Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I’m running a little late. Choose what you want to wear for tonight from the rail. I’ll be there at 7 to pick you up. Don’t get haughty that I bought you clothes.
Haughty? Is that even a word? His vocabulary is making me haughty.
Choose what I want to wear from the rail? I eye up the delivery the concierge just made. Does he mean this rack? What other rail could he mean?
Tentatively, I unzip one of the garment bags a couple of inches. What’s inside? I can’t see much, so I keep pulling down the zipper.
It’s a cocktail dress. Simple. Black. Very New York. I pull off the garment bag completely. It’s beautiful. The fabric is light and soft, and the way the seams are hemmed, I can tell it wasn’t cheap.
My stomach ripples with excitement—and then instantly the excitement is washed away by shame or embarrassment or something I can’t quite place. Is he trying to control me? He very definitely said pick something from the rail. He didn’t add I could wear what I wanted if I didn’t like anything he’d sent over. Or is this part of his seduction technique? He’s either being incredibly generous or completely controlling.
What I know of Ben, he’s not controlling of anyone but himself. He very carefully curates the version of himself that he lets everyone see. Maybe he’s done that to me too. Maybe he’s hidden the part of him that likes to control…women. Or me in particular.
I set about opening the rest of the garment bags, so I can at least see what he’s sent over. Each dress is beautiful. Four are black, one with long sleeves, two sleeveless but long, one sleeveless and short. One is a gunmetal gray silk and another full-length and nude. The final one is red with ruffles. It’s similar to the black one I wore to Aurora and Deacon’s engagement party—the one Ben sliced off me and replaced. Except that one was black and long and this one is short and red. I peer more closely at the label—as I suspected, it’s the same brand. They’re all gorgeous.
There are three other hangers. One looks like a garment bag but it’s full of shoe boxes. Two others have evening coats in them. He’s thought of everything. Or maybe his assistant thought of everything.
I wish he’d tell me where we’re going. Is that part of his control? The fact that I can’t choose for myself what to wear because I don’t know where Ben has arranged this date?
I scan the hanging outfits in front of me. Other than the nude one, which would make me feel way too self-conscious, they’re all beautiful, and if I went to Saks with a limitless credit card, I can imagine picking out any or all of them. So why don’t I feel elated?
Ben has been kind to me. Generous. I mean, he’s also made this situation harder than it needs to be—he could have just agreed to help me with the Boston hotel—but there’s nothing in our interactions that suggests he wants to control me. So why do I feel so suspicious?
I check the time on my phone—it’s six thirty. I need to decide which outfit I’m going to wear…or maybe I’m not going to wear any of them. Maybe I’ll turn up in jeans and a sweater and see what Ben says.
I don’t wear jeans, but I do choose some black satin wide-legged trousers and a soft pink top that I wore with a floaty skirt to a wedding last summer. I finish the outfit off with the black shoes that I wore to Aurora and Deacon’s engagement party.
My phone buzzes with a message. It’s Ben again, saying he’s on his way up.
I meet him at the door, my normal winter coat on, my clutch bag in my hand, filled with some printouts of some things I’ve been researching that I thought Ben might be interested in.
He grins when he sees me, his gaze not focused on what I’m wearing, but on my face. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply. “You’re right on time. Do you need to come in?” He’s wearing a navy suit with an open collar. He looks hot as fuck, just like always.
He shakes his head. “No, I just came to pick you up.”
I smile. “I could have met you there. If I’d known where we were going.”
“Now that wouldn’t have been very gentlemanly of me, would it?”
I cock my head to one side. “I happen to know you have a very ungentlemanly side to you.”
His eyebrows pulse upwards. “I don’t know what you mean.” He turns and holds his elbow out for me to take and we head to the elevator.
When he slides into the back seat of his car next to me, he puts on his seat belt, and we pull out into the New York evening traffic.