“Yes. I’m fine. I promise.” I could see her husband tapping his foot impatiently. “I’m just going to wish the couple well, and then I’m going too.”
It took a bit more reassurance, but finally I convinced her I’d be all right by myself.
After she left, I realized that standing in the corner felt more awkward alone. I looked around the nightclub. There was music playing, but it wasn’t the kind for dancing. All the guests were standing around in groups talking and munching on fancy appetizers. I didn’t recognize anyone. The few people I’d met at the office had already said hello and left. It was getting late, and Donovan still hadn’t arrived. There was no point in my sticking around. Either I needed to seek out Weston and give him my well wishes—the thought made me groan inwardly—or else I just needed to go.
I sighed and finished my drink. Then I placed it on a tray as a waiter walked past, and that’s when I felt it—felt him. Donovan. I didn’t turn around, but I could tell he was close behind me. I knew it as sure as I knew anything. His presence was as heavy and thick as molasses, and any intention I had of leaving was immediately thrown out the window. It would be impossible to leave now. I couldn’t wade through molasses in these heels.
But where was he? What was he waiting for?
Seconds passed by like hours, and finally he came up next to me, leaving no more than three inches, two maybe, between our shoulders. “The way that dress fits you…” he said, his voice husky. “I see now why Weston hired you.”
The grit in his tone felt like the perfect pumice stone, smoothing edges of me that had been rough for as long as I could remember.
But his actual words were a slap in the face.
Another fucking dig at my qualifications. As if the only reason I deserved to be at Reach was because I looked good in an evening gown.
And then there was the other reason his statement was problematic. Because it was wrong, and—even though it did things to my insides when he’d said it, made my belly tighten deep and low—I couldn’t let it slide by without addressing it. Once upon a time I would have let rich boys get away with shit like that. I had let rich boys get away with much worse. Not anymore.
I spun to face him, to tell him off and felt the wind slammed out of my lungs. He was so damn handsome in his tuxedo with satin lapels, his bow tie sharp and centered, his face still dusted with scruff. I nearly forgot what I was going to say.
I dragged my focus up from the tempting curve of his lips to his eyes, which were more green than brown tonight, and swallowed. “I’m not sure if you meant that as a compliment, but I am sure it’s sexual harassment.”
Donovan’s mouth lifted into a slow grin. “Oh, but sexual harassment used to be our thing.”
The acknowledgement of the past we’d shared knocked me off-balance. Made me dizzy. I hadn’t expected it, and it was a point for him in a game I wasn’t even sure how to play.
It was, on the other hand, the opening I needed to say the things—all the things, any of the things—if I could just figure out which to lead with. If I could just figure out how to speak at all.
But before I could manage to stop gaping like an idiot, Donovan leaned close and said quietly, “Close your mouth, Sabrina. Though I love imagining ways to fill it, we’re about to have company.” He straightened. Louder, he said, “Weston, Elizabeth. The stars of the show.”
My jaw clamped shut, my cheeks reddening as if I were harboring a flame inside my mouth.
In a daze, I twisted to find Weston with his arm wrapped around a young redhead with bright eyes and a big smile.
“Elizabeth, you know Donovan,” he said formally. “And this is Sabrina Lind, our new director of marketing strategy.”
“Delightful to meet you.” She nodded to me while Weston glanced covertly around us. “It’s so fascinating to see how my love—”
Seeming to be satisfied with what he saw, he cut her off. “No one’s watching. And Sabrina knows.”
“Oh thank god.” Elizabeth Dyson dropped Weston’s arm. “If I have to gush about him a minute longer I might have to throw up.”
Donovan gazed admiringly at the bride-to-be. “Elizabeth, I think you and I might get along better than I once thought.”
So it appeared the newly engaged pair weren’t getting on so smashingly. Even still ruffled, I found this amusing. Just desserts.
Okay, maybe I was a little bitter.
