It’s hauntingly familiar, and I’m instantly on edge. I scan the room until I see Dina and Kate sitting at a table deep in conversation, both of them holding glasses of champagne.
“And that’s it for business tonight. We’ve got much prettier things to focus on.” Kate is pretty, in the same way a blue sky or a sunset is—nice to look at, but nothing you don’t see regularly.
“Hey, you.” Dina smiles at me from across the table.
“Hey yourself.” I run a possessive gaze over her face. From her light brown complexion to her normally huge curly mane of hair, to her narrow, wide-set eyes and her lush-lipped, heart shaped but small mouth—she’s a complex collection of features that tells a story of two people who crossed oceans to find each other, who hitched their hearts to the same wagon and pointed it toward an unknown future. She’s a living monument to their vision and bravery. And pretty isn’t a sufficient word for the marvel she is.
George and I pick seats across the table from the women, and I scan the room. Another woman dressed in a red suit stands between George and me and lowers a silver tray that holds crystal flutes filled with sparkling champagne. I take one but have no intention of drinking it. I need to keep my head on straight tonight.
“We’re celebrating,” Kate declares loudly.
“Celebrating what?” Dina asks in a bubbly voice I’ve never heard from her before. She wears a benignly curious expression as she lifts her glass to her lips. I’m impressed. If I didn’t know she was hunting, I’d believe she couldn’t wait to raise a toast to good news.
“Kate, stop. You’ll jinx it,” George says in a voice that doesn’t match the smile on his face.
“Can’t jinx destiny, baby. Let’s drink to it.”
“To destiny,” Dina cheers, and we all clink glasses. Her eyes flick to mine, and I shake my head subtly. She shouldn’t ask any more questions.
She’s supposed to be my girlfriend and a kindergarten teacher from East Texas. Not someone who’d be interested in business.
George takes a glass of champagne from the tray the server lowers in front of him and raises it. “To old friends and new memories.”
“Ty, I miss you already.” Dina pouts prettily and holds her hand out. “Come sit next to me.”
“Miss you, too, baby.” I ignore George’s snicker as I abandon my seat and settle in next to her.
I know she’s only asking me over because she wants to drill me for information. But when she gets out of her chair and slides into my lap, my arm goes around her middle and pulls her close.
“Something is up,” she whispers in my ear, smiling as if she’s whispering sweet nothings.
“Business starts tomorrow.”
She leans away and gives me a wide-eyed look full of disagreement. But something over my shoulder catches her eye, and her expression softens into a welcoming smile.
“Another couple approaching.”
“Ron, Paula, so glad you could make it. It wouldn’t be a party without you,” George exclaims to the people who are still behind me, and I hold my breath.
“Yes, we couldn’t turn down the invitation when you told us about the fun you have planned.”
Acute panic twists my gut at those names. I’d rather eat dinner with a nest of king cobras than those two. “Avoid them like the plague,” I whisper to Dina.
Before she can ask why, I turn around, my expression blank while George makes introductions.
“Oh, Tyson. How perfect that you’re here, too. You’re always, how do you Americans say? The cherry on the ice cream,” the woman, a tall willowy brunette who looks like the Victoria’s Secret model that she is, exclaims in heavily accented but impeccable English.
“Indeed,” Ron, a ginger-haired man in his fifties who is several inches shorter than his wife, agrees, clapping his hands together in relish. “Who needs Les Chandelles when we’ve got everything we need here?”
The mention of the notoriously kinky sex club, where everything is supposed to be completely confidential, brings me up short.
“What’s Les Chandelles?” Dina asks.
“A nightclub,” I answer flatly.
“That’s like calling Ferrari a car,” Ron chortles.
“It is a car.” I stand and pull Dina up with me. With no gas in its tank and a faulty starter. “Let’s go eat, I’m starved.”
11
Surrender
Tyson
I’m as close to waving the white flag of defeat as I have ever been in my whole life. The entire night has been an exercise in restraint.
Fifteen years ago, I would have used my hands to deal with the nasty, disrespectful motherfuckers ogling Dina. But I’m businessman Tyson tonight. So I’ve spent the evening flashing menacing glowers at them and keeping Dina as close to me as possible.
Not that it’s been hard. She’s held my hand all night, treated my body like she had a right to it—sitting on my lap, rubbing my thigh. Every so often, without preamble, she’ll lean back against my chest and press a kiss to the underside of my chin.
To anyone watching, there’s no mistake that this is my woman. And I like the way that feels.
We moved to the lounge area after dinner, and for the last hour, I’ve had the best view in the whole house. I haven’t felt this mellow and sure in a very long time. The Tyson I really am, the man in between the two everyone else wants me to be, comes together when I’m with her.
It’s my MO to sit back and listen at events like this—so no one expects me to carry the conversation. I’ve had the pleasure of holding Dina in my lap while she makes frivolous small talk, laughs at some of the outrageous things George says, and talks shit about college basketball.
Her lush ass is planted firmly against my increasingly excited dick, and my hand rests on her torso, my fingers brushing the underside of her breasts when she laughs. I could spend hours like this. But I’m also increasingly anxious to get her alone.
The couple she’s chatting with are the owners of a small chain of European specialty food shops that the husband inherited from his father. They live in Vermont and aren’t much older than me. And thanks to Dina’s master interviewing skills, they’ve told her all about how they met, their first wedding, their divorce, their second wedding, the child they lost, the house they just bought, and the vacation they’ve planned to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary.
“Tyson.” She calls my name and looks over her shoulder at me. “We should go to Corfu this fall. Angie says it’s the best time to visit. Cool enough to eat lunch outside and not too cold at night to sleep naked with the windows open.”
She gives me a suggestive smile and giggles at her own impropriety. I’m fascinated by the way her throat dances and how whatever she put on her shoulders to make them shimmer catches the light.
She’s been smiling all night, but the smile she graces me with now is different from the one she’s given everyone else. That light in her eyes is a sun that shines for me alone. I know it because it’s the same light in me that she fuels.
“You’ve got the most beautiful, expressive eyes I’ve ever seen... They speak volumes.”