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Man, rich guys really will golf anywhere, any time.
Unfortunately for him, Rhett is less than sympathetic toward his plight. He flips the golfer off through the still-taped-up passenger side window and then lounges back into his seat to wait. For me.
I genuinely consider going back into the hotel. But after a moment’s hesitation, I suck it up, hold my burning cheeks high, stride purposefully through the irate businessmen, and yank open the side door.
My appearance is met with equal parts relief and scorn from the crowd. Rhett, as usual, is oblivious to it all.
“Must you antagonize them?” I ask as he pulls away.
“I don’t do it because I have to,” he says. “I do it because I like to.”
His tone is suspiciously level, his handsome features focused more intently on the road and the act of driving than I’ve ever seen them. It’s obvious last night is on his mind, and I can hardly blame him.
It’s difficult not to imagine his face scrunched up in passion, that perfect mouth gasping for air as I brought him to orgasm.
I don’t even want to know what I looked like.
Silence settles over the car. All that’s left unsaid lingers in the air between us like a smoky haze so thick it starts to settle in the lungs.
Though it doesn’t take long before we’re both aware that awkwardness isn’t the only thing wafting about the car.
“Were you smoking?” he asks.
“You sound like my mother,” I say without thinking. Dammit Liz, don’t bring up mothers!
Rhett ignores my slip, or maybe he’s just not as traumatized by last night’s interruption as I am. “Not like mine. She let me smoke when I was a kid.”
“Really?” I try not to sound judgmental and totally fail. “Like a kid, kid?”
“Well, twelve or so. Cigars, cigarillos. I think she bought me a pipe for my fifteenth birthday. She always said cigarettes were for the poor, but I caught her smoking them enough times. And then it was all—” He adopts an overly-accented, upper class New York impression of his mother. “—‘I was poor. Habits die hard. Go smoke your pipe.’”
I giggle at the imagery. “The lesson must not have taken. I’ve yet to see you with a cigar in your hand.”
“Yeah, I hate the things. Rank logs of tobacco. They always remind me of my mother’s banking friends spraying brown spittle every time they talk. Gross.”
“Sounds like she figured out a way for you to not smoke,” I muse.
Rhett glances at me sharply. “It wasn’t reverse psychology.”
“You sure about that? My parents were so disturbingly open about sex that I stayed a virgin until the end of college. Looking back, I’m pretty sure that was their master plan.”
“No way,” Rhett says. He frowns, but then a reluctant smile creeps across his face. “That asshole,” he mutters.
“Who, your mom?” I ask.
“Yeah, she’s the worst.” He’s shaking his head, but that faint smile is still playing at his lips. Of course both Sloane and Rhett have a shared respect for trickery. I guess it runs in the family.
Will he be smiling when he learns about the deal Sloane is considering? It’s hard to tell. Rhett’s never expressed anything but contempt for the place, but there must be a reason I’m not rushing to fill him in on my conversation with Marie this morning.
Instinctively I know he’ll be hurt.
I can’t avoid it for long though. Between uncomfortable silence, acknowledging last night, or talking about business, Rhett chooses the latter.
“So Marie, huh?” he says. “I’m impressed. She told you to fuck off and less than twenty-four hours later you’re working out a deal after all.”
“The ‘fuck off’ was merely the beginning of the negotiation,” I joke. “But seriously, nothing’s for sure yet. It’s still all very touch and go.”
“What’s next then?”
