“That is a shame.”
“Isn’t it?” Jonah turned his gaze to the ceiling, studying the panels as though they were the most interesting thing in the world. The night was ticking away. With any luck, by the time they were rescued, the limo waiting for him outside would’ve moved on, leaving him no choice but to hope every cab in the city was booked and unavailable. Maybe he could go home, take this ridiculous tux off and spend the night alone in his apartment. The prospect of a lonely night in private was only marginally more appealing than one in public, though, and a heavy sigh bloomed in Jonah’s chest.
He swallowed it down and cast his attention back to Sacha, curious about why he wasn’t doing what the rest of the world did when it had a split second to itself and poking at his phone. “What grand plans are you being kept from? Is there someone waiting for you tonight?”
Sacha shook his head. “No one is waiting to take me to a ball at the Dorchester, or anywhere else. I was going nowhere but home for the night.”
“I’m jealous.”
“You don’t like parties?”
Jonah shrugged. “Not this kind.”
“Shame. I like champagne and those tiny foods…what are they called?”
“Canapés?”
“Yes. Canapés. I like those.”
“You’d like my mother then. She’s obsessed with getting them just right.”
“Is there a wrong type of canapé?”
Again, it was hard to tell if Sacha was being serious. He had the kind of eyes that gleamed with whatever mood he might be in, but that didn’t make said mood any easier to decipher. And, of course, Jonah didn’t know him. Beneath his dry smile, there was every chance he was raging about the half hour he’d lost to Jonah and the broken lift.
Angry men don’t make small talk about canapés. Then again, Jonah hadn’t been expecting to either in any conversation that didn’t involve Eleanor Gray. Like, ever. “Tell you what, if you like them so much you can take my car to the Dorchester when we get out of here and eat all the canapés you desire.”
“You say it like it is a joke.” Sacha’s rakish grin widened. “Like you would not come with me.”
Jonah laughed. “I could do worse for a date, I suppose.”
“You could do much worse, Jonah Gray.”
“You don’t have to address me by my whole name every time.”
“Twice. Be accurate if you’re going to chastise me.”
“Okay. Twice. Whatever. You can just call me Jonah.”
“I like your whole name.”
“I like yours too.”
Sacha licked his lips—a tiny dart of his tongue, barely visible had Jonah’s gaze not been so intense. But it was snowballing, fixed and deep. He couldn’t look away, and inexplicably, the flutters of heat rippling through him were beginning to coalesce in his groin. Do not get wood. Do not get wood. Do not get wood.
He bent his knees to hide his predicament.
Sacha smirked, but the lift groaned before he could speak, lurching into action and knocking them both off balance.
The elevator descended, lights flickering like a horror film. Sacha stood and held out his hand to Jonah.
Lacking any brighter ideas, Jonah took it and rose, with the blaze of Sacha’s touch scorching a path from his palm to the place he was trying to ignore. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And it was not thirty minutes. Perhaps you will make your party after all.”
“There’s still time for you to accompany me.” The words left Jonah’s mouth before he could catch them, spilling freely into the world beyond his control. “I mean, if you’d like to. You said you were headed nowhere but home.”
“And you said you were jealous. You could leave your party and accompany me.”
“Are you asking me to come home with you, Sacha Ivanov?”
The lift stilled and the doors opened. Sacha took a breath before he stepped out. “Another time, perhaps. I do not wish to be the reason your mother is upset.”
Jonah followed him out and past Samson and the gaggle of apologetic engineers. He waved them away and trailed Sacha to the revolving doors that led out onto the street. Cold air hit him as he stepped outside, and seemed to take with it the remnants of the banter they’d shared in the lift. This was the real world. Of course Sacha Ivanov wasn’t going to climb into the waiting limo with him. Nor was Jonah going to school his features into a serious expression and ask.
And in any case, Sacha was no longer looking at him. He was finally engrossed in his phone, his expression nothing like the easy amusement he’d so casually thrown Jonah’s way.
Go. It’s not like you won’t see him again if he’s working in the same building. But Jonah’s shiny-shoed feet didn’t move. They stayed rooted in place while Sacha scowled at whatever was irritating him on his phone.
The limo idled on the pavement like a shiny elephant. Jonah nodded to the driver, signalling that he’d seen them. Then he touched Sacha’s arm, lightly enough that he could still walk away if Sacha didn’t respond.
Sacha’s glittering gaze flickered from his phone screen. A ghost of a frown darkened his features, then it was gone, as if it had never been there. “You are still here.”
“So are you.”
Sacha smirked. “Perhaps I’m waiting for you to make good on your promise of canapés.”
A laugh burst free from Jonah’s chest. “Seriously? We’re back to canapés already?”
“Is a serious matter, no?”
“Okay, okay. I can take them seriously, but only if you really do come with me. It would be a shame to waste your killer suit on a day at the office.”
“My killer suit?”
“It’s nice,” Jonah clarified. “It looks good on you.”
For a long moment, Sacha said nothing. The pause stretched out to the edge of discomfort and Jonah began to wonder if he’d made a horrible, embarrassing mistake. Then Sacha rolled his elegant shoulders and offered Jonah his arm. “All right then, Jonah Gray. We will go to the ball.”
2
Climbing into a limo with a virtual stranger to attend high society’s glitziest event of the year wasn’t anywhere close to the oddest turn Sacha’s life had ever taken. Much crazier things happened in Moscow. But there was something undeniably thrilling about stepping into the famous Dorchester hotel with Jonah Gray on his arm.
Camera flashes had blinded them at the Park Lane entrance outside. Paparazzi shouted Jonah’s name. Jonah had ignored them, and so had Sacha, but he was curious nonetheless. “You are famous,” he remarked as staff whisked their coats away in the grand entrance hall. “I have never heard of you, though.”
Jonah’s grin turned crooked. Boyish, even. With his auburn hair and bright green eyes, he was a new level of beautiful. Entrancing, in fact, which went some way to explaining why Sacha was glued to his side like a long-lost lover. “I’m only famous at events like this. Most days no one has a clue who I am, but you better keep it quiet that you don’t either,” Jonah said with his smooth, English accent. “I’m not about to tell my mother I just picked you up in an elevator.”