Page 232 of Time Stops With You

An alarm goes off in the background.

Nardi stops kissing me, though her mouth is still pressed to mine. She looks off to the side, makes a quick decision to ignore the alarm, and starts moving her lips again. I, too, would like to keep kissing, but there’s a knock on the door.

I rip my mouth away from Nardi’s with a groan, hating all the interruptions.

Nardi steps out of my arms and turns off the phone’s alarm. She runs her finger over the ring at her throat. “Go answer the door. I’ll get ready for Valentine’s Day.” She stares at my lips. “I’ll change my outfit again.”

“Y-yeah.” The word barely makes it out of my mouth.

“You’re gonna like this one,” Nardi promises with a sultry wink.

My blood rushes south. The smile crossing Nardi’s mouth is wicked and so is the hungry glint in her eyes.

The doorbell rings this time.

I hold a staying hand out to Nardi. “Don’t change yet.”

I wouldn’t put it past Nardi to walk out here in ‘Valentine’s Day lingerie’ and I don’t want anybody else seeing her like that but me.

“Were you expecting someone?” Nardi asks, craning her neck.

“No.”

I walk to the door and Nardi remains on my heels. I like having her close by and I slow my steps so she can keep up with me.

When I open the door, I’m surprised to see the courier from the law firm standing outside. He nods and I nod back. We’ve done this before so the process of accepting the envelope and signing for it is like a well-choreographed dance.

But this time, I interrupt the dance by saying, “Thanks, man.”

He gives me a shocked look and it’s in that moment I realize that I have never actually acknowledged the man in all the time he’s been dropping off packages. Thinking about it now makes me feel slightly ashamed of myself.

If it hadn’t been for Nardi, I probably would have died the cold, detached man I was before. The thought is frightening.

I grip the document the courier gave me and turn to Nardi. “This is going to sound weird.”

“That’s a scary way to start a sentence.”

“I’d like to have a party.”

Nardi’s jaw drops. “Did I just hear you correctly? Did the introvert who hates germs and socializing just ask for a party?”

I nod slowly, unable to believe it myself. And then I immediately second-guess it. “Should I not?” I frown. “Everyone’s busy.”

Nardi stops my descent into over-thinking. “I love it. I had your birthday scheduled in today’s events, but we can inviteeveryone for the celebration. It’ll be great.” She rubs her hands together. “Let me make some calls.”

“Shouldn’t we have our Valentine’s celebration instead?” I ask, frowning when I realize she’s going to hammer out those details as we speak. “I didn’t mean we should have a partynow.”

Nardi hurries off. “Better now than never, Cullen.”

While Nardi is busy on the phone, I open the document and read through it. The rival company is offering a significant sum for access to the PLP project. The money doesn’t interest me at all. Whatdoesis the clause that they’ll have the PLP project viable in half the time that we’d anticipated.

The offer leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but I wonder how much of that is personal. From a business standpoint, it might be better to offload the PLP. Without me leading Cullen Tech, the team can have an opportunity to work on something new.

Nardi’s footsteps interrupt my thoughts. “Asad, Dr. Young, and Sara are in. I invited Sunny and Darrel too. She said she’d check her husband’s schedule. Would you like to invite Mr. Sullivan? I’m a little too nervous to call someone like him.”

“Sure. What time should I tell him?”

Nardi gives me the details. “It’ll only be for an hour. It was last minute and everyone is really busy, so they’ll treat it as a lunch break.”

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