“We finished early. I’m just waiting for my date to pick me up.”
“Ah, I see. You’ll have to tell me all about it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? But I have a bottle of champagne and wanted to celebrate with you.”
“Well…” I glance outside and frown at the darkness. The storm must’ve left dark cloud-cover behind. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight-thirty. You’ve got half an hour before the masked ball starts. This could be your pre-party apéritif, as the French would say.”
“Eight-thirty! I’m sorry, Cynthia, but I have to take a rain check on the champagne. I took a nap and overslept. I still need to get a shower.”
“All right, then. We’ll catch up tomorrow, yes?”
I feel bad. I can hear the disappointment in her voice. “Absolutely. And you can tell me all about your hot date.”
“You know I will. Go get on your fancy dress and shoes. You’re going to be the belle of the ball!”
I give a very unladylike snort. “I doubt that. I don’t have double Ds or platinum blonde hair.”
“Make sure your dress shows off some leg, and you’re golden.”
“I’ll miss not having my wing-girl. Have fun, Cynthia.”
“Always. Talk tomorrow.”
Forty-five minutes later, I run my hand along the smooth French twist in my hair and weave the black-jeweled stick deep into the twist to secure it. Using the mirror, I survey the spaghetti straps and low-scooped back that drops all the way past the base of my spine. Even though the dress is black, its clingy material necessitated a pair of barely there, G-string underwear.
As I turn around to inspect the modest scoop neck in the floor length mirror on the door, the thigh-high slit up the right side reveals a lot of leg and a gorgeous, strappy metallic five-inch heel. The sexy shoes are so tall, I had to sit down to buckle the delicate straps at my ankles or risk falling over.
Once I dab on a bit of tinted lip gloss, I check the rest of my makeup. The light line of kohl around my eyes is more than I usually wear, but still understated compared to many of the girls I’ve seen over the past couple of days, including Cynthia. I slide on the gorgeous, glittery black mask the hotel included with the social itinerary they’d provided, then take one last look in the mirror. I finally look presentable.
Grabbing my small metallic clutch purse, I slip my ball invitation and phone inside and head down to the main floor. My stomach flutters as I approach the ballroom. I know it’s ridiculous considering I turned Bash down earlier, but a part of me hopes he might make an appearance tonight.
I’m a half hour late, so the ballroom is packed with three hundred or so impeccably dressed men and women in custom made tuxes and sleek designer gowns. Even the perfumes and colognes smell of rich decadence. The combination is more than I’m used to and a bit dizzying.
“Welcome, Miss Lone.” Patty Hawthorne approaches. Clasping my hand, she beams. “I’m glad you could make it. This is always our most well attended event.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hawthorne.” I touch my mask and smile. “How did you know it was me?”
She pats her perfectly coiffed white hair, her cheeks rounding out with her sweet laugh. “I’m a redhead but went white early. We redheads must stick together, dear.”
“Redheads unite!” I hook my arm in hers and let her escort me toward the dance floor.
Once we reach the outskirts of the dancing crowd, she asks, “Do you have your clues? It was on the back of your invitation.”
I quickly pull out my invitation and turn it over. Three things are typed on it: Red, Black, and Water.
Smiling, she sweeps her hand toward the people dancing. “Okay, the dance will be switching soon.”
“Switching?” I look at her in confusion.
She bobs her head. “For the first couple of hours during the ball, every few minutes you’ll switch dance partners. The clues on your invitation are specific to male guests here at Hawthorne. Two of the clues might match several of the guests, but all three should only match one guest. If you find the male guest who matches all three within the two hours, you don’t have to switch partners any more.
“At that point, you can continue to dance with him, go over to the bar and get a drink together, whatever you like. The goal of this fun event is to try to match-make our guests based on the answers they gave to the survey. And even if you don’t ever find the man who matches all three, you’ll have met several other interesting male guests in the process.”
Survey? Ugh, Aunt Vanessa must’ve filled it out for me. I can’t even imagine the type of guy I’ll end up with. I force a smile. “That sounds…interesting.”
