Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 83171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
She grasps the edge of the desk. “I can’t. Tess and I always have lunch on Mondays.”
Her phone buzzes. “Excuse me for a minute,” she says to me. “Hey, Tess.”
Pause.
“Oh?” Skye’s eyes widen.
Pause.
She clears her throat. “He said he’d replace it.”
Pause.
“Hold on a minute.” She mutes the phone and turns to me. “She got the dress.”
“Good.”
“She says it’s perfect. Did you get it repaired?”
“It was beyond repair, as you know.”
“Then how did you…?”
“I gave the remains to my personal tailor yesterday, along with your Instagram photo. He was able to replicate it.”
Her jaw drops. “In a day?”
“I’m a very good customer.” I smirk.
She unmutes the phone. “His tailor replicated it yesterday,” she tells Tessa.
Pause.
“You can tell him yourself.” She hands the phone to me.
“Ms. Logan,” I say.
“Mr. Black…I mean…Braden. Hi. I’m not sure what to say. This could totally be the same dress. Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome. Anytime.”
“You didn’t have to,” Tessa says. “What’s a dress between best friends? I wish there was some way I could repay you.”
“Actually, there is something you can do for me.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Let me take Skye to lunch today. You can have lunch with her tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding?” She laughs. “Of course! And thank you again.”
“I appreciate that. And you don’t have to keep thanking me. Have a good day.” I hand the phone back to her.
“Tess?” she says. Then she wrinkles her brow.
Tessa must have hung up.
I stare at her. “Seems you’re free for lunch after all, Skye.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Tessa said you sent the dress to her office,” Skye says to me after we order our meal at a little French bistro. “How did you know where she works?”
“That kind of information isn’t hard to find,” I reply.
“Not when you can pay for it,” she says. “Just out of curiosity, how much did that dress cost you on such short notice?”
I try to stop my lips from twitching into a smile. “I never discuss personal purchases.”
“Oh?”
“No. It’s no one’s business how much I pay for anything.”
She drops her gaze. “Well, it was nice of you. Very nice.”
“I said I’d replace it.”
“I know, but I didn’t expect you to actually replicate it. Why would you do that?”
I take a sip of water. “Because I can.”
She doesn’t reply right away. An adorable look of confusion spreads over her face instead. Why does it surprise her that I don’t discuss purchases? I have the resources to replicate a dress in twenty-four hours, so I use them. I got to tear the dress off Skye, and Tessa gets a brand-new one. A great deal, as far as I’m concerned.
“Skye,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“It might interest you to know that I had my tailor make two dresses.”
She swallows the sip of water she just took. “Oh?”
“I did. You’ll be wearing that dress again, but the next time you’ll be on my arm, and there won’t be any question as to who you’re with.”
“Will you destroy it again?” Her lips quiver slightly.
I stare at her. “Yes. Definitely.”
Her cheeks go red, and her brown eyes darken slightly. “When exactly will I be on your arm?”
“You decide.”
She lets out a short laugh. “It’s a cocktail dress, Braden. It might surprise you to know that I don’t frequent a lot of formal affairs.”
“You will now. I’m invited to a lot of them, and since you insist on dating, you’ll be accompanying me.”
“If I insist?”
Oh, she drives me to drink. Those eyes. Those lips. Those needling words that tumble out of her mouth.
“I want you in my bed, Skye. If taking you out sometimes is the way to make that happen, I’ll do it.”
“What if I want more than that?”
“What more is there?”
“A…relationship.”
I tap my fingers on the table. “I’ve told you I can’t be in a relationship with you.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t told me why.”
I wrinkle my forehead. She’s not the first woman to ask why I won’t begin a relationship. But she is the first woman I want to actually answer.
Except my only answer is that I know I’m not wired for long-term. I’ve never met a woman who challenges me enough to make me want to commit.
I don’t let my mind get to the inevitable suggestion it wants to make.
Instead, I say, “The only reason I can give you is that I don’t want a relationship.”
“Why?”
I rub my temple. “You’re persistent. I’ll give you that. But there is no answer.”
“You mean there’s no answer that will satisfy me.”
“Semantics, as you like to say.”
“I like you, Braden.”
I want to smile at her words. But I hold back. “I like you, too. I don’t sleep with people I don’t like.”
“You didn’t let me finish. I like you, but why me? You can have any woman out there. You must know that.”
“I’ve told you.”
“Yeah. You like my lips and my breasts. So do plenty of other men, and sexy lips and big tits aren’t that hard to find.”