Page 68 of River
“That’s good.”
“What about you and your business? Are you still as excited about…”
We were interrupted by Brendan Greenwell walking up to us. “Sorry for the intrusion, but it pains me to see you hold the attention of the prettiest woman in the room for this long without asking her to dance.”
Atlas’ brow rose. “Ehm… right. Except she’s my sister, so I prefer to talk to her rather than dance.”
“That’s a relief. Then you won’t mind me stealing her away for a dance, will you?”
Atlas looked to me. “River is her own woman.”
Brendan was a seasoned action hero in his mid-thirties who had already been married twice and had three children. I knew that much from the gossip magazines. With a confident swagger, he reached for my hand and kissed the back of it.
“My lady, may I have this dance?”
My body was tense, but a dance wouldn’t kill me, so I agreed and followed him to the dance floor, where Brendan turned out to be an adept dance partner, showing off impressive moves.
“You’re not exactly shy, are you?” I commented when he sang along to the lyrics as if serenading me.
“No, I’m not!” He grabbed my hands and swung me around. “As I see it, shyness is for narcissists.”
“Narcissists?” I wrinkled my eyebrows. “How so?”
“People who are shy live with the delusion that how they look and act holds great significance to the rest of us.”
It wasn’t hard for me to follow Brendan on the dance floor. I’d taken dance lessons for eight years and gotten a lot of practice in clubs around London these last five years.
“You’re a great dancer,” he complimented me and moved closer.
I could smell alcohol on his breath and tried to keep my distance, but it got harder when he hooked a strong arm around the small of my back and held on to me.
“Please let go,” I said.
“Oh, damn, you have the cutest accent. Fucking you will be like fucking Mary Poppins.”
I stiffened and pushed at his chest, but Brendan was probably so used to women falling at his feet that the idea that I wasn’t interested in him never occurred to his intoxicated brain.
“Let me go.” I pushed, and he shushed me.
“Relax, pretty girl. We’re just dancing.”
Struggling to get out of his hold, I hissed, “Let go of me.”
Out of nowhere, Maximum, Nathan, and Atlas appeared at the same time.
Nathan was a trained fighter, and Maximum was a rough rugby player, both imposing with the way they squared their shoulders and pulled Brendan away from me, but it was Atlas that I couldn’t take my eyes off. He confronted Brendan with a sneer. “She said no!”
I’d always thought of Atlas as intellectually superior and a bit dusty. Right now, danger emanated from him, and his nostrils were flaring as he stared down Brendan with such fury that I felt it in my stomach.
Brendan looked around at my three brothers, and despite being fit and probably a great fighter himself, he was smart enough to follow Nathan’s order, when the latter said,
“Just walk away, there are plenty of beautiful single women here tonight. River isn’t interested.”
Around us, the party was continuing with a few looking over at us, but once Brendan quickly disappeared, my brothers all turned to me.
“Are you okay?” Nathan asked.
“Yes. I’m…” I shook my hands to get rid of all the stress that my body had released. “Thank you for coming to my rescue, but I think one of you would have been enough.”
