She smacked his hand away. “You are an asshole.”
“Pretty much.” He laughed and picked the medical utility cart back up again and started walking. “But you’d better keep that to yourself tonight at my mom’s cocktail party.”
She nearly stumbled, but he grabbed her hand again and kept her upright. “What cocktail party?”
“It’s a standing event.” God save him from family traditions. “I haven’t been in a few months, so it’s past time I made an appearance.”
“Not so easy to do when your mom is throwing models and socialites at you?”
“Exactly.” He nodded, sneaking a glance at her and noting the way she was chewing her bottom lip. “But now I have you.”
“You have serious mommy issues,” she grumbled.
No. He had don’t-make-the-grieving-widow-cry issues. “Stop deflecting because you’re nervous.”
“Who said I was nervous?”
“You are trying to gnaw your bottom lip off.”
Like the delicate flower she was, Clover flipped him off as they strode out of the flea market’s front gate and into the parking lot. Linus was waiting beside the Town Car. He gave the thing Sawyer was carrying a slow and slightly horrified up and down look but kept his mouth shut as he opened the spacious trunk. They were pulling out onto Eighty-Eighth Street five minutes later, and Clover was still going to town on her lip.
“Don’t worry, I know you haven’t had time to use the black card yet. I ordered you a dress. It’ll be delivered by the time we get home.” He’d been planning to make it a surprise but offering up the news now seemed like the better plan.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “No way.”
Clover had gone stubborn. What a shock.
“So you already have a cocktail dress?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, you do now.”
Her eyes were still narrowed, but not so much that she could hide the curiosity glittering in their dark depths. “It had better not be totally fugly.”
For all he knew, it could be. He’d snapped a surreptitious picture of Clover while they were wandering around the flea market and had sent it to a personal shopper at Dylan’s Department Store along with a few notes about what Clover needed. Jaqui had never done him wrong when it came to presents for his mom, so he was confident she’d come through again. Explaining all of that to Clover though would take the fun out of it.
“It’s completely hideous,” he said with as much seriousness as he could muster.
She rolled her eyes. “The next six weeks are going to last forever.”
“Just keep your eye on the fifteen-thousand-dollar prize, Clover, and you’ll make it through.”
Good advice for himself, too, as long as he remembered to take it—especially tonight. His imagination was already torturing him with images of her in a million sexy dresses. And out of them.
Chapter Eleven
Clover twirled around in front of the mirror one last time and smoothed her already stick-straight hair. Procrastinating? Her? Never. Who wouldn’t want to brave a cocktail party at the Dragon Lady’s den and spend the evening lying her ass off?
Completing her spin, she had to admit the dress Sawyer had bought was not fugly. The multicolored, striped sheath dress was fun, fit like a dream, and guessing by the name of the designer on the label, cost as much as her rent. The new black heels, which matched the dress’s black-beaded, sleeveless neckline, were a tad tight on her toes, but not enough to make her take them off. They were gorgeous. She definitely looked put together, but there was no way she was passing for a high-society girl. Thank God, they’d worked that into their cover story during the trip to the flea market.
“Are you going to hide in there all night?” Sawyer asked from the other side of her closed bedroom door. “I didn’t take you for a chicken.”
Nerves eating away at her stomach lining, she clucked quietly to herself as she crossed the room. She sucked at lying. It made her nervous and when that happened, well…
“Tu es betes comme tes pieds.” Yes, she transformed into someone who was as smart as the bottom of her feet. Deep breaths, Clover. I’m sure Mrs. Carlyle won’t be as scary this time. Third time’s the charm. Or curse.
Forcing a confidence into her spine that she sure as hell didn’t feel, Clover opened her bedroom door. “Because I’m not a chicken…”
Her voice trailed off as she noticed Sawyer in a black suit and a patterned pale pink tie that perfectly matched one of the stripes on her dress. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Whoever had gone shopping and left the Dylan’s Department Store garment bag on her bed had obviously left one for him as well.
“You look nice,” she said, voicing the understatement of the year.
The suit did everything possible to highlight Sawyer’s broad shoulders, and noticing that did funny things to her stomach—not to mention all points south, making it hard to remember exactly why it was that she shouldn’t follow her own advice and have a little adventure climbing Mount Stuffykins.
His focus was only for her and he gave her a slow, heated up and down once-over. “You look ready to unwrap.”
She halted in mid-stride on her way out the door. Okay, with the pink, navy, and merlot colored stripes on a white background, the dress looked a little like Christmas paper, but that didn’t mean he had to say it out loud. An embarrassed heat inched its way up her chest. “If you didn’t like it, why did you get it?”
“Who said I didn’t like it?” he asked, the lines in his forehead carving a V that disappeared behind the top of his black-framed glasses.
Head high and chin pointed up, she strode right past him on her way to the elevator. “You did.”
“I was trying to compliment you,” he shot back.
“That’s not exactly your strong suit.” No. Being a pain in her ass was his greatest strength.
“No.” Not missing a beat, he was beside her in an instant matching her stride for stride and getting to the elevator down button a half second before she did. He mashed it with more force than necessary. “It’s definitely not.” Twelve very slow, very silent seconds later, the elevator arrived and the doors parted. “Shall we?”
The doors whooshed shut behind them.
She tried to hold on to her annoyance for Sawyer’s crack about her dress but the urge to start nervously clucking was too much for her to shut off. “Do you think we can really carry this off?”
Sawyer let out a breath, the tension melting out of his rigid stance. Taking her hand, he slipped it into the crook of his elbow. “We met at a Starbucks in Singapore. You turned too fast, knocked into me, and spilled my drink all over me.”
That was not exactly what they’d discussed. The man was a wreck when it came to details. Still, the corner of her mouth twitched upward. “You were standing too close to me so there was no way for me to avoid it. You’re just lucky it was an iced coffee.”