Mr. Imperfect

chapter 41



Why had she called Mike? It had been stupid. Counterproductive. And yet, when Anton had brought up marriage, Rori’s heart had hammered, her palms had grown damp, and she’d been overcome with the need to hear Mike’s voice. His casual, unmanicured, sincere voice.

Begging her not to sleep with Anton.

The way her heart had hammered when he told her that a man who truly wanted her would hold out for her? From anyone else she would have called it romantic nonsense, but she knew Mike. For him those words were God’s truth. And the heat those words built in her chest left an ache in its wake. Setting her phone down, Rori pressed a palm to her chest and gave herself a second.

“Finished?” Anton asked from her doorway, speaking his native French. She responded in kind.

“Yes. Just a quick call to let my mother know I survived another day without being mugged.”

Anton laughed, and Rori watched him as he crossed the room to her. He was tall, lanky, and handsome in an Adrien Brody kind of way. On a less refined man, Anton’s looks might be considered unattractive, but Anton was a man with too much self respect to be perceived as anything less than desirable.

“I do understand fretting mothers,” he said, the words dripping off his lips like silk. French wasn’t always a beautiful language, Rori knew. Depending on the age and the province of the speaker, it could actually be quite guttural. But when people described it at the language of love, it was because they had heard people like Anton speak. His voice was the embodiment of seduction.

As far as men went, Anton had a lot going for him. And he wanted to get married.

“Did you speak to her of my proposal?” he asked, reaching for her hand. Rori freely offered it.

“No. I thought it too soon. And frankly, you surprised me.”

“It was a bit premature of me, I know,” he apologized. “But emergency business calls me home on the next flight and I thought it best to float the idea before I left. We are of a similar mind, you and I.” He stepped so they stood face to face, his finger coming up to trace her cheek. “You will live in comfort,” he promised. “And you will raise clever children. I can see it in your eyes.”

Rori had no doubt he could see that and more. A man with as much business sense as Anton reportedly had would need to be able to qualify people at a glance.

“We are good in public,” he added. “And your name is very well respected. You are a woman who holds both beauty and honor in her hands, Aurora. That is rarer than you think these days.”

Here it was. The proposal she had been waiting for—from a count, even. And yet, she couldn’t say yes.

“But still,” she hedged. “We have known each other only briefly.”

“I knew you were perfect within the first hour, my dear Aurora,” he said, his hand moving to her hair, wrapping her curls around his long index finger. “And that your sensibilities so perfectly match mine? That you speak French perfectly and other languages that would serve me professionally? You are a woman who makes a very positive impression. You would bring respect to my family’s name.”

She nearly smiled when Anton said that, her mind automatically hearing Mike’s pronunciation of his family’s name. Loser. And thinking of Mike while listening to Anton propose was turning into quite the problem.

“Now you’re just flattering me,” she teased and he smiled.

“Is it working?”

She studied him, her gaze locking on to his brown, shrewd eyes to see what might lie behind them. They had their fair share of goodness. He was a man of his word and he would care for their children. Rori didn’t need to ask about fidelity, though. She saw that in his eyes as well, and the way his hands studied and mapped her on a subconscious level. Anton was a lover of women. He would not be faithful, nor would he rub her face in his infidelity. Even still, in a world full of diseases, Rori would have to lay some ground rules there.

“I would be a fool to answer you tonight,” she said as his lips dipped closer to hers. “You know this.”

Again, he smiled. “It would be prudent for you to have me investigated, yes?”

“Of course,” she said easily. “I thought you were too young to be interested in marriage, so it did not occur to me before.”

That got an honest laugh out of him, and Rori saw the look in his eyes change from curious to hungry. “Oh, now it is you who flatters. Forty-three is a respectable age for a man to marry. Especially when the woman is such as you.”

He finished the last word by pressing his mouth to hers, the contact light and exploratory. Rori let her eyelids fall as she processed the expert tease of his lips as he took the lead in their first actual kiss.

It was hard to gauge her response because, while the kiss was seductive and smooth, her mind had been imagining a different kind of passion for the past five weeks. Each time she had envisioned what it might be like between her and Mike, Rori imagined Mike having a bit of urgency in his movements. In her mind, once they finally touched they would both be a little desperate, so Rori’s body wasn’t quite sure how to process the calculated finesse it was getting. It wanted passion and it was getting lazy exploration. It just felt... wrong.

Using some finesse of her own, Rori urged Anton away.

“Well, that gives me something to think about,” she said, sending him a teasing look.

“As it should,” he said with a smug, all-male smile. “I take pleasing women as seriously as I do my business dealings. You will be very happy in my arms, Aurora. Let me show you now.”

Rori stepped away when his mouth dipped to her again. “I’d rather not confuse the situation. I fear allowing that might unfairly sway my decision.”

Such words might offend another man, but she knew Anton’s type. He wouldn’t see that claim as indulgent flattery. He’d see it as absolute fact. When he laughed again, he sounded very satisfied with her conclusion.

“This is one of the reasons I like you,” he said, tapping his finger to her temple. “You are very shrewd.” He stepped away as casually as if they hadn’t kissed at all and planted a kiss on each hand. “Besides, my plane leaves in four hours. That does not give us much time.”

Not much time? She raised an eyebrow at that, but played along. “No. Not nearly.” That seemed to please him as he moved from the bedroom back to the suite.

“I return in October, but I understand your business is complete here in New York in September? Where do you go then?”

If she said she didn’t know, Rori knew what he would say. He would invite her to France to stay in one of his homes. That shouldn’t have panicked her, but it did and she quickly said, “I will take a short trip with my mother. But following that, perhaps we can see where our calendars align.”

“Indeed,” he agreed, then stepped in one last time. “Well, my beautiful Aurora. For now I bid you farewell. And I hope that when we next meet you will allow me to take you to a jewelry store to choose you a ring that befits you.” He didn’t wait for an answer before once again bringing their lips together in a sensual goodbye kiss.

“Until we meet again, my sweet,” he said, and let himself out.

Rori watched him go. And even after the door shut behind him, she stared at the spot.

The man who was a perfect match for her on paper had just proposed to her. And she hadn’t said yes. Just three months ago she would have signed on the dotted line with Anton in a heartbeat, just like she had agreed to do with Luke before things went south.

This was all Mike’s fault. Somehow, without ever actually touching her, he had imprinted himself on her psyche. Nobody else kissed right. No one else smelled right. When she took the arm of a man like Anton, she found his arm unsubstantial and lacking compared to Mike’s muscular frame.

Yes, Rori had been out with her share of men since arriving in New York, but all she saw while she was with them were all the ways they weren’t Mike.

What the hell was she supposed to do about that?