Page 83 of Heated Takeover

I roll my eyes. “Ugh. I am not purposely avoiding you,” I tell him.

“Right. Just avoiding talking to me,” he says as we begin to walk, and he places a hand on my lower back. And it’s almost alarming how utterly natural it feels. Like his hand belongs there. Like we belong everywhere together.

“No, no,” I say with a hint of teasing in my voice. “I’m just avoiding sleeping with you.”

Marcus chuckles, clearly thrown off by my response, and his fingers hook around my hip to pull me closer to him.

“I see how it is,” he says.

“Yep,” I say, looking forward but smiling.

“What about kissing? Are we avoiding that?” he asks.

“I mean, I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” I say. “It could lead to more.”

“It could. You’re right. And that would be bad.”

“Very bad,” I agree.

“So bad,” he says, and I can’t help but giggle as my cheeks turn red.

Inside, things are bustling. There is a wait, a crowd around the bar, and every table is slammed. It’s fancy and upscale but swanky at the same time. A place people go to unwind and feel fancy. It’s romantic and chill. The lighting is high enough to see where you’re going but low enough to set a mood. Tonight’s mood is beach night out, and I’m not sure if this is Dylan’s doing.

“This is fantastic,” I tell Dylan as she brings me a drink from the bar. Some kind of purple cocktail with a fuchsia flower in it. “And the color scheme is great.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she says with a slight bow. “They gave me the greige, so I didn’t have to lob any heads on arrival.”

“Always a good thing when decapitation isn’t a job requirement,” I say while taking a sip of my drink, which I can confirm is gin. I am not complaining. My friend knows me well.

Marcus is doing his required rounds, and I hang back with Dylan as her eyes sweep over the tables. My gaze skims over the room as a whole, and I smile. There is something so gratifying about it. The decor. The lighting. The energy. The voices. The music and the night air coming through the open windows, giving us an unobstructed view of the bay.

I also have an unobstructed view of Marcus, and as I continue to sip my drink, I’m not complaining.

He’s dressed in all black tonight. He is wearing a deconstructed suit: button-down shirt, slacks, belt, shiny leather shoes, and no jacket. He looks fit, lean, toned and just fancy enough to stand out but not enough to be stuffy.

In short, he's looking fucking gorgeous. And while, yes, this might be the gin taking my filter down, I stand by those words.

“So things are going a little better, yeah?” she asks, and I should have known better than to stare at him long enough that Dylan could follow my gaze.

“We’re not together,” I say, but I’m less defensive and more stubborn at this point. I’m also smiling. Yep, the gin is definitely settling into my head now, making things delightfully fuzzy. Hey, I’m on a date, remember? And my date looks good.

“Some party.” The voice wraps around me, and there goes my smile.

“It’s not too bad,” I say as my eyes flash only briefly over to Reese.

“I mean, I would definitely have gone with different colors for the napkins and centerpieces. Perhaps more of a beige would have suited the theme, but of course, I’m not part of those kinds of decisions.”

“Dylan is fabulous at her job, though, isn’t she?” I ask.

My sister lets out a salty “Mm,” brimmed with synthetic sugar. We’ve gotten good at this little dance over the years. Even more-so in recent years now that I have surpassed her in every way.

I’m not stupid. As her eyes flutter around the room, I see her look in Marcus’s direction more than once. He’s currently talking to a group of people at one of the bigger tables in the corner. I can tell by the champagne on the table and an assortment of share-ables he is talking to some very high-profile people. He’s way too animated to be anything else.

He’s smiling and talking with confidence, his body language a mix of comfortable and authoritative. He looks stunning.

“He really is an asset to the company,” I tell my sister with a smile, and she startles a little. I probably caught her with her hand in the cookie jar. Too bad the cookies are all mine…

No. No Natalie. He’s not yours. You set a boundary. Now stick to it.