Page 6 of Buy Me, Love
“Well.” She breaks the silence betweenus.
“And?” I reply. We’ve been circling the block for ten minutes. She’d asked for a moment to gather her thoughts. She called me a stalker. Technically, she isn’t exactly wrong, though stalkers don’t usually getpaid.
“I mean, my father trusts you, and that means I do, too. What’s fair is fair, I guess. He told me you were trustworthy. If he’s even half as good a judge of character as I think he is, then you’re alright. I just never would have imagined some random rich guy was interested in the academic papers of an undergraduate, or that my father was paying very much attention when I described my latest effort tohim.”
“I knew you’d come around.” I shift in my seat. Fuck, now that I have her, I’m beside myself trying to decide what the hell I’m doing. The truth. The truth now seems like a good avenue to pursue here. “You seemed like a nice girl, and I just wanted to get to know you better. Can you blameme?”
“Well if it were up to me, you wouldn’t have had to pay to go on a date with me, Mr. Armstrong,” she blinks through her long dark eyelashes. My god, am I fucked. The way she says my name makes me want to bend her over my knee and ask her to name three other things I don’t need to payfor.
Her lips, her body, herheart?
“Please call me Max,” I reply. “And besides, it’s all going to a good cause. Your words, notmine.”
“True,” she sighs, gathering her hands in her lap. She’s showing compliance. I like it. I also like her reckless streak. “Want to know a littlesecret?”
“Sure,” I tell her, nodding toward her. “Tell me a littlesecret.”
“Promise you aren’t going to make fun of me, areyou?”
No, sweetheart.Never.
“You can’t dangle a secret on a string and then give conditions for its divulgence. That’s just cruel. So no, I can’t promise I won’t make fun of you, but I promise I cantry.”
“Okay, as long as you try.” She purses her lips, wringing her hands. “This is my firstdate.”
I thought I’d lost control, but now I’ve lost my mind. I need to get myself together, but I can tell already, with those blue eyes smiling up at me through those thick lashes and those legs crossing and uncrossing next to me that now Kit’s under my skin, she’s stayingthere.
“Firstdate?”
I tip my chin up and study her as we stop at a redlight.
“First date,” she confirms. “And that means I demand that if you are going to do this, you do it right. Make my first time count. So I don’t want any further analysis of the situation. Just treat me how I want for once,okay?”
“Describe your perfect date, then,” I tell her. “And spare no detail. I paid good money for this, and I want to make sure you get the most out ofit.”
“Shouldn’t you be the one who’s looking out for his own interests, Mr. Armstrong? It’s your meeting, as they say. You approachedme.”
Kit stretches her legs in a way that feels just for me. I grip the steering wheel harder, my knuckles turningwhite.
“It’s my pleasure to make sure a woman like you is taken care of, Kit,” I say. “So please, tell me about your perfectdate.”
“Fine,” she says, turning to me. Her eyebrow raises slightly and her lips part. “I’d like dinner and a movie. But…I haveconditions.”
“Conditions?”
“Conditions. Well, just one, really. I would like to get out of the city. My father has such a tight leash on me that the only bits of freedom I can breathe are when I’m on the run, you know? So I’d like to just pick a place and just,” she takes a big breath, “staythere for aminute.”
I doknow.
Just last week she got away from her security team and ended up racing on foot to the dog run in Madison Square Park. I already knew she was going to do it, so I went ahead of her and set myself up in a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and dark sunglasses, parked myself on a bench, and peered over the top fold of theSunday Times. When I finally saw her appear at the dog run I knew she’d searched for on her phone, her little white and yellow dress nearly gave me a heart attack. Her guards descended on her soon enough, dragged her away, but I wasthere.
“Sure,” I say, gritting my teeth. “So what does that mean, Kit, where am I takingus?”
“I don’t know,” she says, chewing her lip and looking out the window. “Oh! Wouldn’t it be fun to go to a hoteltogether?”
I’ll be lucky if the steering wheel doesn’t break under the crush of myfists.
“What?” I grit out through clenchedteeth.
