Page 38 of Falling for the Carpenter

Way more so than the many glasses of champagne she had enjoyed throughout the day and evening. The thought made her giggle against his lips.

He lifted his head in query. “Are you laughing at me?” He sounded vaguely hurt.

“No. Hush. Go back to doing what you were doing.”

“Avec plaisir.”The renewed kiss was deeper, more intense, as the tip of his tongue breached her lips. His hands dropped to her waist, which suddenly didn’t feel bulky at all. Instead, her body became fluid, molding itself to his, warming to his touch.

She exhaled in a sigh of pleasure, her eyes fluttering shut as she gave herself up to the sensual avalanche that rolled down upon her—

Click.

A blue-white flash of light startled her out of his arms. She spun around just in time to see the tail of a waiter’s white jacket disappearing around a cluster of rose bushes, and immediately, she knew what had happened.

Queenie’s bounty was about to be paid.

“Aaargh!” she ground out in frustration, clenching her fists so tightly she could feel the abrasion of her freshly done fingernail tips in the palms of her hands. They had been followed outside, and someone had done exactly what dozens of Minions had hovered around over the past day or so, hoping to do. Get a photo of her and Corbin kissing.

What dumb luck, she thought. Being out here, separated from the flock, in a place that felt private but was anything but. If they’d stayed indoors, they’d never have taken it into their heads to kiss, and this would never have happened.

“What…?” Corbin began, looking perplexed.

Too perplexed. What if this had been his plan all along? That kiss, it seemed to have come out of nowhere. He’d never signaled to her that it was even a possibility. That it had ever been on his mind.

What if he was part of it? What if Queenie had privately asked him to lure her out here, and set it up? Melanie wouldn’t put it past Queenie: she was a show-woman extraordinaire. But would Corbin be willing to be a part of this?

“I think that guy took our picture,” he mused.

“As if you didn’t know,” she snapped. She wrapped her arms around her breasts, feeling suddenly naked and vulnerable.

He looked confused. “What do you… wait! You think I did this?” He pressed his hand flat against his chest. His face was the picture of incredulity. “You think I brought you here to….” He couldn’t even finish.

The more she thought about the scope of Queenie’s social media base, the more exposed she felt, and her embarrassment grew. “All of a sudden you just kiss me out of the blue? What do you expect me to think?”

“You kissed me back,” he snapped. “Remember?”

“Yes, but that was… unplanned.”

“As opposed to me, who deliberately got you away from the crowd just so I could… use you. For what purpose? Do I get a cut too? A percentage of that thousand dollars?”

Now that he put it that way, the idea sounded foolish. “I don’t know. I—”

He grasped her hand, not gently this time, but in irritation. “Whatever perception you may have of me and my financial means, do not be fooled. In my days as a businessman, I made enough wise choices to allow me to remain unworried.” Then, an offended glare. “Which is not to say that if I did indeed need a paltry few hundred, even so, I would not have betrayed a woman to get what I wanted.”

They were working their way back through the crowd again, who by now were well lubricated on fine alcohol and were having a whale of a time on the dance floor. It was clear that Corbin had decided the evening was over. He didn’t even seem inclined to seek out their hostess and say their polite goodbyes. It was straight out the front door and back into the air again, which suddenly felt a lot cooler than it had before.

His car was summoned, and despite his glowering countenance he held the door for her. She got in, feeling two things at once: Anger and frustration at being exposed like that, and wavering uncertainty that she may have wrongly accused him.

He spun the car down La Corniche, taking corners like the opening sequence of a James Bond movie. It was only when he glanced across and noticed that her knuckles on the door handle had gone white that he slowed down.

She waited until they were back on the highway to say anything, but when she finally spoke it was trivial. “Our bodycams. We’re supposed to—”

“Yours will be returned to you when we arrive at the cottage. I am not in the mood to provide any more entertainment for the masses tonight. I’m sure there is much out there to satisfy their constant hunger for titillation, other than the two of us.” He slid his eyes sideways at her. “And despite what you may think, I am a private man. I do not enjoy this incessant exposure.”

Lord, she’d truly messed up. She’d opened her mouth and something awful had leaped out. She had to fix this. “I’m sorry, Corbin. I shouldn’t have said—”

“No, you should not.” His jaw was tight, his words ground to a powder.

“I know you wouldn’t—”

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