Mrs. Hawthorne’s eyes twinkle. “I knew you’d love the mystery of it. While you’re chatting with your dance partner, work in those clues. I’m sure a woman with your deductive skills will find your match in no time.”
Glancing around, Patty stops a man with longish, light-brown hair as he’s about to step on the dance floor. “Got your clues memorized?”
When he nods, she tugs him toward me. “Here’s your first partner.”
He grins and takes my arm, guiding me through the crowd. As his hand settles at my waist, I smile and say, “That wasn’t awkward at all.”
Laughing, he pulls me into a dancing position and we begin to move to the music. “I regret that I didn’t get a chance to kiss you the other day, but at least I can dance with you now. Your dress makes the wait worth it.”
“So you like black?” I ask innocently, enjoying Mr. California’s harmless flirting.
He shakes his head. “I prefer red, but with your gorgeous hair, black is the perfect contrast on you. How about you? What’s your favorite food?”
“Actually it’s a spice. Care to guess?”
Just when he starts to answer, the announcer speaks into the mic, “Switch,” and I’m quickly swept into another man’s arms.
I manage to work in all three clues with each of my dance partners for the next forty minutes, but none of the dozen men I danced with had the answers to all three of my clues. Granted, six of them were convinced I matched all three of theirs. So much for the accuracy of Patty’s match-making method.
Overall, the men had kept their questions pretty clean. A few tried to get a little too personal with me, but I made sure they saw the engagement ring on my hand. For the most part, I enjoyed the challenge of working the clues into our conversation. Some dance partners made it easier than others, but I felt a little thrill each time I managed to get the answers to all three questions back-to-back.
As soon as the announcer calls, “Switch”, my next dance partner doesn’t approach me straight on the way the others had. Instead, I’m quickly turned around, and before I even get a chance to meet his gaze, he steps into my personal space, pressing his body to mine.
I don’t care that he’s wearing a custom tux worth more than my car. I instantly stiffen and try to pull back, ready to tell him to back-the-hell-off, but I freeze when he splays a hand against my bare lower back and bends close, his voice a smooth husk in my ear. “So we meet again, Miss Scarlett. Or should I say Miss Red? When, in this lifetime, were you going to tell me who you really are?”
Oh God, Sebastian? Sebastian. He’s here, of all places? A layer of heat quickly replaces the initial wall of ice that gripped me. My skin instantly flushes in response to his nearness, his solid build, and arousing cologne. Especially where he’s touching my back; my skin is humming. Of course, he would choose now to reappear in my life after I’ve cried myself to sleep saying goodbye to him. Holy shit!
“Why are you here?” I whisper in a harsh tone as I pull back to stare at his smooth, angular jaw and black mask.
Even as his hand slides higher along my back, pressing my chest to his, he keeps his gaze straight ahead and begins to move us to the music. “I’m here to find my match.” He briefly snaps his gaze to me, his tone lowering. “Though you and I both know the answer to that question.” His outstret
ched hand constricts around mine, his warmth sending a shiver of excitement down my spine. “Why didn’t you meet me at that coffee shop like we’d planned?”
I grip his hand on my waist as I stare at his tense jaw. “It’s hard to explain. Didn’t you get—” I start to ask if he received the box I gave his sister to give to him, but the metallic feel of a watchband underneath my fingers draws my attention. He’s wearing the watch I’d left in Mina’s safekeeping until he got back to the States. “Your sister told me you were leaving. That you were about to be deployed.”
He grips my waist with both hands as we continue to dance. “You know I’m a SEAL?”
I nod. “Mina told me the next day.”
His hands tighten around me. “You’ve kept in touch with my sister all this time, but you didn’t bother to contact me?”
The low growl in his tone instantly amps my growing edginess. “No, I haven’t kept in touch with her.” But now that he has the watch, he knows that he and I had met back when he’d sneakily slipped that very same watch into the leather coat he’d leant a freaked out thirteen-year-old. “How did you recognize me tonight? When we were together three years ago, my hair was blonde.”
