first-grade teacher she could set him up with? You know, a nice girl whose father runs a pharmaceutical company. Or actually, scratch the mom bit. Surely he has a freaking friend who knows someone?
I’m glancing towards the doorway and formulating an escape speech when something wet nudges the palm of my hand.
“Oh, it’s Duke!” I gasp in delight as I glance down to find the source nudging my hand, tail wagging.
I am a sucker for a dog. Any dog. Like, if you have a dog I want to pet it. Every time. No exceptions. If Mrs Bianchi had shown up in a van with tinted windows filled with puppies I’d have hopped right in.
Right after I pet Duke, I am outta here.
“He sheds,” Mrs Bianchi mentions, sounding less than excited.
“I don’t care!” I’m already on my knees scratching Duke behind his ears. And not to brag, but Duke is into me. He’s dropped to the floor and rolled over, exposing his belly to me with a look of pure joy on his face as I coo about what a good boy he is, when a pair of black-tipped, perfectly shined wingtips enters my field of vision.
Oh, fuckity fuck.
Sure, I may have imagined a few kinky scenarios that involved me on my knees in front of the governor but trust me, none of them involved his dog. Or his mother.
My heart is racing and I can feel a blush covering my cheeks as I raise my head to confirm that the perfectly polished shoes do indeed belong to Warren Russo. The thing is, crushes are not meant to be met in the real world. He’s just a fictional fantasy. And even fictionally we didn’t have much in common other than really amazing sex.
It’s him.
I scramble to my feet as a stray dog hair floats in the air between us. At my feet Duke grunts, disgruntled with the end of his tummy rub.
“Warren, this is Audrey Gibson,” Mrs Bianchi is telling him as I tuck a loose lock of my own hair behind my ear, and then he’s shaking my hand.
Like… a campaign shake.
Oh, God. He has no idea about this setup.
“Audrey, nice to meet you.” Polite. Perfunctory. Cold.
“Audrey’s your date for Saturday,” his mother adds and the announcement lands like a three-year-old with finger paints on a white sofa.
Chapter Three
Warren pauses, already three steps past us, his attention on checking the watch on his left hand. He pivots slowly, his gaze flickering from his mother to me and back to her again.
I can’t get a read from the cursory glance he gives me. Which, honestly? Is really annoying. My heart is still racing from being in the same room as him. I’m still tingling from the simple, professional handshake. My imagination is aflame with ideas about what he looks like beneath that perfectly cut suit. It’s definitely not vintage. Most definitely not recycled from an old wool sofa. But I can appreciate brand-new when the man is wearing the hell out of it. Suit porn. Black, paired with a crisp white shirt and a patriotic blue tie.
I’d be swooning even if I didn’t care about fabric quality and perfectly tailored hems, which I got a good look at when I was still on the floor. Impeccable.
Also, he smells good. I never thought to wonder about that.
Looks good. Smells good. Dresses well. Radiates big dick energy.
Exactly what I don’t need.
“Mother.” He says it flatly. One word, but his tone is loaded, an unspoken history of arguments buried in that single word.
Mrs Bianchi is undeterred. “You said you didn’t have time to date and I said I’d take care of it.” She shrugs as if this is all settled and she’s completely in the right.
Warren runs two fingers across his bottom lip, stepping backwards until he’s resting on the edge of a desk. We’re in his office, I realize. Or his home office, rather. His home in the governor’s mansion. It doesn’t feel like a place he’s in every day, I determine with a quick glance. It feels pretty generic. Like a place he stops to take a quick meeting when he’s not at the capitol building or wherever he does governor stuff—signs legislation, revises existing policies, whatever governors do.
And sure enough, another man sweeps into the room steps behind him, a file folder in his hands, already mid-sentence about something or other as he enters. Warren holds up two fingers, a non-verbal request to pause.
“So that’s taken care of,” Mrs Bianchi says.