Page 38 of The Risk (The Billionaires Club)

“Boyfriend?”

She frowned at me. “What did I just say?”

“Habitual sexual partners?”

Her hand wasn’t trembling anymore. She dropped it. “How is any of this your business? I think we can both agree that you got your money’s worth. That doesn’t give you the right to come here, throw yourself into the middle of my life, and start interrogating me.”

“I apologize.” Though, really, I wasn’t sorry. “It’s not my intention to upset you.”

“I’m not upset.” She looked around again, then scowled. “Come with me.”

She wheeled around, then stomped off toward the intersection. I followed, bemused, because she wasn’t quite the biddable burlesque dancer I remembered. I wondered whether that woman had ever really existed. If she had been as much a part of the act as the suggestive dance and her wings.

A wise man would cut his losses and leave. But when it came to this woman, I discovered I was many things. None of them the least bit wise.

She ushered me into a small dive bar around the corner that seemed remarkably empty.

“It’s early,” she said when I pointed that out. “This is the kind of place you go to on your way out or on your way home. Not in between.”

She lifted two fingers at the bartender as she headed for a U-shaped booth on the back wall, then slid into it. I sat across from her, my initial worry that this had all been foolish fading as she scowled back at me.

Because even scowling, dressed like a real, live woman instead of a wet dream, she made my body...hum. She made me feel alive. She was even more beautiful than I remembered, effortless and elegant with shawls wrapped around her in a way that struck me as far more European than American. And much as I’d liked her on her knees, on all fours, astride me and beneath me, I couldn’t deny the fact that I liked her just as much now that she faced me. Dressed.

My dick just liked her. Full stop.

“Fantasies are just that,” she said after a moment. “Fantasies. They’re not supposed to be real. And the point of that night was that it was meant to be anonymous.”

“You told me your name.”

“You were never supposed to know it was real.”

“But I do know.” I studied her. “Why did you give it to me at all if you were concerned about preserving the fantasy?”

Her scowl deepened, but I could see that flush on her cheeks and after the night we’d spent together, I knew it was the truth of what she was feeling. “It was a regrettable impulse, nothing more.”

“I don’t think so,” I said quietly. “I think you wanted me to know you. And to find you. And Darcy, I have.”

I expected her to scoff at that. But when she only huffed out a breath, then looked down at her hands before her on the table, I knew I was right.

That pounded in me, too. Drums on drums, and my pulse like heat.

The bartender slid two shot glasses filled with clear liquid onto the table between us, and Darcy nodded her thanks. She picked up the small glass nearest her and tossed it back. She didn’t cough or choke. She only blew out another breath, then nodded at me as if she’d settled something.

“Vodka makes everything better. Even unexpected reappearances on the street outside my house.”

I followed suit, feeling the top-shelf liquor burn a smooth, hot trail through me. Then I sat back, still watching her closely. “I’ve never had sex like that in my life. I want more. A lot more.”

Her cheeks burned, but she shrugged. “I already told you, I’m not selling myself again.”

“I’m not asking you to. Or not like that, anyway. As it happens, I also need a wife.”

I didn’t know what I expected, but all she did was sigh. Then roll her eyes. “Of course you do. Also, no.”

“I will eventually need an heir,” I said as if she’d asked. “It occurred to me, as my mother was lecturing me on this topic, that I have no interest in any of the women I’ve ever met. I like them well enough in the moment, but I never think about them again. You, on the other hand, I can’t seem to get out of my head.”

“Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“You have a lovely pedigree, for an American.”

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