Cain’s eyes narrowed, then flicked to the store behind her, his wariness plain. “I don’t want to come out of there looking like a damned Easter egg.”
Violet smiled, hearing the statement for what it was: reluctant acquiescence. She gave his arm a reassuring pat. “Your coloring isn’t suited toward pastels, so I think we’re good.”
“Oh, are we?” he said sarcastically. “Are we good?”
Violet held up her hands innocently. “It’s your move, Cain. I’m not going to drag you in there like I’m your mother and it’s time to do some back-to-school shopping.”
He snorted. “Obviously you never met my mother.”
Cain studied the storefront a moment longer, clearly having an internal war with himself. Violet wondered if those keen observational skills she’d noticed were working against him. He had to have taken note that that his worn jeans and faded T-shirt were out of place on Madison Avenue. And while he didn’t strike her as the type of man to care about what others thought, or fitting in, he also didn’t seem to be a man keen on failing.
“Do it for Edith?” Violet asked.
It was the wrong thing to say.
His expression shut down immediately, and his words were biting. “The grandmother I grew up wishing I had wasn’t the kind to make her love conditional on how I dressed.”
“Well, gosh, I’m sorry she’s not dropping everything to serve you milk and cookies,” Violet said, losing her patience with his determination to pick a fight on every front. “If you don’t care about Edith, fine, but she’s not the one you need to convince. It’s the board members. And I can tell you right now, they’re not going to vote you in if you look like you’re on your way to go fishing.”
He looked incredulous. “Fishing?”
She waved a hand. “Or whatever you like to do in your spare time.”
His expression turned smoky. “Duchess, what I like to do in my spare time is a hell of a lot more pleasurable than fishing.”
Violet gave him a cool look, unperturbed by his efforts to push her buttons.
Well, okay, no, not totally unperturbed. She kept getting wafts of his clean, soapy smell, and she liked it more than she ought. She also noticed the way his sweater molded to his sculpted arms way more than she should.
His smirk told her he at least suspected her train of thoughts.
“Fine,” Violet said with a cool smile as she started to turn away. “Keep roaming around the city dressed like my grandmother’s wallpaper.”
His fingers closed around her elbow, pulling her back around. His head dipped toward the store. “I’m not wearing pink.”
“No pink,” she agreed, crossing her heart with her pointer finger, then turning to enter the store before he changed his mind.
They both reached for the door handle, his hand closing over hers, and Violet froze at the contact, feeling absurdly preteen in her reaction to a simple touch of his hand.
To cover, she gave him a patronizing smile. “Opening doors for people. That’s a solid start on the manners front.”
He did have some. Not many, but there were hints. Sharing his coffee this morning. Holding doors. And he’d insisted on paying for breakfast and had generously tipped the waitress. More puzzling still, he’d made a point to tell the waitress thank you as they’d left the diner.
Violet tried to picture Keith even entering that diner, much less bothering to thank the waitress. Tried, and failed.
Which triggered a far more uncomfortable thought: Would Violet have thanked the waitress if Cain hadn’t first? She always said please and thank you to waitstaff at restaurants, but to go out of her way as Cain had? She wasn’t sure, and the realization was a bit jarring.
Violet stepped into the store, and they were immediately greeted by a smiling salesman. Normally that sort of forwardness annoyed her when she was just browsing, but she wasn’t just browsing, and she needed all the help she could get.
She made a quick assessment of the man who introduced himself as Jacob, relieved by his low voice and calm demeanor. Salespeople in New York could veer toward hyper, which would have lessened her chances of getting Cain to stay in the store for more than five minutes.
“Hello, I’m Violet,” she said. “This is my friend Cain.”
She thought she heard Cain snort at the word friend.
“What can I help you guys with today?” Jacob asked.
“Cain’s new to the city,” Violet said, deciding a direct approach was best, with just a touch of white lie: “He’s let me coax him into a New York makeover.”
“Very good,” Jacob said, nodding in a way that told Violet he heard everything she was saying, as well as everything she wasn’t. “Come on back.”
She started to follow, then turned and gave Cain a knowing look. “After you.”
Just in case he was thinking of bolting.