“The label’s not too fond of him lately either.”
“Must be tough to go from being the golden boy to the villain,” she mused.
Mr. Silver Fox’s eyes lifted to hers, assessing. The tick of his jaw was the only indication that he might have something to say.
“He says he’s changed,” she said, not entirely sure why she was goading him.
“And you believe him?”
Jo shrugged, polishing a new section of bar. “Hannah does, and I trust Hannah.”
“Hannah Matthews? The Broadway actress?” Jo nodded, but Derek huffed out an exasperated breath that could have been a laugh if he wasn’t being rude about her friend. “We’re not all so eager to take the word of the woman who helped him lie to the press for months on end.”
“No one seemed to mind when it wasgetting him headlines.”
“A fake relationship with his co-star is exactly the kind of irresponsible behavior the label wants to avoid being associated with.”
She tossed the rag back into the bin under the bar, frustrated though she couldn’t quite place why. “Well, I believe in second chances.”
“What about fourth chances?”
“Those too. And fifth and sixth chances. Some of us screw up before we get it right.”
“Can’t imagine you screwing up much of anything.” He blinked, looking away, as though he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
A slow smile spread across Jo’s face. Apparently, he didn’t mind her bratty attitude. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken from the way the tips of his ears were turning red and his nostrils flared, it seemed helikedit. She tapped her index finger gently on the back of his hand. His fingers unfurled beneath her touch, reaching towards her, but he didn’t lift his hand. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me all night.”
He grunted again. “Your standards are too low.”
Her grin grew wider. This was going to be fun.
She dragged her index finger back and forth over his knuckles, the slow rise and the valleys between. The pad of her fingertip skated across his skin, and she leaned closer. “Want to help me raise them?”
She wanted to chisel away his gruff exterior, wrinkle his shirt and his perfectly pressed dress pants, see the spark in his eyeflame higher, burn brighter. She wanted him undone, and to know she was the one to do it.
It had been a year since she’d booked a modeling job. Her friends had all gone and gotten grown up careers and husbands and she was still in the same place, in the same apartment, only now she couldn’t even afford her rent. The scraps of success she’d cobbled together were slipping from her grasp with each passing day without a call from her agent. She couldn’t pay her rent, she couldn’t figure out what the fuck to do with her life, and she definitely couldn’t ask for help.
But she could pick apart this man’s careful composure, unravel him bit by bit.
He held her gaze, as though he was waiting for her to take it back. But Jo Baker did not back down from a challenge, especially not one that came gift-wrapped in a tall, dark, and muscular package with blue eyes that seared her skin and a rasp in his voice she wanted to feel against her throat.
Jo tilted her head towards the now-mostly-empty room behind them. “Dance with me.”
“You’re working.”
“My shift’s over.”
“I don’t dance.”
She sighed and pulled her hand away, but he reached out and gripped her wrist, stilling her movement. Heat thrummed through her veins at the command in his touch, at the promise in it.
“How old are you?” he rumbled.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to ask a lady’s age?”
He waited, unimpressed. “How old?”
“Twenty-seven.”