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Dinner is… surprisingly entertaining. Lorcan takes charge at the head of the table, a place card with my name in swirling calligraphy to the right of his. Before we sit down, he stoops to mutter something in the ear of who I now know to be Rodrigo Mondez. In response, Nova replaces a scowling Vittoria at the seat next to me, much to my relief.
We eat scallops and caviar while Rodrigo Mondez makes polite small talk, then when he slips into a hushed, intense conversation with Lorcan, I become the subject of Alessandro Regazzi’s interrogations, all while he stares at my chest and his sugar baby wife shoots daggers at me from his side.
Lorcan never takes his hand off my knee the entire meal. Stabbing at his Dover Sole and fondant potatoes with only his fork. Occasionally he’ll run his thumb over my thigh, like a gentle reminder that he’s there. Maybe it’s the champagne served between courses or the backdrop of the upbeat brass band, but I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy. I like watching Lorcan in conversation. The way his Adam’s apple bobs and the muscle in his jaw clenches as he regales an anecdote. How when he listens to someone talk, he studies them in intensity, never taking his eyes off them, nodding and laughing in all the right places. I know how it feels to have Lorcan Quinn treat you like you’re the center of his world.
Regazzi finally loses interest in my boobs and I fall into easy conversation with Nova. She swigs her beer and plays with the beaded bracelets on her wrist as she tells me about getting into MIT to study architecture, and how she teaches self-defense classes to women on the weekend.
After dessert—a decadent Tarte Tatin—Lorcan squeezes my knee and flashes me a small wink. Then he rises to his feet and taps a knife against his glass. A cloak of silence falls over the table. With total command of the room, he says, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d please join me in the courtyard for an after-dinnerdigestif.”
Murmuring and movement ensue, and Lorcan reaches his hand down to help me to my feet. He plants a small kiss on my nose, and all of the hatred I felt for him a few hours earlier in the dressing room seems like it belongs in a different dimension.
“You guys are disgustingly cute, it’s going to bring my dinner back up,” Nova tuts, brushing past us and grabbing two flutes of champagne from the tray of a passing server.
Lorcan eyes me for a reaction, an amused smirk dancing on my lips. He’s satisfied when my cheeks flush red. Then, he leans over me and murmurs, “She wouldn’t think we were cute if she saw how hard I spank you, and how much you like it.”
The heat in my face burns and bubbles under my foundation. “Lorcan!”
He chuckles and I feel it rumble under his tux. “Let me show you the courtyard, China Doll.”
The guests part like the Red Sea as Lorcan tugs me towards the back of the restaurant, through a large door that I’ve never paid much attention to before.
Stepping out into the fresh air makes me realize how tipsy I am. Lorcan steadies me with a strong arm around my waist. “Easy there.” I lean into the comfort of his chest and drink in the courtyard. An open-air, circular space with gravel floor and softly glowing fairy lights draped around the perimeter. Standing tables line the perimeter too, and the guests are starting to crowd around them with cocktails and chatter.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, nestling into the crook of his chest. I close my eyes for a brief moment when he rests his chin on my head, drawing his arms tight around me.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs into my hair.
I melt.
We stay like this for a few moments, watching the brass band set up in the center of the courtyard. Their red and white striped suits and bow ties make me feel like I’ve truly stepped back in time. When the trumpets and the double bass kick in, Lorcan drums his fingers against my waist in time to the beat.
I’m feeling one step down from euphoric. “Dance with me,” I suddenly say over the tempo of the saxophones and crane my head up to face him.
Lorcan frowns. “What do you always say? Something about asking instead of telling?”
It’s my turn to frown, but it’s not one that reaches my mood. “Oh, yes. I should probably lead by example.Please,Mr. Quinn, will you dance with me?”
He doesn’t get a chance to reply before I’m dragging him into the center of the courtyard, closer to the band. It triggers a ripple of other guests moving closer too. Wives tug their husbands onto the gravel, unsteady on their stilettos, their clutch bags tucked under their armpits.
As we move in time with the beat, it’s not lost on me that I’m dancing with the Devil. Only, it doesn’t feel like it. The man rocking me in his strong arms, occasionally leaning down to mutter something in my ear, the man that twirls me around like a ballerina then catches me before I stumble, dizzy from the liquor and the lights. He’s not the man that held a fake funeral to seal my fate all those years ago. He’s not the man that drugged me and dragged me from my life on the West Coast. The man that crawled into my bed unsteady on his feet from a full day of drowning in whiskey.
That man wouldn’t dance with me.
At first, I don’t feel it. The first raindrop that lands on the tip of my nose. It’s Lorcan that brushes it off before it reaches my cupid’s bow, then turns to the sky with his palm upwards. “It’s raining.”
I follow his gaze, taking in the looming clouds that have appeared out of nowhere.
Two thoughts pass through my foggy brain at once.
The first—
Summer is ending. Which means I’ve been at the museum through a whole semester and almost all of summer break.
School will start again soon.
The second?
I don’t want this night to end.
