Page 90 of More Than Words

“Hmm,” she hummed, smirking before she continued. It was clear the rumor mill had made its way to the executive floor to further confirm her previous hunch about Adrian and me. “Are you alright with the schedule for the week before I need you and Adrian in New York? I know you wanted to oversee the last few signings for the Rose and Evans book.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I confirmed, switching over to the calendar app to input the dates and cities she needed me in.

“Kristine and Sam set to go?”

“Yeah, I think they’ll be fine. Adrian has been sharing past tour plans with Sam and I’ve given Kristine the preliminary schedules from PR.”

One of the department heads from the public relations department would travel with Chase, Evan, Kristine, and Sam for the duration of the tour to make sure things ran smoothly in my and Adrian’s absence. It was hard to hand over the reins, but since I had a feeling my intern would be gone in a matter of weeks, I needed to equip her to step into her new position. It’d be selfish of me to request to keep her, even if I wasn’t looking forward to training her replacement, taking on my additional job duties and trying to get pregnant.

As Sloane dove back in, I took notes, filling the notebook in my lap with more information than I’d been expecting. Part of me was panicking when I tried to picture the future, me having to travel a third of the year with a new baby. But I didn’t want to give up either opportunity.

“After the first of the year, we’ll need you in Chicago and Seattle for three weeks at each office for a new project, but I’ll give you details later.”

My heart pounded as I did the math. If I tried to get pregnant this summer—in the next two or three months—I’d likely be too far along to travel that much.

“Are there any conflicts you can think of that might prevent the start of the year being travel heavy?”

Shaking my head, my palms grew sweaty as I lied. While I wasn’t pregnant now, the possibility was there, and now that we knew the only barrier preventing it was my IUD, I wasn’t sure when it would be a good time to get it removed and start trying. The likelihood of conceiving quickly wasn’t great with both of us being over thirty-five, but they weren’t non-existent either. My OB had told me the first three months after an IUD removal would likely be months when I was very fertile as my hormones tried to regulate.

Could I risk it, or should we wait until later in the fall?

“That’s all I have for today. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate.” She extended a file folder in my direction, and I reached forward to grab it, opening the front cover. “Those are the preliminary candidates to replace the copy-editing interns should they move on. Since you’ll be busy over the next month, I’m giving these to you and Adrian to look through.”

On my way to the elevator, I flipped through the resumes, stopping on a familiar name. As I scanned her credentials, I hadn’t realized that Andrea, the administrative assistant on our floor, had a degree in English with a certification in copy editing. She was also in graduate school for a master’s degree in English and communications.

As I passed by her desk on the way to my own, I watched her move around her desk, the area meticulously organized. Maybe finding a candidate to replace Kristine wouldn’t be as hard as I thought.

ISOBEL

Boston

Laying my head on my desk, I took a deep breath. Work had been insane over the last month, trying to get everything organized before my first trip in my new position. Chase and Evan had been in the office all week, going through training with Kristine and Sam with Di from the PR department. Their book launch was tonight, and all I wanted to do was curl up in my bed and sleep for like a week straight.

Adrian had been great, feeding me when I forgot, and giving me orgasms when I was stressed, even if I tried to tell him I didn’t have time to fool around. But he’d been there, rolling with the punches when I was moody and not complaining when I fell asleep on the couch instead of joining him in bed most nights.

We’d talked about when I’d schedule my IUD removal, and I’d made an appointment for the week between my trip and the signings in New York. But I felt guilty for considering canceling the appointment. I was barely managing my workload right now. Was it really fair to add a baby to the mix?

I hadn’t told him about my hesitations because he’d been so excited, leaning enthusiastically into practicing. He’d become obsessed with coming inside me, serious about making sure I was full of him as much as I’d allow. Don’t get me wrong, it was hot, but it was also really shitty timing.

“You ready, Isobel?” Kristine asked, standing in my doorway with a small suitcase by her side, a garment bag draped over her arm. We needed to get to the hotel to prep for tonight, but I was exhausted.

“Yeah, let me grab my outfit and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

We rode across town in silence, both of us absorbed in our phones. “You alright?” she asked after I sighed loudly.

“Yeah, just have the sinking feeling I’m going to forget something for tonight. We need this to go off smoothly. The execs want Chase and Evan to knock this one out of the park.”

“Don’t worry.” She patted my hand, reassuring me, and I felt guilty that I needed reassurance from my intern. “We’ve got this down to a science, and you’ve crammed me full of more information than I need to get through the next six weeks. As long as you can keep a muzzle on Adrian, tonight will be fine.”

Spoiler Alert: Everything was not fine.

Three hours later, I paced the hallway between the conference rooms and the nearly empty ballroom, freaking the fuck out. And nothing Adrian said could calm me down. He’d done enough damage tonight with an untimely reappearance of his verbal diarrhea. His brain-to-mouth filter had clearly been damaged by how much we’d had sex lately.

“I thought we were past this,” I sighed, stopping as his palm clasped my upper arm, halting my movements. “Between your mouth and now Evan, this is a freaking disaster.”

“It’ll be okay, Is. He’s done this before. He disappeared for a month after Simone fucked him up last time. We’ll figure this out.”

His author Evan had fled the hotel mid-anxiety attack when his emotionally abusive ex-girlfriend had snuck into the launch party pretending to be her boss. Chase had punched her in the face when she cornered the author, but after she’d been removed from the hotel, she’d run into Evan. The poor guy, who had a particularly severe case of social anxiety, had disappeared in a cab without a trace.

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