Page 27 of Unbuttoning Her Brooding Boss

He lifted the lids with a flourish and she found she was wrong. Her mouth watered when she saw the vibrant, juicy slices of fruit on the nearest tray.

‘I get sick of plastic plane food when I’m travelling. And restaurant food can get too rich. Sometimes simple is perfect, right?’

He glanced at her.

She nodded in mute agreement. The platters were beautiful—fruits, cheeses, sliced meats, vegetables, creamy dips. Fresh and real and delicious.

‘Finger food. You might have to take off your gloves,’ he said.

Or she could recline, as in Roman times, and be fed grapes by a handsome attendant... And where hadthatthought come from?

‘I wasn’t lying about my nails.’ Reluctantly she peeled off one glove, then the other.

‘I never said you were.’ He picked up her hand and looked down at her broken and chipped nails. ‘You get nervous?’

He rubbed his thumb over her palm, stopping her from instinctively curling her fingers into a fist. She tried to quell the shiver that ran through her. And she tried to banish the image of him touching her in other more intimate places.

Sex.

She’d hardly had any in her life, and all of a sudden it was all she could think of. All she wanted.

‘It’s just a habit. I know it’s gross.’ She tugged her hand free, embarrassed that he’d seen how bad her nails were, and reached for a cooling slice of melon. ‘I get false ones put on... but they come off... I just didn’t have time to get them redone before this meeting.’

‘Because you were so busy on your blog?’

She glanced at him and saw he wasn’t being sarcastic. ‘I’m always trying out the products, writing the content. Dreaming up yet more content.’

‘It must be hard to come up with lots of content all the time.’

She paused, not taking a bite of the melon. Did he suspect her? Did he know the truth? That she got as much as possible from her old schoolfriends. The trouble was, the busier they got the less they sent to her. She lived vicariously as they texted her pictures from their parties at the coolest new venues. And all the meals she posted about on her blog? Texted to her by Tara, or some of the other friends who’d stuck by her since school.

She was a total fraud.

‘I ought to take a couple of photos,’ she said, glancing back into the gorgeous room.

‘That would mean using your phone,’ he pointed out, then laughed at her expression. ‘One day without an update isn’t going to matter, is it? Anyway, I’m betting you have a week’s worth preloaded, right? With the odd gap for something ultra-current? No one is going to know you’ve run away for a night. You’re in the clear.’

‘You understand the process well.’ She chose to ignore the bit about running away for the night. And to ignore the whisper of want within her urging her to agree.

‘It’s my business to. We’ve been watching your blog for a while.’

‘Enjoying the tips?’

‘Enjoying watching your numbers grow. You’ve struck a chord with a segment of the market that we’d like to tap into. We’d like to take your success and replicate it.’

She wasn’t sure big business could create the same kind of in-your-own-home feel. But she wasn’t about to argue with him.

‘What’s on the other side of the camera?’ he asked. ‘Your vlogs are always filmed in the same space. Why don’t you go into another room?’

‘It’s what people have come to expect. The format... the habit.’

‘But how do you keep it fresh?’

‘With the content within the framework. I love tweaking, and the content is always changing.’

‘While you always present the perfect facade?’

She stiffened inside at that faint hint of disapproval. ‘It’s what people expect. It’s part of what they’re looking for.’

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