e wearing to this meeting will be crushed velvet. It’s making a comeback. I’m thinking periwinkle blue.
Dane: Fine. If it makes you feel better, I suppose I can pretend you didn’t make a pass at me.
Ava: Actually, you made a pass at me.
Dane: I distinctly remember someone who smelled like margarita jumping my bones.
Ava: And I distinctly remember a man with a man-bun kissing me. I’ll be at your penthouse in six hours, so be ready.
Dane: Why six hours?
Ava: I’m going to the hotel spa on my brother’s dime. And then I’m going shopping.
When I arrived at Dane’s penthouse—only forty-five minutes late—he was sitting at a desk by the windows, typing on a laptop. There was a second screen next to him and a couple of hard drives in a stack on the floor. He barely glanced up when the concierge let me in, but he was expecting me. The concierge had called up before we got in the elevator.
“What the hell is all that?” Dane said, his voice rough and annoyed.
“What do you think it is?” I led the concierge into the room, a stack of clothes folded over my arm. I directed the concierge to put the boxes and bags he was holding onto the sofa. “It’s your new wardrobe. Or part of it.” I held up a hand when he opened his mouth to argue. “You agreed, remember? The sooner we do this, the sooner I leave, or something like that.”
He grumbled something that sounded like “You’re not leaving anyway” and went back to his laptop, a scowl on his face. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a faded Batman logo on it and old jeans. His feet were bare. When he typed, the muscles in his arms moved. It was ridiculous that one man could be so nerdy and so hot at the same time.
I thanked the concierge, who had finished putting down his burden, and showed him out. Now I was alone with Dane again. This was going to be fine. Just fine.
I just had to pretend that we hadn’t kissed last night, that I hadn’t tasted him. That I hadn’t ended up on a bed with him, his tongue in my mouth and my hands in his hair. That I didn’t know now that his weight was different from before, his body bigger and harder.
“Time to get dressed,” I said, grabbing a couple of hangers.
He kept typing and didn’t look up. “There’s no way you got suits in less than a day.”
“These aren’t suits. These are pants and shirts.” I pointed at a bag of shoe boxes. “Shoes and socks.” I pointed at another bag. “Belts and ties, plus underwear.”
That made him look up. “You bought me underwear?”
“Underwear makes the outfit,” I told him. “I wear designer underwear all the time. Now, if you want to—”
“You wear designer underwear?”
“Yes, I do.” When they made it in my size, which was rarely. The best designers made a lot of size zero panties. I waved a hand at Dane’s laptop. “You can stop playing your Dungeons and Dragons video game now. We have work to do.”
A muscle in Dane’s jaw twitched beneath his beard, and his arm flexed. “I’m not playing a video game. I’m working.”
“Yes, I know, your geek stuff,” I said, though I knew Dane was a genius and I secretly found it pretty impressive. “The fact is, you’re going to meet real people, Dane. In six days. And real people require you to wear proper clothes.”
He took a moment to look me up and down. Despite the margaritas and the complete rejection last night, I felt pretty good today. I was wearing a green-and-white designer sundress, my hair tied back by a matching scarf. The dress was from last year’s spring line, which was how I got it on discount, and I’d altered the flounced hem to make it look more this year. I completed the look with hoop earrings and my usual strappy sandals, and thanks to the spa this morning, my fingers and toes were painted a lovely shell pink.
“What?” I said when the silence stretched out too long.
“You look nice,” Dane said.
The room got hotter all of a sudden. I took a breath. I could picture walking over to him, pushing away the laptop, and getting on Dane’s lap. He’d be big and warm, like he was last night. He’d ravish me like he used to do; maybe he’d even fuck me on the floor. We’d done that once, eleven years ago—had wild sex on his bedroom floor when I snuck into his room in the night, because his bedsprings would have made too much noise. Dane had put a pillow under my butt, because he was a gentleman.
There was no way I should have orgasmed, having sex on a bedroom floor with a pillow under my ass. But I had.
I’d been drunk last night, but not that drunk. I’d known exactly what was happening. And I’d been serious when I asked Dane not to go. But he had.
I cleared my throat and turned back to the clothes on the sofa. “Do you like sushi?” I asked, picking out a shirt and a pair of dress pants.
I glanced back over my shoulder to see Dane closing his laptop and frowning. “I’ve never had it. It’s raw fish, right?”