Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Of course I’m going to accept.
Oh God. I really do suck.
“It could run pretty late,” he says with a wink, sweeping out of the office.
“We’ll see!” I call after him, but who am I kidding?
I’ll be counting the moments.
32
Tenley taps on her keyboard, a thoughtful look on her face. I keep looking over the screen of my laptop, wondering when she’ll break her concentration and look up at me.
She doesn’t.
I’ve got to give her credit, because the tension in the room is electric. And yet she’s still poised, intent on her work.
It’s sexy as hell.
Not to mention it’s distracting. But it’s not entirely her fault. Ever since last Friday, I’ve been thinking about things a lot. Rethinking my priorities.
Foster and Foster might be the best law firm in downtown Portland. But there are others. I have a ton of connections from Yale who’d jump to have me if I wanted. I have other options.
But more than that, if I want to be there for Jace—and it feels like I need to be—then putting in the hours of a partner is not what I need right now.
This might be fate.
Impatient, I look up at the clock. I’ve counting the moments, and I’m about to explode. Kurt the janitor was the only person still in the office, but I’m pretty sure even he’s left. I haven’t heard him whistling in the hallways in over an hour.
That means we’re alone. And since we’ve been working for a long time, I think we could use the tension breaker.
Tenley looks up from her laptop. “Okay, I just finished. Unless there is something else you’re working on, I think we’re through here.”
I shake my head slowly. “We’re not done.”
She gives me a curious look, all innocence. But she’s no idiot. She knows exactly what unfinished business we have. “What are you working on?”
Pushing my leather executive chair away from the table, I point to the carpet in front of me. “Close your laptop and come here.”
She gives me a doubtful look. “Brooks …”
“You know you want to.”
She looks out toward the hallway and bites her lower lip. “It doesn’t matter what I want. We’re at work. And the promotion—”
“Hey.” There’s that word again. The one I’ve been hearing constantly. It gets my blood boiling. I fix her with an intense stare. “I know you and I have been going hard at that partnership for months. But what about—for one night—if we just don’t? Frankly, Tenley, right now, I don’t give a shit about it.”
“Right now…” she repeats, as if I’ll change my mind the second I pull out of her.
That might have been me a month ago. But now? Things have shifted.
And I’m ready to accept that.
I smirk. “Fine. You want the partnership? You can have it. The only thing I want is you.”
The doubt on her face deepens, but I shrug and pull my laptop toward me. I dictate the email as I’m typing it. “Dear Partners. I have decided to respectfully bow out of the partnership promotion. Thank you for the opportunity, but let Tenley Bayliss have it, because not only is she an incredible attorney, but she also looks fan-fucking-tastic on my cock. Sincerely—”
She rolls her eyes, arms folded. “You’re so full of it.”
“And send.” I press the button and grin triumphantly. “Sent.”
Her mouth falls open. “You didn’t.”
“I did.” I spin the laptop toward her. “Come see for yourself.”
“You couldn’t have. About me on your—your—” She jumps to her feet and practically throws herself across the length of the table to have a look. Frantic, she reads what I’d written, her eyes darting back and forth.
“Okay, fine. I left out the part about you looking fantastic on my cock, even if it’s true. But I sent the rest of it.”
She eyes are wide. “I can’t believe you did that.”
I motion her forward. “Come here.”
I’m expecting sass—this is Tenley, after all—but I don’t get it. She nods, almost as if she has no other choice. It tells me she knows just what I want, and that she wants it too.
She snaps her laptop shut and slides from the chair across from me, then saunters toward me, standing next to the arm of my chair. There’s a sly little smile on her face, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m up to and is game to find out.
“Why would you do that?” she asks.
I spin to face her and stand. The momentum backs her up, so that her bottom brushes the edge of the table. There’s a strand of hair loose from her ponytail, and I pull it down, coiling it around my finger. “Oh. Did I not make myself clear before? I don’t want the job, I want you.”
Tenley squints, her head tilting. She doesn’t believe me. Which is fine. Talk is cheap. I’m more than happy to let my actions to the speaking from here on out …