Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
“Maybe leave Robbie’s visit as a surprise,” I suggested, hoping like hell he wouldn’t bail but wanting to make sure it wouldn’t crush Robbie if it happened.
He nodded and patted my shoulder again. “Good call. I’ll talk to Aiken and let him know to line up PR.”
As he walked away, I forced myself to calm the fuck down and lower my expectations. Either Robert would or he wouldn’t.
The rest of the night passed like molasses through linen. It was messy bullshit. Darcy crowded Robbie’s space the entire time and put the full flirty high beams on him. At one point, the man actually dragged his fingertip down Robbie’s throat. Robbie’s cheeks turned pink again, and his eyelids fluttered. I wanted to throw Darcy Latham out of any one of the twenty-fourth-floor windows surrounding us.
Mandi passed out business cards and landed new plastic surgery patients left and right while I forced myself to have a few more polite conversations with key stakeholders in my industry.
By the time we were in the car on the way back to Mandi’s place, I was so keyed up and angry at Robbie I could barely keep from cracking my back teeth.
“Mm,” Mandi sighed happily, leaning against me and running a hand up my thigh. “That was amazing. Thank you so much for bringing me.”
She placed a soft kiss below my jaw. Her perfume was still strong enough to fill the back seat of the SUV, and I wondered whether I should ask the driver to lower the privacy glass and allow some of it to dissipate into the front seat.
“I can’t wait to show you what I have on under this,” she murmured. My hand had rested casually on her knee until she pulled it up under her short dress.
I felt the end of the stocking and the beginning of bare skin. As she shifted sideways, my fingers brushed the slim clips attaching the stockings to a garter belt.
“Mm, nice,” I said, although for some reason, it wasn’t doing anything for me. I moved my hand out from under her dress to check my watch, realizing belatedly it was on the other wrist.
She twisted in her seat and moved her own hand up to cover my dick over my trousers. It was as flaccid as they came. I leaned over to brush a kiss against her cheek, hoping the soft skin would wake up my libido a little, if only so I could get out of my head for a while.
She angled her head to move the kiss to her lips, and I recoiled, quickly faking a wince of pain and reaching between us for the seat belt clip. “Sorry, something’s digging into me.”
I took a breath and smiled at her, lecturing myself silently. You have a sexy woman desperate to get naked with you. Allow it. Enjoy it. Just fucking do it already.
I brushed her hair back from her face and noticed the line of makeup at the edge of her hair, remembering how it covered her natural freckles and the scar on her chin. She always wore a full face of makeup, even if the two of us were just going for a walk.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she’d ever go without it in public when I realized that I just didn’t care. And if I didn’t care after seeing her for three months, what was I doing?
Mandi reached for my tie and began loosening it, tugging the knot lower before reaching up to undo the top two buttons. “Better?”
I nodded, still considering the situation.
“I have so many plans for you tonight, Kit. Plans that involve…” She smiled seductively. “My tongue… my throat… my—”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, pulling her hands from my shirt and holding on to them. “I’m going to have to call it a night.”
Her face dropped. “You’re kidding? Why?”
“I got a message from my assistant earlier informing me of an emergency meeting tomorrow at seven that I need to prepare for.”
While the seven o’clock meeting wasn’t a lie, the fact that I needed to prepare for it or the implication that it was unexpected was definitely a lie.
She frowned. “Why don’t we stay over at your place, and you’ll be ready to go early?”
I shook my head and tried to give her a look that conveyed this wasn’t just a no to tonight. “I’m going to be very busy at work for the foreseeable future, and—”
She barked out a laugh. “Are you brushing me off as in you don’t want to see me anymore?”
Instead of speaking, I shrugged.
Her hands came together in a prayer motion in front of her face as if she was trying to gather her composure. “Then why the fuck didn’t you tell me earlier so I could go home with Spider fucking Morelli? Jesus, Kit. He gave me his phone number before I even took the first sip of my wine tonight.”