His Princess - Stacy Gail Page 0,7
like he’d wanted, she realized belatedly, and had to give him props for the maneuver. “You don’t think our time together is going to end with this party, do you, my lady?”
“My lady?” That got her attention. “Well, I suppose that’s better than being called a princess.”
“You’re always going to be a princess in my mind, but since you don’t want to be called that, my lady will do. Now, answer the question. Do you really think our time together is going to end with this party?”
“I haven’t given it any thought.” But now that the subject was front and center, she couldn’t focus on anything else. “I’d like to see more of you.”
“That’s good, because that’s exactly what’s going to happen. What are you doing later on tonight?”
“Later on tonight?” She stared at him, not sure if he was kidding. “Probably soaking my feet after dancing so much with you.”
“Come back to my place. I give a mean foot massage.”
Slowly she shook her head, flabbergasted by how tempted she was. “As much as that might sound appealing, I have work in the morning and need to get a good night’s sleep. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that if I decided to go to your place tonight, I wouldn’t get any sleep at all.”
“Sure you would. Eventually.”
Another, headier flush moved through her as her imagination went wild. “You do make it hard for a woman to say no.”
“And you do make it hard.”
When she realized that was the entirety of the statement—and its significance made her blush—she burst out laughing. “Are you complaining?”
“You kidding? I’d applaud you on your boner-making abilities, but that’d mean these hands would have to let you go. No way in hell am I going to do that.” His head dipped, and her heart went into freefall when she thought he was going to kiss her. “Come home with me, Joelle. Let me show you my castle.”
She wavered. “Not tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then. Say yes.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow after work,” she said in a rush before she could change her mind. “And I get to decide where we meet.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“And run the risk of me getting pissy like Alice if I want to leave?”
“Trust me,” he said with the cockiest smile she’d ever seen. “You won’t want to leave.”
“Nevertheless,” she said, and inwardly eyerolled at how breathless she sounded, “I’ll meet you tomorrow at the Lincoln Park Conservatory at four.”
He lifted a brow. “You want to look at flowers?”
“I want to get to know you better before there’s any talk about my going home with you.”
“Have it your way. But know this,” he said, and dipped her in one smooth motion, “in the end, you’re still winding up at my place, with me, and it’s going to be the best decision of your life.”
Chapter Three
“Aha! Found it.”
Joelle looked up from her place on the couch, laptop in front of her. Alice was at the dining room table, also peering at her own laptop’s screen, her ebony hair tucked behind her ears. “Awesome. Lay it on me, Al.”
“The incident at Gilded Swan happened about a month or so ago, and your Bloch guy wasn’t kidding. The confrontation between him and this trespassing jerk really did make the front page of the business section. The writer of this article calls Gus Bloch a modern-day tycoon, and a true wolf of Wall Street. Chicago-born, self-made… lots of trivial shit about Gilded Swan that we all learned about in grade school.”
Joelle, who’d already found picture after picture of Gus in the society section of the paper—mainly with a parade of hot, eligible socialites looking at him like he’d invented the male of the species—inwardly braced herself. “Anything unpleasant? Like he’s actually squatting at Gilded Swan instead of owning it, or that he maimed or killed the trespasser?”
“Nothing so dramatic. Oh wait, here’s something—apparently it was the trespasser who called 911 to the scene, not Gus. Damn,” Alice chuckled, scrolling through the article. “When the trespasser calls the cops for help to get out of the clutches of the property owner, you know that dude is dangerous. You sure about going on a date with this guy, Jo? He’s not your usual Ivy League, pedigreed lapdog.”
“I don’t date lapdogs.”
“Please. You put them on a leash and dog-walk them wherever you want to go. But from what I saw last night and from what I’m reading now,” Alice added, tilting her head toward her screen, “this Gus Bloch