“Wait,” Stark calls, and Ollie pauses.
I hold my breath, wondering if I’m about to witness some testosterone-laden ritual. But all Stark does is reach out for the shoes that I’m still holding in my right hand. I hand them to him, confused until he steps closer and starts to gently ease me out of Ollie’s jacket.
“It’s okay,” Ollie says. “I’ll get it later.”
But I am already out of the jacket, having moved quickly so that I can recover the distance between me and Stark.
“No need,” Stark says, and his smile is bright and friendly as he hands Ollie the jacket.
Ollie hesitates a nanosecond, then takes it. He slips it on, keeping his eyes on me. “Be careful,” he says, then disappears up the dark, twisting stairs.
Careful? What the fuck?
I glance at Stark to see if he is as bemused as I am, but it’s clear that his thoughts have not lingered on Ollie at all. No, he’s completely focused on me.
I snatch my shoes back. “Do we actually have any business to discuss? Because it seems to me that my business is downtown. With Carl. Preparing for a meeting I’ll be attending in just over sixteen hours.”
“The paintings,” he says easily. “I believe you were going to help me?”
“Your belief system is all screwed up. I recall quite clearly declining your request for help.”
“My mistake. I thought you’d changed your mind after I pointed out that I valued your opinion.”
“You thought I’d changed my mind?” I repeat. “And on what did you base that hypothesis? The way I walked away from you? The way I ignored you?”
He merely quirks a brow, letting me know that all my surreptitious glances toward him and Audrey Hepburn weren’t so surreptitious, after all.
He watches me, probably expecting a pithy comeback, but I’m not going to provide one. At this moment, silence is most definitely the best policy.
I tilt my head up to look at his face. The minimal illumination filtering down from Evelyn’s balcony casts his features in shadows. His eyes, however, seem to absorb the light. The amber one, fiery and hot. The other one black and ringed with molten lava, so dark and deep I feel as though I could fall in and get lost. Windows to the soul, I think and then shiver.
“You’re cold,” he says, then trails a finger down my bare arm. “You have goose bumps.”
Well if I didn’t before, I surely do now.…
“I was fine when I had a coat,” I say, and he bursts out laughing. I like the sound of it, so free and easy and always unexpected.
He slips out of his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders, ignoring my protests.
“We’re going back inside,” I say, shrugging it off and holding it out. “I’m fine, really.”
He takes my shoes from me, but ignores the coat. “Put it on. I don’t want you catching cold.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I snap, shoving my arms into the sleeves. “Do you always get what you want?”
His eyes widen, and I realize I’ve surprised him. “Yes,” he says.
Gotta give the guy points for honesty.
“Fine. Let’s go inside. Look at some paintings. I’ll tell you what I like, and then you’ll do whatever you want.”
He’s looking at me with a somewhat baffled expression. “Excuse me?”
“You just don’t seem like the kind of guy who actually takes anybody’s advice.”
“You’re wrong, Nikki,” he says, my name sounding like milk chocolate in his mouth. “I consider very carefully any opinion I value.”
The heat coming off him is palpable. I no longer need the jacket. Hell, the damn jacket is stifling.
I look away, at the sand, at the ocean, at the sky. Anywhere but at this man. I’m twisted up in knots, but that’s not the problem. The problem is, I like the feeling.
“Nikki,” he says gently. “Look at me.”
I look without thinking, and there’s no Social Nikki between us. I’m as naked as if I’d stripped off my dress.