Ellyn & the Would-Be Gigolo by Pru Warren

Author:Pru Warren [Warren, Pru]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pru Warren

Chapter Eighteen—Artie

Clearly, dinner that night would be a madhouse. Far too many suitors; a fistfight might break out due to too much aging testosterone. Plus there was the matter of the battling nieces, plus a toddler. I wasn’t a fan of the very, very young. They didn’t seem to have any respect for reason.

I offered my regrets immediately as soon as I was invited. Fortunately, I’d run into two of the people I’d met onboard (Hannie and Chris Kettlesworth; wealthy and boring and kind) and had already arranged to meet them for dinner. After all, it wouldn’t do to pursue Cor with too much eagerness. I could scare her off. She clearly thought men made a habit of ignoring women. With her history, she might respond well to my smiling rejection. That could be normal and even comforting to her.

Shame. She deserved to actually be treated with respect. Despite myself, I was coming to like Cor.

So distance was important at this point.

I waved from across the room at the Wolcott party as they were seated in the restaurant. I enjoyed dinner without a toddler off her schedule, to say nothing of the two suitors. Sinjie was losing his British accent by the minute, and Marcus had turned an alarming shade of red and began to shiver visibly.

The morose maid Luz had been deputized as a babysitter and was the last member of the overcrowded table for eight. I turned away with a smile, pleased to be out of the scrum and to be seen in the presence of people who were enjoying me. Let Cor see and know I wasn’t always at her beck and call.

I kept an eye on the table without seeming to, and I saw when Ellyn opened her ever-present camera bag and pulled out one of the thin wool shawls she’d bought in Kuala Lumpur. She passed it to her aunt, who smiled her thanks and wrapped herself happily.

Ellyn had two shawls in the bag, which I knew because I’d already taken a complete inventory. She was reaching for the second one when she noticed Rebel shivering. With a sigh, she handed it over, and Rebel, too, wrapped up in warmth. Both of the older women thanked Ellyn, and she brushed away their gratitude.

It was a tiny moment. Nothing. And yet it was the key to Ellyn’s personality.

She was capable. People followed her instinctively and did what she told them . . . and she was kind, even when her kindness left her covered in goosebumps and hunched forward to hide pert, chilled nipples from the view of others.

Well, that part was only smart. No one other than me should have been looking at those nipples anyway.

The larger point was—Ellyn was a sucker. She’d suffer so someone else wouldn’t. That was something I could exploit.

And I wasn’t used to feeling guilty about that.

Sheep were prey, and wolves hunted them for sport and sustenance. That’s the way it had always been. The way it should be. It wasn’t natural for a wolf to protect its dinner.

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