AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d once loved dancing, on tables especially, but sobriety had made her less of an extrovert. And she didn’t want to end up on her backside wearing her signature dress. Especially not in front of Mr Ego-the-Size-of-Pluto.
‘Of course, I would totally take you up on your generous offer,’ she lied without a qualm. ‘But I’m not sure I should help you get one up on my brother so soon in the One Date Wonder stakes.’
He winced. ‘Is there anyone who has not read that damn article?’
She chuckled, surprised to have found a chink in his armour without even trying. ‘You aren’t flattered?’
She’d always assumed guys like him loved to flaunt their playboy image.
Her father had cheated on her mother with impunity and made no attempt to hide it. After her mother’s death, his sordid sex life had even threatened to bring down the family business. But it had taken years for him to be held to account. Cade Landry, on the other hand, looked genuinely uncomfortable.
‘Flattered? At having my dating history ridiculed for clickbait?’ he scoffed. ‘No. Would you be?’
‘Of course not,’ she replied. ‘But the standards are different for women. Especially...’ She raised her fingers to do air quotes. ‘An “off the rails kid with an attitude problem”.’ She placed her hand on her hip. ‘And, if I recall correctly, you judged me accordingly when you met me.’
‘Charlotte, you were drunk, underage, and shaking your booty on a table at two a.m. when I met you. So you weren’t doing a whole heck of a lot to challenge that assumption.’
‘I wasn’t drunk,’ she said in her defence.
Because I remember every single detail of that encounter with far too much clarity.
‘But getting back to you...’ she continued, because Cade Landry did not need to know how often she’d thought about him. Or that his brutal dismissal of her charms back then had been the wake-up call she’d needed to stop making a spectacle of herself and confirming everyone’s low expectations. The man’s ego was enormous enough. ‘You’re not doing a whole heck of a lot to challenge that article by asking me to dance when you were photographed with Jenna Carmody two nights ago at the Met.’
She thought she had him bang to rights. But instead of looking chastened, his sensual smile returned—which only made him look more delicious.The rat.
‘Have you been keeping tabs on me, Charlotte?’ he asked, with the same arrogance she remembered. But why did his attitude towards her feel exhilarating now, rather than critical?
‘I don’t need to keep tabs on you...’ she fired back. ‘Your dating history is kind of hard to miss.’
‘Fair point,’ he murmured. Before she could congratulate herself, though, he added, ‘Although Jenna and I aren’t dating. She’s in a long-term relationship, and she only came to the gala as my plus-one because her partner, Melanie, had the flu.’
‘I’m pretty sure that still qualifies as a date,’ Charley said, trying to maintain the argument, but oddly disarmed that he had bothered to explain the situation.
‘Not in all the ways that count,’ he said, his voice becoming a husky purr. His gaze took on that hot glow again, and his hand reappeared. ‘This dance, on the other hand, has a lot more potential...’
The seductive tone was back with a vengeance. She couldn’t deny the powerful urge to say yes any more. Forcing her to come clean.
‘I’d love to accept...’ She glanced at the dance floor, where the band had begun another high-tempo number. ‘But I can’t...’
‘Why the heck not?’
‘Because I’ve never danced like that. I don’t even know what kind of music they’re playing...even though I think it sounds fabulous.’
‘It’s Zydeco. Because Luke is a Cajun boy from the Bayou Teche.’ The devastating smile became a devastating grin. ‘You’ve really never danced the Cajun two-step?’
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘There aren’t a lot of Cajuns in Shoreditch,’ she added, which was where she lived in East London.
‘Then you’ve missed out.’ He beckoned her again with those long, strong fingers. ‘I can teach you to Zydeco. All you have to do is follow my lead...like a good girl.’
Four years ago, the provocative comment would have inflamed her rebellious nature, but now all it did was inflame her senses—the wicked glint in his eyes tempting her to share the joke rather than become the butt of it.
She suddenly had a vision of following Cade Landry’s lead in other ways.
The manwasa bona fide player, but he was currently unattached, and into her. And she’d once wanted him desperately. She’d never envisioned wanting him again—not after that brutal rejection—but the liquid pull in her abdomen was impossible to ignore as he waited for her to take the bait...or chicken out. Maybe dancing with him now could be a reward for making the changes to become, if not a good girl, then at least much more together now than she had been that night in Vegas.
In the interest of full disclosure, she added, ‘I’m terrible at following anyone’s lead. And I’ve always found good girls remarkably dull.’
He laughed, the rich sound making the heat in her abdomen throb. Then he captured her fingers, his warm skin rough against hers as he tugged her towards him.
