Page 18 of A Billion Dollar Romance
I could walk down into the morass of editing desks, ask Edie out to lunch, and have done with it.We could discuss our upcoming nuptials in person,I thought wryly.
I couldn’t do that. We–Bridget and Lyle and I, with Edie’s okay–had decided it would be better for our relationship to appear real to as many people as possible, but still, she would want to keep her relationship with the boss somewhat low-profile, wouldn’t she? It wasn’t the sort of thing to be flaunted, and she wasn’t the type to flaunt it anyway…
I turned to my computer, dashing off the email I’d labored over for a quarter of an hour, and grabbed my suit jacket from the hanger on the back of my door before pulling it open. Alice looked up in surprise.
“You still have 45 minutes until your one o’clock, sir,” she said.
“Push it to two,” I said. “I’m going out.”
“Yes, of course, sir,” she said, but I was already halfway down the hallway.
“Thanks, Alice,” I called back.
I had an errand to run.
CHAPTER10
Edie
Beready for dinner at seven,this morning’s heart-fluttering, stomach-twisting email had read.I’ll pick you up.
He’d signed it this time.
James.
I didn’t know what to expect. I had been surprised both times he called me to his office, the first time to promise he would remain professional, the second to stretch that boundary so far that it might as well be non-existent.
Would this be a working dinner, a Friday evening spent hashing out the details of our arrangement?
Or, just maybe… the pretense of dinner, and then another ecstatic night with him in his penthouse apartment?
Was this fake engagement really just a way to get me into his bed again? The thought had crossed my mind, and I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than just a one-night mistake. Professor Martin had been serious and erudite, but James Martin, celebrity author, was known for being a playboy. He wouldn’t go totheselengths just to sleep with an employee when he had his pick of models and socialites… Right?
I stepped out of the lobby of my apartment building, the damp evening air clinging to my bare arms. I had borrowed a dress from Flora and gotten a much more subdued reaction from her than I had the evening of my one-night stand, or even the night I told her–forgetting I’d signed an NDA–what Professor Martin–Mr. Martin–Jameshad asked me to do. Had offered me.
“Are you sure this is the right idea, Edie?” she’d asked, even as she zipped me up into a slim black dress, selected to skirt the line between business and cocktail attire.
I’d let out a deep breath, the zipper skimming up past my ribcage. “No,” I admitted. “I have no idea. But I signed the papers, didn’t I?”
She spun me around, looking into my eyes from a few inches below me. I was wearing her heels, too. It was good to have an upstairs neighbor who was your best friend–and also shared your shoe size. “Be careful, Edie,” she warned. “You don’t have to do this, remember. You can always tell him no. But it’s a lot easier to call off your engagement before it’s announced to the world, real or otherwise.”
I nodded. “I know, Flora. Thank you. For being a good friend. And for the reminder. I appreciate it.” She narrowed her eyes. “And for the dress, and the heels.”
“You’re welcome, Edie,” she said. “Oh, wait, one more thing.” She jogged down the hallway to her bedroom, and returned in a moment with a grin on her face and a small box of condoms in her hand. She pressed it into mine. “Just in case,” she said, laughing as I scowled and hit her shoulder lightly. “Better to have it and not need it than to not have it and want one, right? Now go. Have fun with your sexy professor.”
“It’s not like that,” I’d whined, but she’d already pushed me out of the door to her apartment and into the hallway, waggling her fingers at me in goodbye before she closed the door.
I only had a moment to second-guess myself before a sleek black car pulled up to the curb. I couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but there was only one person who would be pulling up to my building in a car like that. It had to be him.
I was right. The driver’s side door opened with a soft click, and he emerged. He closed his door and came around the car while I stared, glad I had worn Flora’s dress instead of my office attire: his dark suit highlighted his broad shoulders, then narrowed to his trim waist, with the discreet buckle of a designer leather belt. I remembered the clink of it, the heat of the skin-warmed metal from our first night.
The condoms I’d hastily shoved into my purse felt as heavy as lead.
This was a bad idea.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice, Edie,” he said, opening the car door for me. He looked up from the interior of the car, his eyes moving slowly from my feet, up my bare legs, my hips, my waist, my chest. My lips. “You look beautiful tonight.”
This was the best idea I’ve ever had.
