Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“Is this normally your job—making appearances at charitable events on behalf of your law firm?”
“I’m not the only one who does this. However, I thought I could kill two birds with a single stone.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, my tone playful as I stepped closer, intentionally bumping my arm into his.
“First, your social media post was a good one. My mother looked you up and saw the picture.”
“Did she dig up any juicy dirt on me?”
Pierce lifted his eyebrows and stared down his long, straight nose at me. “No, but if she keeps digging, is she going to find any juicy dirt that I should know about?”
I snickered and bumped into him a second time, using the opportunity to thread my arm through his so that we were now linked. “I’m boring. There were rumors years ago when I was seventeen that I was dating this forty-five-year-old Italian soprano, but they were proved bogus after someone just happened to catch a picture of me kissing a backup dancer for one of the K-pop bands who was in Berlin at the same time I was.”
A deep, weary sigh escaped Pierce, sounding as if I had exhausted the last of his patience. “Yes, I’d forgotten that was how you’d chosen to ‘come out’ to the world.”
Everyone had been rather pissy about it except for my agent. Jumping from one so-called scandal to the next had caused my popularity to skyrocket. Demands for me to play with this orchestra or that had gone through the roof and had made me reconsider whether I should even bother going to college. It was only after I’d sat through a lengthy call with Declan and Sebastian that I’d continued on my path to get a degree in music.
Pierce stopped in the middle of the gallery and stared at me. “Exactly how did someone catch a picture of that kiss?”
“Huh? Oh, it was one of the other dancers. A group of us had gone out for dancing and drinks. One of them had been flirtatious and touchy-feely all night. So we started kissing, and his friend took some pictures. No big deal.” I leaned in closer and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Besides, have you ever been with a dancer? He had amazing abs. How could I not kiss him?”
Pierce did not appear amused. In fact, his glower was turning hostile. “So he was your first?” he bit out, sounding as if he were grinding the words up before spitting them at me.
“First what? Kiss?”
“Lover?”
It took everything I had not bust out laughing right in his face.
Holy shit, Pierce Sutton is jealous.
He was so jealous he was practically turning green with it. If I let him dangle a second longer, he was going to look like a member of the cast of Wicked.
But I couldn’t laugh, because I didn’t want to dig any deeper into my sexual experiences.
“No. God, no. We kissed. That’s it.” I shrugged and pulled on his arm to get him moving. “I had no choice, really.”
“What do you mean? Because you thought it was the only way to kill the soprano rumors?”
“It wasn’t the only way, but it was certainly the easiest. No, I had to kiss him because I needed the practice. How else was I going to learn to be an amazing kisser for you if I didn’t kiss a few other people?”
Pierce made a grumbly noise, but I didn’t miss the way his entire body seemed to relax next to me and the frown that had slashed across his face faded with each step we took.
Jealousy. Delicious, wonderful jealousy over me.
Oh, Mr. Sutton, you’re not as immune to me as you like to pretend.
We continued to walk in silence to view the rest of the items up for auction. Pierce placed a few more offers, but none as impressive as his first one.
“Here. Bid on this for me.” I pulled him to a small abstract statue that had been carved from obsidian.
He looked at the statue for a moment, tilting his head this way and that before returning his attention to me. “You like it?”
“I do. It’s eye-catching.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks so.”
My gaze followed where he pointed to the sheet of paper where people were placing bids. The page was almost full, and the latest bid was significantly higher than I would have guessed the statue was actually worth.
“Someone might outbid me,” he warned even as he picked up the pen.
“It’s not about getting the piece,” I said, releasing his arm so he could write on the paper. “I like the idea of you bidding on something for me.”
A noise I couldn’t quite make out escaped Pierce, and the bastard shifted his body so I couldn’t see how much he was bidding on the piece. As he moved out of the way, he grabbed my arm and turned me, pushing me away from the table.