Page 63 of Lovers' Dance

“Sweet cheeks, are you coming?” Dante was heading down the corridor to the main dance room. Matt scowled in his direction, then turned back to me.

“I hope he’s referring to your face and not somewhere else, poppet.”

I didn’t dare correct him. When we were in Venice, I had picked up on his jealous tendencies. He persisted in openly eyeballing any guy who checked me out. A few times he’d said something in Italian that made the guys hurry away. I told myself it was better not knowing.

“I’ve got to go, Matt. I’ll call you.” With that I scampered away, leaving him in the doorway of my office with a frown on his face.

Matt watched her race down the corridor to where Dante waited, his face a sour picture as he saw Dante sling an arm over her shoulder and mutter something in her ear that had her pausing for a second before she pressed a quick peck on his cheek.

Sweet cheeks. The bloody nerve of him. Matt suspected the nickname referred to her arse, and it pissed him off.

“Matt, we need to go over this, mate.”

Matt turned around to face Nathan. “Cheers for that.”

“It’s no bother. You know I was born to do this sort of thing. I despise it, but I’m good at it.”

“I wasn’t talking about that and you know it, Nathan. I’m referring to your cowardice by not admitting you were the one who ran the background check on Madi.”

Nathan shrugged unrepentantly, then grinned at him. “I wasn’t going to risk her anger. I can still see her palm print on your face. Jesus, she’s a proper little firecracker, isn’t she? I’m still annoyed with you by the way. Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing her?”

“Because it’s no one’s business whom I choose to date.”

Nathan huffed, insulted over his friend’s words. “This is me, Matt.”

Matt sighed, rubbing a hand across his faintly throbbing cheek. “Because she’s sweet and fun—”

“You called her your girlfriend,” Nathan pointed out dryly. “You’re thirty-seven years old, for crying out loud. Humph. Men like us don’t have girlfriends. We have wives and fiancées, or a significant other.”

“She’s mine, and I’m not discussing this anymore. Let me have a look over that statement.” He held his hand out for the paper, about to walk back into the office when he heard Madi yell down the corridor.

“Get out of my office, Matt.”

Nathan chuckled to himself. “Feisty as hell. I have to say, she is the most intriguing of all your conquests.”

Matt narrowed his eyes in anger at his closest friend. “Don’t speak about her like that. She’s not a conquest. She’s…look, I’m not discussing this. Let’s go back to reception and ask Gloria to find us somewhere to go over the statement. You’re right. You should talk to those vultures outside. If I go, I might end up punching someone.”

They started back in the direction of the reception area, shoulder to shoulder with matched strides.

“I’m assuming you haven’t spoken to your family?” Nathan drawled.

“No.” Matt made no effort to hide the frustration he felt. “I have no intention of doing so. It’s none of their business.”

“Your parents don’t seem to think so. William called me into his office yesterday, demanding an explanation as to why you were sunning yourself in Venice with—and this is verbatim by the way—an undesirable black woman, instead of being at your place in Surrey working out the takeover.”

“He said that?” Matt asked emptily.

Nathan nodded. “And a few more things, but going off your expression, I think it’s best if I refrained from repeating it.”

“It doesn’t matter. This will blow over in a few days.”

“Unrealistic expectation that,” Nathan warned. “You’re the elusive Matthew Bradley. She’s the black English-born American. I’m thinking it’ll be a few weeks before the media loses interest.”

“They will,” Matt said. “Eventually.”

“Right then, let’s go speak to the receptionist. An informal office environment, isn’t it? Yelling up and down the hallway isn’t professional.”

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