Page 47 of One Night in Paris

Tired, covered in perspiration, and a little sore, we both finally moved to lie down. Logan took my arms from around his neck and turned me so he could remove the belt. His touch was light and careful as he unhooked it and tossed it aside, rubbing my arms where the leather had been. “Did it hurt?”

“No,” I assured him. Still, he lifted each of my arms to his mouth and kissed my skin. There weren’t even any marks.

We both went about preparing for bed. I put on pajamas, and he put on his briefs. Then, we fell into each other’s arms, my head on his shoulder.

Exhaustion washed over me. It had been a long day, and we had to get up early the next day to fly home. Still, I had to tell him how much I appreciated him. Not just in the bedroom, but especially at work. “Logan,” I whispered. “Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.”

“To have sex with me?” His voice had a teasing lilt to it. “You’re welcome.”

Giggling, I pressed a hand to his firm chest. “Well, yes, that too. But I meant for the job. And even for this trip. I’ve learned so much from you already, and it’s made things so much easier for me and my mom. I just feel really blessed to have met you. You’re a remarkable person.”

Logan was quiet for a long time. I began to think maybe I’d said something wrong by accident, but then he said, “You’rewelcome, Harper. I’m so glad you came to work for me. Thank you for inspiring everyone to do their best work every day and to look at things through a fresh pair of lenses.”

His kind words made my heart swell. “You’re welcome, boss.” Lifting my head, I placed a quick kiss on his lips. “Goodnight.”

He kissed me back. “Goodnight, Harper.”

25

LOGAN

Monday morning, I sat at my desk, not concentrating on any sort of work knowing that Harper was right there on the other side of the door.

I’d gotten her home on time to take her mother to chemotherapy the day before. After we’d had sex on Saturday night, we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms. The flight home left early in the morning, so we’d had to get up at the crack of dawn. That didn’t stop me from claiming her one more time before we left.

Things between us were never awkward, but the situation itself was strange. At work, she was an employee, just like everyone else. But outside of the office, I wanted her to be mine—all the time. Having sex with Harper was always incredible. I could take her a hundred times a day and never tire of her.

It wasn’t just the sex, though. Conversations with Harper were always natural and interesting. I could also talk to her all day long—about everything. She was thirsty to learn more about architecture, something I loved talking about. Beyond that, we talked about our childhoods, our interests, and what we wanted for the future.

Sometimes it crossed my mind that having Harper in my future would be a nice thing. Of course, she spoke like she wanted to continue to work with me for many years to come, which was great. But from time to time, other thoughts drifted to mind. I pushed them away, though. I hadn’t known Harper that long, and so far, our relationship had started out based on a lie and then morphed from casual to work-related. That made it difficult to imagine what anything would look like if the romantic cravings both of us kept giving into continued to flourish.

A knock on my door had me blinking a few times, realizing I’d gotten nothing done for at least an hour. “Yes?” I already knew it was Harper. I’d come to recognize her knock in the amount of time we’d been working together.

“Hey, Logan. Sorry to bother you, but Dave is on the phone. He says it’s urgent. I told him you were in a meeting because I wasn’t sure if you’d want to speak to him after what happened in California, but he sounds like he really wants to talk to you.” Harper bit down on her bottom lip and worried it between her teeth, obviously nervous about this situation,

I couldn’t blame her. Not only was Dave an asshole, but he had rubbed us both the wrong way with his speech at the meeting. We’d gone all the way out there to listen to their pitch and ended up leaving before he had even finished speaking. His numbers just didn’t add up to me, and I didn’t want to participate in something that stank of government corruption or fraud.

Letting out a sigh, I decided to take the call. If I didn’t Dave was just going to continue to call and harass me. “Yeah, okay. Patch him through, Harper. Thank you.” I gave her a sincere smile, and she nodded before walking away.

A moment later, my phone rang. I had to take a deep breath to prepare myself mentally to talk to Dave. I didn’t know this guyall that well, but I knew his type. He was the kind of guy who was going to act like I’d personally offended him by the actions I’d taken for my business.

“Logan Winters.” Infusing my voice with a message I hoped said I was busy, I waited to hear his annoying voice in my ear.

“Logan! My man!” Dave chuckled as he spoke. “How goes it?”

Rolling my eyes, I pressed a hand to my forehead. “I’m busy, Dave. Harper just pulled me out of a meeting with a very important client to speak to you.” Obviously, that wasn’t true, but he wouldn’t know that.

“Well, Winters, I was hoping to become a very important client myself. What gives, man? I bring in dozens of firms we’re thinking of working with, and you are the only one who leaves right in the middle of our presentation. My associate told me you said the project wasn’t for you, but how much of my plan did you even hear?”

“I heard enough of it,” I replied. “Listen, Dave. We are both very busy people. We know when something piques our interest and when something isn’t right for us. My firm wouldn’t be able to help you with this new project, so there was no point in me sitting there listening to more. Time is money, after all, and I wasn’t interested in wasting any more of either.”

Dave was quiet for a moment. I had to assume he was thinking of something smart to say back to me.

But what came out of his mouth shocked the fucking hell out of me.

“So you had more important things to do—like dating your secretary?”

My mouth dropped open as I stared down at my desk, trying to assess exactly what he was getting at. Guys like Dave didn’t say things like that unless he had more to add to it. “Beg your pardon?” I asked. Nothing inappropriate happened between Harper and me in public. Sure, if he had pictures of whathappened within our hotel room, that could be scandalous, but other than me touching the small of her back to guide her into the restaurant and the car, that was it.

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