Page 88 of Handsome Devil
What the fuck did it matter?
She never told me she was coming, but we’d never talked about the gala.
Who the hell invited her?
This was an executive event, upper management only. Unless she’d come as some CEO’s plus one…
And so what if she did? What the hell did I care?
Yeah, so, when she’d crossed Shane’s path at the agency office the other day and said,If he asks, I’m not single,it bugged me. And yeah, I’d looked her up again on social media. A few times. Last night, I saw her post on Instagram.Date night ready.She wore a hot-pink dress worthy of a lineup of shooters at a neon-lit nightclub, with matching lipgloss.
And it bothered me more than it should.
I kept checking to see if she posted anything else. Like where the hell she was going on her date. And wondering if I’d actually do something stupid like show up there. And making excuses to myself in advance.She showed up at the Burner Room when I was there with Shane. Why couldn’t I crash her date?
I’d even checked in with Shane, just to find out what he was doing. And maybe make sure her date wasn’t with him.
It wasn’t.
But she didn’t post anything else.
By the time I realized maybe I did need to know exactly who she’d come to the gala with, I was already halfway across the room. I’d discarded Velma somewhere by the bar and Rolf was casually shadowing me at the edge of the room. I beelined past people with purpose, so no one would try to stop me to chat, and walked up to Devi.
She was talking with three men when I slipped my fingers around her arm. “Excuse us,” I told the strangers and promptly yanked her in the direction of a nearby wall.
“Excuseme,” she said, tugging her arm from my grasp and coming to a dead stop.
I loomed over her, getting close, so no one would overhear us. “What are doing here? I didn’t invite you.”
She laughed, her little white teeth flashing. I wanted to run my tongue over them.
I eased back just a bit.
“So?” she said. “Do you own this hotel, too? If so, you can have security remove me. If not, I’m busy mingling.”
She started away, but I caught her arm, and this time my fingers bit into her soft, naked flesh. Her dark eyes met mine, widening, and it set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. A shiver ran right down to my balls.
Christ, I found her attractive. It was becoming a real fucking problem.
“This is a company event. I didn’t ask you to represent the company.”
“Well, someone should represent Superior at this party,” she said calmly, extracting her arm from my grasp again with a little jerk. “That was supposed to be Janelle’s job, but you fired her. And Lizzie is with her kids tonight. So here I am.”
“I meant Valhalla. This is a Valhalla sponsored event. And it’s VIP only. You’re seriously crashing a gala?”
“I’m part of Valhalla, too,” she said simply.
“Hardly.” I raked my gaze over her dress. “Don’t you have something better to do in that dress? It’s Saturday night. You’re single, right? Shouldn’t you be on a date? Or surely there’s a party in a hot tub limo and some karaoke bar tour you’d rather be at.”
Her eyes flashed pure, fiery loathing at me. I fucking bathed in it. I was pretty sure at this point that if she pushed me down and rode me with that look in her eyes, my dick would’ve died and gone to heaven.
“Nope,” she ground out. “I’m good. Just had a date last night. No karaoke, but the bar was nice.”
I just stared at her.
She really had a date.
Last night.
