Page 52 of Nothing to You
Mirroring Rourke’s sentiment, Zairn seemed as surprised.
“What do you think?”the blonde asked, shaking her hair.
“I…” Zairn started.“Um… Why did we do this?”
“Why not?”the woman asked, going over to lay a hand on him and lean in.“Thought men preferred blondes.”
“If you love it, I love it,” Zairn said, kissing the beauty.“Do the cuffs match or…”
The blonde swept her lips back and forth on his.“You’ll have to wait until later to find out, Casanova.”
“Later, huh?”
“If you play your cards right.”
“I have a few minutes now if—”
“Don’t we have company?”
Not that an audience mattered, as Rourke demonstrated not long ago.
“Company, right,” Zairn said, slipping an arm around the woman as he turned back to them.“Roux Radley, this is Roxanna Kyst.She prefers Roxie.”
“Your fiancée,” she said and received a nod.“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Oh,” Roxie said and shuddered.“Roxie is fine.I am not a fan of the ma’am thing.”
“Sorry,” she said and drew in a deep breath.“If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
But when she tried to walk away, Rourke caught her shoulder to pull her back.“Do we want to eat outside or inside?”
“Outside,” Roxie said, resting her lips on Zairn.“I don’t have a drink, dear.”
“Right,” Zairn said, rising to take his fiancée’s hand to lead her outside just as a bunch of suited servers came streaming into the kitchen from somewhere.
“Outside,” Rourke said to the guy in the lead.“Follow the blonde.”
The people came through with boxes and went onto the patio.One opened the pocket doors.
Rourke pulled her back, resting his mouth on her crown.“Schmooze.”
“What does that mean?”
“Hang out with me and my friends.”
“I have work to do.”
“This is more important,” he said, threading his fingers between hers.“Trust me.”
“Trust you?”she asked, letting him pull her across the room.“That hasn’t worked out so well for me so far.”
He flashed her a smile.“There’s always a first time.”
Hmm, maybe.Trust him?To what?She shouldn’t be drinking wine and hanging out while two boxes of files sat on the stairs waiting for her.SIT was important, and she wanted to do the job well.If someone fell through the cracks or she was too distracted to notice a worthy cause, it could make a difference.
Trust him?He’d been the one to give her the work, and now he was telling her to disregard it.If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he was up to something.
SEVENTEEN
