“By the time I’m practicing rheumatology,” she’d shared with me, “I’ll be getting paid a whack and it’ll be all mine. I’ll buy myself a BMW and a big house in Cherry Hills and I’ll do it right off the bat because I won’t have student loans. So they can think what they want. They can also kiss my ass.”
I, obviously, could not fault this way of thinking.
“Black on black, but also some silver,” I advised. “Subtle but packs a punch.”
“I’m not sure my powers with a glue gun are up to scratch,” she replied.
“Take it off. Rinse it out and give that bitch to me,” I told her. “I’m hell on wheels with a glue gun and I’ll set you up.”
She grinned at me as a knock came at the door.
I looked that way as Chardonnay called, “Just a minute.” Her next was, “Okay, decent.” And I turned to her and saw she’d thrown on a robe.
I also saw she was staring at the door with big eyes and lips parted.
I looked again to the door and then I had big eyes and parted lips.
Oh hell.
Marcus Sloan dipped his chin to Chardonnay and looked to me.
“Daisy, may I have a word?” he asked.
No, he could not.
“I’ll just—” Chardonnay started.
“You can stay here,” Marcus told her. “Daisy and I’ll go to Smithie’s office.”
No, we would not.
“I don’t think—” I began.
I got no more out because his eyes came to me.
He’d never looked at me without sunglasses on.
He had blue eyes.
They were gorgeous.
They were also more.
Those eyes had seen many things. Not a lot of them good. And quite a number of those not-good things were very bad.
I got that. Boy did I get that.
But there was even more.
Another person might find his eyes frightening, that seen it all and didn’t give a shit about any of it look that wasn’t cold and impersonal, just cynical and sly.
I did not find it frightening.
I found it captivating.
He took a step into the room but lifted his arm to the side to indicate the door and said in an invitation that wasn’t exactly that, it was more a command, “Daisy.”
There was something about the mix of his gentlemanly manner and his commanding tone (and, let’s face it, presence) that made me lift my ass off the chair I was sitting on and move his way.
He was not an obstacle to getting out the door so he didn’t move.
However, he did move after I cleared it because he followed me.
Then he put his hand light on the small of my back.
No pressure. Just a touch.
Even at “just a touch,” I felt my shoulders get tight. But I didn’t want to expose my reaction, give him something to read about me, make him think I was afraid or protecting myself, especially after what he knew happened to me and the fool I’d made of myself at Wash Park.
And as we walked down the hall, into the club, and toward the stairs that led up to Smithie’s office, my tension at being touched became something else as the feel of the touch penetrated.
He wasn’t pushing me. He wasn’t guiding me.
He was a gentleman walking a lady through a strip club the way a gentleman should, regardless it was a strip club in which she was a stripper.
I started feeling funny again.
His touch left me as we climbed the stairs and I was embarrassingly aware that I was still slightly stiff from what had happened to me, not to mention my ass might be in line with his eyes.
I motored right through that and stopped at the top landing outside the door, looking down as he climbed the last two steps.
He put his hand right to the handle and murmured, “Smithie isn’t here.”
He pushed the door open but didn’t move.
He waited there and did it with his eyes on me.
It was then I realized he wanted me to go in before him.
He’d opened the door.
For me.
I started feeling funnier and quickly walked into the office.
I didn’t go far, stopping in the middle and turning to him.
He didn’t go far either, but oddly, he stepped away from the door and moved across the space.
In other words, he wasn’t barring me in. If I wanted to leave, I had a straight shot. He wasn’t in my way.
Oh my.
“We have plans.”
I focused on him and not my thoughts.
“Pardon?”
“Lunch. Today. You. And me. We have plans.” The words were short. Impatient. But even so, not unkind.
I didn’t know how he pulled that off but I didn’t put too much thought into it.
I had to get this done. He was my boss (kind of). He was also an important man. I didn’t know that outside of the fact I knew that and I couldn’t forget it for a second.
So if he wanted “a word,” I had to give it to him.
And then get away.
“No we don’t.”
“Our last meeting didn’t go as I’d hoped but I had thought I’d made my intentions clear,” he replied.
I didn’t know how to respond to that because he had, I just didn’t get it nor did I want it.
All of a sudden, a change came over him, and even though it softened his features, warmed the cynicism clean out of his eyes, I still felt the tension in my shoulders increase.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Uh, yeah,” I answered normally.