style="font-size:15px;"> Which made her deeply conscious of the fact that if she wanted Renzo, she supposed she could have him, too.
But for the love of cake, she didn’t know what she would do with him. Or what he would do with her if she reached out and tried to get a taste.
She took a deep breath, craning her neck, straightening her shoulders and doing her best to make herself look even more statuesque. She didn’t know why. Maybe to inject herself with a little bit more pride, so she wasn’t just standing there being subjected to the judgment of every person in the room.
It was so strange being the center of attention like this. She wasn’t entirely certain she disliked it.
“That dress is spectacular. However, it is a bit too formal for dinner,” Renzo said, sitting down in one of the armchairs that were placed up against the back wall. “What else is there?”
“Oh,” Tierra said, turning around and facing the rack, pulling out a short, coral-colored dress that Esther had tried on earlier. “How about this?”
Renzo settled even deeper into the chair, his posture like that of a particularly jaded monarch. “Let’s see it.”
“Of course.”
Esther found herself being turned so that she was facing away from Renzo, and then she felt the zipper on the gown give. She gasped, then froze, not quite sure what she was supposed to do next. If she should protest the fact that she was being undressed in front of a man who was a stranger to her, or if that would ruin the charade.
And then it didn’t matter, because the green dress was pulling down at her feet, and her bare back and barely covered bottom were now fully exposed to Renzo.
“Very nice,” he said, his voice rough. “Part of the new wardrobe?”
She knew he meant the black pair of lace panties she was wearing, and she wanted to turn around and tell him off for making this even more uncomfortable. Except, then she would have to turn around. And expose herself even further, and she wasn’t going to do that. Instead, she decided that she would do her best to show him that she wasn’t so easily toyed with.
“Yes,” she said simply.
A few moments later the next dress was on and firmly in place. Then, she turned back to face Renzo, and her heart crawled up into her throat. Because as intense as he always looked, as much impact as those dark eyes always had on her, it was magnified now.
“Come closer,” he said, his tone hard-edged, the command clearly nonnegotiable.
She swallowed hard, taking one unsteady step toward where Renzo was sitting. His dark gaze flicked away from Esther, landing on the style team. “Leave us,” he said.
They did so, quickly and without a word. And when they were gone, it felt as though they had taken all the air out of the room with them.
“Do people always do what you ask?”
“Always,” he said. “Closer.”
She took another step toward him, trying to disguise the fact that her legs were shaking and that she had no idea how she was supposed to walk in heels that were tantamount to stilts.
He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, propping his chin on his knuckles. “Of course, some people obey more quickly than others.”
“Did you want me to break an ankle? Because I guarantee you if I walk any faster I’m going to.”
He moved swiftly, his movements liquid, his grace making a mockery of her own uncertain clumsiness. He stood, reaching across the space between them and sweeping her up into his arms. Then he turned, depositing her in the chair he had occupied only a moment ago.
She pressed her hand to her heart, feeling the rapid flutter beneath her palm. Her throat was dry, her head feeling dizzy. Her body felt warm. As though she had been burned all over. His arms had been wrapped around her, her shoulder blades pressed up against that hard, broad expanse of his chest.
That was what stunned her most of all. Just how hard he was. There was no give in him at all. His body was as unbending as the rest of him.
He turned away from her, facing the rack of clothing and the stack of shoes that was beneath it. “If you cannot walk then you will not present a very convincing picture. We don’t want you to look as though you were only polished today.”
“Why? Why does it matter?”
“Because I associate with a very particular kind of woman. I do not need my parents thinking that I swooped in and corrupted some innocent, naive backpacker.”
It took her a moment to process that. She wondered if he really believed that she was naive and innocent. She was. It was just that he had never seemed particularly sold on that version of her.
“They would believe that?”
He laughed, not turning to look at her. “Oh, yes. Easily.” Then he bent, picking up a pair of bejeweled, flat shoes before facing her again. He moved back to where she was sitting, dropping to his knees before her and making a seeming mockery of her earlier thought that he was unbending.
“What are you—”
He said nothing. Instead, he reached out, curling his fingers around the back of her knee. The warmth shocked her. Flooded her. He let his fingertips drift all the way down the length of her calf, the touch slow, much too slow. Something about it, about that methodical movement, seemed to catch her at the site of their contact and spark through the rest of her. Reckless. Uncontrollable.
She fought the urge to squirm in her seat. To do something to diffuse the strange energy that she was infused with. But she didn’t want to betray herself. To betray that his touch made her feel anything.
He grabbed hold of the heel on her shoe and pulled it off slowly, those searching fingertips dragging along the bottom of her foot then as he removed the shoe.
She shivered. She couldn’t help it.
He looked up then and a strange, knowing smile tilted the corner of his lips upward. It was the knowing that bothered her more than anything else. Because she was confused. Lost in a sea of swirling doubts and uncertainty, and he seemed to know exactly what she was feeling.
You do, too. You aren’t stupid.
She gritted her teeth. Maybe. She really wished she were a little bit more stupid. She had tried to be. From the first moment she had laid eyes on him, and he had looked back at her, she had done her very best to be mystified by what all of the feelings inside her meant.
She wasn’t going to give a name to them now. Not right now. Not when he was still touching her. Slipping the ornate flat shoe onto her foot, then moving on to the next. He repeated those same motions there. His fingertips hot and certain on her skin as he traced a line down to her ankle, removing the next stiletto and setting it aside.
“A little bit like Cinderella,” she said, forcing the words through her dry throat.
Not that she’d been allowed to read fairy tales growing up, but a volume of them had been one of her very first smuggled titles.
“Except,”
