Page 10 of His Greatest Treasure

I clear my throat and try to even out my expression so I’m not shooting daggers at a little girl. Her hand is swallowed in mine as we shake quickly. “Oliver.”

“This is where we sign up for ballet, right?” she asks.

Her mom’s eyes are a brand on my face as she glowers at me. I’m pretty sure she’s wishing she’ll be able to light me on fire with them. Clearly, she didn’t want to see me again as much as I didn’t want to see her, and she doesn’t bother with trying to pretend otherwise.

“Yes,” I grunt.

I search through the stacks of already completed registration forms before finding the blank ones. Snagging a pen from beside them, I offer them both to her mother.

“Fill it out completely, and then leave it with me . . .” I trail off, still not knowing her name.

She hesitates for a moment before saying, “Ary.”

“Right. Fill out the forms from start to finish. If you have any questions, just ask. Try not to leave anything blank,Ary.”

She’s so stiff she’d crack right down the middle if I blew on her. “Do I have to fill them out here?”

“I suppose not. But you’ll have to bring it back to me today either way. Last couple hours to register.”

“Right.”

“You do know this is for those who can’t afford regular classes, right?” I ask before I can think better of spouting off the jackass question.

Shit, my mom would ream my ass out here and now for speaking to a woman like that.

Ary’s peach-tinted lips part, the pillowy look of them hard to ignore even as she curls the top one back. Fury heats her cheeks.

“And just what do you know of my financial status?”

I should apologize. It’s the nice, respectful thing to do. But fuck me, my tongue is loose, and my own frustration with her has me doing all the wrong things today.

“I know that the house you just bought wasn’t cheap.”

“Do you have any hobbies that don’t involve being a—” She cuts herself off with a glance at her daughter before clearing her throat. “We’ll fill the papers out and leave. It seems we’ve already overstayed our welcome.”

“Look, Mom, empty chairs. We can do it here,” Nova says, jabbing her finger to the plastic chairs we’ve set up by the entrance.

At least she’s naïve to the tension between her mother and me. Fuck’s sake.

“Great,” Ary says on a breath before clenching the pen and papers and striding to the makeshift waiting area.

I watch her go, my eyes drawn to the graceful way her body moves with each step. It’s like she’s floating on goddamn air, even in a pair of wedges that give her a couple more inches in height. Shit, they do more than just make her taller. The bare expanse of her pale legs leading up to a pair of cut-off jean shorts appear even longer than they did yesterday morning. The tiny shorts, in addition to the oversized white tee that hangs off her left shoulder, make her look like something out of one of a younger me’s wet dream.

Gritting my teeth, I glare at the messy table in front of me and start cleaning it up. Every pen I drop in the plastic cup seems to annoy me more and more, until soon enough, I’m crumpling the edge of each registration form instead of stacking them neatly.

There’s something about that woman that unnerves me. Maybe it’s her scowl that somehow rivals mine or the way she still hasn’t apologized for being rude yesterday—as if she needs to with how fucking terrible I’ve been to her. I can’t put my finger on what it is that’s riling me so badly, and that’s the most aggravating thing of all.

I sit and stew for a few more minutes before she slams the stack of papers on the table, leaving her fingers splayed over the top one until I bring my gaze to hers.

Hunched over the table, she breathes fire, her cheeks as red as the trucks at the station. “Here. Try not to lose them.”

The rapid rise and fall of her chest is hard to ignore, but when my cock twitches in my jeans, I make damn fucking sure I don’t let my eyes stray.

“How did you hear about this place?”

“That’s not your business.”

I lean forward, my elbows digging into the table. “It is considering this is my family’s business.”

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