The Proviso by Moriah Jovan Page A

an
abrupt halt. She began to talk and gesture, a highball glass of
something clear over ice in one hand, while Taight listened
intently. He sipped at his champagne, never taking his eyes off
her, then he grinned at her. She returned it, but began to speak
again and did so at some length. Taight’s expression gradually
transformed from amusement to— Respect?
    He wondered what Giselle Cox could possibly have to
say that would have a notorious and semi-reclusive billionaire’s
rapt attention. Taight very rarely attended society events and if
he did deign to grace an affair with his presence, he mingled very
little. He rarely spoke and he never showed any emotion.
    Taight’s presence at a party for a man he had
declared war upon, a woman on his arm, and his uncharacteristic
public display of humor—incredible. Quite a few of the gathered
shot intermittent glances at the pair, no less intrigued than
Bryce.
    And her! No anger tonight, no rage. Just
amusement. He remembered her clumsy attempt at flirting, her
straightforward charm, her obvious hope for him to ask her
out—possibly more. He’d insulted her and her anger had resurfaced.
He’d kissed her and she’d sunk into desire. He’d called her out and
flustered her. Her moods swung wildly and she made no effort to
hide them.
    He could only see Miss Cox in profile, but he could
read her amazingly expressive face from where he stood. She smirked
once at something Taight muttered, and though she didn’t show any
other overt signs of humor, Bryce could feel her amusement in
palpable waves across the distance between them and pulse through
his body. Whatever she said had been funny enough to make Taight
nearly laugh and Bryce heard one woman actually gasp.
    Jealousy, hot and vicious, seized his gut and his
lip curled. Knox Hilliard knew her intimately. Sebastian Taight
treated her as an equal, though not as a lover—at least, not as
Bryce would have treated a lover—or would have treated her if she were his lover.
    What did a second-shift transcriptionist and
over-age student have to offer that she could capture two brilliant
men’s attention? All his adult life, he’d known women who craved
attention and did anything they could to get it. He knew when a
woman faked obliviousness to attract more attention. Giselle Cox,
absorbed in her conversation with Taight, either hadn’t noticed the
attention they garnered or didn’t care.
    She had Bryce tied in knots, a room full of men
watching her with speculation, and a room full of women studying
her as if to learn something.
    A lovely peal of laughter rang out from her vicinity
and Bryce looked up from her breasts to find himself staring into
those ice blue eyes that seemed so familiar as to be eerie.
    She blinked, and held his gaze. She blinked again,
but had turned her attention back to Taight with a smile of genuine
warmth. As if she hadn’t recognized Bryce. No, more than that—as if
he didn’t exist.
    Regret, deep and sharp, joined his jealousy and rode
him hard. His jaw ground and he looked back down into his glass. He
had blown any chance he might have had with her and he flinched at
the way he had dismissed her with such finality. All he’d had to do
was ask her out for dinner when she’d begged him to— before he’d pissed her off.
    One hand stuffed in his pocket, he looked down at
the floor and tried for all the world not to let her get to him the
way she did.
    That kiss. It tormented him, now months after it had
happened, but she must have forgotten it. Such a fool. Between
Hilliard and Taight, why would she remember Bryce at all?
    Bryce looked up again just as Taight bent to murmur
something in her ear, then left her standing there, striding away
from her and toward the owner of a foundering company. Once alone,
her palpable humor vanished. The people who observed this grew
puzzled, Bryce no less so.
    After a couple of seconds of looking down into her
glass, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, slowly