Page 55 of Fall of a Kingdom

“No. You don’t get to blame me for that,” I protested. “Jack’s a work-a-holic.”

“I still think you’re a succubus.”

I stole a hand across Piper’s back. “I can go upstairs at any moment and leave you to enjoy your scotch alone, you know. I don’t actuallyneedyour company.”

“What’s it like?” she prodded.

“What?” I asked.

“Having so many men in love with you?”

“Oh, stop. You’ve had your fair share of men in love with you, too,” I pointed out.

“True,” she allowed. “But country club investment bankers aren’t the same as men who actually control criminal domains.”

“I don’t think of it that way, Ash. I just—I don’t know. I treat them like men instead of the movers and shakers they are. They’re all so used to having women fawn all over them. They don’t turn my head. I’m immune. So, they try even harder to sweep me off my feet.”

“Femme Fatale. Truly, I’m impressed.”

“Do you miss those days, Ash?” I asked quietly. “When you were a free agent, and no one had any claims on you?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Not that I’d trade what I have with Duncan and our family for those days, but that feeling of being unencumbered, of walking into a room and having all eyes on you…”

“You can still have that,” I said.

“I guess. But being a mom, I don’t know, sometimes I feel invisible to the opposite sex. And it’s nice when you get the validation from a man that isn’t your husband. It’s truth in a way that can’t be faked. They’re either attracted to you, or they aren’t.” She took a sip of her drink. “You wouldn’t really know what that’s like.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“No. We just established that. Everyone wants you.”

“How do you walk into a room,” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you walk in like you own it? Do you dress like you want to be looked at? Or do you do things to hide?”

She paused, clearly weighing my words. “My clothes. I’m wearing a lot of black these days.”

“There’s nothing wrong with black.”

“It’s slimming,” she said flatly. “And I feel like no matter how much I strive to get back to my old body, it doesn’t want to go back the way it was.”

“You’ve had three children.”

“So have you. You look fantastic.”

“You look fantastic too,” I said.

“Are you lying?”

“No. Are you the same size you were in college? No. But you don’t have to strive for that either.”

She touched her blonde hair that she’d cut into a long bob. It was a great hairstyle on her and framed her face well, but she’d left it long enough to be able to pull it back into a ponytail.

“I feel frumpy,” she finally admitted. “Here in Scotland, I’m not the socialite I once was. And somewhere along the way I got used to dressing down. I used to be the woman who put on makeup to go to the gym.”

“I remember.” I smiled at the memory. “You don’t dress down. You just dress differently.”