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“How different does she have to be?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Oh, that entirely depends on you,” he hummed in her other ear. “It can be as dramatic or as subtle as you like. My only conditions are that you bring the doll back to me before the week is over and that there is somethingnoticeably different about it. If I like what you’ve done, then we can negotiate a more permanent arrangement.”
“More kissing?” she questioned with displeasure.
She might have been uncomfortable, but Gwendolyn refused to be given a bad deal. If this was some weird sugar daddy thing—
“Oh, no. I’d rather not.”
His chuckle offended her so much that Gwendolyn turned to glare at him properly. The man leaned onto his cane with both hands, exposing more of the black swirls near his wrists—the unknown tattoo dripping from his hands like freshly spilled ink.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re perfectlylovely,if not a tad bitmildfor my taste,” he said in a way that bothered Gwendolyn more than the way his eyes trailed her form. “But I try not to mix business and pleasure. It gets messy.”
“I—” Gwendolyn felt her fuse short circuit. “Why would you want to start a business deal with a kiss if you—”
“I’m an eccentric antique dealer, I told you,” he said, dismissing her reason with a shrug of his shoulder. “I get bored easily, so I like to keep things interesting. Now, like I said, my offer is on the table. Take it or leave it, the choice really is yours.”
The tension was enough to make her sick as Gwendolyn hurriedly tried to rationalize any of the man’s absurd requests. If she could make sense of it all, she could see the very obvious, but unknown danger ahead. If she were smart, she would leave him and the doll in this shop, and forget the entire experience.
Her mother had always called her stubborn. Gwendolyn hated how right she was as she caught the man’s eye.
“Okay…”
“Okay …what?”
Gwendolyn felt her jaw tighten. He really wanted herexplicitconsent, didn’t he?
“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “You have a deal.”
“Excellent!” he exclaimed.
There was a shift in his features, a thin facial movement that Gwendolyn lost before she could fully absorb it. His smile was sudden as he closed the distance quicker than Gwendolyn liked. She felt her breath hitch as he was close enough for her to see the fine lines of his irritatingly handsome face. A hint of black tea tickled her nose before it was flooded with the honeyed vanilla musk that lingered on him. His free hand hovered along her neck, and her own braced against the front of his suit jacket in a matter of seconds.
“Wait!”
She was surprised when the man halted, eyebrow raised in question. At least he understoodthat.A shudder went through her as Gwendolyn scrambled to collect her nerves. Was she really doing this?
It doesn’t matter. It’s a means to an end. I want that doll and I’m not leaving without her.
“I…” Gwendolyn licked her lips and tried not to shake as the man followed the path of her tongue.
“Yes?”
“I … I don’t even know your name.”
He hummed, almost in gentle understanding, “Well, let’s fix that.”
When his fingers brushed her cheek, Gwendolyn felt that same stinging shock to her skin. Her heart was struggling, like the shock had gone deep into the organ itself and had pierced something she couldn’t see. The urge to bolt and forget was like a firework exploding in thedistance that Gwendolyn forced herself to ignore. The same fingers that shocked her trailed to the end of her chin, curling to lift her head up properly to look at him.
“Most of my clients know me as The Antiquarian….”
“But…” she trailed.
“Uh-uh,” he scolded as he let go of her chin. “My kiss first, if you’d be sokind.”
There was finality to his request, a dare that Gwendolyn knew meant now or never.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” she ordered in a last-ditch effort to defy him.