Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1)(24)

I feel his eyes on me, so instead of letting myself dwell on my insecurities, I lean forward and let my touch trace the lines of his palm.

His large hand dwarfs my tiny one as I hold it out before me. “You have a long heart line. That’s a good thing,” I add, glancing up into his eyes. He’s not looking at the lines, though. His gaze is fixed on my face, and I have to swallow down my nerves. He’s your boss, Charlie. And Beau’s dad. Get your mind out of the gutter.

“What does that mean?” he asks.

“People with a long, straight heart line are usually good lovers,” I say with a playful smirk.

“Makes sense,” he jokes, and I find myself giggling and my cheeks warming.

“It also means you are expressive, romantic, and value true love in your life.”

“Hmm…”

“Look, mine is long too.” I open my palm for him, showing him where the horizontal line starts at my index finger and stretches all the way across my hand, without any breaks or curves.

“Doesn’t everyone have love in their life?” He sounds unimpressed.

Squeezing his open hand in mine, I give him a terse glare. “Not just any love, Emerson. It means you’ll have true, all-consuming, intoxicating, life-changing, earth-shattering love. Love you would die for. That you couldn’t possibly live without. Love that makes it hard to breathe. Like you can feel it not just in your heart but in your veins and your bones and your muscles. Everywhere.”

My hand moves to my chest and I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I didn’t mean to get so carried away, but I can literally feel tears sting my eyes, and it’s humiliating, because there’s no way he understands what I’m talking about.

But when I open my eyes, he’s staring at me with an expression I haven’t seen on his face before. The wrinkle that usually settles between his brows is gone and his eyes are soft. He’s studying me as if he’s seeing me for the first time.

“Is that what you want, Charlotte?”

I force myself to inhale. “I won’t settle for anything less.”

“Good.” He looks down at my hand still resting on the table, and he takes it, opening my palm the way I held his. “And your lines say you’ll have that?”

“Yes.”

His fingers trace the creases of my palm, and I forget how to breathe. His touch is so gentle even though he’s so much larger than me, and I hate myself for the way I imagine that same touch on my breasts, down my spine, between my legs…

“Yours does too,” I add, breaking the fragile silence.

His eyes meet mine, a moment charged by the intimate touching of hands. I didn’t intend for it to get like this. I really thought I could prove to him that he doesn’t have to stay so miserably single forever and he would tease me about palm reading, but I didn’t expect this. Here I am, stupidly thinking that the mind-blowing love I want so badly could possibly, in any universe, be with Emerson.

“I’ll take you to the opening.”

At first I think he’s saying he’ll take me, as in, to be his lawfully wedded wife, and I nearly laugh because that would be a joke. Then his words reroute through my brain and I realize he’s asking me to go to the club opening with him as his date, and the word, “What?” bursts through my lips.

“You think I need a date, and I don’t want to take any chances going home with the wrong girl, so you should go with me.”

“You’re serious.”

A deep chuckle echoes from his chest. “Yes, I’m serious.”

“No. No.”

“Ouch,” he responds, feigning offense.

“Emerson.” I level my gaze on him. “Come on. I’m your secretary. And your son’s girlfriend.”

“Ex.”

I pause. Am I seriously considering this? He won’t even take me back to the club after what happened last time, and now he wants to take me to the opening as his date.

“Will people be…you know?” God, I feel like a child.

“Having sex in the club? Yes, probably. Maybe not on the first night, and not out in the open. You don’t have to see anything you don’t want to see.”

I think I’m sweating. No, I’m definitely sweating.

I want to ask him, why me? Why does he want to take me when he has his pick of probably any girl in Briar Point? But I don’t. I’ll let myself imagine for a moment that he actually wants to take me over any of those other girls. Let myself live in the fantasy for a minute.

“I can’t afford a dress.”

“I’ll buy your dress.”

When I open my mouth to argue more, I stop myself. Why am I trying to talk him out of this invitation? I am getting invited to an ultra-exclusive, members-only sex club with the freaking owner. Why are the first words out of my mouth not hell yes?

“Okay. Fine.”

“That has to be the most flattering response to a date I’ve ever received,” he replies sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, I mean, I’m excited and of course I want to go with you, but it’s just…not really my scene. Come on, Emerson. I work in a skating rink.”

“No, you work for Salacious Players’ Club as my secretary, remember?”

“Yes, but on the weekends, I still fry corn dogs and lead the crowd in the hokey-pokey on roller skates.”