Page 87 of Handsome Devil
Devi Sereda.
In a clingy, knockout, tangerine dress.
“Motherfucker.” It slipped right out of my mouth.
“Pardon me?” Velma said.
I snatched my bow tie from Tanner and he slunk away. “Nothing. Just noticed one of my employees.”
Velma arched an eyebrow and followed my line of sight to Devi’s figure in that flaming dress. “Well, lucky her,” she said sarcastically.
“This one’s trouble,” I informed her.
Velma turned her astute gaze on me and studied me as I struggled to get my bow tie on, distracted. “I see that,” she said.
I grumbled something I wasn’t even sure I understood. “I think I’m going to fire her.”
Velma rolled her eyes. “Not tonight, you’re not.”
“We’ll see,” I muttered. “The night is young.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dane
As we entered the gala—after I walked the red carpet, solo, and paused for the obligatory photo ops—I let Velma steer me into the sprawling conference room and through the crowd.
I tried to pay attention as she dragged me from group to group. I didn’t even get a drink. Many of our colleagues and competitors on the west coast and beyond were here tonight, and Velma, people person that she was, knew more of the guests than I did.
My mother hadn’t arrived yet, so we just kept making the rounds. I kept shaking hands. I smiled as much as I could.
I had no idea how some people smiled all the time. It fucking hurt.
But I kept doing it.
This was my first large social event since the sex tape leak. A chance to show my mother how squeaky clean I’d been in Vancouver, so maybe she’d ease up on me and welcome me back to the Toronto office sometime this century. I hadn’t even considered bringing a date. It would’ve been tacky, so soon after my broken engagement.
This night was too important.
It was the cocktail hour, pre-dinner, so it was all about the mingle as the room filled up. And for me, it should’ve been all about my mother’s patented Davenport handshake.
But I was currently preoccupied with something else.
Was it obvious to Velma?
I tried to remain as tuned in as I possibly could to the conversations going on around me. But Devi kept sparking in the corner of my eye, from across the room, like a migraine aura.
That dress was like an assault on common sense. In a sea of black and conservative sophistication, she stood out like a flame in the dark. She had a small waist, round hips, and just a hint of cleavage in that sheath. I couldn’t imagine what kind of undergarments kept her so smooth and contained in that thing. Her figure was the perfect cocktail of slim-versus-curves, and while she looked delicate in her high heels, I knew she could knee me so hard in the balls with those former-soccer-diva legs of hers that she could end the Davenport lineage in its tracks.
And she would, too. If I gave her reason enough.
I wasn’t going to do that.
I wasn’t going to go pick a fight with her, or give her a reason to fight with me, at this party. I wasn’t even going to go talk to her.
So why did I find her mere presence so distracting?
Hadn’t I already jerked off at the office before putting on my tux and coming here? Yes. Yes, I did. So why was my dick still so interested in coming out to play, at the sight of her in that goddamn dress? And why did it bother me that she was here?
