• Sixteen •

“You’ll have to get more creative, little doll.”

Capri

The whirlwind of excitement, adrenaline, and photos all seemed to sink in as I sat in the back of the limo that was taking Thatcher and me back to the hotel. The energy that had been pumping through me was now slowly escaping, and I began to feel the fatigue. Which was a good thing with the silence that had been going on with Thatcher and me since Thursday. I’d only seen him a handful of times and for brief moments. He hadn’t spoken to me, except when it was at the track and only about Bloodline.

I’d stopped trying to figure him out. It was impossible. He was the most difficult human I had ever met. If he wanted to ignore me, then so be it. I’d just won the Belmont Derby Invitational, and I wasn’t letting him ruin it for me.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked me, breaking the silence I’d started getting accustomed to with him.

I turned my head to look at him. Seeing him in the black-pearl snap, belt, and jeans today had taken my breath for a moment. He cleaned up too well. But then he’d not spoken to me the rest of the day, and I’d gotten over it.

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, then looked back out the window again.

“Yeah, it does. You just won a race and made your biggest purse cut of seventy-five thousand dollars, and you haven’t had what you wanted to eat in weeks.”

I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’d made so much money. He was right. This was the biggest purse I’d ever won. I felt guilty for taking ten percent because I was sure just about any jockey could have ridden Bloodline and won. He was a born winner.

“Honestly, I really do not care what I eat,” I told him.

“Nashville buffalo chicken pizza with extra sauce or baked lobster mac and cheese?”

I swung my head back around to look at him. How did he know my two favorite meals? He’d paid for our pizza and my salad, but that was very specific. The lobster mac and cheese was also from a local restaurant back home, and he’d never paid for my meal there. Was what I ate in my background check? Besides, we weren’t in Madison. I couldn’t order either of those items.

“I doubt they will be easy to find here,” I said instead of asking him how he knew my two cheat meals. Which was hard not to do because I wanted to know.

The corner of his lips twitched. “I can make either happen. Or both. You tell me, or I’ll have both delivered to the suite.”

I shook my head in confusion. “How?”

“Because I can,” he replied.

Okay, fine, don’t tell me.

I chewed my bottom lip. I wanted both, and I was curious as to if he could actually find both of them in the city. He sure looked smug about it.

“Both.” It sounded like a challenge because it was.

He seemed to be amused by it. I watched him drop his gaze to his phone and text something, then look back up at me.

“Anything else?” he asked.

He was so sure of himself.

“Lemon crinkle cookies,” I added.

He lifted one eyebrow as he held my gaze. “Those have already been delivered to the suite. You’ll have to get more creative, little doll.”

There was that name again. My stomach got all funny, and I tried not to be affected by it. That name was very likely an insult. Having him call me little and doll made me sound childlike. Still, the way his voice got deeper and raspier when he said it got to me.

“You want lemon drops or dirty martinis for your cocktails?”

I raised both my eyebrows. He knew my drink choices too. Should I be concerned? Did these things make it into a background check?

“Plural,” I replied. “You’re assuming I will want more than one.”

“You just won a race. I thought you’d like to celebrate.”

I pressed my lips together. Maybe drinking would ease the tension I felt when I was around him. Especially since Thursday. “Both.”

He smirked then and went back to texting on his phone.

“How do you know my favorite foods and cocktails?” I blurted out, unable to help myself.

“I told you, I’m thorough.”

Thorough in what? Stalking?

I sighed and turned to look back out the window. This man was always going to be hard to understand. Or I wanted it to all mean more when, in reality, this was what they did for their jockeys. I’d never ridden for billionaires. They might be used to jockeys who expected it. I was not a diva.

I kept silent the rest of the way back to the hotel. Replaying every moment today was enough to entertain me and not focus on the awkwardness between Thatcher and me. Who was I kidding? He was never awkward. That was all me.

When the driver opened the limo door once we reached the hotel, I climbed out, not looking back at Thatcher. His presence behind me, however, was impossible to ignore. The desire to turn around and look at him, talk to him, listen to his voice made it difficult to keep walking toward the elevators.

The older man, who wore a suit and stood at the doors to the elevators, smiled at me as I approached. I didn’t understand why they had someone to press the button for you or hold open the doors for you at the elevator. It seemed like a pointless job, but he had a kind smile and seemed to like what he did.

“Good evening, Miss Jewel, Mr. Thatcher,” the man said with a nod of his head as the doors opened for us.

“Good evening,” I replied.

Thatcher’s hand touched my back, making me tense up, and with a nudge, he led me inside.

When I turned around to see the doors closing, I glanced over at him. He was watching me with an amused smirk on his face. He didn’t do that a lot, but when he did, it was mostly directed at me.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling somewhat annoyed.

His right eyebrow lifted ever so slightly as he studied me. Then, the ding, signaling that we’d reached the top floor, went off, and he waved a hand for me to exit first. Demanding any kind of explanation from Thatcher was pointless. I walked out and kept going down the hallway, moving over to the side when I reached the double doors. His addictive scent, along with the warmth of his body standing so close to me, made me lightheaded as he opened the door, then walked inside.

I needed to slap myself and stop getting all messed up in the head around him. I followed him inside the suite, and he made his way over to the bar as my gaze took in the scene in front of me. The dining table had four three-tiered serving trays. The first one was filled with berries and grapes, the next was macarons in an array of colors, the third had lemon crinkle cookies only, and the last had different exotic cheeses and fancy crackers. A bottle of champagne was in a gold bucket of ice at the end with only one flute beside it.

“Help yourself,” he said, breaking the silence, and I swung my gaze over to him as he held a glass of whiskey in his hand. “You have to be starving.”

I was, but this was something one would find at a party. Not in a hotel suite.

“Is someone else coming too?” I asked.

“No,” he replied.

“This is all for us?”

He nodded his head and walked over to the table to take a lime-green-colored macaron and popped it into his mouth. His dark eyes met mine as he chewed.

Did the man have to be sexy even when he ate?

I walked over to stand near the fruit tray and took a handful of the red grapes. “This looks amazing.”

He glanced back at it as if he didn’t find it impressive at all. “Figured you could use an appetizer while we waited for your victory dinner.”

This was his idea of an appetizer? Had he ordered this? Or was it just something that was done after a race? I wanted to ask him all these questions, but I refrained.

“Thank you,” I told him.

He reached for one of the lemon cookies, then closed the distance between us. When he stopped in front of me, he brushed my lips with the edge of it. “Open.”

My lips parted, and I took a bite of the cookie, not taking my eyes off him. Thatcher’s gaze was locked on my mouth as I chewed. The wild, crazy rhythm my heart had decided to race off into made it hard to swallow.

“You’re gonna need to eat more than that, or I’ll feed you until I’m satisfied.”

My entire body felt warm. Blinking, I stared up at him silently and opened for him to place another bite of the cookie inside.

What was I doing? What was he doing?

He licked his bottom lip as he stayed completely locked in on my mouth.

The doorbell startled me, and Thatcher’s eyes lifted to look over my shoulder toward the doors.

“Dinner is here,” he said, then stepped around me and headed in that direction.

I sucked in a deep breath and placed a hand on my heart to calm it down. There were things in life I knew to stay away from. The evil of the world was pretty cut and dry. I did my best to do good, be good, and make a positive mark on the world.

The emotions that Thatcher stirred inside me couldn’t be labeled good. Now that I knew how exciting, tempting, and addictive the darkness could be, I wasn’t sure I would have the strength to stay away.