The Chemistry of Love(59)

I smiled at my reflection. I swayed side to side, liking the way the skirt swished back and forth.

Marco had followed me, and I was glad. His bathroom felt safer than his bedroom.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“My opinion doesn’t matter,” he said in a quiet voice, and I felt strangely disappointed. Maybe it was because I’d spent the last couple of hours with Jen as my hype woman.

“Well, I like it,” I informed him, unwilling to let him rain on my parade.

“That’s all that counts.”

I noticed a tag at my waist and looked at it. “Six thousand dollars?” I gasped. “This dress is six thousand dollars?”

“I’ve been told that’s how much dresses like that cost. It seems worth it to me.”

“Easy to say when you’re rich. I don’t have six thousand dollars.”

And then, honest to Obi-Wan’s ghost, Marco leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms. It was a heart-stopping moment. “I thought we’d already agreed that I’d be picking up the tab for all this.”

“I don’t know. That feels like some kind of power imbalance.”

“How? I don’t have any power over you.”

He was sorely mistaken there, but I didn’t correct him. “Maybe it’s that you have money and I don’t.”

“Then shouldn’t you take it when I offer it to you? You need dresses for upcoming events. You can’t buy the dresses. I can. So let me buy them.”

“You’re too logical sometimes.”

“I’ll try to work on that,” he said with a wink.

“Do you know how many homogenizers I could buy with six thousand dollars? Four.”

“What would you do with four homogenizers?”

“No idea.”

“I could get you four homogenizers,” he offered.

“That’s not the point. It’s just expensive,” I said.

“Don’t worry about that. I can afford it.”

Figuring I’d protested enough to make my grandma happy, I decided I should head back to the main room before they sent out a search party. I came close to Marco, and he stiffened, standing straighter, tightening his arms so that his forearms flexed.

I didn’t understand what his reaction was about.

“Thank you,” I said. “It may be too much, but thank you.”

It took him a second, and I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed twice before he cleared his throat and said, “You’re welcome. I should, uh, get back to work.”

“And I should get back to looking nice.”

I twirled a bit toward the door and heard the sound of my skirt brushing against his leg. He was such a confusing man. I felt like I never really knew what he was thinking and remembered my grandma telling me that women spent twice as long wondering what men thought about as men actually spent thinking.

He was probably focused on his job.

And hoping that this now-very-expensive plan of his was going to work.

I rejoined the women, and Gloria had thought of everything—purses, shoes that actually fit my large feet, underwear to go with each outfit—and Jen was busy attaching pieces of paper to everything with notes. I changed back into my regular clothes, and Gloria took the pretty red dress and put it in a hanging bag.

Once everything was sorted and bagged up for me, they packed their belongings, and I walked them to the door. They all hugged me goodbye, even Gloria. Jen gave me her phone number so that I could call her with any questions, and then they were gone.

I was trying to figure out how I was going to get all this stuff down to Betty without making multiple trips when Marco came out of his room.

He walked over to me, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit mesmerized as he came closer and closer. Like a large cat stalking its prey. Only if I were the prey, I’d lay down and pretend to be dead just so that he would catch me.

“We’re alone?” he asked.

“Yep.” The word unintentionally squeaked out of me.

“Good. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“There is?”

He nodded. “Seduction.”





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


All the blood left my brain and pooled in unspeakable places. If his plan was to seduce me, I found that I had no objections. “What?”

“You’ve got your armor, all ready to go into battle. Now you need a strategy.”

He picked up a remote and clicked a button. It turned on soft music. He held out his hand to me. Holy Gimli’s beard—maybe I really was about to be seduced.

Still no objections from any part of me.

Even though I knew he couldn’t be talking about us.

“Wait. This is for me to seduce Craig?” I verified. I felt like I needed to make sure that I wasn’t misunderstanding the situation.

Marco dropped his hand. “Yes.”

Why was that disappointing? I couldn’t speak for a moment.

Luckily, he filled in what felt like an awkward silence. “The reason I did all this was because there’s a party next weekend. An engagement precelebration.”

There was a pain from his words, but it was dull and faint. Not like the vivid sharpness I’d experienced every time before when I’d thought about Craig marrying someone else. “But they just got engaged.”