Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“Oh my God, that was a potentially problematic encounter considering he’s your boss but so sexy. I love it.”
“He’s not just my boss. He’s Jake’s uncle,” I reminded her.
Christi shrugged. “So? You and Jake have been broken up for years. You don’t think he’d care, do you?”
Was it my imagination, or did she watch me closely while I considered the question? “No,” I said finally. “I don’t think he’d care that I was kissing anyone else. We really are just friends. But I wasn’t kissing just anyone else, I was kissing his uncle…that’s problematic, right?”
“It’s weird. I don’t think it’s problematic.”
I didn’t know whether to believe Christi or not. She was so invested in this thing between Dominic and me that she might have said anything to make sure it happened again. I gave her a suspicious look. “Tell me the truth.”
She opened her eyes very wide as if to show me there were no lies hiding in them. “I don’t think Jake’s connection to Dominic is the problem,” she said slowly and succinctly. “The potential problem is that he’s your boss, but honestly, it’s kind of a hot problem.”
I couldn’t help laughing. My sister and I were so different. In my shoes, she’d have dragged Dominic down to the floor of the cubicle and be reporting back about his technique right now. When she wanted something, she went for it. I envied that about her. When I wanted something, I did my very best to talk myself out of it and then felt guilty when I gave in.
Christi blamed our parents for that. I didn’t blame anyone. It was just how I was. Maybe they’d written the role of the good girl for me, but I was the one who allowed myself to be typecast. Christi certainly hadn’t.
“A hot problem,” I repeated, my lips twitching. What a perfect way to describe Dominic.
“Smoldering,” Christi said with a lusty sigh. “Tell me the part about him getting off the elevator again.” She put her chin in her hand and gazed at me like a kid waiting for story time.
I swatted at her. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”
“Hearing about how you finally realized that there are better things to do than be perfect?” Christi nodded into her hand. “Absolutely.”
So, I told her the story again, and then she got changed and came to Mrs. Kloss’s with me. Partly so she could grill me about what I was going to do next while we drove, and partly because she adored the old widow.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I told her repeatedly.
“Well, when are you going to see him again?”
“Probably on Monday since, you know, we work in the same place.” I deliberately avoided reminding her again that he was my boss, but Christi’s lecherous grin told me it wasn’t forgotten.
“I meant see him again,” she said as we walked up the front path.
“I’m not.”
“Oh, come on. You know you want to see him naked,” Christi proclaimed as the door opened.
I prepared an apologetic smile for the doorman, but to my surprise, it was Mrs. Kloss herself who had answered.
“See who naked, dear?” she asked brightly as though this were a perfectly normal conversation for us to be having on her front porch.
“No one.” I shot Christi a quelling look. She made the motion of drawing a zipper closed across her mouth.
Mrs. Kloss gestured for us to come in. Stiff with embarrassment, I gave her a quick peck on the cheek as I passed and then walked into the great room where the bulk of the party would take place. Behind me, I heard her whisper to Christi, “Who does she want to see naked, dear?”
“Dominic White,” Christi whispered back.
“Ohhh,” Mrs. Kloss said knowingly, as though that made perfect sense and how silly of her not to have thought of it. “Of course.”
I turned around and stared at them. They both stared back innocently.
“I’m not going to see anyone naked,” I said so loudly that everyone in the house had to have heard it, but the two people it was meant for just smiled in a vaguely condescending way, like they knew something I didn’t.
Like they could see into the future, and there wasn’t a single one in which I was able to stay away from Dominic White.
And as the memory of his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, continued to overshadow every single minute of my day, I had to wonder if maybe they were right.
13
DOMINIC
I wasn’t going to think about Selena Sinclair. Not her lips or her eyes or the way her body had fit against mine perfectly. I made sure I wouldn’t see her in the office by working from home on Monday, then coming in at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. I shut my door and worked with music blasting in my ears to ensure I wouldn’t hear her voice from Albert’s office. When I sensed someone in my doorway, my glare was so fierce I couldn’t temper it when I realized it was just Mrs. Flannigan. I pulled the wireless headphones from my ears and gave her my best imitation of a smile.