“Wear jeans tonight,” she said as he reached into the pocket of his jacket.
“Sorry?”
“You said we were going out? That I could choose where, seeing as how the chicken was so good?”
“I did.”
“Let’s go to that sushi bar you mentioned and you wear jeans.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Why?”
“Because you’ll look gorgeous.”
“I have no casual clothes here.”
“Then perhaps you should bring some? Leave them here I mean,” she suggested, then held her breath as Andros paused to give her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. She hadn’t been back to his home since the first day. Their entire affair was being carried out in this little apartment overlooking London. Lyra didn’t mind. She hadn’t expected to be welcomed into his actual life, but it made sense to her that he should bring a little bit of himself into the world he’d created for her.
“That is a good idea,” he said after a moment, and she released the breath, a weird relief shooting through her. “I will have some delivered tomorrow. Now, this is for you.”
He passed across a box. It was long, thin, blue, and was stamped with a name even Lyra recognized. “Andros,” she whispered, her heart suddenly giving a little thump.
“Open it,” he commanded.
She did so with shaky hands, and the moment the present inside was revealed Lyra’s little heart thumps became big heart thumps. It was a necklace. Perfect in every way, it was platinum maybe, or even white gold, and the diamonds…Lyra swallowed unsteadily as she took in the many, many diamonds threaded throughout the delicate chains that made up the necklace. They winked and sparkled and screamed their opulence at her.
“This is…”
“It is flashes of fire,” he said. “Just like you.”
Flashes of fire. Bigger heart thumps. Lyra met his gaze and what she saw there made her melt. How could one man be so gorgeous? And he was hers. For this little space of time, this incredibly good looking, talented, man was hers. It was a weird feeling. Sometimes Lyra had trouble believing it had come together, that her plotting and planning had worked.
“It’s more than that,” she said, reaching out to touch the diamonds. “So much more. It’s beautiful.”
“I was inspired.”
“I love it.”
“So I can contact you,” he said, his tone serious, and Lyra laughed, just as he’d wanted her to, the tension—where had it come from?—dissipating slightly, but not completely. Because even as the diamonds winked and blinked, cool beneath her fingers, making her want to sigh, Lyra was torn between two thoughts.
One, this was not an official mistress gift. Andros had not bought it for her because he needed to call her, or wanted her to have things to do. He’d bought it because he wanted her to have it—for whatever reason that might be.
Two, and though it killed her a little to admit it, it was expensive, very expensive. The jewelers in question sold only high end products. These diamonds were flawless. And as much as Lyra loved the thought of wearing it against her skin, she couldn’t help but be thinking exactly what the resale value was likely to be and how that might contribute to the end goal. The end of the game.
The mission.
The Point.
Chapter Sixteen
A week and a half later and Andros was finishing up yet another meeting. For some reason they had been constant of late, more constant, at least, than he liked. This one in particular had been trying. He’d met with a group of youngsters who were trying to convince him to invest in their website. It was a novel idea, but they were so green he didn’t know if he could bear it. Worse they’d taken him to a God awful, trendy restaurant, and he frowned as he extracted himself from the group, intending to make his way to the bar in the other side of the building, down a much needed drink, then head on home.#p#分页标题#e#
Home or Lyra’s?
He frowned some more as he waved his goodbyes to the eager youngsters, strode over to the bar, and gestured to the man behind it. The service in this part of the business was significantly better, and Andros gave his order, settled on to a bar stool and took a deep breath.
Lyra…
He’d spent every night with her since the first night, and it seemed like it was more than several days. The days had bled together and it felt almost like Lyra being part of his life was something that had been in place for months. It had become perfectly natural for him to finish up his day and then head to her apartment, where she pleasured him in ways he could not describe.