Page 97 of The Bossy One

Declan stood and tugged on his pants. “The less interesting answer is that @DBCoder is just my initials plus my job.”

I blinked. He was right.Declan Byrne, computer coder. “When you say it like that, I feel stupid for not putting it together sooner.”

He laughed.

I reached for my robe. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my username?”

He looked up from buttoning his shirt. “@1000words? It’s a reference to that saying, ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words’ because you review children’s picture books. Right?”

“Right.” I wrinkled my nose. “I guess I’m not particularly mysterious.”

His smile was crooked. “You’re mysterious enough for me.” He reached for the belt of my robe and tugged me in for a kiss. I fell against him, tempted to give in to the pleasure his mouth offered, but something nagged at me. Something I needed to know the truth about.

“You said you recommended my blog for sponsorship because I was good and deserved it. Was there any other reason? Anything at all?”

Something I couldn’t read flashed in his eyes.

I waited.

If this was just about money and him thinking every joy-filled hobby had to be turned into a side hustle…

“I wanted you to have options,” Declan said at last. “In case you decided you were tired of fixing other people’s lives and wanted to stay somewhere long enough to build a life of your own.”

“Oh,” I said.

He wasn’t outright telling me he wanted this thing between us to last. But in his own way, he’d made a plan to make it possible.

Hope flooded through me.He wants a future, too.

But if we were going to try to hold on to each other, then I couldn’t brush aside everything that had driven us to take a break. The gap betweenaffairandreal relationshipfelt full of questions that could tear us apart again.

“It’s just one sponsorship,” I hedged. “And they could still say no.”

“They want a video of you reading, right? I could help you film it,” Declan offered. “When we get back home.”

When we get back home.He probably didn’t even notice his words. The casual way he offered his home to me.

I reached up to touch his face. “Thank you.”

This time, when Declan leaned down to kiss me, I ignored everything but him, and kissed him back.

31

DECLAN

Iyawned and sat down at my desk with a mug of tea, content to be back home. After a few more meetings, and a half day of sightseeing with Olivia and Catie, we’d flown home late last night. I’d decided Orel wasn’t a good fit for acquisition at this time, but I was still happy with the trip.

Catie had loved the adventure. And I’d fixed what was wrong between me and Olivia. I’d sit through any amount of boring meetings for results like that.

I was whistling ABBA to myself when my cell buzzed with an incoming call from Thomas.

“What’s up?”

“He’s selling it. O’Rourke is selling his fucking mansion,” Thomas blurted.

My eyebrows shot up. Thomas hardly ever swore. But if there was ever a moment that justified it, this felt like it. Hell, I wanted to commission some fireworks to blast in the sky saying, “Fuck Yes.”

My heart thudded. Now that the moment was here, I couldn’t quite believe it was true. “I thought he still had one more property he was going to try to sell? How’d you block that?”

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