“Have you got all the material you need?” Sofia had hoped for a feature in the magazine, not a snippet about her engagement to a hedge fund manager.
“Plenty.” Delaney flipped off her tablet and stood. “And I’ll be there to film your audition for Mr. Fortier, which will be something our readers will want to hear all about.”
Sofia knew she’d made a misstep with the woman, but had no idea how to correct it now. She settled for being polite as she rose to her feet.
“Thank you, I look forward to it,” she lied, although not nearly as well as Quinn could have in this situation. Funny how he’d become her biggest ally this week, their unlikely partnership providing her with an outlet at a stressful time in her career.
Maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to write off his ability to put on a façade in public. She would do better to learn the trick from him.
“Enjoy that handsome fiancé of yours,” the reporter called after her. “You’re so lucky to have found someone special. I was thinking of resorting to a matchmaker myself.”
Sofia nearly tripped over her feet, the shock of the words like an icy splash to her nerves. Turning, she saw Delaney tapping her chin thoughtfully with her stylus.
“You don’t happen to know any good ones, do you?” the woman asked.
A gauntlet had been dropped.
Sofia understood the implication. The woman knew something about what had happened at the airport. Had she learned that Sofia’s father had hired a matchmaker? That in itself was certainly not a big deal. But what if she knew more than that? That her engagement was a lie. That Sofia had only done it to quiet the gossip among her peers so she could focus on her dancing.
Maybe she should have straightened it out that night. Stuck with the truth. But since she was in no position to untangle any of it right now, Sofia simply smiled.
“I don’t, but I’ve heard that’s a very popular option these days.” She rushed to melt into the crowd and find Quinn.
In the pressure cooker of her work world, her fake fiancé had become her best source of commiseration.
And he wanted to be even more than that. He wanted to give her pleasure, a heady offer that had teased the edges of her consciousness all evening long. With her heart ready to pound out of her chest, she realized he was the only person she wanted to see right now.
If only she could truly trust him. But even as she raced to find him, she reminded herself to be careful. He might genuinely be attracted to her. But he wouldn’t be helping her right now if it didn’t serve McNeill interests.
* * *
“I need to speak to you.”
Sofia’s whisper in Quinn’s ear was the sexiest thing he’d heard since that small gasp she’d made in the limo when he’d kissed her neck. He’d been ready to get her alone ever since then.
Maybe this was his moment.
He stood on the fringes of the crowd listening to the guest of honor speak at a podium about his eagerness to work in New York and to let the city inspire him. The guy said all the right things, but something about him irritated Quinn from the moment he’d opened his mouth. Perhaps it was just because he held power over Sofia’s career and Quinn didn’t like thinking that the subjective opinions of one man could mean so much to her.
More likely, it was because Idris Fortier laughed at his own jokes and occasionally referred to himself in the third person. The well-heeled crowd in attendance hung on his every word, however.
“Should we listen to this first?” Quinn asked Sofia quietly, surprised her interview had finished so soon.
“The reporter asked me if I could recommend a good matchmaker.” The soft warmth of her breath teased over his ear, but the seductive sensation couldn’t cancel out the anxiety in her words.
And no wonder she was nervous.
“He’s almost done speaking.” Quinn wrapped an arm around her waist, to bring her as close as possible, wanting to give every appearance of being deeply in love and lost in one another. “It will be easier to talk once the dancing begins.” His lips moved against the silk of her hair. “And I don’t want your reporter friend to see us darting off in a corner to whisper.”
Nodding, she relaxed against him ever so slightly. That small show of trust was something he’d been working hard for all week long. He’d put her needs first, letting Cameron fly to Kiev to handle the hotel acquisitions. He’d asked his brother Ian for help running down more information about Mallory West, giving himself more time to gain Sofia Koslov’s trust.
To help her, of course. They’d agreed to as much. But things had gotten more complicated as he admitted the depth of his attraction. He wanted her. And after the heat they’d sparked in the car on the way over here, he thought he knew where things were headed between them.
Would she act on that attraction if she knew this engagement was helping him as much as it helped her? That he’d purposely delayed drawing up that contract he’d discussed with her that first night they’d met because he now wondered if the relationship could help him around his grandfather’s marriage dictate.
Quinn still hoped he could help Malcolm McNeill see that he didn’t need to call the shots in his grandsons’ love lives. That he could trust them to find spouses on their own terms and in their own time. Quinn would at least try to talk him into scrapping the marriage stipulation from the will. But failing that? He was confident he could work out some kind of agreement with Sofia that would help him to fulfill the terms.
As the crowd around him erupted into applause for the choreographer, a violinist struck a dramatic, quavering note. It cracked through the air, stirring the room. The unmistakable trill of a Spanish bandoneon followed in the opening note of a tango, a rare dance Quinn knew well. It transported him back to the small Buenos Aires pub where he’d learned the steps afterhours with his work crew while overseeing renovations on one of the family’s resorts. He recalled the packed dance floor crowded with passionate couples and knew, with fierce certainty, that he wanted to share this with Sofia.
“Dance with me,” he murmured in her ear, his nostrils flaring at the vanilla scent of her skin. It rose around him and heated his blood.
Her large gray eyes were hesitant, questioning as they swerved to his. He trailed his fingertips up her spine, feeling the sweet curve of her back through silk. “I am classically trained,” she murmured in a breathy rush. “The tango is a ballroom dance.”
“Then it will be a welcome chance for me to partner you on the floor.” He drew her toward the square parquet tiles near the musicians.
“Since when do hedge fund managers learn sexy Argentinian dances?” She was light on her feet as she backed into position, joining the handful of couples taking the floor.
“I must have known I’d need to impress a woman one day.” He tightened his grip on her, urging her closer as they entered the counterclockwise flow. Her lithe body moved gracefully against his, but this wasn’t a pretty dance. It was primal and raw.
She watched the other dancers long enough to gather her bearings, then turned her gaze back to him.
“You are full of surprises, Quinn McNeill.” For an aching moment her body cradled the growing hardness concealed by his tuxedo. Then she twisted her hips sideways and kicked her foot through the long slit up one side of her dress, shooting him a coquettish look from beneath the sweep of her long lashes.
At last he’d distracted her completely. She was no longer worried about the reporter, the choreographer or her career. All her focus was on him.
The throbbing notes of the violin wove with the cry of