especially fond of these kinds of events.”
“Why is that?”
His expression went ice-cold, hard, his lips, sensual before, thinned into a flat line. “Old memories. The past has never been my favorite place.”
It was the first time she’d seen him falter. Sure, she’d made him angry before, but even then, he’d had control over what he’d displayed.
The chill that came over him now wasn’t anything like what she’d seen of him before. It seemed more real. And a whole lot scarier.
“Right, well, me, either. High school basically sucked. I had braces and zits and these really thick glasses…”
“Sounds like it was tough,” he said, clearly not of the opinion that it was. “But it’s time to go.”
But he had no idea. No idea what it was like to feel like an outsider, not just in school, but at home. To have your mother pay a guy behind your back to be your date. And to have that date…that date that still had a twenty from yourmom in his wallet, try to force you into sex, then hit you when you said no.
No, he didn’t know about that. And he didn’t need to. It didn’t matter anyway. Because now she understood, understood that normal wasn’t so shiny and perfect. That normal and “functional” didn’t really mean anything at all. Because somehow everyone had thought that a guy who would try to rape his date was normal, while those same people were convinced something was wrong with her.
It hadn’t left her with much confidence in people.
She nodded slowly and he looped his arm through hers. They went back into the ballroom and she felt like all eyes were on them, which they doubtlessly were. They’d just very conspicuously gone out to the balcony for fifteen minutes, and now Ferro was rushing them through the crowd at a speed that spoke of urgency.
Oh, yes, they had earned the stares.
She’d never been big in the dating scene, so it was an interesting experience being on the arm of a guy like Ferro.
Well, since becoming a billionaire she’d had more than a few guys after her, but they were all the same. Gorgeous, dumb, lazy and in possession of very little knowledge of the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy. In short, totally worthless to her.
But they didn’t count. They didn’t even have the decency to want her for her body. Just her money. And that wasn’t exactly a turn-on.
Of course, her for-show kiss with Ferro should not have been a turn-on, but darned if she wasn’t just a little on the turned-on side of things. Pulse racing, breasts aching. Yeah, turned on, for sure.
She hoped her heated cheeks weren’t as pink as she was imagining them, and followed Ferro out of the ballroom and to the front of the hotel, where his limo was already waiting.
“Nice work, Calvaresi—texted your driver did you?”
“I have an app that lets me send down a brief alert when I need to be picked up. It even gives my location to the driver. Just in case over the course of the evening I wind up in a different place than where he dropped me off.”
She got in, and Ferro slid in beside her. “Oh, like if you bar hop or something?”
His smile turned naughty. “Or something.”
Oh. Yes. That. The going back to a random hotel with a random woman. Strange, considering the reputation Ferro had as a legendary lover, that he wasn’t actually photographed with women all that often.
She frowned. “Right.”
“Now, don’t look jealous,
cara
, those other women, they meant nothing.” He wasn’t being sincere. He wasn’t even trying to look sincere, and yet her body, her heart, which, she swore skipped a beat, didn’t seem to care.
She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. All the better to keep from reaching out and touching him again. “It’s almost frightening how full of crap you are.”
“Excuse me?”
“The smile.” She punctuated that with a wide, cheesy grin of her own. “The pickup lines. You’re very good at it, Ferro. It’s easy to forget that it’s all a show and
“Why is that?”
His expression went ice-cold, hard, his lips, sensual before, thinned into a flat line. “Old memories. The past has never been my favorite place.”
It was the first time she’d seen him falter. Sure, she’d made him angry before, but even then, he’d had control over what he’d displayed.
The chill that came over him now wasn’t anything like what she’d seen of him before. It seemed more real. And a whole lot scarier.
“Right, well, me, either. High school basically sucked. I had braces and zits and these really thick glasses…”
“Sounds like it was tough,” he said, clearly not of the opinion that it was. “But it’s time to go.”
But he had no idea. No idea what it was like to feel like an outsider, not just in school, but at home. To have your mother pay a guy behind your back to be your date. And to have that date…that date that still had a twenty from yourmom in his wallet, try to force you into sex, then hit you when you said no.
No, he didn’t know about that. And he didn’t need to. It didn’t matter anyway. Because now she understood, understood that normal wasn’t so shiny and perfect. That normal and “functional” didn’t really mean anything at all. Because somehow everyone had thought that a guy who would try to rape his date was normal, while those same people were convinced something was wrong with her.
It hadn’t left her with much confidence in people.
She nodded slowly and he looped his arm through hers. They went back into the ballroom and she felt like all eyes were on them, which they doubtlessly were. They’d just very conspicuously gone out to the balcony for fifteen minutes, and now Ferro was rushing them through the crowd at a speed that spoke of urgency.
Oh, yes, they had earned the stares.
She’d never been big in the dating scene, so it was an interesting experience being on the arm of a guy like Ferro.
Well, since becoming a billionaire she’d had more than a few guys after her, but they were all the same. Gorgeous, dumb, lazy and in possession of very little knowledge of the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy. In short, totally worthless to her.
But they didn’t count. They didn’t even have the decency to want her for her body. Just her money. And that wasn’t exactly a turn-on.
Of course, her for-show kiss with Ferro should not have been a turn-on, but darned if she wasn’t just a little on the turned-on side of things. Pulse racing, breasts aching. Yeah, turned on, for sure.
She hoped her heated cheeks weren’t as pink as she was imagining them, and followed Ferro out of the ballroom and to the front of the hotel, where his limo was already waiting.
“Nice work, Calvaresi—texted your driver did you?”
“I have an app that lets me send down a brief alert when I need to be picked up. It even gives my location to the driver. Just in case over the course of the evening I wind up in a different place than where he dropped me off.”
She got in, and Ferro slid in beside her. “Oh, like if you bar hop or something?”
His smile turned naughty. “Or something.”
Oh. Yes. That. The going back to a random hotel with a random woman. Strange, considering the reputation Ferro had as a legendary lover, that he wasn’t actually photographed with women all that often.
She frowned. “Right.”
“Now, don’t look jealous,
cara
, those other women, they meant nothing.” He wasn’t being sincere. He wasn’t even trying to look sincere, and yet her body, her heart, which, she swore skipped a beat, didn’t seem to care.
She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. All the better to keep from reaching out and touching him again. “It’s almost frightening how full of crap you are.”
“Excuse me?”
“The smile.” She punctuated that with a wide, cheesy grin of her own. “The pickup lines. You’re very good at it, Ferro. It’s easy to forget that it’s all a show and
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