Jules listened to Vivian talk about her day, enthralled as always. It wasn’t the same as being there, but seeing Fashion Week through Vivian Carlisle’s eyes was its own pleasure. She was the queen of the fashion world, and nobody got to hear her inner thoughts about it except for Jules. Moreover, Vivian didn’t ask anyone else about their inner thoughts except for Jules.

And we get to keep doing this. The thought rocked Jules to her core. We get to have this together.

“Julia?”

Jules looked into Vivian’s eyes, which now appeared a little worried. She must have a weird look on her face.

“Sorry,” Jules said. She searched for an excuse, then realized she didn’t need one. “I was just thinking about how nice this is.”

Vivian smiled again.

The sight melted Jules’s heart like butter. I’m a goner, all right.

“It is nice,” Vivian agreed softly. “I knew it would be.”

Her hands were draped over her abdomen.

An impulse seized Jules, unlooked for and irresistible. She took one of Vivian’s hands and raised it to her mouth for a kiss.

Vivian gasped but did not snatch her hand back. Good thing too, because at the touch of skin to her mouth, Jules fell into a trance. She couldn’t have let go if her life depended on it.

It was so warm, so soft, and Jules had been dying for this. Dying to touch and kiss her. She hadn’t known how much until now.

The hand trembled. Jules snapped out of it and looked up.

Vivian’s eyes were glazed and her cheeks were pink. She licked her lips and didn’t appear to realize it.

Jules fought back an actual whimper while she throbbed between her legs.

“How chivalrous,” Vivian said, her voice shaking.

“That’s me,” Jules rasped. She let go. Vivian’s hand hovered in the air for a moment longer before resting back on her stomach. “Miss Chivalrous.”

Vivian cleared her throat. “Well, don’t…don’t push it.”

“Of course not. It was okay, though?”

“If that’s what you need.”

Vivian clearly meant it to sound like a favor, a concession she’d make for Jules. It came out instead like the thinnest of excuses.

“I need it,” Jules whispered.

“Oh.” Vivian swallowed hard.

“If I’m going to be your romantic companion,” Jules said, “then I’m going to romance you. Just a little bit.”

Red bloomed in Vivian’s cheeks again. “All…all right.”

Never breaking her gaze, Jules reached again for Vivian’s hand, took it, and kissed it gently.

Vivian’s eyelashes fluttered, but her breath remained steady this time, as if daring Jules to impress her.

The woman was a menace. But she was Jules’s menace now.

Chapter 41

Chapter 41