One Dirty Night - Page 143

“Working late is a legitimate reason to refuse—”

“Ever since you got that promotion, you’ve made it almost impossible for me to spread your legs.” He pouted and crossed his arms. He looked like a petulant brat instead of a twenty-five-year-old Pharmaceutical Sales Rep.

I honestly couldn’t remember why I once believed I was in love with him. Once upon a time, I found his pale skin, faint freckles, and cultured upbringing a turn on. When he’d walked into the Tower of London gift shop with his then girlfriend (a mousy girl who cringed from the meat-eating crows) I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Seemed the feeling was mutual because he’d come back the next day and the next, which didn’t make any sense because he lived in Stafford and had been force-fed England’s morbid medieval history since the crib.

Turned out, I was the special attraction.

“I’m proud of that promotion.” My chin tipped up like it always did when I got snippy. “It took years for them to notice me.”

“You’re a glorified office manager.”

I didn’t bother telling him how hard I worked for more responsibility. How most positions within the heavily fortified fortress were only given to the beefeaters and their kin. What I really wanted to do was work with the priceless crown jewels that only three people in the entire world were allowed to touch.

Knowing that I’d never put my gemmology qualification into use—unless I somehow became the Queen—didn’t make my dreams any less real.

“Ah, I see where this is going,” Sam muttered, planting his hands on his hips like he always did when arguing with me. He believed it made him look important. I believed it made him look like an arrogant ass. “You’re still hanging onto the idea that one day you’ll be allowed to fondle their crowns and sceptres and whatever other diamond-encrusted baubles they have under lock and key.”

“Can I help it that I like pretty things?”

His nose wrinkled; I braced myself for another tirade but then he exhaled heavily, dropped his hands, and smiled stiffly. “You’re a pretty thing. Can I help that I like you?”

I stiffened but accepted the olive branch for what it was. “I’m glad you still find me attractive after four years.”

Smiling wider, doing his best to shed the tension between us, he slid his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. We stood on the outskirts of the busy dancefloor and the noisy racket that classified as dance music blared far too loudly around us. The fact that we’d been able to argue at all was a small miracle.

“I’ve always found you gorgeous, you know that.” His hand skated up my side and played in the dead-straight, blue-black hair skimming my collar bones. Sam definitely had Irish somewhere in his linage, but—if I believed the fairytales my adoptive father whispered to me when I was younger—then I was the half-blooded descendant of a maharajah.

According to him, somewhere, somehow, a king had corrupted a maiden and created my family line. A line that had somehow stayed corrupt and broken until that corruption ended with me. If I hadn’t been dumped outside the local hospital where my father worked as a heart surgeon, I might never have existed past a few days old. Bastard child of a long-ago maharajah or not.

Luckily, I now belonged to the best people in the world and a pang of homesickness filled me.

We’d only been in Paris two nights and already I wanted to leave.

I miss Krish. Wonder what he’s doing right now?

Damn this was a mistake.

This relationship.

This holiday.

I…I’m done.

I’d been done for months, and it’d taken all my savings and a foreign country to finally admit that.

Sam brought me closer, his lips puckering to kiss me. His eyes closed in preparation of making out in a raucous French nightclub.

I braced myself.

I kept my eyes wide, ready to force myself to kiss him back.

I should push aside all these issues that’d slowly cluttered my heart and get tipsy. We could dance the night away, stumble back to our cheap hotel, and I could let him spread my legs the way he complained I didn’t do anymore.

And then I’ll wake up in the morning, headachy, annoyed, and still be in the exact same predicament.

In the time it took for his lips to meet mine, a surge of bravery washed through me. I didn’t know what came over me and the strange courage was definitely ill-advised, but I couldn’t fight it anymore.