Page 19 of Rent a Mob Boss

“Quinn! Sweetheart!” She kisses my cheek. “You look gorgeous. And this must be⁠—”

“Dorian.” He takes her hand, and I watch her entire operating system reboot in real time. He holds her hand briefly, warmly, and says, “Thank you for having me, Mrs. Thomas. Your family must be proud of the party you’ve put together here tonight.”

My mother, a woman who has never once in her life been at a loss for words, blinks mutely for much too long. “Well,” she chokes out. “Well! Aren’t you just—Quinn, you didn’t tell me he was—” Once he lets go of her hand and turns back toward the rest of the room, she fans herself and mouths oh my god at me over his shoulder.

Okay, so it is working.

We move through the room together, with Dorian’s hand on my back always. He greets Dad with a handshake that makes Dad stand up straighter. He compliments my Aunt Linda’s earrings. He tells my sister she looks radiant, and Alyssa actually blushes, which I’ve never seen happen in all my life.

He does all of it with the easy, natural confidence of a man who has walked into a hundred rooms and owned every single one. I keep waiting for the moment when the act slips, but it doesn’t come.

Once the basic introductions have passed and photos have been taken, he pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my temple. Just a brush, barely there. His lips against my hair, his hand tightening at my waist. But my whole body lights up like a circuit board, and I lose the thread of whatever Mrs. Donahue is saying about her kitchen renovation.

“You okay?” he murmurs against my hair.

“Mm-hm.” I am not okay. I’m on fire.

And that is precisely the moment I spot Aaron.

He’s standing by the bar with a blonde I don’t recognize, holding a drink in both hands like it’s going to save him. His suit doesn’t fit as well as he probably thinks it does, and his hair is doing the thing where he’s clearly spent forty minutes on it but wants it to look effortless. Six months ago, the sight of him would’ve made my stomach turn.

Right now, with Dorian’s hand on my waist, I feel nothing. Less than nothing. I feel the absence of the thing I was afraid of, and it’s so light I almost laugh. I start toward the bar, and Dorian stays in step with me.

Aaron spots us and does the face. The sorry face, the understanding face, the face of a man who thinks he’s being generous by acknowledging your existence. “Quinn. Hey. You look great.”

“Aaron. Thanks.” I feel Dorian’s thumb move against my hip. A small press. I’m here. “This is Dorian. My boyfriend.”

The word lands on Aaron’s head like a brick. His eyes go to Dorian—all the way up to Dorian, because Aaron is five-ten and Dorian is not. Something behind his face recalculates. “Oh. Wow. Hey, man.”

When he extends a hand, Dorian takes it. I watch Aaron’s fingers disappear inside Dorian’s grip, then I watch something pass across Aaron’s face that is deeply satisfying.

“Aaron,” Dorian says. Flat, like he’s reading the name off a list of things that don’t matter. “Quinn’s told me about you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Aaron gives a nervous laugh as he takes his hand back. “All good things, I hope.”

Dorian looks at him for a long, quiet beat. “No.”

And that’s what makes me choke on my champagne.

It literally comes out of my nose. Actual champagne coming out of my actual nose in the middle of the Whitmore, in front of Aaron and the blonde, and God, and everyone. I’m coughing and wiping my face with the back of my hand when Dorian produces a handkerchief from somewhere—because of course he carries a handkerchief—and hands it to me without breaking eye contact with Aaron.

“It was nice to meet you,” Dorian tells him in a voice that means the opposite, before he steers me away with his hand on my back.

I’m still coughing when we reach the other side of the room. “You can’t just… you can’t just say no to someone’s face like that⁠—”

“Why not?” he counters. “It’s the truth.”

“Because there are rules.”

“I don’t follow those rules.” He takes a glass of champagne off a passing tray and hands it to me, replacing what I lost through my nasal cavity. “Also, he’s still looking.”

I start to turn, but his hand catches my hip. “Don’t look. He’s been watching since we walked away. Him and the blonde.”

“So what do we do?” I whisper.

“We put on a show.” Before I can ask what he means by that, his hand comes up to my jaw, and he kisses me.

Not on the temple. Not on my cheek. On my mouth.