Page 45 of A Billion Dollar Romance
She sighed. “Always.” The woman was so protective of him, and it never failed to make me smile. James had told me that she had been his grandfather’s secretary, too.
“Did you keep her on… in his memory?” I’d asked haltingly, unsure, and he’d just laughed.
“Hell no, I kept her on because she’s the one running this place. And she has the paycheck to prove it,” he’d said. Then, glowering, “Don’t mention that to anyone. I know a lot of men who’d hate to know they’re making less than a secretary.”
“But never too busy for you,” she said. “Just like his grandfather.”
The worm of guilt I always felt when I spoke to Alice wriggled in my stomach. That was the real reason for the treats, I knew: my own guilty conscience.
“Your fiancée here to see you,” she said, and waved me through.
James was already up and out of his desk chair, half-way to the door before I managed to push it shut behind me.
“Mmm,” I hummed as his hands came to rest on my waist, his lips firmly against mine. “You wanted to see me, boss?” I asked, breaking away.
He closed his eyes tight. “Edie, for the love of everything, you cannotkeep calling me boss,” he groaned. “It’s making me uncomfortably horny aroundLyle, of all people.”
“You shouldn’t have told me about his annoying nickname for you, then,boss,” I teased. “You like all your other titles so much, Mr. Martin, professor, sir,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes up at him.
“Miss Taylor…” he warned, eyes narrowed, head tilted to one side, before kissing me again, turning us around and steering me backwards until my thighs hit the edge of his desk. “I did want to see you, Edie,” he said, tilting my chin up to kiss along my jaw. “But only for this. I can’t stand the idea of you toiling away down there, reading… I don’t know, cheap genre thrillers or something, when you could be up here,” his lips brushed just under my ear, “with me,” along my neck, “doing this.” He tugged the neckline of my sweater to one side to plant his warm, soft mouth on the skin hidden just beneath the soft wool.
“We can’t,” I insisted, even as my knees went weak and my skin warmed under his attentions.
“Why not? I am, as you say,” he grinned, eyes heavy-lidded, “theboss.”
“Because even though you’retheboss, Mr. Martin, you aren’t technicallymyboss. And I do have work to do.”
“Those thrillers don’t edit themselves,” he said, and I raised my eyebrows, placing my hands on his chest. He was broad, and warm, and I knew that I only had to wait a few hours before work was over and we could go back to his apartment together, as we’d been doing more often than not recently.For appearances,we’d agreed as I’d slid over onto his lap while his chauffeur drove us through the city to his building, where I’d tumbled, disheveled, into his elevator.
“They certainly do not. And…” I said, shoving lightly so that he stood back, and standing myself to brush my skirt back into place. “Because Lyle, ‘of all people,’ knows that we aren’t actually engaged. And Bridget.”
“Usually the secret is the relationship, not thelackof one,” he said, then, as I stuck out my lower lip, furrowing my brows, “No, that came out wrong. Usually the issue would be the workplace finding out that we were engaged, not that we were having sex–or, well–”
I kissed him again, despite my earlier chastisement. “I understood what you meant, James,” I said, huffing out a laugh.
I did. It was confusing, what we were doing: pretending to be engaged, actually sleeping together. He was my boss, and also my boyfriend, or something like it, and also–
“How areyouredits going, Miss Taylor?”
“Oh, fine, professor,” I said airily.Finewas the word for them. I’d been poring over the pages, his notes, writing and rewriting, still stuck and frustrated. “I’m still stuck,” I said before he asked, “but I’ve been spending a lot of evenings thinking about the climax–”
“There’s only so many times you can tell that joke, Edie,” he growled, but he stepped forward again, looping his arms around my waist and tilting his head down. His mouth met mine, then his tongue, his hands tightening through my sweater.
“One more time?” I asked, and he smiled and kissed me again. We shouldn’t–we both knew it–and yet I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. He smiled as we broke apart, and I asked the question that had been percolating through my mind during my late-night writing sessions.
“What aboutyourwriting, James?”
His arms dropped from my waist, and he looked away. “What about it?” The sudden coldness in the room was palpable.
“Well, I guess, are you? Writing anything new?”
He smirked, and strode to his work desk, sitting down in his imposing leather chair, legs spread wide. “Why, do you want a signed first edition, Miss Taylor?”
“No,” I said, frowning, “I just thought maybe I could read it, if you wanted, or…”What was I thinking?That he would want me to, what,editit? Unlikely. “But don’t worry about it.”
“I haven’t been,” he said, staring not at me but at his work computer. “I’ve been busy running Verity.”
“Oh. Of course.” It made sense. Hadn’t I been thinking the same thing? There wasn’t enough time–
