Page 46 of A Billion Dollar Romance
“It takes a lot of work to run a publishing company, Edie, and it depends on me. All the people who work here? I pay their mortgages and their rents, their grocery bills, for their kids’ braces and their college tuition. Why else do you think I would agree to a fake engagement?”
He said it with a smile, but it felt like a slap.
“Of course,” I said again. “I didn’t mean–”
“It’s fine, Edie. I’ll write again. I just need some space. Time. Just like you,” he said with a tight smile.
“You need a retreat to your cabin,” I said, feeling inexplicably guilty. It was James who was the writer, why was it me who was getting the writing retreat while he was here doing… doing whatever it was that CEOs did?
“I do,” he agreed. “I don’t have time for it right now, but… maybe after the romance launch.”
“I’ll be there after the romance launch,” I mumbled. In case I needed reminding that it was him that belonged there, not me.
“That’s right,” he said, and smiled crookedly at me. “It’ll be a little honeymoon to cap off our engagement, then.”
Ourfakeengagement.
I smiled down at my lap, not quite able to meet his eyes. “Of course,” I said. Then, forcing some brightness into my voice, “Well, I should get back to work.”
“Have them give you something better to edit, Edie,” he said, but I shook my head.
“Remember our deal?” I asked. “You wont hold your mistake against me, but I don’t get any special treatment, remember? And besides,” I said, standing up from my chair.Meeting with the boss, concluded.“There are braces bills to pay. You’re the one cutting the check, but it’s the thrillers and celebrity memoirs that sell.”
“You’re right, of course, Edie,” he nodded, with a grim smile. “So make them shine for me. Hey.” He looked up from his computer as I was about to slip away through the door. “Lunch tomorrow? In the park? We can see if that squirrel you like is there.”
I softened. “Sure, boss,” I said, and he grimaced unconvincingly, his smile peeking out from behind his furrowed brows.
“Get out,Edie,” he groaned, and I could hear his chuckle even as the door swung shut behind me.
* * *
We didn’t get lunch the next day, nor did we visit the squirrels. We went back to his apartment, instead, and spent the hour tangled in each other, returning to the office with rumpled clothes and tousled hair, a secret smile on my lips as I remembered the way he’d looked at me as I rode him–like I was more than just his fake fiancée, or his student, or his employee.
I knew I wasn’t. I couldn’t be.
But it felt like I washis.
CHAPTER23
James
Normally,I didn’t read the books Verity published.
Oh, some of them, sure–but the job of a CEO wasn’t to write books, or even read them, it was– Well, I was still figuring that out, but it was to steer the company, to head meetings, to make the call.
That’s why I was reading this particular book.
TITLE TBD,the first page of the manuscript read.PEN NAME TBD.
Charming.
I’d made it a third of the way into the story a half-dozen times before being interrupted by a meeting, a briefing from Lyle and Bridget, lunch, an amusing happening on the far sidewalk outside my office window. Thoughts of Edie. Memories of Edie on my bed underneath me a few weeks ago or in the shower that morning. Fantasies of Edie between my knees under my work desk blending seamlessly into the well-worn dream of her bent over my desk at the front of the seminar room at her college, her skirt flipped over her ass, into the soft way she looked at me in the morning. Edie’s smile. Edie’s teeth worrying her bottom lip as she worked on her laptop in bed next to me sometimes now, which led inevitably to dreams of my own teeth replacing hers, biting and nibbling and teasing until she was gasping for breath and the cycle of fantasy started again.
I’d taken the romance manuscript home with me in hopes of actually finishing it. At least here, Edie was next to me. If we got distracted, well, it was only a matter of indulging in our fantasies before I picked up my reading once again.
“What do you think of this?” she said. “The bluebird dies at the end, and then the girl hears the song again, through the window. Leave it open ended.”
“That could work,” I said, distractedly, “but what is that saying about her father, then–”
