Page 92 of Hate You More

Chapter 25

Troy

“Excuse me.” Clara’s arm darts around me, grabbing a bottle of something from the bathroom vanity. Between the ghost of her touch and the reflection in the mirror, whatever I was thinking flies out of my head.

“You’re problem,” I answer like an idiot. You’re welcome? No problem? I think now might be a good time to lower the razor from my jawline.

“I’m sorry?” In the mirror, her blue eyes blink. Her eye makeup lends her the look of an exotic feline, her mouth painted the same color as the Rosso marble.

“No . . . problem. Do you need anything else?” I move right a little from where I’m blocking her cosmetics or whatever shit she pulled from the drawer.

She shakes her head, the short pink robe still clutched in her fist at her chest. But she doesn’t stop looking, and neither do I. “What?”

“You look—” Pretty, I was about to say. “Like you just stepped out of a time machine.” I tap my finger to my head, and her own hand lifts self-consciously to the pink foam rollers, making her robe part at her thighs. Panties. Black and tiny. They’re enough to make my pulse jump.

“If you’ve got one, maybe we can speed ahead and miss tonight.”

“No time machine, unfortunately.” Huh. Maybe backs are her thing.

Her eyes lift almost owlishly. Our eyes lock, something heated and electric snapping in the space between us. Until she turns quite suddenly.

“I’ll let you get back to your shave.”

I don’t, not for a minute, as I try to make sense of what that just was.

Eventually, two smooth cheeks later, I announce my reentry to the bedroom with a polite cough. I’m still in my towel, and though I’d like to see those panties again, I’m not that big of an asshole.

Clara sits on the bed, a mirror propped on the nightstand as she messes with her hair as I cross to the far side of the room, where my tux hangs on a wooden gentleman’s valet, a quaint piece of furniture a tailor in London once talked me into. The best way to avoid the pesky pant creases from a hanger, so he’d said.

“Who was that who delivered your tux this afternoon?” At least, I think that’s what she says around a mouthful of hairpins.

“Someone from the dry cleaners, I guess?”

“You—” She takes the pins from between her lips. “You don’t have a million interns and assistants running around to do your bidding?”

“I’m kind of low maintenance.”

She gives a disparaging huff.

“I am.”

“I didn’t say anything.” She assumes a look of wide-eyed innocence. Until her gaze dips. “Are you planning on dressing tonight, or is this really a toga party?”

“You’re just angling for a flash of my buns.”

“Oh, I can’t handle the buns,” she says with a low chuckle.

“I don’t know, you did a pretty good job with them the other morning.” I’m not sure I meant to make my voice sound so low as Clara almost jackknifes from the bed.

“I’m just going to go . . . going to. In here.” She points at the closet, then the bathroom. “Here, I mean.” And she scurries off.

I go back to getting dressed, and I’m shirtless and fastening my pants when she comes back in. Without coughing. She moves back to the bed and reaches for her brush, though in the mirror, her attention keeps drifting to my back.

“It’s not just the buns, huh?” I give a little flex of my shoulders.

Her head lifts slowly as though forcing her eyes to meet mine in the reflection. “It’s just . . . You’ve filled out a lot.”

“I grew up. So did you.”