Page 48 of Underground Prince

At last, he turned his head to take me in. “It’s perfect.”

“Says you,” I muttered. Leave it to him to study me when I was in a high-necked sweater outfit and not when I was panting in lingerie beside him.

The driver slowed to a stop in front of what I recognized as a very exclusive and established upper-class hotel.

“Interesting,” I said as the driver held my door open and I stepped out.

Theo got out the other side, buttoning his suit as he rounded the car toward me and I thought, My God. The hotel’s lighted awning put him at full power. Faint stubble coated his cheeks, sparking to life under the white luminescence. Dark lashes bordered his liquid toffee eyes, and his suit slashed in hard lines down his body. His hair was parted and raised into a shining swoop.

I instantly wanted to tousle it.

He offered me his elbow, which I took, when he stopped midway to the door. I halted beside him, almost tripping on my own feet.

“Shoes,” he said.

“What, these?” I lifted one leg, turning my foot and showcasing my ankle boots. “They’re black, just like my outfit. They go perfectly.”

“No.”

He let go and turned back to the car, and I really wished he’d have more of a vocabulary sometimes. He went into the passenger seat again and came out with a pair of…

“Ballet flats?” I asked him once he reached me.

“You can’t make a sound.”

“What kind of explanation is that?” I asked, but I was already unzipping my boots, holding onto his shoulder for balance.

After a few hops, I had my new shoes on (how did he know my size?) and my old shoes back in his Bentley, and we were meandering through the glamorous life of the fabulous.

Polished brass, gold sconces, glittering people surrounded me, but I kept my face blank and as unimpressed as I could make it as Theo directed us through the lobby. We bypassed the corridor and headed to the back, where a single elevator appeared.

Theo produced a key card, and all of a sudden I was in a private lift in a five-star hotel with a ridiculously captivating man.

Oh, in a black pullover pajamas ensemble. And with multicolored—albeit pinned-back—hair.

We said nothing on the way up, and I watched his every movement as he pulled a muted gray tie out of his pocket, faced one reflective brass wall, and had it secured and perfected in four seconds.

“Whoa,” I said, before my brain could tell me to shut up.

He met my eyes in the brass, tugging at the knot once more. “I hate these things.”

Theo knotted that tie with years of ease in those fingers. But the dexterity was misleading, because with his statement came the barest reflected imprisonment.

The elevator dinged with our arrival and I snapped to attention, the moment between us lost. We opened up to the plushest, whitest, cleanest penthouse I’d ever been in. The suite was huge, and had very little furniture. What pieces there were displayed white leather, glass, or a mix of both. A fire crackled under a cream marble mantel, contributing to the faint smell of cigar smoke and mixed perfumes clinging to the air.

“Coming?” Theo asked, holding out his hand.

Taking it, I entered another new world, and true to form I wasn’t paying attention to anything straight ahead and banged into a wall.

Not a wall.

“Shi—uh, sorry,” I said to the big, tall man beside me. I couldn’t meet his eyes because I was too busy staring at his chest, and the hard cushion I accidentally hit when I nose-dived into it.

“Was that a bulletproof vest?” I asked Theo as we kept moving.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.”

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