Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
My skin tingles. My body aches. “Do they taste good?”
“Exquisite,” he says, his blue eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them, full of heat and unabashed want. A rumble comes from his throat as he tilts his head toward the car. “Let’s get in the car, Harlow. Now.”
Holy shit. This man just turned all the tables on me.
For the whole month—no, for the entire year—I’ve been wanting, hoping, craving.
Then chasing.
Now, he’s taking the reins. He’s in this too—whatever this is.
Quickly, I toss the cup in the park’s recycling bin, then stuff the metal straw in its pouch.
He holds open the car door, and I slide into the backseat—our private ride in Manhattan. Once he shuts us inside, he turns to me, looking ready to take me. But I’m faster. Setting my things down on the console, I grab his cheeks, holding his face. “Thank you for the painting. Thank you so much,” I say, wanting him to know how much it meant to me.
“It was my pleasure—” He swallows that last word as my lips capture his.
I try to tell him with my kiss that no one has ever given me something like that before.
But a kiss can’t say everything.
I break apart. “Bridger, I love it. And I love your note too,” I say, vulnerable, totally open with him.
He smiles—a warm, relaxed kind of smile that’s all new on him. I imagine that’s his vacation smile, the one he wears when he’s lounging on a chair on a tropical island under the warm sun, the ocean lapping the shore.
It’s the smile of a content man.
But it’s not in his nature to be content. He’s busy, always moving, striving, yearning. In this moment though, he seems satisfied.
With me? With us? With this night? Maybe all of it, all at once.
As the car cruises toward Brooklyn, I ask again, “But how did you do it?”
His grin is wicked. “Do what? Get this car?”
I play along, sliding a palm over the black leather seat. “Yes. The car. It’s so nice.”
“You like me for my town car?”
“That’s it exactly.”
“Say it,” he teases. “Say you like me for my town car.”
“Never,” I taunt.
“C’mon. Just a little?” he prompts. But I wonder if he truly craves reassurance.
Maybe he needs to hear that I like him for him, not for the town car, not for the trappings of his job, not for the accouterments of wicked success.
Not even for the painting.
Maybe I’m the only one he interacts with who doesn’t have an agenda. Or rather, perhaps my agenda is the one he wants too—us.
I grab his shirt. “I’d walk with you to the gallery in Brooklyn.”
He covers one of my hands with his. “All right, we’re pulling over now.”
“Okay, maybe I didn’t mean it,” I say, laughing. Then I meet his gaze again, my smile disappearing. I draw a quick breath for courage, then I leap. “I care about you deeply,” I say, as I test out those words, the start of an admission. But it barely covers this coil of emotions knotting tightly in my chest. Desire, want, hope, and then, something else. Something new. Something delicious. “And I love the painting because you gave it to me. That’s why I love the gift.”
He takes my hand from his chest and curls his fingers through mine. “I had to get it for you.”
“Yeah?”
He presses a soft but terribly sexy kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Once I saw you staring at it, I was determined,” he says, breaking the kiss.
I nearly bounce. “Tell me. How did you pull it off?”
With a confident shrug, he says, “I negotiate for a living. I negotiated for it.”
“But when?” I ask.
“Before I left, while Dominic was chatting with the curator, I asked the owner about purchasing the piece. Bettencourt himself. He said it had sold. He wouldn’t disclose the buyer’s name. Told me he couldn’t sell it out from under someone.” Bridger takes a storytelling pause, building suspense. “But there’s more than one way to get what you want. So I mingled with Dominic as he chatted with attendees—making small talk with guests, seeing if anyone knew the buyer.”
“You did all that?” I ask in a whisper.
He despises mingling. It stresses him out. Makes him feel out of control. Borderline anxious. But he did it for me.
He just nods, then continues. “And I found a lead while Dominic was talking to Bettencourt. There was another gallerist who said she’d heard a guy bragging about having bought the Zara Clementine. As Dominic and I headed downtown, I looked up the guy. Turns out he works at a hedge fund.”
“Wow,” I say, and impressed barely covers it.
“I didn’t make an offer then in front of Dominic. But I called the buyer this morning shortly after the markets opened, told him I wanted it, and then I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”