“I told you, Kincaid, this deal was really better suited for you and me. I can’t believe you turned down the offer.” Elizabeth flirted openly with Donovan, seeming not to notice Weston’s exaggerated roll of the eyes.
“You were up for the nomination of groom?” I couldn’t meet Donovan’s eyes as I asked, and I found myself looking down, which wasn’t helpful because I ended up glancing toward his crotch.
Quickly, I looked back at Weston. Then at Elizabeth in case looking at Weston made it seem like I was pining for Weston. Then at my shoes in case it looked like I was trying too hard when I looked at her and because I didn’t want anyone to see how I reacted to Donovan’s response to my question.
I’d second-guessed myself several times in the last few days about the revelation that he had arranged the whole fake marriage and whether or not it had anything to do with me. It was easier on my nerves to think I was being ridiculous, but if it didn’t have anything to do with me, then why hadn’t he volunteered to play the part himself?
“No one would ever believe I’d get married,” he said dismissively. “Besides, Weston looks much better on Elizabeth’s arm.”
I looked up to see Weston shoot daggers in Donovan’s general direction. Then, with an overly bright smile, he addressed me. “Sabrina, you’re absolutely stunning.”
“Thank you.” I eyed Donovan, indicating how a compliment was supposed to be given and caught him eyeing me with what I guessed was supposed to say See, what I mean?
Elizabeth surveyed me from head to toe and nodded approvingly. “She is gorgeous, Kincaid. You make quite an attractive couple.”
“We’re not a couple,” I said quickly at the same time that Weston said, “They’re not a couple.”
Weston and I exchanged glances. I knew what it looked like—like we were still holding out for each other, and maybe that’s why he’d rushed to clarify I wasn’t with Donovan, but it hadn’t been why I’d rushed to clarify.
I’d rushed because there was no way, no how, I could get mixed up with Donovan again. Not now. Not ever.
“You’re here alone?” Elizabeth asked Donovan, her eyebrow raised in surprise.
“I’m not.”
My muscles tensed in…what? Like hell I was jealous. But I was something. It hadn’t occurred to me that Donovan would have a date. He might even have a girlfriend. Or a fiancée of his own. And if any of that were the case, why was he playing around with me? But why had he ever played around with me?
I was confused. That’s what I was. And irritated.
“Sabrina is from Weston’s stable,” Donovan said next, and then I was also pissed.
“You are a fucking asshole.” Weston scowled.
I was too shocked to say anything. He couldn’t really mean what I thought he meant. Could he?
“Ah,” Elizabeth said, understanding clearly. “Recent?”
“The most recent, I believe. Last significant girl he spent any time with before you, anyway.”
He did mean what I thought he meant.
Jesus Christ.
Referring to Weston’s girlfriends as horses was not only misogynistic and demeaning, it was also just plain shitty.
“Huh.” Elizabeth looked from Weston to me. Looked at the way Weston looked at me. “I might want in on that pool after all. What were the terms?”
Weston ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not going to fuck around.”
His date—the probable cause for his messed-up style—winked at Donovan. “We’ll talk later.”
“Fuck off,” Westo
n muttered, doing another scan around the room. “People are watching us. Better play cozy.” Without looking at her, he took her hand. “Is it you who wants to fuck around? Is that why you keep bringing up concerns about me?”
She rolled her eyes, but something in her expression had tightened. “It was just a joke. You’re so sensitive about everything I say.”
“Everything you say is a criticism.”
“Everything you do is stupid.”
Weston swung his head toward her. “Anyone told you lately you’re a bitch?”
“Not since the last time you told me, which was, I think, oh, twenty minutes ago.”
“There’s the happy couple!” exclaimed an older gentleman from a few feet away.
“Ah, shit,” Elizabeth swore as she put on a grin. “Mr. Jennings!”
Weston grabbed Donovan’s shoulder and whispered, “Pray for me. I beg of you.”
