Page 73 of A Billion Dollar Romance
And suddenly, it seemed like enough. Like more than enough. Like everything I could want.
CHAPTER35
Edie
“Are you ready to go, Edie?”
I jumped, my pen skidding across the pages of the manuscript I was editing. I flipped it shut with thefwapof paper on paper. James didn’t need to see that it wasn’tworkI was working on. I pressed one hand to the back of the stack, covering it, as if he could read the words through the copy paper.
Right, I remembered, taking the deepest breath I could in the constricting dress I wore. James was dressed up too–he was wearing a suit, as always, but this one seemed to be just slightly… sharper. His hair, though, was still in the same tousled waves I’d fallen in love with.The photo shoot.
“James–Mr. Martin, I mean–you startled me.”
“Obviously,” he said with a small smile that grew mischievous. “Do you call me Mr. Martin with your coworkers?”
Margaret lifted her head up from where she had appeared to be focused on her computer. “Yes. I keep telling her it’s weird, but–”
“I can’t call himJameswhen we’re atwork–” I said, but James waved me off.
“Ms. Woods,” he said, and the editor raised an eyebrow. “Have I ever instructed you to call me Mr. Martin?”
She shook her head. “Everyone does though.”
“Starting now, that’s everyone but you. You have permission–although it’s not like you didn’t before–to call me James in conversation with Edie.”
“Alright then… James,” she said with a sly smile.
“James,” I protested, but he held up his hand again.
“Not you, Edie. You call meMr. Martin,I like that–” He had a cartoonish expression on his face, his eyebrows bouncing, but that only made it very slightly less mortifying.
“James!” I said, but Margaret let out a loud guffaw of laughter next to me, and I had to laugh, too. “Oh my god, this is so embarrassing.” I grabbed my bag from below my desk, shoving the manuscript inside.My novel.It wasn’tdone, not by any stretch of the imagination, but the first draft was complete enough that I’d printed out a copy and had been snatching any spare second between my real work doing a first pass of edits. I was trying to be as objective as possible–to treat it like any of the dozens of other novels I’d edited during my months at Verity. Before I let anyone see it, I needed it to begood.
And I wouldn’t have James to help me with this one.
“Let’s go,” I mumbled, standing up from my desk.
“Bye-bye, Edie,” said Margaret in a sing-song voice. “Bye, James.”
“I’ll have her back to you after lunch,” James said, taking me by the elbow and leading me from the editing floor toward the elevators.
“Cute,” I heard Margaret murmur to herself as we turned the corner.
“James,” I said, for what felt like the millionth time, as the elevator doors slid shut, but he just stepped closer, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me into him.
“Shh, Edie, she’s right.” He smiled, then kissed the tip of my nose. “Itiscute. And besides, I know you don’t call me Mister Martin just to work me up.”
“No, I call you that because it’s professional–”
“That’s right. When you want to work me up,” he said, nosing along my jaw, “you call meprofessor.”
I shoved him away, attempting a discouraging face, and apparently failing, by the way he laughed.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, “I’m just happy to have an excuse to see you in the middle of the day.”
It was me, this time, that slipped my hands around his waist, under his suit jacket, to pull him close. “Me too,” I said, then raised an eyebrow of my own. “Mr. Martin.”
We kissed until the elevator chimed our arrival at the lobby floor.
