Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
“Do you think that I would rip on Dan’s handling of the case, and praise you, if I ever intended to have that meeting with him tonight? Let alone write a book with the man?”
“And yet you took the meeting, Cat,” I say, not even sure why I’m still standing here with her. Why I care how she answers, I don’t know, but I do.
“Laying groundwork for the moment I declined an offer made by my present-day publisher, which is much like you walking away from a client mid-trial. It’s a big deal. But you know what? I don’t even care about the book anymore. I just want the respect of my readers following this case through my eyes and thoughts. Which means I shouldn’t be standing here with you right now, probably making a scene. I hate scenes.” She walks away.
I catch her arm again and guide her deeper into the lobby, toward the security booth. “Where are we going?” she demands.
“Someplace where you avoid your scene and I get my answers,” I say, giving the security guard a nod, and turning us down a hallway toward the private elevators I know well.
“I’ll leave,” Cat says. “Then there is no scene to avoid. And I’ve told you everything I have to tell. Stop walking. Reese, damn it, stop walking. There’s no one in this hallway anyway.”
“Not yet,” I say. “Not until I get us out of the eyes of the courtroom crowd.”
“Let go of my arm.”
I stop at the elevator bank and hit the button. “I’m not letting you go,” I say, walking her to stand in front of me as I step into her. “Not yet,” I add, the warmth of her body radiating into mine. “You haven’t told me everything you have to tell.”
“Just because you haven’t heard anything to justify your attitude, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t told you everything.”
“Have you, Cat?”
“Have I what?”
“Told me the truth?”
“Yes,” she says. “I have.”
“Make me believe it.”
“I don’t have to make you believe anything,” she says, her voice a little lower, a little raspier. The air between us is thicker, harder to breathe in, but then all I want to inhale right now is her sweet floral scent.
“But you want to,” I say.
“Yes,” she dares to admit. “I do. And I hate that I do. I shouldn’t care, because you’re—”
“I’m not an arrogant asshole.”
She studies me a moment, and I can feel a subtle softening of her body, see a warming in her eyes as she says, “Make me believe it,” and with that statement, she lets me know that she’s in this with me. That she still wants her one and done.
My lips curve and my cock hardens, pressing against my zipper when I want it pressing between her thighs. Holy hell. I’ve wanted those thighs wrapped around me from the moment this woman pissed me the fuck off in the coffee shop. It made no sense then. Nothing with this woman does, but it doesn’t have to. One and done.
The elevator dings and I hold on to her. I don’t want to let her go. I want to take her upstairs, when that is not a place I welcome women, not ever. And yet I brought her to this elevator. It’s a realization that has me releasing her arm, and not because I’ve changed my mind about my one and done. But because I want the control this woman has taken from me. She doesn’t get to hide behind my choices and my decisions.
“Come upstairs with me,” I say, and while the words are not a question, I back away and lean against the inner frame of the elevator, holding the door open, forcing her to make the next move. To change the dynamic with her actions. She stares at the car, not at me, seconds ticking by before her gaze finds mine, her green stare piercing. I arch a brow in question.
“What’s upstairs?”
“The top floors are residential. I own an apartment here.”
She laughs without humor. “I had a meeting with Dan in your building.”
“Yes. You did. And for the record, he knows I live here.”
“You thought I knew.” She doesn’t give me time to respond. “You thought—I didn’t know.”
I want to believe her. Too fucking much. I want to fuck her. Too fucking much. “Come upstairs with me, Cat.”
She answers by walking to me and joining me in the doorway, but she doesn’t touch me. She tilts her delicate little chin up, but there is nothing delicate about her will when her eyes once again meet mine, as she says, “I did not plot against you. I did not ever plan to write a book with Dan. I do, however, regret not texting you about this meeting, when you don’t deserve that regret right now. And I meant what I said. I really am going to bow out of this book deal. If you really don’t believe those things, I need to go home.”