Page 73 of Mark my Words

Unbidden feelings of jealousy for the experience and that he was out with a sexy, semi-successful author at a several-hour-long business lunch hit me like a freight train. But then, Sam didn’t have any obligations to me, especially not with my behavior over the past several weeks.

Shit.

“Hey.”

His fingers grazed against my palm as he clasped my hand, tugging me slightly toward his side. When the tips of the fingers of his other hand tilted my head toward him, I closed my eyes, letting out a harsh breath.

“It was just business. I was honestly anxious to get out of there and finally escaped when she had to take a call from her fiancé.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations, Sam.” I’d been back for less than ten minutes, and I was already screwing this up. Nana would be disappointed. I truly did have my head lodged squarely up my ass.

“You aren’t jealous, are you?” I could hear the amusement in his voice as he stepped in front of me, urging my chin up.

“Quit being so smug.” I batted his hand away, pressing against his chest as I stepped around him when the elevator doors opened.

“Did someone miss me?” Sam teased as he followed me down the hallway toward Isobel’s office.

“No, and don’t you have your own office to go to?”

“Oh, come on, I’m just teasing,” he laughed as he grasped my hand, stepping around me and glancing into Isobel’s office before he pulled me inside and closed the door behind us. “How was your week?”

I ducked under his arm and tossed my bag into a chair at the table, reaching for the light switch next to the door. He watched with an indulgent smile, dropping his bag to the floor.

“It was fine. Nice to work in peace for once.” I smirked. “It’s been such a pain in the ass the last few months to have this annoying guy following me around the office all the time.”

“Oh, I’m sure it has been,” he laughed, stepping forward. I stumbled back, my thighs bumping into the chair behind me. I grasped the back of the seat before I did something stupid like pushing up onto my toes to kiss him as he stopped directly in front of me. “I’m the worst, remember?”

“Still self-aware, I see.”

“I missed you,” he confessed, dropping the smug façade and cupping my cheek with his warm palm.

“What are you doing, Sam?”

“Just saying hello,” he murmured, leaning in to place a soft kiss against the side of my mouth, lingering as his fingers slid into the loose hair at the back of my head. His warm breath fanned over my face as his lips hovered near mine, hesitating. The anticipation of his next move caused my pulse to race and my patience to thin as I tried to play it cool. Letting out a stuttering breath, I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to lean in slightly as his lips grazed mine gently before he stepped back.

“But I should probably get back to work. Since not all of us get lengthy vacations away from the office.” His voice was still teasing, but I could see the tension around his eyes as he reached to grab his bag.

“It was good to see you, Sam.”

He nodded, pulling the strap over his shoulder as he reached back to open the door. “You too. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, they’re supposed to be here around 9:00.”

One final nod, and he was gone. I collapsed into the chair behind me, and my fingers pressed to the place his lips had touched. The effect of his mouth pressing against my skin had lessened from the initial frenzy of the first few weeks, but it still made my head swim. I had no idea how to keep trying to resist him. Nana had told me to go for it, but something still held me back.

“God, that was brutal,” Sam sighed as he settled across from me at the table in the corner conference room.

I’d texted him to meet me in here after Chase and Evan had left, finally agreeing to the book tour, even though I could tell it was under duress on Evan’s part. Chase had taken him on an extended lunch midday and convinced him they should do it. I don’t want to know her motivational tactics, but it was clear that those two were goners for each other. It was disgusting, but I was envious of their relationship. They hadn’t given two shits what Isobel and Adrian thought of their relationship, and I had a feeling Chase might be fleeing Boston for good to Evan’s hideaway in the woods.

“Were you in there while Evan went off on Adrian?” I laughed. I’d caught Chase sneaking around in the hallway near his office, eavesdropping on her boy ripping into Adrian when he started questioning their relationship. He’d been gloriously pissed when Adrian tried to disparage Chase, standing up for her and claiming he wanted to marry her. She’d also caught me eavesdropping, trying to figure out what was happening between Sam and me. If I only had a clue.

He’d been flirty throughout the day, but I still wasn’t sure how to act around him. I needed to apologize for my recent behavior toward him, but now we would be forced to go on this tour, and I didn’t want Chase and Evan to figure out we were...doing whatever Sam and I were doing.

“Yeah, Adrian’s face got so red when Evan was yelling at him. That was the first time I’d seen him worked up about anything. Cut twenty thousand words from a manuscript, no big deal. Tell him his sex scenes suck, and he needs to get a consultant, fine, whatever. But start talking shit about Chase, and Evan pulled out the alpha male.”

“Chase thinks something is going on with us.” That was why I needed to talk with him. While something was going on—maybe—we didn’t need that getting back to either of our bosses, especially not with everything on the line. Not that they had any room to say anything. But the fact of the matter was, we’d been carrying on a physical relationship on company property. If that came out, we’d be lucky to keep our jobs, much less earn anything with more responsibility.

“Well. Something is going on...or at least there was. Am I supposed to pretend we aren’t friends now?”

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