Page 8 of Filthy Rich

“I’m sorry to hear that. It looks painful.”

“It doesn’t hurt me now.” I think I smiled and shook my head but couldn’t be sure. Just call me the village idiot because I knew I was acting like one. I did love the sound of her voice, though.

“Another rare and precious meatball?” She offered her tray and studied me this time. She had to be disgusted by my appearance and turned off by my behavior, but she didn’t show it if she was.

“Yes, please.” I took another meatball but I didn’t eat it. “You are British.”

“You are American,” she said with a fast wink, before turning away to serve other guests.

I watched her walk away from me and felt the pounding of my heart vibrating throughout my entire body.

Something had just happened to me.

I wasn’t completely sure what exactly, but I was crystal clear on the reason.

Her.

Idid not leave as I had planned to do.

I stayed in that ridiculous meet and greet so I could stalk a girl I did not know.

I, Caleb Blackstone, became a stalker in that moment and was not in the least apologetic about it, either.

Oh, for the next hour or so I put on a good show and kept schmoozing with people I hardly paid attention to, so I could watch her walk around the room, serving meatballs in her tight skirt and fuck-me boots. I even managed to paint an image of her wearing nothingbutthose boots in my head. My thoughts were downright filthy, to the point my cock wanted in on the action.

Badly.

This wasn’t happening to me in a roomful of business associates. My dick was not getting hard from watching a pretty girl offer up food.

Yes, it was.

I also figured out I wasn’t the only one looking at her, and those boots weren’t exactly helping her fade into the background at an event like this one, made up of mostly men thinking about sex once every fifty-two seconds. Seeing her, it was impossible to think about much of anything else.

“I’d take my time tapping that tight ass nice and slow—with the fucking boots on.”

Kevin Aldrich was a dipshit investment banker with a receding hairline, an expanding waistline, and a big trust fundinherited from his old-money grandfather. He also had a wife, two or three teenage kids, and a drinking problem. The sad truth was he probably did get beautiful women like her to fuck him because he had the money to help them get over the fact he was a complete and total douchebag.

I said nothing, but I felt my blood start to boil. In that instant I truly understood the meaning behind the expression, “it made my blood boil.” Mine was going nuclear.

Aldrich lifted his drink and all but drooled in her direction to call her over. She noticed him and came forward with her tray of what I knew were individual shrimp cocktails. I’d not make the same mistake again.

“Shrimp cocktail strike your fancy, gentlemen?” she asked pleasantly.

“You strike my fancy, sexy boots,” Aldrich said with an obvious leer. Okay, the guy was worse than a disgusting douche. He was a moron with the social skills of a cockroach.

“Clever. I’ve only heard that fourteen other times in the last hour and a half,” she said smoothly. “Can I offer you a shrimp cocktail?” she repeated, clearly not amused and her golden eyes showed it.

Aldrich was either too drunk or too stupid to catch the clues, however. “How about your number instead? I’ll take you somewhere where we can eat all the shrimp we want.” He flicked his tongue at her, and I just about lost my shit. Forget my boiling blood, I wanted to kill him.

“No fucking way, Aldrich, you didnotjust do that!”

He did two more really stupid things nearly simultaneously. He reached his arm around to drag her body against his and said to me, “Don’t cock block me and sexy boots here. We’re just getting acquainted, and she looks like she can use a long slow ride in those b?—”

Aldrich didn’t finish his sentence however, because he received an immediate and skilled defense move of an elbow to the front of the nose.Herelbow. His nose. Too bad I tried to get in there first and push him off her. The back of his bulbous head caught me on the chin to the effect he went down hard, taking me with him, along with tiny glasses of cocktail sauce and airborne pink shrimp that sprayed out in an arc, catching anyone within a ten-foot radius.

Silence ensued as all conversations ceased and focused their attentions on us.

“You fucking cunt! You broke my nose,” Aldrich bellowed from behind the hand trying to stem the gushing blood pouring from his mean little face.

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