But hopefully not for long.
Mal opened the door to Halsey when he came to collect her, voice rising to a semi-hysterical scream that had Lenny quitting her room with only one shoe on.
Mal barreled past. “He got me tickets to Mean Girls. It’s for tonight. I have to call Ginny.”
Halsey stood in the hallway, and her heart plumped at the sight of him. “You got her theater tickets?”
In Mal’s room there was more shrieking as she called Ginny.
He held up three fingers. Three tickets. “I’m not being subtle. I want you to myself for as long as you’ll give me tonight.”
Mal reappeared stuffing clothes in an overnight bag. “Ginny’s mom can take us. This is the best thing ever.” She leapt at Halsey and hugged him then made for the door and stopped.
For an insane moment, Lenny thought she was going to ask permission, but Mal said, “Oh I get it.” She turned around, grinning. “Go crazy, kids, but get enthusiastic consent and use protection. And don’t worry, I’ll stay the night at the Ginny’s, and I won’t hurry home.”
She left them standing there, Lenny with one shoe on and Halsey with a flush along his jawline that made her want to skip the emeralds and get straight down to the seduction.
“That was straight up the most devious and delicious thing anyone has ever done for me,” she said. He’d guaranteed them a whole night and a morning together, and her internal organs responded by squeezing in delight.
“Can I assume I have your consent to blow past all the bases, strip you of your finery, and take you to bed?”
She turned to go back to her room to get her other shoe, tossing, “I’ll think about it,” over her shoulder and being rewarded by his throaty chuckle.
“You’re so sexy when you limp,” he said.
Every fiber of Lenny’s body reacted to that, the humor, the affection in his voice, the desire on his face when she turned to flip him off. She had to collect herself with a couple of deep breaths before she rejoined him appropriately shod and ready to go.
They didn’t kiss, but the want of it danced in his fingertips as they played at her waist and on her arm. At the cocktail party, he kept her body close to his, a hand in hers, his chest at her back, his voice close and conspiratorial in her ear. He was lucky she simply didn’t melt at his feet.
They admired the emeralds. Halsey put in a bid for an Ossovian green, a color so vibrant and rich it reminded Lenny of stained glass windows in old churches and Midori Sours. It was the color of renewal.
But there was business to attend to before the pleasure of turning to each other.
“Watch,” Halsey said.
They both witnessed an attractive older woman in a silver sheath-style dress holding a champagne flute walk backward and stumble into Cookie Jar. Cookie Jar caught her before she fell and produced a green handkerchief the woman used to mop her skirt. What should’ve been a quick embarrassing encounter that stopped the conversation and made the prime minister’s security team step forward, turned into a significant discussion.
“What am I watching?” she asked.
“That was no ordinary stumble. That’s my mom. Without you, PowerPoint Girl, I’d have needed some trick like that. Mom is congratulating our erstwhile prime minister on his purchase of the Kandinsky, praising his taste and his financial savvy, and right about now”—he turned them abruptly, so they were no longer facing the scene—“she’s telling him about her latest investment in cryptocurrency.”
In the glass display cabinet in front of them, Lenny could see Halsey’s mom gesturing to them.
The whole thing was staged and slippery and like something out of movie. She leaned into her beautiful rogue and didn’t care he was a criminal, because he was going to take the bad guy down, and if the quality of their heavy petting was to be believed, give her a bunch of orgasms. “What happens now?”
Halsey kissed her hand. “I have to leave you. Go congratulate him on his purchase, acknowledge he beat me to the Kandinsky, make him feel victorious, and drop some mentions of my club.”
“You have a club?” Why did she bother sounding surprised by that?
“I will have when we build it.”
If he could fake an auction house, he could fake a private club. “I should be appalled.”
“You’re saving it up for later.”
Much later, please, make it much later. “He’ll want to join to get access to more people to rip off.”
Halsey brushed a hand over her hip and across her waist to hug her against him, making her pulse swing off the chandelier. “He wants the cryptocurrency investment. He’ll ask for it. I’ll palm him off by dangling a donation. He’ll join the club and pay a huge fee, because he thinks it will get him one step closer to what I won’t let him have, and when the club turns out to be a fake like the donation and the painting, he has no