The agency gave me a black shirt, a name tag and strict instructions not to touch anything older than the guests.
Crowe Heritage. Of course it was Crowe Heritage.
A woman in pale pink laughed at the top of the stairs, and half the room turned like she pulled a string.
Seraphine Loft. Lachlan's fiancée. Every gossip page in the city had printed that name next to his.
My earpiece crackled. They needed a runner in the rare-book room, and I volunteered before I asked myself why.
Maybe because books never look at me like a price tag.
The room was cold and quiet, all glass cases and old leather, and my hands finally stopped shaking.
I knew this air. I knew how paper that old should feel under a fingertip.
For ten whole minutes I was good at something again.
Lachlan: So you're the runner.
The door clicked shut behind him, and the room got a lot smaller.
Lachlan Crowe. Thirty-four, grey-blue eyes, and a mouth I had spent two years trying to forget.
Darcy: I'm working.
Lachlan: I can see that.
Darcy: Then go be rich somewhere else.
Lachlan: I looked for you. Your shop number changed, and there was no name on the door.
Darcy: That's because my mother answers it.
Lachlan: Two years, Darcy.
Lachlan: I never forgot that night. Not one part of it.
My face went hot. My whole body went hot, honestly, and I hated how easy it was to read.
Darcy: You're engaged.
Lachlan: Yes.
Darcy: That's a hell of a thing to say to a woman while you're wearing another woman's ring.
Lachlan: It's not her ring. It's a deal.
He crossed the room. I had all that floor behind me and I did not use one inch of it.
Lachlan: Tell me to stop and I stop.
Darcy: That's the problem. I don't want you to stop.
He kissed me hard enough to knock the breath out of me and the shelf into my spine.
Old leather, dust, his mouth. I grabbed his lapels and pulled him closer, because apparently I have zero survival instinct.
His hands found the hem of my shirt and went under it, warm on my ribs, then higher.
I made a sound into his mouth that I will deny until the day I die.
Lachlan: Fuck. I missed this.
Darcy: Then shut up and keep going.
He pushed his thigh between mine, and I ground down on it like a teenager in a stairwell.
His thumb dragged along the lace edge of my bra and my knees actually gave.
Lachlan: Look at me. Look at what you do to me.
Darcy: You have a fiancée downstairs.
Lachlan: And I have you up here. Tell me which one I'm supposed to be thinking about.
Relief went through me like heat. Then shame came right behind it, because he was not mine to want.
Seraphine: Lachlan. Your father wants the speech in five minutes.
We broke apart like teenagers. My shirt was half out of my trousers and my mouth felt like it belonged to someone else.
Lachlan: Stay near the archive. I'll find you before midnight.
Darcy: And then what?
Lachlan: Then we find out if I'm a coward or not.
Seraphine: Darling, you have dust all over your sleeve.
Seraphine: Sweetheart, your shirt's untucked.
Seraphine: Try not to look like you got fucked in a library on my night.
She said it sweetly, loud enough for two waiters to hear, and walked off with her hand in his.
My face burned. I wanted to be the kind of woman who had something clever ready for that.
I wasn't. I just stood there and took it, and that was the worst part.
He remembered. That was the terrifying part.
A man with a fiancée, a father and a whole tower of money had just told me he never forgot.
I still had three hours of this party to get through without letting it show on my face.