His reputation would remain intact.

This was the first event I’d be attending as his “date,” and we both had discussed how people would speculate. We had no intention of announcing that I was his actual date, especially with there being media people at the event, but I was sure to draw curiosity being on Caine’s arm. I’d asked that we not confirm our relationship until I had a chance to hash everything out with my grandfather. In fact, I hadn’t wanted to attend the event at all, but Caine was growing increasingly frustrated by the secrecy surrounding us. It made him feel like we were doing something to be ashamed of. So I’d agreed to go with him under the stipulation that I was there as his PA until I’d had a chance to confront my grandfather and then warn him there was a possibility of his family finding out about me. Caine hadn’t been happy about the compromise, but he did agree to it.

Now I had to wonder at the reason for his broodiness. He’d been so insistent about me going to the event with him. Now he was acting like he’d rather I didn’t attend.

“Hmm.” Effie shoved her iPhone back into the pocket of her kimono. “Someone’s in a mood tonight.”

I grimaced. “Yay for me.”

She laughed. “It’ll be fine. Just promise him a good time when you get back from the party and it’ll cheer him right up.”

“Ugh, Effie, he’s like your grandkid.”

“He’s a man. A man’s a man.”

I shook my head at her open-minded attitude, and wondered how she’d ever survived the fifties as a teenager.

“Let’s go,” Caine called from the hallway.

Effie and I walked out of the penthouse after him and he gave Effie a kiss on the cheek. “Night, Effie.”

“Night, sweetheart.” She patted him affectionately on the cheek. “Enjoy yourself, handsome. If you don’t when you’ve got the most gorgeous woman in the room on your arm, then there’s something wrong with you.”

He gave her a small, almost tired smile and nodded in her direction.

I hugged her and we walked her down the hall to her penthouse. As we stepped into the elevator, she gave me a knowing wink from her doorway. I grinned but immediately sobered at the imperious, questioning look Caine shot me. The elevator doors closed.

“What was the wink about?” he said.

“Oh, Effie thought I would improve your mood by assuring you that there was something to look forward to when we got back from the party.”

He groaned. “Sex advice from Effie. That’s just wrong.”

“That’s what I said.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “But I’m also one step ahead of her, so I didn’t need the advice.”

Caine raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

I gave him a slow, wicked smile. “I’m not wearing any underwear.”

The elevator doors opened before he could wipe the surprise off his face and I chuckled in triumph as I walked past him and out into the garage where a driver was waiting for us.

“I could kill you.”

I smiled smugly. “You have two minutes to think of anything but me.”

Caine cut me a smoldering look. “Difficult to do when you’re sitting next to me not wearing any underwear.”

We were in the car and we were only minutes from the Delaneys’ house. Taking pity on him, I tried to help. “Hummus. Rom coms. That tsking sound that Linda makes all the time—”

“That’s not how it works. You’re supposed to make me think of things that don’t turn me on, not things that I generally don’t like.”

“Yeesh. You are moody tonight.” I sighed. “Fine. Henry and Effie making sweet, sweet love.”

Caine’s features were frozen as the car pulled to a stop. “That was just mean.”

“But it worked, right?”

“Hell yes, it worked. Now I’ll be disturbed for the rest of the evening.”

The Delaneys’ home was much like the Andersons’ mansion—over-the-top wealth that intimidated the heck out of you. However, at least I’d gotten the shock and awe over with at the Andersons’, and as Caine led me inside with a hand on my lower back, gently guiding me, I didn’t feel as uncomfortable as last time. Perhaps it was because Caine was with me now, and I never felt more safe than I did when I was with him.

“Alexa, looking more beautiful than ever,” Henry said as he approached us in the main ballroom. Elegant dinner tables had been set up all around one half of the room. At the other end of the room, there was a stage. What seemed to be a small orchestra was set up offside on the left, and there was a dance floor in front of the stage.

Henry drew my gaze from the general splendor of the ballroom to him and his voluptuous and somehow familiar redheaded date. “Henry,” I murmured as he kissed both my cheeks. His hand rested on my waist as he did so, but I knew there was nothing in the gesture.

However, when I pulled back I could see the storm clouds gathering in the eyes of an already wired Caine.

The past few weeks had proven my theory correct, and Caine had been noticeably more laid-back when I was around the opposite sex.

Henry was a completely different matter. The man was a natural flirt, and I understood he didn’t mean anything by it. But his flirting with me bothered Caine. His laughing with me bothered Caine. His touching me bothered Caine, and his being anywhere in my general vicinity bothered Caine.

This bothered me.