Page 25 of Good Enough

“Volunteering?” she teased, her eyes crinkling with laugh lines as she sucked the chocolate sauce from her fork.

He dropped a hand into his lap to try and calm his dick down again. Watching her eat was deadly. “I don’t date. Remember?”

“Ah, but you are having breakfast with me,” she joked, waving her fork in the air.

“Yes, but I didn’t spend all night fucking you so hard you couldn’t walk prior to this breakfast, so it doesn’t count.”

She dropped her fork with a clatter on the table.

Wow. Okay. Her unfiltered mouth is contagious.

Eyes wide again for just a moment, she quickly refocused her attention on picking up her fork, putting it to her plate, and scraping the last of the chocolate sauce from its surface, licking the tines, then closing her lips around them and pulling it through her lips. Her uncomfortable moment was quickly forgotten as her eyes closed with a hum, and he made a note that she likely had a serious chocolate fetish.

Not that I need that information… but I like trivia as much as the next man.

“Pity. Bet that G.I. Joe app would make a lot of money with you as the beta test.” She opened one eye and looked at his blank expression. “Why?”

“Why what?”

Both eyes were now open. “Why don’t you date? I would think there’s a line around the block for you.”

“Volunteering?” he shot back her word with a cocky grin.

She shook her head and started drawing abstract designs in the dregs of the chocolate sauce on her plate. “Relationships are too much work to maintain. It’s exhausting trying to make connections, then finding time to fit people into the schedule of life, not to mention all the drama of the physical aspects. For whatever reason, relationships have never been on my list of things to do. Other things always seemed more important. There have been a few plus-one types over the years, but nothing that amounted to anything. As for you”—she sighed—“you’re yummy to look at, but let’s be honest. We’re a bit mismatched.”

Yummy? Oh my.

He refocused and looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean ‘mismatched’?” When she shrugged and kept drawing, he reached across the table to stop her hand. “No avoidance. Why would you think we’re mismatched?”

You just couldn’t let it go, could you? Idiot!

She sighed. “We are not exactly in the same league. Even if I wanted to get involved with someone, I’m not the type of girl a man spends fucking to the point she can’t walk the next morning.” She pulled her hand back from his and put her fork down carefully on the table. “This is a pointless conversation.” She put her hands in her lap as the waitress arrived to clear the table.

Once the woman left, the charge in the air had changed. He watched her try to reset into work mode.

“Where do you want to start today?” she asked, trying to get them back into a work-mode relationship.

I want to start by finding the nearest five-star hotel and proving to you just how wrong you are.

He cleared his throat. “With some rules.” The waitress brought the check, which Kubrick tried to grab, but he grabbed it and pointed a finger at her. “I asked you to breakfast, so I’m paying. You want to pay, you can ask me to breakfast.” She gave a huff of exasperation. He raised his eyebrow at her in challenge. “So. Rules.”

“I don’t like rules.” Her arms crossed over her chest, and her lips pursed.

“You’re cute when you pout.” She stuck her tongue out at him and blew a raspberry. “Nice. Okay. For the second time. Rules.” She sighed and looked out the window.

“One. I need a copy of your schedule a week at a time so I can plan accordingly. Your assistant, or whoever, can get that to me by email.

“I don’t have an assistant.”

He looked at her in question. “What director doesn’t have an assistant?”

“Me. Like I told Stapleton, assistants assist you with things you need assistance with. I can keep and manage my own schedule and other clerical tasks. I don’t need an assistant to do that. Besides that, they’re annoying.” He stared at her, trying to process that she did all this work on her own with no help. And he’d witnessed firsthand that it was a lot more work than he’d ever imagined.

Partly explains the paper explosion of hers.

“I tried it,” she attempted to defend herself. “But it was too invasive. It was like having a babysitter, and I don’t like people touching my stuff. It may look like chaos, but I honestly know where everything is in the chaos.” She started tapping on her phone. “I’ll mail it to you on Sunday nights.”

“Two. At the top of every day, I need an updated daily schedule. There will be no deviations from said schedule.”

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