He tilts his head and smirks, running a finger along my jawbone up to the bottom of my mask. “The bottom half of your face is very unique.”
I push his hand away. “No, it’s not, Sebastian. Why are you here?”
He clasps my hand and turns it over, pressing a soft kiss to my palm. “I want you to finally tell me your real name.”
Every nerve ending in my body quivers from the heat of his mouth on my skin. “Why now—”
“And I want that next day and night we never had together.”
I’m so turned on my knees almost buckle. I can’t believe he’s here, staking his claim on me all over again, as if the past three years never happened.
“Switch!” the announcer says over the mic, making me jump. Sebastian turns to the man approaching us on my left, and says in a lethal tone, “Fuck off.”
“That was unnecessary!” I say in a low voice once the guy throws his hands up and walks away, looking for another dance partner.
“Do you think for one minute that any of these men are your true match?” he says smoothly.
If we’re so match-worthy, why the hell didn’t he come after me? Yeah, I know my annoyance is irrational, but if he’s going to act all intense and possessive after three years of radio silence, I should be allowed some illogical thoughts myself. I’ll bet he came to Hawthorne like all the other single rich men, looking to get laid. But instead, he happened to see me across the room. Random coincidence at its finest.
Sebastian’s arrogance makes me want to punch him, so I glance around the room, scoping out other guys while he slowly spins me to the music. “Oh, I don’t know on the matching thing. I’ve barely scratched the surface here. The night’s still young.”
“Red, Black, and Water.” Sebastian lists the three clues as if he were reading them straight from the back of my invitation.
“How…did you know?” I blink, completely thrown.
He shrugs. “They’re my three favorite things.”
I tense in his arms. “Just because my card happened to have all three of those items doesn’t mean—”
“Aren’t you glad I found my razor, T?” He turns so his mask isn’t blocking my full view of his eyes. Two bright blue eyes stare back at me. Except the left one has a spot of brown.
“Bash?” I whisper, my steps faltering. That sense of familiarity I just couldn’t shake had been right all along. I want to bitch slap myself for discounting what I knew in my gut, but ignored. I straighten my spine, fury whipping through me and try to stop dancing, but his grip tightens as he continues to move us to the music. “Why the hell were you pretending to be someone else? What kind of mind-fuck game have you been playing with me?”
Sebastian releases a low, sarcastic laugh. “You wrote the book on hiding behind aliases. How many are you up to now? Scarlett? Red? Miss Lone? At least I’m consistent in my duplicity.”
“Consistent?” I say, trying not to let my voice get too high. All the things he’d said to me as Bash—Every. Seductive. Word—flashes through my mind. I’m so pissed even his tight hold can’t keep me from resisting. I stop dancing and glare at him. “How is pretending to be someone else entirely, consistent? I’d love to hear your answer, Bash?”
He shrugs. “It was just easier to not-be-me while I filled in for Trevor. Bash is a nickname my Navy buddies gave me. It kind of stuck. That’s what they all call me.”
“Is Trevor a SEAL too?”
Sebastian nods, then narrows his eyes. “You made sure to meet up with my sister, but you couldn’t take the time to meet me for coffee?”
“You’re mad at me?”
When I just gape at him, his tone hardens. “Three years aside, have you considered the fact that maybe I should be ticked that you didn’t recognize me as Bash?”
I had gone to meet him at the coffee shop that next day, but I ended up staying out of sight once I overheard that he was getting ready to go off on a mission. Even then, I only saw his profile. “Once you removed your mask in your bedroom that night, the lightning never shined on your whole face, so I never saw it. But despite the changes in your eyes and voice since then, I told you that you reminded me of someone.”
His jaw flexes. “And in all this time you never once tried to look me up?”
Even though he’d framed it as a question. It’s a statement. The brief hurt in his eyes knocks my righteous anger down a peg or two, but then I lift my chin high. He has no idea how hard it was for me not to look him up. “Neither did you, so we’re even.”
