Page 12 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“You don’t have to.”

“But may I?”

She blinked up at me as if I had requested something utterly outlandish before she turned. Oh fuck. I’d forgotten the back of her jumpsuit when I pulled the necklace move. All that smooth, milky skin. Which also meant she wasn’t wearing a damn bra. Then she lifted the hair from the nape of her neck and her scent unfolded in the narrow space between us. Whether it was her shampoo or her perfume, the mixture of jasmine and amber shouldn’t have worked - sweet floral and bitter earth - but it did. I allowed my fingertips to linger on the soft skin of her neck just a moment longer than it took to fasten the necklace.

I was fucked.

In the whole seduce-the-meek-little-heiress plan, I hadn’t considered that the woman I’d be pursuing might look and smell this tempting, making it almost impossible to keep a straight thought.

“Thank you,” she said and turned around again. I had to get an award for not looking at her tits after putting together that they were bouncing freely. That would really fuck up the plan.

Like Isaac had said. I had to play nice. “I’m not a fan of chitchat, so I’ll come out and say it: I think you’re beautiful and I would like to take you to dinner.” There. That sounded nicer than ‘let’s get a room so I can bend you over, slot my thumbs into your Venus dimples, and make you scream’. Actually, a room wouldn’t cut it. I’d have to get her into the stairwell and put her two steps above me, because even with heels she was so much shorter than me, her hips and mine were not aligned.

“Uh…” Del laughed and shook her head, wiping away my insanity. Fucking Venus dimples clouding my brain. “I’m flattered but I don’t go out with men who want to spend time with me based on how attractive they find me.”

“What kind of rule is that?” I asked, unable to reign in the gruffness in my voice.

“The one that got me a boyfriend who values me for more than my pretty face.”

“Is he blind?” Wow, my niceness had lasted all of five minutes, but the way she’d said that sounded too sincere to be a lie. That meant she had a boyfriend I knew nothing about. And that was a problem.

“No. A little nearsighted, but he’s not blind.” She furrowed her brows at me.

“Did he see your face in any capacity when you first met?”

“Yes, but-”

“That means he thought you were cute before he realized you were smart.”

“You don’t know that.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, pushing her tits up under that flimsy fabric. I really shouldn’t have looked. Fuck.

“Of course, I do. I’m a man. I’m assuming he’s a man. I promise you, he was looking at your face or your body before he was thinking about what a great conversationalist you are.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, fingers stiffening around her glass. “He read my profile and liked the quote I used, so he messaged me about that.”

“Was the quote the first text right beneath your picture?” She sucked her cheeks in, pursing her lips. “I’ll take that as a yes. He didn’t read your profile, Blondie. He thought you were cute and knew that a ‘hey, what’s up’ wouldn’t get him anywhere with a woman as beautiful as you.”

“Thank you for returning my necklace, Mr. Beckett,” she huffed and threw back her glass of juice as if it was a stiff drink before placing it on a circulating server’s tray. “If you’ll excuse me. I have hands to shake.” She brushed past me, shouldering my arm out of her way with all the force of a baby tornado.

Shit.

I royally screwed that one up.

Between her lower back triggering an apparently very specific fantasy, and the surprising boyfriend reveal, Del had thrown me for a loop. Maybe I should have taken improv classes before agreeing to court Cordelia Montgomery.

I got myself a drink at the bar, shook a few hands myself before deciding ten minutes was more than enough time for her to cool off - but not enough time to make her run.

Turned out, finding a Smurf of a girl dressed in black, at an event filled with men in black suits? My new personal hell. Thirty minutes of circling rooms and promising people whose names I didn’t even know that I’d talk to them later, I was almost ready to give up for the night. I’d just call Page again. She seemed eager to help. But then I spotted her. Away from the crowds. Not shaking hands or mingling, pressed into the alcove by the fire exit. I almost would have missed her if her platinum hair hadn’t caught a light from outside.

Her eyes were squeezed tight, and she was pinching the back of her hand. She’d done the same thing at the charity dinner and her skin was already an angry shade of red. Jesus. That girl was not cut out for stakeholder meet and greets like this.

I wrapped my hand around hers and her big ocean eyes flew open, a little too glassy. “How about this?” I asked, voice lowered. “I’m willing to negotiate the terms of our dinner.”

“Negotiate?” She pulled her hand from mine and examined the angry swollen skin. “How about you take no for an answer?” Despite her words, her voice wavered.

“Instead of going out in public, I will cook for you myself.” I dropped back, leaning against the other side of the alcove.

Del slipped her irritated hand behind her back and shook her head. That seemed to clear her thoughts a little, because her eyes had found their focus again when she narrowed them at me. “That’s even more of adate-date than going to a restaurant. If you wanted to negotiate, you would have to meet me halfway.”

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