“I’m not religious, man. You’re on your own.” Donovan clapped him on the back and sent the “couple” on their way. “Maybe we should feel sorry for them,” he said, looking after the two. Then, after a moment, “Nah.”
No. Definitely no.
So Weston had gotten a handful with his engagement to Elizabeth Dyson. Too bad. I had my own problems, or problem, namely Donovan Kincaid.
Alone again, I turned to confront him and found his attention across the room. I followed his gaze to an elegant Asian woman sitting near the bar chatting with a few other people. When Donovan looked at her, she waved.
I glanced back at him. His features had hardened, but he nodded at her.
My gut tightened, and all the definitive things I’d meant to say disappeared from my thoughts once again. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Sun? No, she’s just a girl I like to fuck.”
He said the word fuck, and suddenly I was there, back in that office all those years ago, pushed against the bookcase with his body pressed into mine. It was one of those images that had stayed hidden during my waking hours for so long, and now it snuck up, crippling me with its potency.
“She’s beautiful,” I said, and I felt like I wanted to cry because my want was so powerful. Because, in that moment, I wanted to be beautiful like her. Wanted to be the beautiful girl he liked to fuck.
“You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?” Donovan was a foot away, but I could imagine the feel of his breath along my skin as I craned my neck up for him.
“What?” I was still staring in Sun’s direction.
“Me fucking her.”
I snapped out of my trance. “No!”
“Your body gives you away.”
I wasn’t wearing a bra, and I knew exactly which part of my body gave me away. Thank god he couldn’t see the way my heart was thumping in my chest or the liquid pooling between my legs.
But what was I going to say? No, I’m not imagining you fucking her; I’m remembering you fucking me. It was just as terrible. It was worse, even.
“I’m not offended,” he said. “I usually spend events like this thinking about it too. Planning what I’ll do to her later on. Wondering what color panties she’s wearing.” He closed the distance between us, and now I really could feel his breath against my collarbone as he whispered, “Tonight, I’ll admit, I find I’m a bit distracted.”
I inhaled him, breathed in that familiar smell of cologne and musk and his mouth was so close that all I had to do was turn and lift my chin. Would he kiss me? Did I want him to?
I stepped back, jolted aware by the question. Even asking it made me feel weak, let alone if I tried to answer.
My knees felt soft, like I couldn’t remember how to put weight on them, and I wobbled, but I didn’t fall. “I’m not sure what you want me to say to you right now.”
Donovan studied me carefully. “I’m not entirely sure either,” he admitted.
“Are you ready to go?” Sun asked. I hadn’t even noticed her approach. She was more alluring up close. Her lips were full, her posture sure. She looked familiar, but it might have been because she had the kind of confidence that made her appear important.
I stared at Donovan, certain desperation was apparent in my expression. He couldn’t leave now.
He looked right at me when he answered her. “I am.”
Sun linked her arm through his, and he escorted her out. Without an introduction. Without even a goodbye.
Chapter 12
I lingered a few minutes after Donovan and his date had gone before leaving the party myself, but apparently not long enough. They were still at the curb waiting for his car when I walked outside into the cool September night.
I hung back so I could watch them without being noticed. She’d dropped his arm, and the two of them didn’t even touch. It was as if they barely knew each other, let alone liked each other. Honestly, Elizabeth and Weston seemed friendlier than Donovan and Sun did. Maybe fake dates were a thing around here.
I chuckled to myself at the joke.
Then I stopped laughing.
Had he hired her?
He’d only been at the party for, what? Twenty minutes? Why did he even show up? To make sure I was there? To make sure I saw he had someone when I had no one?
I was reaching, making everything about me. It was pathetic and I knew it. Donovan had come to show support for his business partner’s engagement extravaganza. If Donovan wasn’t friendly with Sun, it was because he didn’t have to be nice to her to fuck her. And he would fuck her. I was sure of it. Who wouldn’t fuck her?
Someone walked up to Sun and seemed to ask her something, then handed her a pen and paper. Asking for her autograph, it seemed.
