One Night with Prince Charming (Aristocratic Grooms #2)(19)
Author: Anna DePalo

Different apartments, three years apart.

Same man, though.

Hawk.

His presence was palpable still, and her body was awakened and aware as if they’d made love moments, not years, ago.

Pia shook her head. No.

She’d let him into her sanctuary—her apartment—again, but she resolved not to let him into her life one more time.

The night after Hawk signed the contract at her apartment, Pia discovered they had a couple of the best theater seats in the house—no doubt thanks to Hawk’s personal connection.

Hawk had appeared at her apartment at seven and driven them so they could make the eight o’clock curtain call for Lucy’s show, an off-Broadway production of the musical Oklahoma, in which Lucy had a supporting role.

Pia made a show of studying her program as they waited for the lights to dim. Tonight, she reminded herself, was all about business. She’d dressed in a short-sleeved, apricot-colored dress that she’d worn to work-related parties before and that she hoped sent the appropriate message. She’d avoided those items in her wardrobe that she considered purely off-hours attire.

She stole a quick sidelong glance at Hawk, who was looking at the stage. Even dressed casually in black pants and a light blue shirt, he managed to project an air of ducal self-possession.

She just wished she wasn’t so aware of his thigh inches away from her own, and of his shoulder and arm within dangerously close brushing distance. If there was a petition right now for having individual armrests in places of public accommodations, she’d sign on the spot.

Determinedly, she pulled herself in, making it clear that she’d cede the shared armrest to him.

In the process, she absently tugged down the hem of her dress, and Hawk’s gaze was drawn to her actions.

As Hawk surveyed her exposed thighs, his expression changing to one of alert but lazy amusement, Pia rued her involuntary action.

Hawk’s eyes moved up to meet hers. “I have a proposition for you.”

“I-I’m not surprised,” she shot back, rallying and cursing her telltale stammer. “They do appear to be your forte.”

He had the indecency to grin. “You bring out the best—” he waited a beat as her eyes widened “—urges in me.”

She hated that he could bait her so successfully. “You give me too much credit. As far as I can tell, your urges don’t need any help in being called forth. They appear of their own volition.”

Hawk chuckled. “Aren’t you at least curious about what I have to offer?”

She frowned, but forced herself to adopt a saccharine-sweet voice. “You forget that I already know. Unless your offer involves business, I’m not interested.”

Was his facility with sexual innuendo boundless?

He shifted toward her, his leg brushing her own, and Pia tried to stifle her response of frozen awareness before he could discern it.

Hawk looked too knowing. “As it happens, it does. Involve business, that is.”

This time, Pia didn’t try to hide her reaction. “It does?”

Hawk nodded. “A friend of mine, Victoria, needs help with a wedding.”

“A female friend? Ready to give up on you, is she, and move on?”

She couldn’t stop herself from needling him, it seemed.

He flashed a grin. “We never dated. Her fiancé is an old classmate of mine. I introduced them to each other at a party last year.”

“You do seem to know quite a few people who are getting married.” She raised her eyebrows. “Always the matchmaker, never the groom?”

“Not yet,” he replied cryptically.

She fell silent at his vague response.

Once upon a time, he might have featured in her wedding fantasies, but they were well past that point, weren’t they? Instead of the well-trod path, they’d veered down a detour from which there was no turning back.

“When is the wedding?” she heard herself ask.

“Next week. Saturday.”

“Next week?”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

Hawk nodded. “The wedding planner is quarantined abroad.”

Pia raised her eyebrows.

Hawk quirked his lips. “I’m not joking. She went on safari with her boyfriend, and they were both exposed to tuberculosis. She can’t get back to New York until after the wedding date.”

Pia shook her head in bemusement. “I suppose I should thank you…?”

“If you want to,” he teased. “It might be appropriate under the circumstances.”

Pia bit her lip, but Hawk looked down and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.

“Here’s the bride’s contact information,” he said. “Will you do it? Will you call her?”

Pia took the paper from him, her fingers brushing his in a contact that was anything but casual for the two of them.

She noted the name and phone number that he’d written. Victoria Elgemere.

Just then the lights overhead blinked a few times, indicating that people should take their seats because the show was about to begin.

“I’ll call her,” she said quickly.

“Good girl,” Hawk responded, and then mischievously patted her knee, his hand lingering. “I’ll be a wedding guest, by the way.”

“Then it’ll be déjà vu.”

He grinned. “I’ve developed a taste for baba ghanoush.”

She threw him a stern look, and then picked up and returned his hand to him. Her actions belied the emotional tumult that he so effortlessly engendered in her.

Facing forward as the lights dimmed, she was left to reflect that her company had again received a desperate transfusion of new business thanks to Hawk.

She’d acted quickly in accepting the job—or, at least, agreeing to call—forced into an impulsive decision by the imminent start of the show, but she didn’t want her feelings toward him to get murky.

She could start feeling gratitude or worse.

Six

Hawk emerged from an Aston Martin at the New York Botanical Garden—where Victoria’s wedding would shortly be held at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon—and looked up.

He saw nothing but clear blue skies. There was just the faint hint of a warm breeze. Perfect.

As the valet approached for his car keys, Hawk heard his cell phone ring and smiled as the notes of “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole sounded. He’d assigned the ringtone to Pia’s cell, whose number he’d acquired ostensibly for business reasons.