“Come on,” he said, touching my arm. “I’ll walk you downstairs and make sure they get you a car.”
Chapter Five: Fort
I shut my office door and paced for the next half hour. Dinner? Nope. Fuck. Not what I’d intended.
Okay, it was what I intended, but why? Why had I suggested Boundless as an ad partner so I could see her again? Why had I waited anxiously for her to arrive at the conference room door?
And when she showed up, why did she have to be so damned enticing? So fucking different and new?
There were no over-the-knee socks today. She’d been dressed more conservatively, for business, but she still struck an erotic chord. Maybe it was her dark-lined blue eyes, the way they widened whenever she bit her lips, or the slow, sweet way she talked. Maybe it was the way she wore her hair in a loose chignon that begged to come down, or maybe it was the way that chignon bared her neck.
I’d wanted to bite her fucking neck in the middle of the meeting. I wasn’t usually one to obsess over biting women’s necks, but Juliet Pope made me go vampire. She’d even made me ask her out to dinner.
Bad idea.
She wasn’t a seductress. She wasn’t ballsy and crazy like Allie, and she didn’t strike me as particularly strong or confident in her sexuality. There could be no after-dinner hookup, no matter how much I ached to bite her. It would take me approximately four-point-three seconds to shock her sensibilities if I was stupid enough to unleash the sexual urges she inspired in me. There was no path forward for Juliet Pope and me.
But I’d stood behind her in the conference room as she looked out the window, and stared at her nape like I was hypnotized. I’d done my damndest to memorize her scent like some kind of stalker. When she’d turned around and looked at me, her blue eyes even more striking in the sun’s light, I’d had to work to not physically react to her gaze, to keep talking like we were only having a friendly encounter. I’d decided to work with her artist boss because I’d wanted to see her again—out of curiosity, I told myself—but now I was hooked on her eyes and neck and lips, on her freaking scent.
I had to cancel the Ivy, tell her I couldn’t get reservations tonight because they were booked. I’d leave her hanging on a follow-up date, tell her I was headed out on a trip and wasn’t sure when I’d be back. Devin could fly me somewhere, anywhere, to get her out of my head. I had her phone number from the ad campaign contact sheet, so I could text her. No need to hear her light, halting voice again, and fall for her soft southern accent.
My fingers hovered over the screen, but I didn’t send the text I started. Hi Juliet. As it turns out…
As it turns out, we were having dinner at the Ivy, even though it was a terrible idea.
Chapter Six: Juliet
I went home and took a shower, shaved everywhere, plucked my brows, painted my toenails, and tried on fifteen different outfits, then sat on my bed with my head in my hands. A minute later, I picked up my phone and composed a text.
Hi Fort. Sorry for the late notice, but I can’t meet you tonight.
As soon as I finished typing the words, I deleted them carefully so I wouldn’t accidentally send them. Then I retyped them.
Hi Fort. Sorry for the late notice, but I
Delete delete delete delete delete. I wasn’t strong enough to duck out of this dinner, not after I’d spent three hours getting ready, fantasizing about staring into his intense eyes from across the table. I went into rationalization mode. It’s not an actual date. He told me we could keep things friendly…
So I got up, put away my phone, and tried to dress in a friendly way. When Fort knocked on my door at seven-thirty, I was wearing an understated burgundy shift dress with a cropped matching sweater, and a layered glass-bead necklace. I’d done my hair in two loose French braids so it wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard. Then I let him in, and all my self-protective intentions fell away. He was perfection: sexy and handsome in a dark blue three-piece suit and a blue, diamond-patterned tie.
“Good evening, Juliet.” He reached out and touched the side of my waist, below my sweater. The contact was unexpected, and he quickly moved his hand away. “You look beautiful. I love that color. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Good. Get your coat.”
I was halfway to retrieving it when his tone of command registered. I took my coat from the back of my couch and started to shrug into it. He was suddenly behind me, helping me put it on. I turned to him as I buttoned the front, but he was looking around my small apartment. It wasn’t a glossy penthouse, that was for sure. It was messy and utilitarian, furnished with eclectic furniture.