That’s where I’d recognized her. She was a model. I was pretty sure she’d even done some ads with Reach clients. It was probably how Donovan knew her. Of course that was the type of woman he’d date, even casually. A gorgeous, sophisticated model. The kind of woman I could never compare to.
Not that I was trying.
“Need a cab, miss?” The doorman at The Sky Launch asked.
“Oh, yes. Sorry.” I still didn’t want to be seen, but I figured it was safe now that Donovan’s car had pulled up. As the doorman whistled for a taxi, I dallied by the club entrance, watching as Sun slid in the backseat of the Jaguar first, then as Donovan climbed in after. When the car eased into traffic, I stared after them as long as I could and saw Sun close the distance between her and Donovan, practically crawling into his lap.
I didn’t care, and I did all at the same time. He could do what he wanted. It made no difference to me. I didn’t care who he dated or liked or fucked. But in a different time, in a different place, I did care because back then, Donovan had stained all my thoughts, not just the ones I hid away at night.
And now he was pulling me back to that time and place, making my mind face the past, forcing memories and fantasies to merge together in a nonstop reel of filth.
And he was going to fuck her.
And I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt lonelier.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long for a taxi. I gave the cabbie my address. As an afterthought, I asked, “Could you take me to a liquor store on the way?”
While New York City was lined with liquor stores on the way from Columbus Circle to my apartment, finding one where a cab could wait outside was nearly impossible. So when we passed one a few blocks away, I paid the driver, and he said he’d drive around and come back for me.
I suspected that was the last I’d see of him, but fine. I’d just catch another.
Inside the store, I passed the vodka and gin. I wasn’t a big drinker, but if I were to indulge, it would usually be a martini or a vodka tonic. That wasn’t what I had a hankering for tonight.
It took a minute for me to find what I was looking for since I’d never purchased whiskey, but I found it in the back, high up. There was an entire shelf dedicated to scotch—single malts, blended varieties. Each had a price tag to suggest that someone considered it to be quite superior, but hell if
I knew which was a good brand.
I ended up choosing a Macallan because it had a name I could pronounce. A pricier bottle because that was more likely what Donovan kept at the office.
Outside, I flagged a taxi and was surprised to find it was the same one I’d been in before.
“Scotch?” the driver asked when he saw the box in my hand. “Figures you were a lady with refined taste.”
More like I was a girl with dirty taste—a dirty taste in thoughts and a dirty taste in my mouth. Hopefully getting loaded on scotch would clean up at least one of the two.
In my apartment, I kicked off my heels and stripped out of my dress so I was just in my panties and then found a tumbler in the kitchen for my scotch.
“Just this once,” I said to the empty room, lifting my glass up as if giving a toast. “Just tonight.”
I drank the first glass quickly, letting the burn of the alcohol scald away any lingering reservations. By the time I poured the second glass, I was fully on board with my plan. What would it hurt? It was only one night, in the shelter of my own apartment.
Donovan’s apartment, I reminded myself, and the thought made my nipples bead, as though he were secretly watching me. As though—because his name was on the building’s deed—he might own my privacy as well. It changed the way I moved.
The way I reached up to put away the scotch bottle was for him. The way I bent over to pick up my dress was for him. For his eyes.
Then, when I undressed completely and stepped into the bath, that was for him too.
That was what I imagined, anyway. That was what I was allowing just once, just tonight—this game, this fantasy. While I often used Donovan to calm myself from nightmares and panic attacks brought on from memories of my sexual assault back in college, it had been years since I’d let myself think of him just because.
For a while it had become too common. Those obscene thoughts had been my friends in the months after my attack. But then it had gone too far. I’d let Donovan go too far. After that, I’d banished those sick fantasies to the darkness where they belonged.
But tonight, alone and a little bit drunk, I soaked in the hot water and I imagined that he was with me, watching as I pinched my nipples, pulling them until they hurt and made the space between my legs throb.
Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2) Page 11