When he doesn’t contradict my statement, but just stares at me, tension in his jawline, I sigh. “It just occurred to me. You never did say. What is Bash’s last name?”
“Black.” Irony flashes in his eyes, his lips quirking slightly. “Consistency, Miss Lone.”
He’d taken on the name I’d given him that night at the party as his alias? When my stomach begins to flutter, I fold my arms, refusing to be drawn in by his seductive skills. “Are you really here to help Trevor?”
He rolls a shoulder. “In a manner of speaking. I’m helping here while he does some work for me. If he likes the job I’ve given him, I’ll bring him on board as a member of BLACK Security.”
BLACK Security? He named his business Black? Before I can dwell too much on that mind-blowing tidbit, I tighten my tone to keep myself focused. “Security? You said you protect assets.”
“We do. Among other things,” he says, trailing his fingers lightly down my arm.
I can’t believe he thinks I’m just going to ignore his deception over the last couple of days. I pull away from his touch. “Is there anything you said to me as Bash that wasn’t some kind of half-truth?” Before he can answer, I expel a sigh of disappointment. “I was really starting to like him.”
He stiffens as if I’ve slapped him, bright blue gaze sharpening. “Bash might’ve told you he wanted you, but he’d wait for you to come around. And we both know that never would’ve happened. I know that isn’t what you want.” He steps close until his chest touches mine. I hold my breath, hoping he can’t feel my heart thudding like I’ve run a marathon. “You want to relinquish control. For me to make you come until you beg me to stop. Me, not Bash. If that makes me a bastard for wanting that time back that you walked away from three years ago, I don’t give a damn.”
He clasps my hand and twists the ring on my finger. “Before you commit yourself to some asshole who doesn’t know jack about taking you to places you’ve never thought you’d go, I want you all to myself. Not for hours. For the rest of your time here.”
While my insides rev at the thought of days in Sebastian’s bed, he slides his fingers along my jaw, then thumbs my chin upward, forcing me to look at him. “Will you give me that time we lost? I’ve never wanted anything more.” His hold tightens slightly ag
ainst my cheek. “Let me show you what it means to be owned by your desires. To be fully kept, by me.”
Fully kept? He thinks I didn’t give myself to him completely before? Granted, he has no clue that I’ve never forgotten him, or that he’s buried so deep in my thoughts, I might as well have a “sole property of Sebastian Quinn” tattoo on my ass, but what else could he possibly have done to make me fully his? The burning question and erotic possibilities turn my insides to mush.
But all the desire in the world can’t push away the anger still simmering. Nothing about his arousing declaration changes the fact he’s lied to me for two days straight. He knew who I was, and yet he’d pretended that he didn’t. “Why didn’t you say who you were once you recognized me?”
When a stubborn look settles on his face and a muscle begins to jump along his jaw, I realize he’s not going to answer. “Fine.” I start to walk away, but my sandal’s buckle suddenly gives way, pitching me sideways into a dancing couple.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to them just as a strong arm encircles my waist.
“I’ve got you,” Sebastian says against my ear.
Balancing on only one good stiletto, I don’t have a choice but to let him lead me out of the crowd. Sebastian doesn’t say another word, other than to press me to his side once I take off the broken sandal. Instead of letting me walk on my tip-toe across the dance floor, he lifts me a few inches and carries me off the dance floor like I’m a life-sized, standup poster.
With no seats to be found in the ballroom, he carries me outside and past the elevators to an alcove with a potted plant and a console table.
“This will have to do,” he says. Setting his mask on the table, he holds his hand out. “Lean against the table and I’ll refasten it for you.”
I set my mask beside his, then hold the shoe up to inspect it. “It’s probably broken.” It turns out my shoe isn’t damaged at all. Apparently I hadn’t done a very good job pushing the tab through the tiny buckle. Wishing we could’ve found a couch or a chair so I could do it myself, I sigh and hand him my shoe.
Scarlett Red: A Billionaire SEAL Story, Part 2 (In the Shadows) Page 8
