An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,52
on a pedestal. A velvet rope encircled it, keeping the crowds at bay.
Dalton stopped beside her. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
“Are you talking about me or the car, Dalton?”
Only Beatrice—impetuous, dangerous Beatrice—could flirt with him when everything was on the line.
She flashed him a smile and all he said was, “Yes.”
Beatrice began a slow circle around the automobile, examining it from every angle. Yet he didn’t miss how her gaze strayed more often to him than the car. He couldn’t miss how her gaze affected him, either. It turned out ruthless millionaire tycoons weren’t immune to seductive glances.
“What are you doing here, Beatrice? Why do I suspect that you’re not here to gawk at a horseless carriage?”
“We kissed,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“It happened.”
“Excellent. I just wished to confirm that it wasn’t my imagination. Especially since I haven’t heard a word from you since.” She gave him a pointed, heated look which he understood to mean that he was a cad for his silence but she was considering forgiving him. All at once he felt a rush of a feeling—shame—for his silence and for the reasons for it. He’d thrown himself headlong into this car and showing everyone that he was still their merchant prince, as if it mattered what all of Manhattan thought of him more than what she did.
Did it?
“You could see how I feared I might imagine it,” she continued.
“You did not imagine it.”
“Good.” She’d done a full circle around the car now and was standing right in front of him. “Because I would like for it to happen again.”
Heart. Stop. Keep. Distance.
“We’re rivals, remember? I’m very busy plotting my revenge,” he said.
“And making plans for after. Or at least a hobby, Dalton. Honestly.”
“One thing at a time,” he said. But she was stepping over the velvet rope designed to keep people out and climbing into the car. “What are you doing?”
“Some people might be content just to look. I’m not.” Her gaze connected with his. He felt electrified. “I want to know how it feels, Dalton, to be on the inside.”
“This is not fair, Beatrice.” His voice was rough. God, she was getting to him. With those tendrils and the sway of her hips and those heated gazes.
Between her and the car and the New York sky at night, he was going to be wrecked.
“I’m not playing a game, Dalton.”
“What is this about, then?”
“Get in. I’ll tell you.”
Dalton paused because this felt like one of those moments where things shifted. He tried, he really did, to think of her only as his rival. As his one and only obstacle to success and revenge and something like happiness. But she was all skirts and pretty hair, and climbing into the front seat of an open-top car after hours and saying “get in with me,” and honestly what human man could say no?
Dalton climbed in beside her. He had ideas about keeping his distance but that was impossible in a little car like this. On a roof. In the middle of Manhattan.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “We can’t go anywhere.”
“Are you speaking literally or metaphorically?”
“Yes,” he said. Then he made the mistake of breathing her in. “Yes.”
The rest of the world faded away. It was all so very out there and they were right here. Just the two of them in the front seat of the car, parked on a roof, under a rapidly setting sun. Darkness was falling. The city was lighting up. It was still such a novel and arresting sight—an electrified, towering New York—but it paled in comparison to looking at Beatrice.
The store was closed. They had all night.
“My wedding night was fine, I suppose,” she began, apropos of nothing and he suddenly found it hard to breathe. They were going to talk and he was trapped. And they were going to talk as if they were . . . friends, not rivals. Or rather, she was going to talk and he was going to sit very still and listen and try to remember about his plans for vengeance and dominance. He was going to keep telling himself that he cared only for his business and winning and nothing for her.
My name is Wes Dalton. You stole my . . .
His constant refrain was no match for what she said next.
“I knew what I was supposed to do in the sense that I knew I was supposed to do whatever the duke wanted. Allow him whatever liberty. That sort of thing.”