Or when he took her to a club later that night.
She hadn’t been to a club since she’d had to sneak in with a fake ID. Clubs like this were a hotbed of scandal and sex, and all sorts of things her father and Ajax would never have approved of. The sort of place the press would crucify her for going to.
Alcohol, loud thumping music, sticky dance floors filled with bodies. There had been a time when she’d loved it. But not after she’d become aware of what she was inviting. Not since she realized the sort of trouble she could get herself into. Since she realized she’d been walking down a path that only had one ending, and it wasn’t a happy one.
But just for now, she was going to put good behavior on hold. She felt secluded here, insulated by whatever magic spell Alex had cast on her the first moment she’d seen him. No one around was looking at her, expecting her to behave in a certain way. She didn’t think she was in any danger of exposing herself the way she’d done in the past.
Somehow, with Alex, it felt exciting. It felt dangerous—a hit of adrenaline she used to crave. One she’d denied herself for far too long.
It all did. The whole day. It was like being on a vacation from herself, and she loved it. Or maybe it was a vacation to herself, but that was a step further into the philosophical than she wanted to get.
“This is so fun!” she shouted, trying to make her voice heard over the thumping bass.
“You are enjoying yourself?” he asked.
“Very.”
He took her left hand and the touch of his skin against hers sent a lightning bolt shooting from her wrist to her core. “I have been meaning to ask about this,” he said, tilting her knuckles so that her engagement ring caught the light.
Looking at it made her stomach crash into her toes. She didn’t want to think about that. About reality. Not at all.
“I’m not married,” she said.
A wicked smile curved his lips, blue eyes glittering in the dim light. “I wouldn’t have cared if you were. I would have maybe just asked how big your husband was. And if he was connected to organized crime in any way.”
The thought of Ajax being connected to anything as sordid or exciting as organized crime was hysterically funny. He was far too staid for anything that outrageous. He was the calming, steadying influence in her life. Or at least that’s how her father saw him. And she couldn’t really imagine him mustering up any rage for Alex being here at the club with her.
Ajax wasn’t really a club kind of guy. If she’d asked him, he would have probably waved his hands and said to have fun while he went back to sorting numbers into columns or whatever it was he did all night in his office that gave him such satisfaction.
“Um...you don’t need to be concerned. Besides, we haven’t done anything we should be ashamed of,” she said. “I haven’t...violated any vows.”
“Yet,” he said, his grin turning wicked. “It’s still early.”
“So it is,” she said, her heart thundering hard.
“Do you want to dance?”
She looked at his outstretched hand and she felt an ache, a need, tighten in her belly. Ajax had never once danced with her. Had never even asked. And until that moment, she hadn’t realized that she’d been missing it.