She pulled up twenty minutes later, a to-go coffee in her hand, even though her workday was over, sliding out of the car looking just as fresh as she’d looked going to work, and I wasn’t exactly sure how that was even remotely possible.
“How’d it go?” I asked as her gaze lifted to mine.
“Cam held it together really well, but it was a lot,” she admitted. “What time is the security guy getting here? Do we have time to order something for dinner?” she asked. “Thank you,” she said, giving the doorman a smile as he opened it for us to pass through.
“We have a little time,” I told her. “It would be faster to go grab something, though, than to order it,” I said.
Turning back to me, she sucked her lower lip in slightly to nibble it and I swear to all that is holy I wanted to grab her and fuck her right against the front desk of the building, right in front of anyone who was around.
“Okay,” she agreed, nodding.
“You good in those ankle-breakers to walk?” I asked.
“Honey, I could run a marathon in my heels if I needed to,” she told me, giving me a smirk as she moved ahead of me, and I got to see that thick ass of hers for a second before I snapped myself out of it and rushed forward to go outside with her. “There’s a salad and wrap place up the block,” she told me. “I think I need something halfway healthy after eating my body weight in Chinese food last night,” she added.
“Sounds good to me,” I agreed. I could go for anything. My stomach had been grumbling for hours, objecting to just a protein bar and coffee for lunch.
“What?” I asked a few minutes later as I quickly pulled out my card before she could get her hand in her purse to find her own.
“You don’t need to pay for me,” she said, brows still a little furrowed.
“And, yet, I am going to,” I said, giving the girl behind the register a smile as I took my card back.
“I can pay for my own food,” she insisted.
“Baby doll, you have eight-hundred-dollar shoes on,” I said, watching as her brows went up at that knowledge. What can I say? When you hooked up with a few wealthy women, you were inevitably going to get dragged to a shoe store or two. “Of course you can pay for your own food. But I am doing it this time.”
I didn’t know a lot about Miranda Coulter’s early life, but I was going to put a good chunk of money on her not having grown up rich. If anything, she might have struggled. That hyper-independence, that need to take care of herself even in the most minute ways—like paying for food—spoke to her feeling like she’d spent a lot of years wanting to prove herself, to show that she belonged in the upper echelon.
That unsure look kept getting shot in my direction on the walk back to her apartment and the elevator ride up to her apartment as well.
“How many cases do you work a year?” she asked as she pulled out plates for the food.
“Honey, they’re wraps. We can eat them out of the clamshells,” I told her, shaking my head at the plates.
Hot.
Smart.
Wealthy.
Independent.
And just a little bit uptight.
I can’t express how much I wanted to show her how to loosen up in a much more mutually satisfactory way. As it was, though, I could just force her to eat out of plastic instead of a plate that probably cost fifty bucks a piece, if not more.
“Right,” she agreed. “Do you have any objections to wine glasses?” she asked, throwing me a smirk over her shoulder. “Or should we drink from plastic cups?” she added. “Do you have a preference? Red or white,” she clarified.
“Not especially. Whatever you’re in the mood for. So you don’t even slip out of those shoes at home, huh?” I asked as she clicked over toward the table.
“Not when I’m expecting company.”
Right.
She had to keep up the persona.
So no one knew she didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth.