Page 132 of Carnal Wagers

“Enjoy?”

The word made no sense. No one actually enjoyed these events, filled with fake smiles and insincere flattery, not even for the food. I glanced at the open floor plan skeptically and chewed the inside of my bottom lip. I’d never been to one of these fundraisers or galas without a purpose. There was always an endgame that my family meant to achieve with these parties, yet tonight, Cillian gave me no direction at all. In other words, he was tossing me out to the wolves without a stick to defend myself with.

“You cannot be serious.”

“Why not?”

He led me through the arched doorway and into a wide space with oak trim against marble walls, surrounded by colonnades on sweeping balconies that reached toward a high domed ceiling and painted frescoes, reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles. Large round tables festooned the hall in a flurry of silver, gold, and red that drew the focus to the grand staircase at the room’s end. The grand lobby was exactly what its name promised.

People moseyed from one cluster to another, their perfumes and colognes wafting around the lobby. They drank cocktails and ate hors d’oeuvres while ambling around the space and searching for their seating placements. It was all beautiful, but I gawked at Cillian, not the decor.

“I never come to these, with good reason.” His lips curled with disdain. “But Liam does. He’s the one who gets off on the attention at these things. He must be around here somewhere.”

“But then…” I gawped at him. “Why are we here?”

With a jerk to my wrist, he twirled me into his arms, my back to his front, and set his chin against my bare shoulder.

“It was on your list.” He picked two champagne glasses off a passing server’s tray and handed me one. “You said you wanted to come to one of these on the arm of someone who loves you. So I made that happen, no matter how much these people bore me to tears.”

“Wonderful,” I gritted out. I knocked back a large gulp of champagne and swallowed before the bubbles had time to fizzle in my mouth. “If I’d known you didn’t care for these, I wouldn’t have—wait…”

I spun in his arms, my dress scratching against his suit.

“What did you say? Y-you love me?”

He gripped my face. The chill of his champagne flute tucked against my cheek cooled the prickling behind my eyes. Please don’t let me have imagined it. He brushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

“I do.”

Our lips met in a gentle kiss.

He loved me.

“You wouldn’t see me caught dead in one of these otherwise.”

A chuckle coughed out of me. He really loved me.

I swallowed down the rest of my champagne, then dropped off the glass at the closest table near the doors.

“We’re not staying.” I grabbed his hand, ready to drag him home to show him exactly how much those words meant to me.

“Cillian O’Leary,” a forceful voice called.

A man stepped in front of us with a blonde woman at least two decades younger on his arm and effectively cut off our exit. After years of practice placating powerful men and their arrogant attitudes at these sorts of events, I plucked a wide-toothed smile out of my bag of tricks, fixed it on my face, and took him in.

John Hanklin—I recognized him from photos of my investigation into Cillian—was close to his fifties, with an undercut gelled hairstyle and was wearing a Brioni suit that hid his slight gut. He was the O’Leary lawyer, as well as the lawyer to a good fifth of Boston’s upper crust. In line with my feelings after our few email exchanges, I disliked him on sight. It didn’t help that his cologne clashed with his smarmy grin. The heavy citrus and bergamot undertones better suited someone with a bubbly personality rather than someone with his uppity posture.

I bit the inside of my bottom lip. Would he recognize me? My heart ran a marathon in worry that Cillian’s declaration of love might be short-lived if Hanklin said anything.

“I knew I saw you.” Hanklin shook Cillian’s hand, then he called over our shoulders. “Didn’t I tell you that was him, Liam?”

Of course that meant Cillian’s brother joined us too. Granted, Liam looked dapper in a suit, but he and everyone else needed to get lost while my libido competed with my fear and demanded that I passionately drag Cillian into the first empty room available and have my way with him.

“Ha, even your brother doesn’t recognize you at these sorts of things. We don’t see enough of you.”

“Hanklin, Liam,” Cillian greeted between gritted teeth.

He tossed his lawyer a cold glare before his eyes returned to me with warmth and care. That was all it took to lift the sudden weight of his lawyer’s and brother’s presence. He loved me.