“It’s chilly out,” he said, taking a step back toward the door. He waited with a smile while I got my matching flower-embroidered clutch, and did a last minute check for lipstick, tissues, and apartment key. He didn’t touch me as we descended the stairs, but it felt like he was touching me, because he stood so close and he was so big.
He informed me that he’d hired a driver tonight so we wouldn’t have to bother with parking. I bit my lip against vapid, flattering comments as he ushered me into the sleek sedan. Yes, we were going in a private car to have dinner at the most expensive and exclusive restaurant in Manhattan. It was a big deal for a girl who’d been raised on the poor side of Knoxville, but I didn’t think he’d want me to fawn all over him about it. Instead, we talked about real estate and traffic, and how cold it was for the middle of October, even in New York.
When we arrived at the Ivy, the driver got out to open the door for Fort, then Fort turned to assist me like I was the Queen of England and he was one of my guards. He did it so naturally, so easily, taking my hand with the perfect amount of pressure to help me out of the car. When he put a hand at the small of my back to lead me toward the restaurant, I felt that touch between my legs.
Was he interested in sex, too? Did he want me? Would he make a move at the end of the night? He had to know I wasn’t rich or suave, or as experienced as he was in the BDSM lifestyle.
“Reservation for St. Clair,” he said to the maître d’.
“Of course, Mr. St. Clair. Right this way.”
I barely caught a glimpse of the intimate, ivy-covered foyer before we were whisked past other waiting couples into the main dining room. I think I made a sound when we entered, a startled ooh or ahh. I’d heard about the unique atmosphere, the interior woodland decor, but it was something else to see it in person, to walk through branchlike bowers into intimate dining spaces bedecked with trailing ivy and fresh bunches of flowers in low, warm light.
“This place is… Wow…”
He took my arm before I walked into a table. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Beautiful wasn’t the word for it. The Ivy was magical, so magical even Goodluck would have been impressed. Vines of glossy leaves delineated dining areas of varying sizes, some already filled, some waiting for the rich clientele who had the clout to reserve a table. Lights twinkled from within the vines and flowers, tiny, delicate pinpoints of illumination. A waiter brought menus, and I scanned the gourm
et offerings.
“Does anything look good to you?” he asked.
“It all looks good. Wow, this place is just…” Wow, Jules, stop saying WOW like an idiot.
“Would you like some wine?”
“Sure, okay.” I shook myself. “I mean, no. I’m trying not to drink in stressful situations anymore, since…” I could feel the blush on my cheeks. “Since what happened that night.”
He looked surprised. “Is this a stressful situation?”
“No, it’s just…well…” My blush burned hotter. “I’m trying to make a better impression.”
“That’s right, we talked about that earlier. I won’t drink, either.”
“It’s fine if you want to.”
“I don’t.” He passed a hand over his face and smiled. “Not to belabor the night we met, but I keep thinking ‘Jewels’ when I see you.”
I fidgeted with the linen napkin in my lap. “A lot of people call me Jules.”
“I mean the sparkly kind. Maybe it’s your eyes.”
I touched my necklace, fidgeting with that too. I couldn’t stop touching things. “Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I hoped you would.”
He was great at this casual-date thing—hire a car, flatter the girl, don’t drink wine if she doesn’t want to drink wine. I tried to be classy like him. I didn’t want to be the gawking, fumbling dinner companion, but I felt out of my element. It wasn’t just the breathtaking dining room or the sky-high prices. It was Fort’s outsize presence, his naturally dominant manner—and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Our waiter stammered as he took our order, and a woman at a nearby table looked over her shoulder at my dinner companion every thirty seconds or so.
Soon after we ordered, the manager stopped by our table, delivering crystal pitchers of water with flowers floating on top. “Didn’t you find anything to your liking on our wine list, Mr. St. Clair?” he asked as he poured for us.