Park Avenue Prince(39)

He was right, but I wasn’t about to tell him he was right. “Whatever you need to keep your ego ticking over, Mr. Shaw.”

Sam took my teasing in stride, as he seemed to most things. Despite my head telling me I should have said no to something more with Sam—a proper date—when he turned up in Brooklyn with a car and a driver, I’d been pleased rather than put off. He was trying to impress me and it was cute.

The car slowed and pulled up a couple of blocks away from his apartment. I hoped he wasn’t expecting to get laid—not that I wouldn’t sleep with him, but I was hungry.

“You’re going to make me walk?” I asked as he opened the door and helped me out onto the sidewalk.

“We’re just here,” he said, pointing at the building in front of us. “If your feet get tired, I’m sure I can give you a piggyback.”

This didn’t look like a restaurant. There were no lights, no people. We were on a pretty deserted street. I glanced around. Where exactly were we? I looked up at the huge mansion. Wasn’t that the Frick—one of my favorite places in the world? I wasn’t used to seeing it at night. It had the most beautiful art collection. I’d always liked to imagine arriving for dinner here, ready to swap stories with Teddy Roosevelt and Edith Wharton, as if I wasn’t a visitor but a guest at the grand house.

“I’m sure you’ve been to this place a million times, but I wondered if you’d share it with me?” Sam asked as he took my hand and led me up the stoop.

I’d assumed we’d have dinner at some fancy restaurant. A tour of this place was so much better, but the black heels I’d put on with my blue leather skirt and silk shirt weren’t really designed for walking. I might have known Sam would surprise me.

“Those shoes are something else,” he said.

I looked up at him, and he was staring at my legs. “Something else?” I asked, grinning.

Our eyes locked. “Yeah, you should come with a warning sign,” he whispered into my ear.

I wanted him to kiss me, but knew if he did, neither of us would be able to stop.

We entered the door to find a man holding a tray with two glasses of champagne. Sam picked up both drinks and handed one to me. “Here’s to a lovely evening.”

“Sam,” I said and took a sip, “it was really nice of you to bring me here, thoughtful. But I might be a little underdressed. Is it a formal reception or something?” I asked, transferring my weight from one foot to the other.

“It’s whatever we want it to be,” he said. “I thought maybe you could show me your favorite pieces and then we’ll have dinner in the dining room.”

“The dining room?” He couldn’t mean the dining room in the Frick. Maybe he meant a restaurant nearby?

“Yeah, they asked me which room, but since I had no idea what you’d like I went with the obvious choice.”

“We’re going to eat in the dining room, amongst the Gainsborough and the Hoppner?” He couldn’t be serious. It was one of my favorite parts of the place.

“I couldn’t tell you what’s in the room, to be honest. Just that there are a lot of paintings in there. I thought you might like it.”

“Like it?” I stared at him as he frowned at me. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” The faint hint of a blush bloomed across his cheeks as I slid my hand into his. “Where should we start?”

He led me into the Garden Court. The place was surprisingly empty. The curved glass roof that normally let in the sun was dark but the fountain in the middle of the courtyard was still babbling to the surrounding palms despite the time of night. Were we the only members of the public here? “Sam Shaw, do we have this place all to ourselves?” I whispered as our footsteps on the stone walkway echoed around us.

“They don’t normally open on a Saturday night. I thought it would be nice to be here, just the two of us.”

When had any man in my life ever done anything so thoughtful for me? Okay, so to be fair, no one I’d dated since high school had money, but that wasn’t what made tonight special. Sam had organized things because he’d thought about me, and what would make me happy. Just the thought and attention he’d given to the evening to make it feel special, make me feel special. I shivered.

“Is this what you do? Extravagance, blow women away with your thoughtfulness in order to get into their panties?”

He scraped his hand through his hair. “I’ve blown you away?”

I hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to make it so obvious I wasn’t used to men treating me as if I were special, because if I did he might stop, and I didn’t want him to. “Yeah. A little bit.”

The corners of his mouth began to curl upward and he nodded.

“A lot actually,” I confessed.

“Good.”

“I’m going to kick off my shoes and make myself comfortable, if you don’t mind,” I said as we walked into the small, windowless Oval Room at the end of the Garden Court.

“I want you to be comfortable. If you wanted to slip the skirt off and walk around naked, that would be just fine with me, too.”

I laughed. “Naked at the Frick? Not with all these eyes on us,” I said, sweeping my arm around at the portraits that lined the room. “We can save that for when we go to the Guggenheim.”