Sofia. I want you to walk into that cocktail party looking beautiful and feeling like you’ve got the world at your feet because you are and you do. I can see it. I want everyone else—including you—to see it, too.” His fingers laced with hers, pulling her in. She was powerless to let go of him. “What I don’t want is for you to feel like you’ve lost control. If you start to panic, call me immediately, okay?” When she didn’t answer right away, he said, “Let me take care of you,” in an even softer voice.
It simply wasn’t fair of him to make her fall a little in love with him in the middle of a damned upscale department store. But that’s what happened. Eric Jenner was a sinfully rich, sinfully handsome bachelor and for some inexplicable reason, he cared about her. He understood her panic attacks. He gave her a chance. He made her smile. He made things better. How could she not fall for him? “All right.” It came out husky and low and not at all like her normal voice. But then, there wasn’t exactly anything normal about any of this.
His eyes darkened as his gaze dropped to her lips and without conscious choice, she licked them under his watchful eye. He inhaled sharply and then abruptly he stepped away from her, dropping her hand like it was hot. “I’ll…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’ll be in the menswear department.”
And with that parting shot, he turned on his heel and strode off. All Sofia could do was watch him go. Her hand was still warm from where they’d been skin to skin and she had to fight the ridiculous urge to run after him.
Clarice appeared at her elbow. “Are you ready?” she asked, her voice crisp.
It took real effort to tear her gaze away from where Eric’s back was disappearing down the stairs. Once again, he was putting a great deal of faith in her.
If he wanted to be surprised, then that’s what she’d give him.
“I think so.”
But when they made it back to a private fitting room, there were more than just a few cocktail dresses waiting. There were racks and racks of clothing, including business suits and shoes and even underwear. “What is all this?” Sofia asked, pressing her hand to her chest in alarm.
“When Mr. Jenner and I spoke on the phone, he made it clear that you would need to be outfitted for a cocktail party, business meetings and travel,” Clarice said, smiling in a way that was probably supposed to be reassuring. “Isn’t that what you two discussed?”
“Um…” He hadn’t said anything about suits or traveling clothes. This was supposed to be a dress. One dress. Not an entire wardrobe. “How many outfits are we talking about here?”
Clarice didn’t hesitate. “Two business suits, two evening outfits and two traveling outfits. Mr. Jenner made it clear that you were to be outfitted and accessorized from head to toe.”
Sofia’s heart began to hammer in her chest. This was too much. What part of six damned outfits that he hadn’t even discussed with her was making sure she didn’t feel like she was losing control?
She opened her mouth to refuse it all—the carte blanche, the outfits, Clarice’s knowledgeable assistance—and then she remembered what Eric had said as he’d held her hand and leaned toward her. He wanted to do this for her because he knew she was beautiful and he wanted her to believe it, too.
She closed her eyes and made sure she was still breathing. Oh, this was dangerous, that she was even considering this. She didn’t just want to surprise him when she walked into that cocktail party and she didn’t just want to look like she fit.
She wanted to feel pretty again.
She wanted to make Eric’s brain stop functioning.
“Can you make me look great? Like, really great?”
Clarice’s eyes lit up. “It would be my pleasure.”
Sofia was a mess of nerves. She hadn’t been able to eat breakfast and hadn’t slept more than twenty or thirty minutes at a time last night. For once, it had nothing to do with the twins teething.
Her luggage, packed with five different outfits and three pairs of shoes for a three-day trip, stood by the front door, waiting. Eric was going to pick her up sometime in the next fifteen minutes and drive her to the airport. From there, he, Sofia and the Nortons would fly in Eric’s private jet to St. Louis.
She was doing this. She was going away for a weekend with Eric. Business trip be damned. She had sexy lingerie in her bag, far too beautiful to keep hidden underneath clothes.
No, no—she wasn’t nervous about that. Eric wasn’t going to see her panties. She was just…nervous about flying. She’d been on an airplane exactly twice in her life, flying to and from Cancún for her honeymoon with David. She hadn’t liked it then, and that had been a big plane. Eric’s jet wasn’t much more than a puddle jumper.
In fact, the only thing keeping her from a full-on panic attack was the fact that she was being mobbed by adorable babies.
“Are you going to miss me when I’m gone?” she asked, sitting on the floor with both Addy and Eddy on her lap. Eddy’s lip began to tremble. “I’ll come back,” she promised. “I always come back, don’t I? You’ll have a lot of fun with Abuelita and Abuelito. Story time at the library, a trip to the park—”
“Pak!” Eddy yelled, flopping off her lap and toddling over to where his shoes were.
Sofia laughed. The boy would sell his sister for a swing set. “Later,” she said. “When Miss Rita gets here, you can go to the park.” Rita was a new addition to their routine, a young woman who reminded Sofia of what Rosa must’ve been like twenty or thirty years ago. Rita was a first-generation Mexican American, taking night classes, already working one part-time job and now helping out with the twins in the mornings.
Watching Rosa Cortés with Rita was a little like watching Mrs. Jenner buy dresses for Sofia when she had been a girl. Mom went out of her way to make extra food that Rita could take home because she wouldn’t have time to get anything before class. Mom often had a sweater or a dress that she’d bought because she’d thought it would fit, but when she got it home it didn’t—and it just happened to be in Rita’s size.
Sofia was just glad Mom liked Rita and seemed to embrace her help with the twins. Sofia worried less about her parents now that there was backup.
That didn’t make it any easier to leave her babies, though. Addy snuggled into Sofia’s lap, her thumb in her mouth. Sofia stroked her daughter’s hair, savoring this moment of closeness. God, she was going to miss them. But she wasn’t going to cry. She swallowed hard a few times as she breathed in Addy’s sweet baby smell. No crying allowed.
But was it wrong she was excited about this weekend trip? She was going to have a hotel room all to herself at the Chase Park Plaza, with room service and no one to wake her up in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t have to cook or clean. She had two new dresses that made her feel beautiful and the company of a man who made her want more than she could even dream about.
She had no right to dream of him, but that hadn’t stopped her from wondering if he’d wear a tux to this party. Or how he’d look if she reached up and tugged on that bow
