Page 31 of Beauty and the Billionaire

Zain pressed himself against me, leaving a trail of fire wherever his body touched mine. He danced, his muscles constricting and relaxing as he moved, and I followed. I did what he did, keeping us close, keeping the contact going.

He didn’t move back from me again. One song melted into the next one, and Zain kept himself glued to me, leading the way into the heart of the dance floor. And when his hands rested on my upper arms, holding my biceps, my heart thundered in my chest.

A fine layer of perspiration covered his smooth, bronze face. His eyes closed, and he let his head hang back, safe in my arms.His eyelashes were so ridiculously long that it made something in my chest hurt. We spun around, his hands moving to my chest and my arms holding him around his upper torso. I felt the muscles knotting in his back. And I felt him dragging his hands over my body.

I would have blamed the cocktails, but his drink didn’t have an ounce of alcohol. I had made sure of it. It was pure euphoria.

And when his upper leg moved between my legs, hellfire roared to life in my groin and abdomen. It filled my veins and set my nerves on edge.

Zain acted as if he couldn’t feel it, but I was certain that he could.

Every sense of what was proper, what was right and wrong, and what was a gross breach of our agreement sank into the depths of the abyss, and what remained was this swirling sensation of closeness. I couldn’t tell you who was at fault, although guilt marked me as the one to be blamed. I should know better than that. I was older and rich and powerful.

But I was not as strong as I had always believed.

And just now, I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want that strength coming to life and preventing me from dancing with Zain.

As the song faded into silence, we finally parted, and I felt a cool air in the space where our bodies had kept one another warm. The music that faded in was tense, building up to the main act of the evening, and the stage was empty once again. What followed was a spectacular rendition of some dancey, melancholic song I didn’t recognize, sung in the natural voice of Lady Vivien Woodcock as she sang and danced her heart out on the stage. Some guys jumped up and down, but most of us stared in awe. The others had danced up there, lip-syncing with a precision that went beyond talent, but Vivien sang in her true voice, neither male nor female, and it was enough to lift my heart from the deep, dark cave in which it cowered.

When it was over, whistles and ovations flooded the bar. I found myself, shocked as I was, clapping and hooting with everyone else, earning a grin from Zain.

“Look at you having fun,” he said.

I held his gaze and wondered how much more fun we could have if this night never ended.

Lady Vivien Woodcock joined a small crowd on the far left side of the bar, and after a round of hugs and kisses, she lifted her gaze and landed it right on me. With long acrylic nails for emphasis, she lifted her hand and motioned for us.

“We’re being summoned,” I informed Zain.

He looked over to Vivien and nodded, then turned around to fetch our drinks, brushing against me so slowly that it had to be intentional. And before we moved toward the small group over there, he halted against me on the way back. “Thank you,” he said. “For tonight.”

“It’s not over yet,” I said just loudly enough to cut through the music the DJ was playing.

People who danced now were in much smaller groups, and many returned to their drinks and tables on the sides of the bar. When we reached Vivien’s party, it consisted of six young men.

The sense of relief was almost funny when I realized all six were committed. Not that I could trust any of them with their intentions with Zain, but I found it unlikely they would fight for his attention when in pairs. Roman and Tristan were both accompanied by guys who had their arms around them protectively, although I couldn’t be sure whether Roman’s gentleman was protecting him or holding him back. Roman, for his part, wasn’t as hostile, but he did direct a measuring gaze at me.

The remaining two guys were closer to my age. One was a slender blond, looking like a Tolkien’s elf put on the twenty-first century Earth, and the other was a short-haired, bronze-skinnedman with warm eyes and a disarming smile. Zain introduced me first, then told me their names. I thought that Luke Whitaker was familiar before I realized I had a certain graphic novel with his name on the cover somewhere in my library. Rafael, I understood then, greatly resembled the protagonist, whose likeness decorated the cover. The remaining guys were Everett and Cedric, whose names I’d heard in passing and both of whom I’d seen on the news when the Langley mess had played out in this bar. Everett, if I recalled correctly, was the Langley in question, while Cedric was none other than His Highness Cedric Philippe Valois Montclair from a rather forgettable European kingdom.

Luke Whitaker and his man occupied Zain’s attention, together with Vivien, asking him about the way he’d gone away without a word. I pushed through the awkwardness of joining a well-formed group of friends—a type of social construct that was the hardest to penetrate, easily harder to join than billionaire clubs—and forced myself to make small talk. To Cedric, I said, “I was impressed by your work in the Contemporary Culture Museum last month.”

“You know of it?” Cedric asked, genuinely surprised. “My contributions were minimal.”

“That’s not the impression I left the exhibition with,” I assured him.

He gave a shy smile. “I didn’t realize we had an art lover in our midst.”

I chose not to tell him I wasn’t part of this group. Instead, I shrugged. “I’m not sure if I qualify as such, but I do have a rather peculiar collection that’s currently on display in Greenwich Gallery.”

“You don’t mean the queer-coded portraiture exhibition, do you?” Cedric asked, awestruck.

It caught me off guard that he knew about it, and it must have been evident because Tristan threw his arm around Cedric’s shoulders. “There isn’t an exhibition in the city he hasn’t visited.”

“Must be fun for you,” I pointed out.

Tristan laughed out loud. “Yours were mostly naked, so it actually was.”

“Good old Henry Scott Tuke,” I said with such joyful warmth in my voice that it surprised me.

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