what other option is there? He has to go back to England. And if it were just a matter of work, maybe we could try a long-distance thing. I’ve been wanting to expand Chance to Europe—a London base would be a good start. Maybe I could get over my worries about what the membership will think if news breaks that I’m dating someone from within its ranks. Maybe I could make it work. But Nicholas is going home to find some aristocratic heiress and make a suitable match. There were a dozen reasons we gave our dating deal a time limit of one month, and none of those reasons has gone away.
Except I don’t want it to end.
‘Hey.’ His voice behind me is the cherry on top.
I try my hardest to school my face into a mask of professional inquiry, but the second I turn around and see Nicholas Rothsmore in a tuxedo, my pulse shoots into overdrive and I feel as though I’m being driven at high speed around a hairpin bend.
I don’t want this to end.
I want…what? What do I want?
‘Nic…’ I breathe his name into the room, needing nothing more than to crush my body to his and kiss him, hard, kiss him slow, kiss him all over.
‘Quite the shindig.’ His eyes probe mine and I have a feeling he’s fighting a similar urge to mine; that he wants to pull me to him and kiss me.
My eyes drift to his watch. It will be at least an hour before I can leave. Emily, my assistant, will take care of everything after that; she is amazing.
‘You having fun?’ I murmur.
‘I’ll have more fun if you dance with me.’
I shake my head a little. ‘I feel like that could be a giveaway.’
‘I’ve seen you dance with at least five guys tonight.’
My heart turns over in my chest. ‘Jealous, my lord?’ I’m teasing him, a light-hearted joke, but his eyes narrow and he nods.
‘Beyond belief.’
Blood fills my heart too fast; my chest hurts. What do I want from him? How can this night be the last one we spend together? ‘That’s work.’
‘So? I’m work too. I’m your new internship partner, remember?’
Remember? I’ve thought of very little else since our lawyers rushed through the paperwork so this year’s ballot of kids wouldn’t miss their selections.
‘You raise an excellent point.’ And temptation makes me foolish. ‘One dance.’
He holds his hands out, and I step into them, taking a position that would pass, if anyone cared to look carefully, as purely businesslike.
‘I have been watching you,’ he says slowly, the words brushing low against my ear, so no one else can hear. ‘And trying to work out if this dress has a zip hidden somewhere.’
‘Pre-emptive planning?’ I prompt, my eyes running over his face.
‘Yes. I intend to remove it from you just as soon as we get back to my apartment.’
My pulse races faster; my chest still hurts, as if it’s being cracked wide apart. I don’t want this to end.
Ever.
The realisation slices through me like the sharpest blade of a knife.
‘I want to strip the dress from you and carry you to the hot tub, pull you into the water and onto my cock. I want to fuck you there, first.’
I swallow, his imagery insanely erotic, but even that isn’t enough to push my realisation from my mind.
I don’t want Nicholas to go. I don’t want ‘us’ to be over. And there is an ‘us’. Despite our insistence that this is pretend dating, like an education for me and nothing more, I have done perhaps the most stupid thing in my life.
I’ve fallen in love with him.
I fell in love with a man. It was a trap. When we started this, I thought he was the opposite of everything I wanted. He’s rich—he’s going to be a lord, for Christ’s sake—and he’s shallow. He’s meant to be, anyway, but he isn’t. He’s caring and sweet and compassionate and intelligent and fascinating and—Oh, my God.
I stop dancing for a second.
His eyes are skipping over my face. He’s going to work out something’s wrong.
‘What else?’ I start to dance again, lifting my lips into an approximation of a smile.
‘There’s a lid for every pot. You can’t fight it when you find what fits.’
Meemaw used to say it about Pa, when she was frustrated by him, but always with a smile. As if he drove her crazy but she loved him completely.
‘I want to spend some time saying goodbye to your beautiful breasts,’ he groans, his voice a whisper that sends darts down my spine. But the words cause my heart to splinter into a billion pieces, because he’s talking about saying goodbye as though he’s totally fine with this.
My eyes sweep shut, and I know, in that moment, if anyone cared to look they’d see the face of a woman whose heart is being completely shattered.
‘And this arse of yours.’
I have no idea how I hold it together. His words are making my body tremble with anticipation, but in the middle of my chest a cavity is being scraped out. I am hollow.
I am in love with a man who is wrong for me in every way. He’s moving to another country. He’s going to marry someone else and, even then, against his will—he would rather be single and continue to do what he’s been doing these last five years.
What kind of an idiot falls in love with an unavailable playboy?
I look at him—I can’t help it—and see a frown on his face. ‘Are you okay?’
Shit. I don’t even feel as if I can lie properly. ‘I’m fine. Just emotional. This event is the culmination of a lot of work.’
He visibly relaxes. ‘I can see that.’
I love Nicholas Rothsmore. I don’t know when I first started to love him, but somewhere along the way, I fell and I fell hard. It’s like being struck by lightning; how does he not feel it?
Does he feel it?
His hand at my back shifts, just a little, closer towards my arse. I blink up at him and drop his hand, stepping backwards.
He doesn’t feel it. He does this kind of thing all the time, and, even if he didn’t, he learned his lesson from the first and last woman he let himself love.
He’s built a wall around his heart that I don’t think I can chip through.
‘Imogen.’ Orla, one of the club’s Australian members, who I really like, catches me as she passes, oblivious to the explosions that are detonating inside my soul.
