The few that I’ve ever had,I add internally.
Cormack stops mid-stride and turns to glance down into my eyes. When he speaks, his voice is slow, thick, sweet — like melted chocolate. “I don’t scare very easily, Phoebe.”
Phey-bee.
Swoon.
I don’t say anything — what exactly does a girl say to something like that? — so he just places his hand on my back and starts walking again.
Calling Cormack O’Daircharmingis like calling a contestant on The Bachelordramatic. The word falls pathetically short of reality.
With just one devilish grin, he could get a Royal Guardsman to blush redder than his uniform.
With only the sparkle in his blue-green eyes, he could talk the pants off a priest. (Is that sacrilegious? Oops.)
Point is, between his mega-bright smiles and quick-witted comments and, deargod,that accent… I’m feeling a shade out of my depth. Which is perhaps why I didn’t immediately realize the wait staff have been supplying me with glass after glass of champagne since the moment my date arrived, or that I’ve been sipping them at an alarming pace, just so my mouth has something to do besides gawk or grunt unintelligibly in his direction.
The first glass works through my system like a pleasant anesthetic, loosening my joints and making my steps a little more languorous as I glide through the gallery on Cormack’s arm.
By the second glass, I’m reallyfeelingthe art, in a way I probably — definitely — wouldn’t be, without the aid of alcohol. ‘Cause, I mean, it’s notjusta $6,000 painting of a white paper cup on canvas. You know? That cup — it’sempty. Lying on its side. Which is deeply symbolic of…of… something. I think.
Don’t snort bubbles out your nose. Don’t snort bubbles out your nose. Don’t snort bubbles out your nose.
Now, by glass number three, everything around me has adopted a kind of fuzzy, golden aura. Blurred at the edges. Mellow. Warm.
That handful of stale Cheez-its I ate earlier wasn’t the most substantial dinner I’ve ever had…
Blessedly, Cormack hasn’t seemed to notice that my brain is sloshing around inside my skull like a pickled egg. He’s too busy charming the pants off everyone we talk to.
I can’t decide if it’s good or bad that I’m not wearing pants and, thus, cannot be charmed out of them.
(Probably bad.)
In any case, as we maneuver through the crowd looking for Gemma and Chase, we’re stopped at least six times to chat with various family friends and some of my father’s business partners. Several women ask — with a fair amount of shock in their tones — who my date is. I grit my teeth and pretend it doesn’t bother me that they treat a deviation from my perpetual single-hood with such delighted dismay. The other women we come across are too busy sultrily eyeing Cormack behind their martini glasses to be bitchy. Their husbands aren’t much better — they either ask after my father’s whereabouts, let their gazes linger too long on my cleavage, or say nothing at all.
Cumulatively, I worry their antics will make my date run for the hills.
He doesn’t. In fact, he’s so good at working the crowd and moving us along through countless tedious encounters, I may have to consider bringing him along to every social event for the rest of my life. Hell, I may have to marry the guy for perks like these.
I don’t need sex, love, or commitment. Just deflect the monotonous, socialite small talk away from me.
“Are you a magician?” I ask, when he somehow maneuvers us out of a conversation with Minerva Dupree, one of the most long-winded women I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, in under a minute. In that tiny sliver of time, she somehow managed to touch on everything from my brother’s lack of interest in taking over WestTech to my spinsterhood to my father’s decision to develop the Charlestown waterfront from a crime-riddled neighborhood into a stretch of luxury green-energy condos.
Minerva has a knack for locking you into hour-long lectures, if given the chance. But Cormack brushed her off like a piece of lint, shattering Lila’s all-time escape record of five minutes at a Christmas party two years ago — and she had to spill eggnog all over herself to achieve that speedy exit.
“Nothing so exciting. I work in…” He pauses a beat, smiling to himself. “Let’s call it… investments and trading.” There’s laughter in his voice, but I’m not in on the joke.
“Oh. That’s nice,” I say politely, thinking it sounds terribly boring.
“Though…” He leans closer. “I do have a magic trick or two up my sleeve.”
My mouth gapes at the suggestion in his tone.He can’t possibly be talking about…
His lips graze my ear. “Maybe I’ll teach you a few of them, sometime.”
Oh. Yep. He’s definitely talking about sex.
I don’t know whether to laugh or choke, so I simply swallow another gulp of champagne. Cormack’s still leaning close, his mouth practically on my ear as he chuckles lowly, when my eyes cut through the crowd and find the one thing I’ve told myself over and over I haven’t been searching for all night.