Page 10 of Forbidden Bastard
Drat. She glanced up at him and said, “I’d prefer us to be truthful. So, what do you think of Evagaline and the others?”
He pointed toward Evagaline, who laughed with the man she’d waved at earlier. “Evagaline works for me already, right?”
Sandi put her empty glass down, not taking another to maintain control of her senses. “Yes. I met her at your office the other day.”
He shrugged--they each watched the man hug Evagaline’s side. “I don’t tend to date the staff.”
She had no right to be so attracted to a smoking-sexy man like Charles anyhow. They’d never work out. “Well, you didn’t tell me your preferences.”
Then her mind clicked on the answer--the couple near the window was the Crown Prince and Princess of Avce.
Charles must know them as his intensity this evening seemed… focused. Alert.
He brushed against her arm and her hair stood on end. In the past, desire had never stayed this strong within her for a man she knew she’d never have. He said in an almost interested tone, “I didn’t know what you looked like under the bunny suit.”
Drat. The very air between them pulled at her skin--she wished she was the type of girl a man like him kissed. She parted her lips, imagining how he’d taste.Stop.Sandi checked her diamond studs her grandmother had given her on her sixteenth birthday. “Just a regular girl, nothing extraordinary.”
“Well, I did wonder.” He winked.
She blushed. Awkward was her middle name. Her reactions to situations were never normal. Sandi let out a sigh, hoping to relieve her attraction. “We both know you didn’t think about me for more than two seconds after we made our deal.”
He stepped close enough to brush his side against hers. Maybe the attraction wasn't one-sided? Huskily he said, “Tonight I’ll wonder how to get my matchmaker into my bed.”
Bed. Sex. Right. Sandi was way out of her league, and somehow that knowledge that he was a charmer allowed her to find her calm. It wasn't personal on his part. “I knew you were a playboy.”
He pressed his hand to his heart as if she’d stabbed him and said, “I’m…" He stopped, pale. "That’s Sheena.”
“Who?” Sandi turned around and saw a tall man and blonde woman with long hair down to her shoulders enter the ballroom, about a foot from them.
Charles whispered in her ear like they were a team. “The woman who broke my heart.”
“You had a heart to break?” she asked, but her eyes grew bigger. The fact that she'd been able to banter with him meant that she'd lost her shyness. He was just a man under all that hotness.
His smile showed his dimples. “And here I thought I had a clean slate with you.”
Sheena, the polished and pretty lady near the door, flinched as she met Charles’s gaze.
Strange. There was a story there.
Maybe her heart was broken too though the woman kept her arm tucked into her husband’s.
Sandi reached up and brushed his falsely-smooth cheek. “You technically do, personally. It’s your type that I don’t trust.”
“My type?” He took her hand off his face but held it.
She went onto her tiptoes and leaned close so not everyone near them heard her when she said, “Handsome, wealthy men who can get anything they want and know it. Your type typically doesn’t want what I want.”
“Are you judging me based on someone else’s bad behavior?”
“Maybe I am.” She tightened her spine. “I thought Reza was my one and only, and we’d have it all. But he… didn’t love me back.”
“Rich, wealthy,foolishman, then.”
She hadn’t thought about the guy in a while now. “No, not foolish. He was a doctor. Very level-headed. He just wasn’t in love with me and said I didn’t fit in his life.”
“That’s hard.” He pocketed his hand in his black tux pants and flexed strong ab muscles that she could see beneath his fitted white silk shirt. “What do you want?”
“To be more successful and not an utter f--- mess up.” She used her hip to move without moving and give her a bit more space from him. At least she'd stopped a swear word from flying out of her lips. And what’s funny was that she never swore which meant she was nervous.
