire look, he does even more so.

There’s a contrast between us.

He’s dark while I’m light. He’s unreadable while my emotions are on my sleeve. He’s the bolt of lightning and I’m feeling blinded by its force.

He leans forward and presses a kiss to my bare neck without breaking our connection in the mirror. Desire fires in his eyes despite the room full of women suddenly trying to act small so as to not interrupt this moment.

“Do I get to know yet where we’re going?” I ask yet again.

My guess is we’re going to some charity function. Some place where Holden Knight needs to see and be seen, which then poses a problem for me and our platonic-in-the-eyes-of-everyone-else situation.

“Our first stop of the evening will be dinner.”

“And then?”

His chuckle is a low rumble. “And then? Is dinner with me not enough for you? Greedy girl.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I laugh.

He puts his hands on my shoulders, turns me around, and steps into me. “Then what did you mean, woman I want to kiss but whose freshly applied lipstick I don’t want to mess up?”

“You said first, so that implies there is a second part. That’s why I asked,” I say as I run my hands up the lapel of his tuxedo. I love the soft hiss he emits. It tells me he’s just as affected by my presence as I am by his. Then I lean in and whisper in his ear, “Always mess the lipstick up. Always.”

I feel the rumble of his chuckle the same time as I hear it. “Good to know we’re on the same page.”

He runs the back of his hand down my cheek. “Hmm.”

His response piques my curiosity. Before I can think too much about it, he leans in and brushes his lips ever so slightly against mine.