Page 59 of The Dating Contract

Looking forward to it. Goodnight.

Except now sleeping was an impossibility, as her heart was pounding way too hard against her chest for her to breathe.

Chapter Nineteen

Samuel found itdifficult to focus on work after he’d texted with Leah.

We should go.

Leah wanted to go somewhere with him outside the contracted set of events.

Whoa.

Was forgiveness within his grasp? Was a conversation with her about their future within his grasp?

Was a real future with her within his grasp?

He didn’t know. What he did know was that Liam’s party was coming up and he was getting to the end of their scheduled events, which meant renegotiation and a conversation.

He hoped.

As he started to try and focus on the list of commissions, his phone buzzed. It was Liam.

“Hey,” he said when he answered the call. “How can I help you?”

“Do you have time for me? I have a work project to talk to you about.”

And of course, for Liam, work meant BP, aka BananaPants.

When he’d first gone to art school, Samuel had dreamed, like every single person in his major, to go to work for one of the big companies, the ones whose comics he’d read as a kid. And like his father, Samuel’s big comic obsession was BP. His life path had gone differently when he fell in love with alphabets and lettering styles that even the Jewish-founded BP would never ever want to put in the middle of a comic book.

But all he could manage to tell his mentor was: “Absolutely.”

“Good,” Liam said. “I’m in an office space. And take a breath, man. You’re ready. You knew this was coming.”

Samuel did but, in all fairness, hearing Liam talk about how he’d been preparing him for bigger things was different than actually being told by his mentor that those things had arrived.

Thoughts ran through his head as Samuel got on the subway and headed to the Manhattan address.

Liam was waiting downstairs. “Come on up,” he said.

He passed the posters, the statues and the promotional models—the things that made it clear this was a BP-owned building. The history in this building was making his head spin faster than it already was.

“Take a breath,” Liam said as they got off the elevator and headed toward what looked like Liam’s office. “Sit down, have a soda.”

Taking the advice, and the soda, Samuel settled down in the chair in front of Liam’s desk. “I’m here,” he managed.

“You are,” Liam replied.

He could feel his feet in his sneakers on the ground, his jeans on the chair seat, his back against the comfortable chair back. Grounding himself.

“I have a project for you. But first you get background.”

Samuel nodded. “I’m all ears.”

Liam nodded, grabbed a folder. “So before I start, you need to know that this conversation didn’t happen if you don’t want to do this. There will be NDAs signed before the project is revealed.”

He knew that; it was part and parcel of doing business. And that made things difficult most of the time, but it was important. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m excited.”

---