Page 61 of The Marriage Bid
“Come on.”
I wasn’t sure where we were going until Tyler and I arrived at a high-end fashion store that predominantly sold women’s clothes. “What are we doing here?” He ignored me as he took me inside. A shopping assistant was waiting for us because when she recognized Tyler, she immediately directed us to a private room beyond the shop front. I sank down onto a plush white sofa wondering what was up when next another woman with a tray with two glasses of champagne came in and placed it in front of us. Tyler picked up the two glasses and handed me one, then he sat next to me, his arm around my waist. A couple of minutes later, a short, stout woman burst in and said, “Oh, you’re here finally!” She said in a thick Brooklyn accent and waltzed towards us. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“How are you, Letty?” Tyler said. “This is the who I was talking about.” He rubbed my back. “Do you have the dress?”
“Ah! The lady who lost the dress. Stand up and let me see!”
I handed Tyler my glass and got up. She turned me around this way and that. “She has a beautiful body, Tyler.” Letty peered behind me.
I heard Tyler respond. “Do you think the dress will fit?”
“Are you a model?” She spun me around. I nodded. “Used to be, but I am retired now.”
“I knew you looked familiar. Hmm… I think I have the right size.” She snapped her fingers, and two more assistants came in the same door she came through, holding a garment bag. Letty unzipped it, and an exact copy of my red dress came out.
I turned to Tyler. “How did you find this?” Versace only made a dozen dresses. I was sure that if he were to replace it, it would have been with a different but similar dress.
“I have a knack for finding any dress you want, dear,” Letty said. “Although this one was a tough find.” She took the dress out of the bag and measured it in front of me. “The lengths I had to go to. It is brand new, by the way. Letty doesn’t sell hand-me-downs. Wanna try?”
I nodded. She showed me a dressing room off to the left. I took the dress and changed out of my attire into the expensive fabric. It fit like a glove. I came out of the dressing room and showed it to Tyler.
“Oh!” Letty clasped her hands. “It looks like it was made for you! No wonder you wanted it replaced.”
Tyler quietly observed as I turned around for his inspection. “Thanks,” I said to him through watery eyes, but it was Letty who responded.
“No need to thank me, girl. All I want from you is to wear the shit out of that dress. It hugs your figure so perfectly.”
I hugged Tyler, surprising him. “Thank you,” I said. Why did he do this? Why did he do things that were making me slowly fall in love with him?
Chapter 27
Saffron
Aring of my doorbell on a Saturday morning usually meant I had a delivery and nothing else. I hadn’t ordered anything, so surely it must have been a delivery guy mistaken again. But to my surprise, Tyler was standing there dressed in what I could best describe as a hunting outfit. Just like everything else he wore, this suited him too.
He kissed my mouth, and I almost jerked back, afraid he would taste my morning breath. “Hey. You don’t look ready.” He scanned my outfit. The giant t-shirt I wore was not in any way sexy, but the fire in his eyes heated my center.
“Stop looking at me like that, you perv,” I said, hiding my blush with a curtain of hair.
“Not when you’re dressed like that.” He marched past me, entering my apartment. “Did you not see my messages?”
“About what?”
He tilted his head to the side. “See, this is why you should have stayed at my place last night.”
I rolled my eyes. We had a site meeting yesterday. He didn’t need to be there; it was just for me to brief Quinn on the progress, but then he came with her. And by the time we were done, work hours were over, so he invited me for dinner at a restaurant. I was hungry and hadn’t eaten the entire day. After we ate, he invited me to his place. We had the most blissful sex,and he had insisted that I stay for the night. I couldn’t, as much as I wanted to.
He was becoming too comfortable. Too easy to be around. My mind was entertaining thoughts I would never dare to dream of previously. Like maybe it would not be so bad if I fell in love with him. Maybe he would fall in love with me too. Or the worst one yet, he had already fallen in love and he was about to reveal it. Not getting the divorce now felt like a good idea. Thoughts like that only came when I was being delusional, and what I needed was not for Tyler to fall in love with me but space. I needed space away from him.
“No way in hell was I going to stay at your apartment last night.”
He snickered. “Your new rule is silly. Sleeping in your own bed is not going to cool what’s between us.” He turned around to face me. The desire was still in his eyes. “I know I’ve tried.”
I took a deep breath. I was sure that if I marched over to him and kissed him, we would spend the entire day here making love. Having sex. Having sex, I had to remember that. “What do you want?”
“The hunt. It’s today. I should have told you yesterday, but I forgot all about it myself.”
“Hunt?”
