Page 54 of A Billion Dollar Romance
I just had to make it through dinner.
She was lying on her stomach reading a book when I came in, and she was wearingthat fucking dress.The round curve of her ass under the silk was unbearable: I wanted nothing more than to bury myself in her, to take her to bed with me andmake her mine.
She rolled over onto her side, the fabric falling over her hip and around her thighs, before pushing herself upright, legs tucked together primly as she swung them over the edge of the bed. I covered the distance between us in only a few steps, placing a hand on each knee to move her legs apart gently, stepping between them.
“Hello,” I said, then tilted her face up to mine with a thumb under her chin. The kiss I placed on her lips was soft, sweet, despite the sudden hardness in my suit pants. “I missed you today.”
“I missed you, too,” she said. “How did your meetings go?”
I grimaced. “You really want to talk about that? They were fine.” Deathly boring. But fine. “And yours? Samantha took you under her wing?”
She drew back to look at me, her eyes glittering with excitement. Her skin seemed to glow against the cream of the dress.
“Oh my god, James, it was amazing. Sam knowseveryone, and she introduced me to so many people–I got so many business cards, people who want to read my work! I told them all nothing was done, that I didn’t have anything quite ready, but they all seemed so interested in my writing… And then I went to a trend meeting–obviously, not all the trends are applicable to the kind of writing we do, but it was still so fascinating, hearing from the experts, and I took so many notes–”
My stomach twisted.The kind of writing we do.Among the hundreds of requests for third quarter profits and sales data, one–one–person had asked me today what I’d been working on. It had taken me a moment to understand what he meant, and even then I’d had to say:nothing. Not at the moment. Not right now. The man–an agent–hadn’t seemed particularly disappointed, and had wandered off shortly thereafter. I’d seen him chatting with some other authors later. They all looked younger than me. I was getting fucking old–it didn’t seem possible that I had more in common with the other publishing suits now, not when the conversations they had together were so goddamnedboring, but what did I have to say to the agents?
Nothing, not at the moment, not right now.
But it had been years.
“...and I met Rachel Lee’s husband, too, he said he’d given you his card for me, but he gave me another–”
“You can throw that one away, Edie,” I snapped. “He just wants to get you out of your clothes.”
Her chatter came to an abrupt halt.
“What?”
“Half of the men here probably do. They were very interested in your unfinished novels, were they?” I took a step away from her and went to kneel by the minibar, scrounging around for something half-decent to drink. I came up emptyhanded. I straightened again, looking back at Edie. The cream-colored silk clung to her curves. She looked beautiful. Young, and innocent. Naïve. Trusting.
Andhurt.
Her face was crumpled.
Fuck.
She’d trustedme, and I’d gone and made her look like that.
I ran my hand through my hair.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, you’re right. I was probably being too… getting my hopes up too high.”
“Fuck, Edie, no,” I said. “Forget I said anything.”
She didn’t respond, just sat on the bed, plucking at the dress she wore.
“I’m projecting,” I said finally. “It’s me who wants to get you undressed. I was just jealous.”
“Of Mr. Lee?” she asked, confused.
“Him and every other man who got to talk to you today while I was stuck in meetings,” I said.
It was half true. It wasn’t Mr. Lee who I was jealous of, if I was honest with myself–it washer.
She grimaced. “I’m sorry, James, I went on about my exciting day, and you–”
