Page 56 of Destined To Fall

“You read it? All of it?” He nods, and I crinkle my nose.“Laura sent you the long-winded version. Sorry. But no, the legal mumbo-jumbo was Laura.”

“Laura?”

“My assistant, slash pimp, slash best friend, slash pain in my ass.” Her words from earlier come back to haunt me.I think you’ll like this one.Ha ha. Does she suspect something?

He chuckles at that.“The one from BU?”

“Yeah, pre-law. Now she busts other people’s balls, not just my own.” Not that she has to work. I pay her well enough to work for me, but she likes the cut-throatiness of lawyering.

“You paid for this degree. I might as well use it. Besides, being your bitch doesn’t take up enough time nowadays. What would I do all day if I didn’t work? Twiddle my thumbs? Exercise? Ha, please. No thank you.”

Jeremy pats the space beside him again, his smile returning and his eyes still challenging.

I sigh, too curious for my own good, and his daring gaze too infuriating to ignore.“You got shorts or something to go with this, or is my ass on show okay?”

I bite my lip to stifle my laugh as Jeremy’s gaze drops to my shoes and slowly traverses the length of my legs, lingering at relevant points before reaching my face once more. He’s undeniably attracted to me, that much is crystal clear, but he refuses to act on it. And he thinks I’m a puzzle.

He riffles through his bag again, pulls out a pair of navy running shorts, and throws them to me with a grin. I make a show of shimmying into them, unable to help myself, and I slip the sweatshirt on, undoing my corset underneath. I lob it at Jeremy’s head, and he chuckles, catching it effortlessly.

“How do women wear these?” He frowns, taking in all the bone work.

I shrug.“With ease. It’s become a second skin. Besides, I’m not normally in it for lengthy periods of time orloungingabout onbeds.” I chuckle at the slight pink tinge of his cheeks.“Friends, seriously?”

“Friends.” He nods, seemingly more to himself than to me.“It’s not like we can be anything else,” he says under his breath.

I chortle.“What else were we going to be?”

“Will you sit down already? I’m starving, and we’re missing the beginning ofThe Walking Dead.”

I crawl on the bed and flop beside him, still laughing.“Whatever. But I’m taking control of the remote.”

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

“Oh, most definitely.”

Chapter Eleven

An endless amount of cheese, wine, cured meat, and flatbread, not to mention the previously ingested burgers and fries, finds us overstuffed lumps on the hotel room bed, watchingScrubsreruns at one in the morning.

We’d so far spent most of the night eating and laughing at JD, rather than being engaged in actual conversation. Though I did make him tell me about his meeting. It was a complete success, of course. The client hired him on the spot.

“I can’t eat another bite,” Jeremy groans, rubbing his still-flat stomach.

“Pussy. Pass me the flatbread.”

He chortles.“I’ve never seen a woman eat so much. You rival me. How do you do it? How do you eat so much and stay so fit?”

“You think I’m fit?”

“You know you’re fit.”

“Sexercise.”

“Ha ha.”

“You should try it sometime. Oh, wait. That’s right. You’re crazy.”

“Why? Because I won’t have sex?”