Page 18 of Off Limits (Alpha Billionaire)

My teeth sank into my lower lip. I looked at him, hoping for more reassurance.

“You aren’t having any other issues with her, are you?” he asked.

My eyes went wide. Clara was nothing but trouble for me and Max. “It’s not my place to say. I have to learn to manage my own relationships with coworkers.”

“It absolutely is your place, especially if she is making Max nervous or causing problems.”

Nervous wasn’t the word I would have used. Clara was terrorizing Max and me. But Dylan’s mother wouldn’t hear any of it. She adored Clara. And if her crochet hook went missing, she thought she must have dropped it. If the TV remote stopped working because there were no batteries in the back, Clara must have simply forgotten to replace the batteries while in the middle of getting it done. After all,Clara is always doing so much.

The first time the remote didn’t have batteries, I accepted it as a reasonable excuse. But the remote’s batteries had gone missing at least three times, making it so that Max and his grandmother couldn’t sit and watch a show together.

I don’t know why the two of them enjoying time together annoyed Clara so much, but it did.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if your mother could come to us. But we have to go to her and into her space, which is also Clara’s space. It’s like she’s being territorial. Maybe if there were neutral ground,” I pondered.

“You aren’t experiencing anyone else being territorial, are you?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. Lori has no problems with us in the kitchen, and we make sure to be out of the way when she is cooking and doing the meal prep.”

“And you are out of the way when my mother takes her meals or needs to rest?” He stood and helped Max out of his booster chair.

I nodded frantically. “Absolutely. And she can tell us to leave if she’s too tired. And she has.”

“Maybe it would be better if you skipped today’s visit. Let Clara have some time to cool off,” Dylan said. His voice was husky and low like it had been earlier this morning.

He was standing right next to me. I could feel heat radiating from him. I looked up at him. Any fear I had that he was going to fire me evaporated when I looked into his eyes. I saw a heat there that caught me off guard. I couldn’t tear my gaze from his. He reached out and gently touched my cheek.

I gulped. The electricity between us at that moment was intense.

His gaze bounced between my eyes and my lips.

What was happening? I licked my lower lip. Was he feeling this too, or was I making it all up?

Suddenly, Dylan lurched forward. He tore his gaze from me and twisted. He laughed and let out a heavy breath. Max had slammed into his legs and was hugging him.

“We can continue this conversation this evening,” he said.

“Yeah, okay,” I managed to say. That moment had somehow stolen my breath and set my heart to pounding.

9

DYLAN

My workday was a waste of time. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t get the vision of Jessica out of my mind. She was all soft and jiggly in the bits of fabric she slept in. That tank top barely contained her breasts, and they moved with every breath she took, every word she spoke.

My body responded like I was some kind of horny teenager. It took focus to will my cock to not spring to action. I had no control. I just had to hope she didn’t notice. She was all curves and softness with the smoothest looking skin. It was all I could do not to touch her.

I was jealous of my own kid because he got to crawl into bed with her and tickle her and be tickled by her. Their actions were purely innocent, and my intentions were definitely not. But damn, if I didn’t want to be in that bed with the two of them, giggling and wrestling. It looked like a much better way to start the day than waking alone and immediately taking a shower and getting dressed for the office.

I managed to shoot out an email to everyone I had forwarded the prospectus from Ryan.

Can we up the timeline on this? I’d like to discuss before inviting him down to give an in person presentation. Watch for an email from Sarah with the meeting times scheduler. Let’s make it happen.I hitSendon the message and then buzzed Sarah.

“I need you to put together one of those meeting scheduler things for me,” I said.

“Sure thing. Title and time preferences?”

“Yeah, call it the Carmichael Proposal, and let’s see if we can get something on the books as early as Friday, but put some options into next week.”

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