Dameon nudged Omar away. “Don’t listen to him. He’s reading off his little black book, not mine.”
“I did like Darlene . . . she did this thing with her ton—”
“Enough with the details,” Dameon cut him off.
Grace was laughing, thank God.
“Have you met the rest of the staff?” Omar asked Grace.
“Not yet.” Dameon looked around the room, saw a few familiar faces at the silent auction table. “Let’s see what we can spend some money on.” He slid his hand along Grace’s waist and led her away.
“I see someone I want to say hello to,” Omar said before walking in the opposite direction.
“Omar doesn’t have an off button,” Dameon told Grace.
“You two are obviously good friends or he would have kept things polite,” she said.
“I’m glad you saw that. Because there isn’t a Brandy or Darla.”
“Darlene,” Grace corrected him.
“Her either. I date one woman at a time.”
Grace looked at him. “Really?”
“I have to juggle work. I refuse to do the same with women.”
For a minute, he wasn’t sure Grace believed him. But the slow smile that washed over her face told him his words hit home. “Okay, then.”
They approached the auction table, and Dameon placed both his hands on Grace’s waist while looking over her shoulder at the items being sold.
“A trip to someone’s summer home in Italy? Who does that?” Grace asked.
“Someone who doesn’t visit their second home and needs the write-off.”
“That’s nuts.”
They moved down the table filled with pricey trips and jewelry. There were studio audience tickets for talk shows based in LA. Spa baskets for her and eighteen holes on exclusive golf courses for him. Each item she looked at and passed over.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
She giggled and whispered, “It’s all out of my price range, but it’s fun to look at.”
“It’s not out of my price range,” he told her. Although he was fairly certain Grace knew that.
“Then what do you want? Do you play golf?” She pointed to the golf package.
“Only when I have to.”
“The spa? I know you like a good foot pampering,” she teased.
He lowered his voice and whispered in her ear, “I thought we agreed never to talk about that again.”
“We did? I don’t remember that conversation.”
He quickly shifted her gaze to a sapphire necklace displayed on a black cushion. “What about this?”
“I didn’t know you liked women’s jewelry,” she said. “I never see you wearing any.”
He squeezed her waist and she squirmed away. “Someone is ticklish.”
She held his hand to her hip. “Stop,” she giggled.
Dameon filed away her funny bone for another, more private, time. “Seriously, the necklace would look fabulous on you.”
“You’re crazy,” she said.
He kissed her ear before whispering, “Wearing only the necklace.”
Dameon loved making her blush.
And to prove a point, he grabbed a pen and wrote his name, table number, and price he was willing to pay to make his fantasy come true.
Grace placed her hand over his. “What are you doing?”
He kept writing. “It’s for charity.”
“You’re nuts.”
He winked and pulled her along.
Halfway up the other side, Omar returned. Some of the playfulness from before was gone. “Max is here,” he said while nodding to the opposite side of the room.
Dameon felt the blissfulness of the night try to sour. Resisting the urge to turn to look at his onetime friend, he kept pace with the people moving through the silent auction line. “It’s an open venue.”
“He’s sitting at your table.”
Now that, Dameon wasn’t expecting. Although he probably should have. In years past, Max had been welcome and in fact would often fight to pay for the table.
“How did that happen?”
Omar shrugged.
“Is something wrong?” Grace asked.
This wasn’t the place to go into details.
“Dameon’s ex–business partner managed a slot at our table,” Omar said for him.
Grace’s eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped. “Banks . . . Maxwell Banks?” Grace asked.
Dameon focused on her. “You know about him?”
She made a strange face. “I may have looked you up when we first met.”
This woman never ceased to amaze him. “Is that right?”
“I only found what the papers talked about.”
“The details will have to wait,” Dameon told her.
“Do you want to leave?”
The fact she even asked made his night. “Do I look like a quitter?”
Omar laughed.
“Okay, then. Let the show begin.”
Dameon wrapped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. He was falling fast for this woman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
To say she was blown away by the entire experience of walking into a red-carpet, star-studded New Year’s Eve event, having Dameon place an obscene bid down