Page 28

11 p.m. The Gala is winding down. The auction raised $2.4 million, which is twenty-seven years of my mother's debt, and these people bid it in forty-five minutes.

I'm in the service corridor, leaning against the wall, with my earpiece hanging down like some kind of budget secret agent My feet are killing me. These shoes were designed by someone who has never walked anywhere and I'm going to burn them in a ceremonial fire the minute I get home.

I hear him before I see him. His shoes on the floor. The steady, unhurried rhythm I've been listening for since my first night here.

He comes around the corner and I'm already looking at him when he finds me.

The corridor is narrow and the lighting does something to his face — softens the sharp parts, warms the gray of his eyes into something almost blue. His bow tie is still crooked. The tuxedo jacket is unbuttoned now, hanging open, and I can see the black shirt underneath pulled across his chest.

"Hi," I say.

"You wore green."

"You told me to."

"I may have suggested it, yeah."

"You like it?”

“Not really, Anna. I’ve been fighting a boner like a fucking virgin all night.”

He's close. The corridor makes everyone close but he's choosing to be closer, standing inside my space.

"Your bow tie," I say.

"What about it?"

"It's still crooked. It's been crooked all night. It's driving me insane."

"Fix it for me, baby."

I reach up. Both hands on the silk, adjusting the wings, tightening the knot. My knuckles brush his throat. I feel his pulse and it's fast. Way too fast for a man standing this still.

"Higher than seventy-two?" I ask.

"Much higher."

I finish the bow tie. My hands stay. Both of them, flat against his chest, on the black shirt, and his heart is hammering under my palms and he's looking down at me with an expression I haven't seen before. The mask is slipping. The composure is coming apart at the seams and what's underneath is—

He kisses me.

Hands on my face, thumbs under my jaw, tilting my head exactly where he wants it. His mouth is on mine and he tastes like whiskey. I didn’t realize how badly I needed him until right now. He kisses me like he's been thinking about doing it for six hours, which — I know he has, because I've been thinking about it too. Every time I'd looked across the ballroom and found his eyes already on me. Every time.

I grab his lapels. He makes a sound — a groan, low in his chest — and walks me backward into the wall. I feel the plaster cold against my bare shoulders and his body hot against my front, I can’t help but moan.

"Upstairs, need to hear you make those noises again where only I can hear them." he says against my mouth.

"Fuck yes, Mr. Sterling."

He basically growls as he pushes me towards the private elevator. His hand on the small of my back. As the doors close, Danny lowers his mouth to my neck, peppering kisses along my throat. I'm looking at my reflection in the polished doors — flushed, hair starting to come loose, lips wrecked. Danny’s behind me, eyes dark, smirking as he nips at the skin on my shoulder, making me moan.

Neither of us talks.

The doors open to his suite. I've never been up here. It's clean and dark and sparse - which feels every bit the man that sometimes inhabits it. The bed is huge, with a bookshelf full of books and Persuasion is on the nightstand. Seeing it there — my book, the one I told him to read, by his bed where he sleeps — does something to my chest that I'm not going to think about right now because if I think about it I'll cry and that's not what this moment is for.

He closes the door and turns around, looking like the big bad wolf.

I'm standing in the middle of his private suite in a green dress and borrowed shoes and I'm shaking. A little. Enough that he can probably see it.