Page 74 of Match Me if You Can
“Why does it matter?” She tugs against my hold, but I don’t let her go.
“It didn’t really matter,” I admit. “At least until you started to get all shifty about sharing it. Now I think it matters a lot.”
Matters enough she doesn’t want to tell me.
Matters enough to be another piece of the puzzle that is this woman.
She pushes at my chest. “I really need to get in the shower—”
“Princess,” I command. “Tell me.”
She glares at me and then we’re in a staring contest, one long enough that I wonder if she’s got some Ambrose DNA in her because she’s almost as stubborn as me.
Probably the Conrad side.
Hopefully, the Conrad side.
Because I’m not into that incest shit.
Thinking that has my mouth curving up and she finally breaks, tossing up her hands, nearly smacking me in the face with her giant makeup bag. “Fine, you really want to know?” She drops her arms back to her sides as she snaps, “Double the rent at my office meant that I’d have to cut Josie’s pay or not cover her insurance or, at the absolute worse, let her go all together. She needs the job and she needs the insurance for her and her nephew.”
The nephew who says mean shit.
The nephew Vi doesn’t want me anywhere near.
I slam the door on those thoughts.
“And it goes without saying that raising a kid in this day and age is expensive, so I can’t cut her salary, not if I don’t want her and Nate to end up on the street, so sacrifice would mean no more weekly DoorDash nights or monthly facials or nice shoes. It would likely mean selling my babies.”
My brows drag together. “Your babies?”
“My shoes.” She scowls at me. “I would have done it—”
“Of course you would have.”
That has her pausing, something unreadable crossing her face. “But your money meant I didn’t have to part with any of my Manolo Blaniks.”
“What’s a Manolo Blanik?”
Her eyes go wide and she pushes at my chest again.
Since I’m curious, I step away, allow her to move over to her suitcase and start rummaging through it.
“This,” she says, dropping her clothes and bag to the floor and pulling over a pair of heels, “is a Manolo Blanik. A Hangisi Blue Satin Jewel Buckle Pump to be exact.” Her lips twitch. “And your contract bought them for me.”
Pointy toes. Thin, high, high heels. A sparkly square thing on the top.
They’re hot as fuck and I want them digging into my back as I thrust into her.
But that’s one of her babies?
I don’t understand women.
She sighs, like she’s plucked that thought from my brain. “Just pretend it’s the Bauer Vapor Hyperlite 2.”
This is a language I understand.
Mostly it’s because it’s the stick I use.
