Page 3 of Kissing Danger

She retaliated by punching me in the shoulder. “Shut up and stop fooling around. Now, I’ll give you a few minutes to take a break and get something to drink before I collect you again and we can focus on the more promising investors.”

“You are determined to get me hired by a big-name label tonight, aren’t you.”

Quickly fixing her makeup in a compact mirror that she always carried around, Kiki gave me a wink. “Your career is my career, and I take my career very seriously. I wouldn’t have accepted the job as your assistant if I didn’t think you had the potential to make it big.”

“Well, at least one of us has faith.” I searched around the room and found the open bar not far away. “Now, you said I could have a drink, so I think the bar is calling my name.”

“Only one drink,” Kiki called after me as I walked away. “We need you sober tonight, so don’t get drunk.”

CHAPTER 2

Deacon

There wasa bit of a crowd around the bar, so it took me a moment to actually get a drink. Just a regular rum and coke. Nothing too hard so I didn’t risk getting drunk; my alcohol tolerance was disappointingly low, and the caffeine would help me keep my energy up throughout the rest of the night.

People dressed in fancy suits and dresses pressed all around, laughing and bumping into one another. The heat of so many bodies in close proximity was making me lightheaded and I took a large gulp of my drink to try and cool down. That was when I remembered that I’d eaten almost nothing the entire day, too nervous to choke down more than a few saltine crackers at breakfast. The alcohol hit my empty stomach like a sledgehammer and the room instantly began to spin. I stumbled and knocked into the person next to me, causing them to spill their drink.

“So sorry,” I stammered as I stared down at the new puddle on the floor. Judging by the smell, it had been a very expensivebrand of whiskey. It had also stained the person’s shoes. Luckily, they were leather, so they should clean up easily, but I still winced. People in the fashion world tended to be very particular about their clothes, myself included, so I braced myself for yelling.

“If you flinch like that, people will think I’m going to hit you,” a deep masculine voice said.

I couldn’t tell if the man was angry or not. He had very little inflection in his voice, but at least he wasn’t yelling. Feeling hopeful, I finally raised my gaze from the floor, but before I could get a good look at the man, he grabbed my arm just above the elbow and dragged me away from the crowd.

“Come with me.”

My only choices were to either comply or make a scene. His grip didn’t hurt, but it was too solid for me to slip away. For now, I decided to follow him, and would only resort to making a scene if he tried to remove me from the room altogether.

Luckily, he merely brought me to a more secluded corner where there was a bench for me to sit down. A cold water bottle was pressed into my hand, which the man had apparently snagged from the bar.

“Here. Drink something. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Thanks,” I said, and winced when my voice cracked. “I’m just a bit overheated, and I didn’t eat enough today. Nothing serious.” The cap of the water bottle cracked when I twisted it open, meaning the seal hadn’t been tampered with, so I gulped down the water with confidence that at least the stranger wasn’t trying to drug me.

“Nervous for the show, I assume,” he said as he watched me drink.

Glancing up to finally get a proper look at the man, I nearly choked on my water.

Working in the fashion industry, I’d built up a tolerance toward beautiful people. I was surrounded by them every day, and the delicate beauty that most models and fashionistas tended to prefer had never really interested me on anything other than an aesthetic level.

Rugged handsomeness, on the other hand, was woefully lacking in the fashion world, so I had no immunity to it. When I looked up at a man so perfectly “my type” that he could have been picked directly from my wet dreams, my soul nearly left my body.

Well over six feet, he was a perfect mix of rough and refined. His hair was short and immaculate, not a hair out of place, and his features were both broad and sharp. Even his more subjective traits, such as the gray hair at his temples and the tattoos I could see on his neck and the backs of his hands hit my preferences perfectly.

So, I had a weakness for older men and secret bad boys. A lot of people did. I wasn’t ashamed of my preferences.

As if guessing where my thoughts had wandered, the man smiled. It was just a slight curve of his lips and didn’t show any teeth, but I could tell the expression was genuine.

“Nathan Sterling,” he said as he held out his hand.

I shook it, and winced when I realized condensation from the water bottle had left my hand unpleasantly damp. My wordsstuttered, refusing to come out properly. I needed to say something, but the ability to start a conversation had completely abandoned me.

“Deacon Millar,” I eventually managed to blurt out.

“I know,” he said as he took a seat next to me, politely refusing to wipe his hand free of the moisture I’d definitely left behind. “Your collection had that interesting piece at the end.”

I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me and quickly took another swallow of water. “Interesting is a word for it.”

Up close, I got a better view of Nathan’s suit, and my opinion of him rose even higher. A dark gray silk blend, it had a subtle herringbone pattern woven in, and had obviously been tailor made for him. Understated and classy, he didn’t need to put on bizarre colors or patterns to stand out. The one odd detail I noticed was his cufflinks. The iron dark metal was stamped with an image of a wolf’s head and lacked any other embellishment.

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