Page 16 of Tall, Dark, and Grumpy

“I spilt my drink,” I explain, my voice very small, and show him my sticky hands as though that makes it clearer. I am a doof.

He gestures with one finger and the barman is there instantly. “Clean cloth, please. And a glass of water.”

Within seconds, he has what he’s requested, and I peek up at him from under my lashes, embarrassed as he takes one of my hands in his, then the other, and wipes them clean, expression impassive.

Discarding the cloth, he wraps my fingers around the glass of water and instructs me to drink.

Not having much choice, I gulp it down and Mr Blackwood removes his suit jacket. The man who was badgering me has gone, I realise, and so has Mr Blackwood’s brother and at least one of the men with them. I wonder uneasily if those things are related.

Mr Blackwood plucks the glass from my hand as I finish it, and then wraps his jacket around my shoulders, impatiently indicating for me to put my arms in. Then he has me in it, the front buttoned, and the arms rolled up. It’s ludicrously big on me, I’m dwarfed. It’s longer than my dress.

Tugging at the lapels, my boss scowls at the low-cut neckline of my dress that his jacket does nothing to hide, then his gaze meets mine, and I melt. His eyes. My god, his blue eyes.

What is he doing here?

“I can’t believe your boyfriend arrived, Cassie.” Julia’s interjection into this moment is about as welcome as presents from a pet cat. “We were beginning to think you’d made him up.”

Mr Blackwood goes rigid and turns to her. “I’m not her boyfriend.”

My cheeks heat. There was my thinking this evening had taken a turn for the better, and yeah nope. It’s worse.

“Huh.” Julie gives me a look like,I knew you were lying. “That’s odd. Because she described someone exactly like you as her boyfriend.”

Julie sweeps Mr Blackwood with a speculative gaze now she knows he’s not mine, and I’m torn between bitch fighting her, and bursting into tears.

Mr Blackwood’s gaze bounces between me—the mortified raspberry—and Julie, the smug blonde. There would be silence if it weren’t for the noise of voice and the drumming of music.

I’m utterly humiliated. I might vomit.

“Didn’t you say he was tall, with bright blue eyes? Brown hair,” Julie says to me then turns to Mr Blackwood. “She said herboyfriendwas rich, and handsome.”

My chin droops, but like a rabbit caught in headlights, I’m unable to actually move. I should run. That’s the mature thing to do right now having been caught out.

That or break into song. “It wasn’t me.”

Except it was. I said all that, and all three of us in this conversation know full well I was thinking of my hot boss when I described my “boyfriend”.

“She said that was where she’d been every evening this last month,” Julie continues, getting right into her smug glee as I attempt to sink into the floor. “And that he had a hint of an Italian accent, which I think you do, isn’t that right?”

Julie sidles right up to Mr Blackwood. “You have such a broad chest though.” She reaches up and smooths across Mr Blackwood’s undeniably broad chest. “She didn’t say her boyfriend keeps in such good shape, and she would have mentioned it given you must work so hard at the gym…”

It’s more difficult than it looks, sinking into the floor. I need tips on disappearing. I could take up magic, or just immigrate to the moon. Perhaps NASA would lob me into space like that dog.

Maybe an expedition to the bottom of the ocean. One-way ticket.

Mr Blackwood’s hand strikes Julie’s and rips it from his chest.

“I’m not her boyfriend,” he states in a furious voice. “I’m herfiancé.”

6

VITO

“You’re engaged?” Cassie’s friend’s mouth drops open.

“I told you that I was serious about marriage, amore mio dolce,” I continue, focusing on Cassie. “But I appreciate that without a ring you might not have understood.”

I’ve called her that a million times in my head, and the affectionate expression slips out naturally. She looks so cute in my jacket, and seeing her wearing my clothes soothes all my protective instincts that went haywire when I saw her in that dress so small it could be a vest. Damn it, I want to be the only one who sees those beautiful legs.