Page 50 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

He scrubbed his lips with the wipe as I did the same, albeit with slightly more precise movements using my mirror. When I looked up, he was frowning at the smears of red on the makeup wipe.

“You missed a spot,” I said, then took the wipe and dabbed at the corner of his lip. He stood very still, his gaze steady on mine.

When I was done, I threw out both wipes and touched up my makeup, then went to work fixing my hair and dress. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do. Rome straightened himself, frowning at one of the wrinkles in his jacket from where I’d gripped it in a tight fist.

As I set myself to rights and watched him do the same, the full consequence of what we’d done settled over my shoulders.

I couldn’t fall into a relationship with this man—for a multitude of reasons.

First, he was my boss. It was written out in black and white in my contract that this kind of thing was unacceptable. That should have been enough to guide my actions. If I wanted to gain some sort of financial stability, I needed to work this job longer than three measly weeks. At least until I found somewhere to live and saved up a bit of an emergency fund.

Secondly, he was wealthy. Men like him just didn’t end up with women like me. He’d use me and then toss me aside. That was pretty much written in my contact too. I was the official placeholder. I’d agreed to it. Letting myself get wrapped up in him would be disastrous not just for my stability, but for my sanity too.

I wasn’t able to separate sex from emotion. I was already feeling the pull of his charm. If we did something like this again, I already knew I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from developing feelings for him. That absolutely couldn’t happen.

Kissing him had lit a fire in my gut. It had made me want to submit to him, to give him my body and my heart and my soul. He’d made me feel alive, and I wanted more.

But I wasn’t stupid. The first thing he’d said was that it shouldn’t have happened, and I agreed.

He met my gaze. “Jordan?—”

I held up my hand. “Let’s not. That was… That happened. We agree it shouldn’t have. We can just move on and go back to the way things were before.”

“Can we?” His question was slightly cynical, his eyes shadowed as the light from the windows silhouetted him against them.

I straightened, adjusting the fall of my dress. “Yes. We can. You’ve hired me to do a job, and that’s what we need to remember.”

Standing my ground while he stalked toward me, I ignored the fluttering in my chest. I tilted my head to meet his gaze as his eyes bore into mine. Having him this close to me challenged my resolve. His energy pressed against me, weakening my defenses.

If he told me he wanted me in that moment, I’m not sure I would’ve refused. Despite all the logical reasons to stick to what was outlined in my contract, a big part of me wanted to rip those papers to shreds, wrap my arms around him, and deal with the consequences later.

But he just slid his hand across my back and guided me back out the door and into the glittering blue and silver of the event. By the time we got back downstairs, the interlude in that room felt like a distant memory.

EIGHTEEN

ROME

My father gavea charming speech that earned him raucous cheers and thunderous applause, and I didn’t hear a word of it. I sat next to Nikki obsessing about the taste of her lips.

I ran over the events of the last hour, cursing myself.

I shouldn’t have touched her. I was courting trouble. She was an employee, first of all. Touching her at all went against the explicit bounds of our contract. Not to mention the fact that we’d have to be spending time together for the next few months, and now I knew how her body felt pressed against mine.

But she’d flown to my defense when my parents trotted out their tired old criticisms, and something had snapped inside me. Suddenly, Nikki wasn’t the plus-one that made me look good. Now, she was a strong woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up to the guests of honor in order to defend me.

Not even Coach Reggie had been able to do that—not when my parents donated buckets of money to my boarding school and dangled that over the administrators’ heads at every opportunity. He’d supported me in private and deferred to them in public.

But Nikki hadn’t been afraid. She’d straightened her shoulders and stood there like I needed a champion, and she was the perfect person for the job.

For the first time in my life, I had someone in my corner.

I leaned my arm on the back of her chair, my fingers drifting over her shoulder. She angled her head toward me, slowly lifting her gaze to meet mine. Her cheeks grew pink, and I grew hard. My eyes traced a strand of hair that had fallen out of place, the only evidence remaining of our interlude upstairs.

Dinner was served and I’m sure I made pleasant conversation with the other guests seated at our table, but I wouldn’t be able to remember anything I said. Every cell in my body was focused on her. On the graceful movement of her fingers as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The way she smiled at the old man seated to her left. The curve of her neck as she leaned over, laughing.

That night, in my mind, was a series of vivid snapshots. The sight of Nikki pressed against the wall, flushed with desire, lipstick smudged onto her cheek. Her graceful descent down the stairs. The smell of her skin. The way she glanced at me from the corner of her eye when dessert was served, our shared secret plain in her gaze.

I was a man discovering the depth of a new addiction. A man on the way down.

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