Page 31 of Unstitch

‘Quite right.’ Twenty-five. Fuck. ‘What about you—how long were you away for?’

‘Two years,’ she says. ‘I spent a year after uni trying to find a permanent dancing job, but it was so hard, so I took out a credit card and bought a one-way flight to Australia, and danced in bars for a couple of years.’

‘Is that so?’ I ask, entranced. Granted, I studied Economics at Cambridge, but every single one of my uni mates got straight on the corporate ladder after graduating. I suspect a lot of us could take a page out of this free spirit’s book. ‘What made you come back?’

‘The timing felt right. Gen offered me her flat when she got engaged, and it’s gorgeous. She offered me a job here, too. And I was bored of bumming around. So I came home.’

‘I’m going to regret this,’ I say, passing my hand over my face, ‘but what kind of dancing do you do?’

She giggles and encircles my wrist with her delicate fingers, tugging my hand away from my face. ‘It’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’m classically trained, but I got too tall for ballet, so I stopped. I do all sorts, though. Street, salsa, contemporary. You name it.’

‘But at the club…’ I prompt. I’m grinning tiredly at her and I don’t care. Her good mood is infectious, even if I don’t want to consider what might have prompted it.

I’m glad she’s holding my wrist, because there’s a tendril of hair hanging down the side of her face, and I’m tired enough that I might feasibly forget all social etiquette and reach out to tuck it behind her ear.

‘At the club,’ she says, wiggling her eyebrows naughtily at me, ‘I do naked dancing.’

‘Sweet Jesus,’ I mutter, attempting to free my hand so I can cover my face again, but she holds my wrist firm.

‘I’m messing with you.’

‘Thank God.’ I let my shoulders sag.

‘I wear a bodystocking. A completely sheer bodystocking, except for a few glittery bits.’

I shake my head in despair. ‘You’re a bad, bad girl.’ It just comes out, but I don’t miss the way her entire body goes still, alert, at my words.

Well, that’s more data I categorically didn’t need to gather.

23

DARCY

Because I’m off duty tonight, and I’ve maxed out Alchemy’s strict two-drink limit (Max-ed out, hahaha), and because I have a scorching hot booty call with a scorching hot man back at his icy cold flat, I decide to head over there when the others make a move to go next door.

‘You’re not tempted to check out The Playroom?’ I ask as Dex ushers me out of the club, a light hand on my bare lower back. I glimpse the horror in his stunning eyes before he gives me the same fixed, polite smile he’s been using all evening.

‘Not tonight. I’m pretty tired after the week I’ve had. But it was lovely to catch up with everyone.’

I snigger as we walk down the steps and out onto the stylish Mayfair street. ‘You’re so polite. Translation: you’d rather run a mile.’

He looks down at me, weighing his words before he answers with a sigh. ‘It’s not really my bag, if I’m honest. I’m quite old-fashioned.’

We stand there in the street, and I take the opportunity to drink him in head-on instead of via the furtive, sidelong glances I’ve been giving him all evening. Twenty-four hours later, I’m still in a sex coma from Max, still reeling from the crazy, animalistic sex we had in his living room and then in his bed before I insisted on taking myself off home.

There was no way I was going to be that girl who woke up, vulnerable and awkward, in the bed of London’s most eligible, elusive playboy.

And the playing-hard-to-get worked. He’s been texting me all afternoon from Lords, where he took some VIP clients to watch the cricket, and from The Dorchester, where he’s been wining and dining them at China Tang, begging me to come over.

I’m so going over there for a replay.

Max is hot as fuck. More than that, he’s a total daddy. He’s threatened all manner of filthy things, and I can’t wait to see him make good on them.

This guy, though.

Dex is so physically perfect it actually hurts to look at him. His hair is a lot darker than Belle’s. It’s a dark brown that’s cut quite long on top, but he’s wearing it combed lightly back, and it seriously does it for me.

Everything about him is finely drawn. The straight nose. The lean curve of his jawline. The perfect cupid’s bow of his upper lip and the plump arc of his lower one. It’s his eyes that are impossible to look away from, though. They’re like Belle’s—huge and green-gold, like exotic, mesmerising tiger eyes—and they are fucking hypnotic.

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