Page 15 of Sweet Surrender

My hands flexed, and I realized I was imagining how satisfying it would be to strangle her. I wasn’t a violent man. I was a lot of things, but not that. She was determined to make me reconsider.

“We don’t have to stay more than an hour or two,” she continued in a flat voice. I couldn’t understand how she managed to hold a conversation while typing. I had noticed it at her office, and again, I watched her as she spoke. “Make nice, be very grateful to be there, and everything will be fine.”

She made it sound easy, but then she could. “So long as I don’t have to do any bowing and scraping like some peasant.”

“Yeah. God forbid you humble yourself for even five minutes.”

“Something’s up your ass tonight,” I observed. It was much more enjoyable to screw with her than look forward to a night of pretending there was no elephant in the room.

By now, a week after my private life had been upended for the pleasure of gossip hounds across the country, everyone would have read that bullshit excuse for journalism. Yet I knew this world well enough to know I would never be openly scorned by the blue-blood, silver-spoon crowd I was about to face. They would smile at me, give me a few air kisses, and pose for photos like they weren’t silently scorning me with every breath. It was all a charade, from top to bottom, and it made me sick.

When Sienna didn’t respond, I doubled down. She was the living, breathing symbol of everything I hated about this entire phony setup and the only person in the vicinity for me to take my frustration out on. “If you’re going to babysit me, you could at least be decent company,” I told her, and in the glow from her screen, I watched her jaw tighten. The sight satisfied me, putting me back on solid ground.

“And if you weren’t a baby, you wouldn’t need a babysitter.” She lowered the phone, narrowing her eyes dangerously from her corner of the seat. She crossed her legs, hidden beneath a long, dark blue silk dress, and began swinging her foot in a way that told me I was in trouble. “I happen to be friends with a few board members, or else I wouldn’t have been able to score a last-minute invite for you. It’s only right for me to show my face.”

“You have a lot of friends, don’t you?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. It is possible to have a wide circle of friends, you know. Not all of us stick solely to the people we grew up with.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I countered, mimicking her tone. “Last time I checked, you’re pretty damn close to the same people we’ve both known our entire lives.”

She blew out a sigh before shaking her head, making her low ponytail shine. “I’m not trying to defend myself to you. You need to be thinking about how much ass you’re going to kiss tonight.”

She had a way of putting a man in his place. I could give her credit for that much. The only thing that stopped me from hurling an insult was knowing it would only prove her right that I was dreading walking into the lion’s den. I would’ve rather bitten off my tongue than admit it, but the nerves were there—a churning in my gut that left me chugging Pepto to calm things before leaving my penthouse. It didn’t matter that those ugly accusations were nothing but lies. What mattered was people would believe them, and the empire I’d built could disappear.

At least Sienna had chosen an event that made sense. A charity focused on securing housing for low-income families. My real estate career made for a natural tie-in with the foundation’s purpose.

We approached the St. Regis Hotel, the site of the gala, and the driver pulled in behind a string of cars unloading their passengers. A cluster of uniformed men held umbrellas at the ready, ushering guests across the sidewalk to keep them dry before they reached the long awning bearing the hotel’s name. “Remember,” Sienna warned while we pulled up to the front of the line. “Play nice.”

It wasn’t easy to hold my temper when she insisted on her fucking condescension. “I’m surprised you haven’t checked my underwear to make sure I put on a clean pair.”

She rolled her eyes, snickering as one of the attendants opened her door. “By the way, you’re making a very sizable donation to the foundation.”

“Excuse me?” She was already making her graceful exit from the limo, waving to a woman nearby while ducking under the proffered umbrella. I wasted no time getting out of the car, barely acknowledging the guy holding an umbrella for me. “What do you mean, donation?” I demanded of Sienna, trailing a few steps behind her on our way into the hotel.

She released a breathless giggle, running a hand over her slicked-back hair before checking her floor-length dress for damage. I might have taken the opportunity to appreciate how the dress flowed over her tight body if it had belonged to any woman but her.

She was not the woman to ogle unless I craved a kick in the balls. Why couldn’t she be ugly, so at least one aspect of this shitfest could be slightly more bearable?

“Would you please calm down?” she asked, her teeth gritted in a parody of a smile. “What, did you think you were going to get out of this without spending a little cash?”

“I’m already spending a lot of cash,” I reminded her in a voice low enough that only she could hear. Countless bodies moved past us in the lobby, but I kept my back to them, ignoring their lighthearted chatter and empty greetings.

“This is not the time to be stingy,” she whispered. Her thick lashes fluttered as she stared up at me. “I didn’t know you were afraid to drop a few bucks. And here I was, thinking you had all the money you needed at your fingertips.”

“I do,” I reminded her, grinning at how she rolled her eyes. “I could buy your entire business at a roll of the dice.”

“Says you,” she muttered.

I ignored it. “I’d like to be consulted before money is spent in my name. Is that too much to ask?”

Those obviously fake lashes fluttered again. Did women think they were fooling anybody? “Forgive me. From now on, you’ll be the first to know when I pledge a quarter of a million in your name.”

“A quarter—” I forced myself to suck in a breath before my temper exploded. No, I was in no way hurting for the money, but for fuck’s sake. I didn’t know many people who would take a quarter of a million in their stride when it wasn’t their idea to donate the money in the first place.

“This is on me,” she murmured. The girl must have missed the memo about her being a terrible actress. Her weak attempt at sorrow left me wishing I’d brought Pepto along. “I’ll run that sort of thing by you next time. I promise.”

“You could try not looking quite so proud of yourself when you apologize.”

---