Promise

Chapter 24: The Most Important

Robyn

Choking on my own spit or a permanent loss of the entirety of the English language were my two guesses as to why I couldn't speak.

After a very long moment of staring, Christian put me out of my misery.

"Hi," he said simply.

"Hello."

"You look beautiful."

My heart pounded louder in my chest. It took every muscle in my body not to look at the floor again. Holding his gaze felt like the hardest yet easiest thing I ever had to do.

"Thank you, cuore mio. You look very nice too."

He didn't respond to my compliment, just stared and stared and stared at me. I could feel myself turning red. My mouth was parched and a light sweat started to accumulate on my neck and palms.

Around us, people began to move again but their eyes were still fixed on us as if we were the only two people in the room. At that moment, I wished we were.

I cleared my throat. "You should go talk to important people. They're all here for you."

"Why would I want to talk to anyone else when you are the most important person in the room?" He asked plainly, as if he were reading off a recipe.

My heart lurched as I tried to tame it. "Not by a long shot," I smiled, trying to bring my breathing under control. "I think Trevor Noah and Taylor Swift are somewhere in the crowd."

"Who?"

I rolled my eyes, laughing. Even though I was pretty sure it was a joke, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Christian didn't know who they were. But then again, he lived with Bella, who sang You Belong With Me at the top of her lungs every day for a month straight when she and Francis were sleeping together but he was still flirting with some French girl to get under her skin.

"Seriously," I pushed his chest lightly, intending to be playful and internally cursed at the warmth of his chest on my fingertips. "Go mingle."

Again, he said nothing but grabbed my hand gently in his, running his fingers up the length of my arm and then brushed his hand across the freckles on my face.

"You blind me," he whispered. "You are the only thing I see."

It was a good thing an overeager photographer ran up to us like his ass was on fire and timidly excused himself for interrupting because I didn't even know what to say. While I turned to him, Christian didn't bother. His eyes were still fixed on me.

"Um, hi. Could I please get a photo?"

"Oh, of course," I nodded, and took a step back to let him take a photo of Christian, grateful to put some distance between the two of us.

To my surprise, he didn't let go of my hand, and hauled me into his hard chest. Dropping my hand, his arm snaked around my waist. He placed one hand in his pocket and looked at the photographer.

"Okay," the photographer said, clearly disappointed at not getting his solo shot of New York's finest. "Big smiles now!"

Christian tugged me in even closer and I stumbled a little, my hand falling right on his chest. Immediately, he flashed his teeth and I forced my gaze into the camera, putting on my best smile as well, not removing my hand. The clicks and flashes kept coming, making me partially blind and I consciously sucked in a breath, plastering an even wider smile on my face.

When the journalist was finally satisfied, I dropped my hand and tried to pull away once again to catch my breath, but Christian's hand tightened on my waist, not letting me move away. Instead, he just turned down to look at me and winked.