Page 51 of Boss On Notice
I sink against the sofa too and stretch my legs close to his. I feel no sparks. I think it’s the fact that he’s in love with another woman. I hope so. I hope it’s not because I have feelings for Orion. I plead with my heart to please don’t let that be the case.
I let my head drop to one side so that I can get a better look at him. “You think so?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Have you ever told her how you felt?”
He nervously loosens a button on his black silk shirt that his hilly chest is wearing the hell out of. “Yeah, sort of.”
“Sort of? Are you afraid to clearly articulate how you feel about her?”
“Huh?” he asks, frowning and confused. “No. I just want her to be happy.”
I grunt thoughtfully. Lynx is such a good guy, but he’s like every other man like him. He’s a city boy through and through. City boys spend all their lives striving for success in their careers. Love scares the hell out of them. My guess is that he’s tethered to this woman, but he’s afraid of what she inspires in him and therefore hasn’t made a deliberate move to claim her.
“She’s dating someone else, you say?”
“Yeah,” he croaks and then sighs.
“What if this other guy steps up to the plate and hits a home run?”
His chuckle is smooth like silk. The brandy must be working. He’s good and relaxed. “Then we’re not meant to be, Lilly. What about you?”
I sit up so that I can better drink my beverage. “What about me?”
“What’s going on between you and Orion?”
My eyebrows flash up. Why isheasking me that question?
“You seem surprised,” he says, scanning my face.
“I’m surprise you’re asking me that.”
Lynx shrugs indifferently. “He likes you. Maybe he’s waiting for me to swing a home run before he does something about it.”
I inhale sharply, surprised by what he just said. There is pure lust in Lynx’s eyes. That’s when I remember how easily my looks fell into place tonight. I left my apartment looking like sex on a stick. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll drop my guard for this one. Maybe, just maybe, tonight is cosmic. Fate is working on our behalf. Maybe this is the moment all the incidences with Orion have been building up to.
I feel dizzy even though I’m not drunk when I say, “Maybe. Definitely, maybe.”
CHAPTER17
Rescue His Heart
ORION LORD
FORTY-THREE MINUTES AGO
My mother has been summoning me to her town house here on the Upper East Side a lot lately. Every time I show up, Heather is here. I know what my mom is doing and it's not going to work. I can't tell her that though, can I? Since working with Lila on AI behavior mapping, I learned a lot about human psychology. For instance, on Thursday, as we worked through lunch, Delilah explained the mother/son dynamic in a way that made me clearly understand it for the first time. We were discussing indigenous human behavior and the benefits of mapping AI behavior to those traits.
She explained how boys left the cocoon fashioned by their mothers at or around the age of fourteen in indigenous tribes from one part of the world to the next.
“There’s something to it, don’t you think?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stroking my chin. I wanted to know more about this.
“Young males go learn to hunt and survive, and the older men of the tribe, who had gone through the same initiation rites, teach them how to be men. In some cases, boys are ripped away from their mothers crying. She’s reaching for him. He’s reaching for her. But the tribe knows that for his sanity, for his development, it must be done.”
I’m not sure if she meant to affect me with that explanation or not, but she had. Tonight, as I sit at the table having dinner with my mother, Heather, and Peter, my mother’s partner, who’s twenty years younger than she is, I’m uncomfortable. I feel like I’m in a vise, unable to move left or right, or escape. I think it’s always been this way with my mother.
