Page 51 of I'm Not His Style
“How do you know Rhett?” Jackson asked.
“Through work.”
He looked over my shoulder, probably at the movie star.
Time to redirect the conversation. “So, Jackson, do you have a great interest in libraries?”
He seemed startled. “Books?”
“I was told that tonight’s fundraiser benefits the public library system.”
“Oh.” Comprehension lit his gaze, and he spun me closer to Rhett and Karina, making me dizzy. “Are you friends with Karina Bier too?”
Good heavens. I dropped his hand and turned away, my long gown making a quick escape difficult. A sluggish escape it was. “Excuse me.”
“Whoa, wait.” Jackson grabbed my hand and pulled me back.
I yanked it free. “I’m not interested in setting you up with either of them. I’m not even interested in you. I just wanted to dance.”
He looked offended. “Isn’t that what we were doing?”
He could not be that ignorant. How awful of him, using me to try to get to Rhett and Karina. Was this how everyone in Rhett’s life was treated?
I felt a presence behind me and immediately regretted my actions when Jackson raised startled eyes toward whoever stood at my back. I should have finished the dance and walked away without a scene. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose.
“Is there a problem here?” Rhett’s voice came from behind me, the defensive edge making Jell-O of my stomach.
Jackson looked momentarily shaken, but he corrected himself quickly. “No problem at all.”
“Beth?”
I turned a smile on Rhett and pretended like nothing had happened. I was frustrated onhisbehalf, anyway. But he probably didn’t want to hear that right now. “It’s really nothing. I was just done dancing.”
The song ended and seamlessly shifted into another, the DJ moving onto something with a faster tempo. I looked for Karina and found her still dancing, surrounded by others.
The room seemed to grow dimmer. Someone was changing the mood lighting.
“That will be all, then,” Rhett said dismissively.
Jackson seemed to only grow more stunned. “I was hoping to get your number, Beth—”
“That’s not going to happen,” Rhett said.
“I can answer for myself.” I turned back to Jackson. “Not interested, but thanks.”
Rhett followed me as I walked away in an attempt to locate a bathroom, weaving a path toward the door Karina had gone through earlier. I paused before I reached the door and turned around, nearly bumping into Rhett. “You shouldn’t follow me.”
His blue eyes sparkled darkly in the dim room. “I need to make sure you’re okay. For the record, I don’t believe that nothing happened.”
“I’m fine. It’s not what it looked like.”
“Itlooked likeyou pulled away from him and tried to leave the dance floor, and he tried to stop you.”
He’d been watching me? “Okay, so that’s exactly what happened, but he didn’t do anything really. It wasn’t like he offended my sensibilities or something.”
Rhett looked skeptical. “Nothing? He tried nothing?”
“Nothing like what you’re thinking. Honestly.”