Page 51 of From Fling to Ring

She gazes up at me, her heavily made-up eyes wide open as if she wants me to see her as innocent as she wishes she were. The woman is trouble. That’s all there is to it.

She runs a hand over my suit jacket, feeling up my bicep. “Mmmm,” she says, “just as… hard as ever, aren’t you?”

I politely pull myself out of her grasp. “Daphne, are you here with Chuck? Where is he?” I ask, scanning the crowd.

“Oh, don’t worry about him, honey?—”

“Hello.” Lucy appears next to me and extends her hand to Daphne, whose head snaps back on her neck at the interruption.

“Oh. Hello.” She looks Lucy up and down with a shitload of disdain and I swear, if she were a dude, I’d wipe that smug look right off her face.

Lucy weaves her arm through mine, her hand landing on the forearm Daphne was just trying to claim. “I’m Lucy Daley,” she says with a hint of warning behind it.

Fuck, I like her even more now.

She extends her hand for a shake.

Daphne limply takes her hand. “I’m… Daphne. Nice... dress,” she says, looking Lucy up and down and clearly not meaning a word of the compliment.

Lucy returns the favor by checking out Daphne with a head-to-toe assessment. Her eyes travel over the sparkly gold number her breasts are spilling out of, then she looks back at Daphne with a small smile. She takes a sip of her champagne, glances around the room, and doesn’t utter a word.

Fuck yeah. She put this woman in her place without uttering a single word.

My girl’s a baller.

Chuck joins us a second later.

“There you are,” he says, putting an arm around Daphne’s shoulder.

“Oh. Hi honey,” she says in a flat voice.

Chuck turns to Lucy. “Hello. We haven’t met before.”

As if to further irritate Daphne, Lucy responds with a warm smile, extending her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

As they exchange pleasantries, Daphne taps me on the shoulder, signaling for me to bend closer so she can say something in my ear.

Lucy catches this and nips it in the bud. Jesus, I may have to marry this woman.

“Whatever you have to say, why don’t you tell us all, Dorothy?”

Chuck clears his throat. “Oh, Lucy, it’s Daphne. Not Dorothy.”

She whips her gaze in his direction. “Isn’t that what I said?”

Holy shit, she’s good.

“Uh, no. You didn’t,” he says with a chuckle.

Daphne and he both look at Lucy, waiting for something like an apology.

And no big surprise, there was none to be had.

“Oh, Lucy, I have to introduce you to Coach over there,” I say, pointing in some random direction. “Chuck, Daphne, we’ll see you around, okay?”

I lead Lucy away as fast as we can and once we’re swallowed up by the crowd, I turn to her.

“Nice beat down. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

---