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“Elegant choice.” I lift a hand and raise a finger in the air to catch the eye of a waitress. She sashays with a smile and her silver tray held aloft.
I ask, “Do you have margaritas?”
“I have two. The last, and the best.”
She lowers the tray, and I lift the two salt-rimmed glasses.
“You look wonderful,” I tell Indi, offering her the cocktail glass. It’s the understatement of the year.
Her smile as she raises the glass is demure, innocent, and brightly sinful, all at once.
“Kind sir,” she breathes. Her eyes widen and flash as my cock twitches. I’m shocked at my own reaction. I can’t be thinking about her like that. And anyway, she’s half my age.
She’d have no interest in battered and damaged goods like me.
With our glasses, I steer her into a study off the main hallway.
“I need to give the document a read through.”
“Of course.”
The study is dark, colonial, scented with old leather, polished mahogany and the traces of bourbon and cigar smoke.
By a large, antique mahogany desk, she puts her pretty clutch bag on the desk and pulls out the documents. Three copies.
“You have the USB stick?”
“I have it safe,” she says, turning. We are close. Too close. We almost collide. My breath halts in my chest. Her sweet, innocent, buttercup face is almost enough to wash away my inhibitions. She is so near that I feel the warmth of her breasts through the starched cotton of my shirt as they rise.
I have the document in my hand. But the moment still resonates. A thought in the back of my mind says, You miss one of those moments, and it’s gone forever.
But I can’t allow myself the distraction. Tonight is going to be my biggest triumph. Tonight, I know I will make some history. Only now, somehow, it doesn’t seem as important.
I have to force myself to read through the whole document. As I do, a buzz rises up through me.
“I can’t believe it,” I say at the end. “You’ve almost rewritten this whole thing.”
She presses her lips together and looks down. “Look, if you think I messed it up, I’m so sorry. But there was a lot to do. I would have liked another day… I…”
“No, it’s brilliant. You’ve sharpened it down to the bone. You brought all of it into focus. It says exactly what I need it to say.”
Her eyes glisten as she looks up. I have to move us out of here. The scent of her is melting all my good intentions away, leaving me with the much better bad ones. Any other day, any other time, but now…
“I’ll take you back to the ball.”
“Oh.” Her breath is warm against my shirt, and she looks up at me. “Will we dance?”
“I don’t dance.” The rattle of my chuckle sounds nervous and awkward, even to me. Right now, I wish that I did dance. Lessons my mother made me take only bored me. And I was a hopeless student. Now, I would love nothing more than to whirl her around the floor. Show her to everyone in my arms. Move to the rhythm with her pulled against my breast.
“Since it’s a ball,” her eyelids flutter, “would you mind me dancing with other people?”
“No. Of course not.” Of course I would. The very thought of it makes me feel murderous.
As we return to the hallway and walk back to the cocktail lounge and on through the crowd, she holds the crook of my arm. Her hand in the crook of my elbow, her hips next to mine. I feel like a prince.
Chapter Five
India
