Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Madison gets out, leaving the car running, and moves around to open the door facing the pavement.
“Will you both be going home, Sir?” he asks loud enough for Holly to hear.
“Yes, Madison. I think we will be,” I tell him in reply.
Almost gasping with relief when I see Holly spin on her feet.
The look of surprise on her face when she sees Madison is a man and not a piece of skirt I’m chasing around my desk.
The look of relief we both share once we realize it’s all just a big misunderstanding is all I need to see in her eyes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Holly
“Madison’s a man…,” I say again as if in a trance, for what must be the tenth time. I’m slowly beginning to feel the warmth of Steve’s huge arms around me in the back of his limo.
“Last time I looked,” he replies dryly, looking to his employer for the okay to have his say. Steve nods with a smile that I can feel filling the whole car.
“Least that’s why my husband married me,” Madison adds, holding up his hand to flash a gold wedding band.
Letting enough of his professional tone slip to tell me more than enough in one sentence that explains everything.
“Even if I wasn’t married,” Madison adds, “Steven Carter certainly isn’t my type,” he continues, sounding like he’s just getting started until Steve cuts him off, pushing the button to raise the privacy screen.
“Alright, Madison. How ‘bout you just drive us home already?” he asks, and I can feel his body shaking with gentle laughter before I get up the courage to even look up at him.
“I feel like such an idiot, Steve,” I truthfully confess because I do.
“Can you ever forgive me?” I sigh, feeling tears welling up inside me again.
But Steve’s answer, when he does it with his mouth on mine, makes everything alright again in a single moment. As if it never happened, and of course, as if I’ll never have anything to feel silly about because of it.
His body, hands, and mouth soon have me warmed through again, and I have to ask the most pressing question, apart from whether he can truly forgive me for being so bratty.
“Are you okay, though? I mean, what did the Doc say?” I ask him. Still kicking myself for running, but it’s done now.
Time to move on. And thank god he found me again.
“I’ll be fine,” he assures me. “I’m still a little blurry on some finer details. Accounts and numbers. Meetings I have coming up, that sort of thing. But it feels like each hour is bringing more of the old me back,” he says, stroking my face with his finger.
“I’m just glad I got you back,” he says. “All that other stuff can wait. We need to get you home and in a hot bath with something equally hot inside you,” he says deadpan, making me blush.
“I actually meant a hot meal,” he smiles. “But now that I think about it.”
He kisses me long and hard again, leaving no doubt in my mind which I’d prefer right now, even though I’m starving.
Crossing the city, I see a side I’ve only seen in movies or on TV.
The traffic’s lighter, and the cars all seem to look like the one we’re traveling in.
“Almost there,” Steve says, squeezing my hand with a knowing look. A look that tells me he’s as relieved to get home as I am to know I don’t have to go back to my crappy apartment.
Yeah, I can be tough, but hey. Why battle through life if there’s a more comfortable option?
And Steve’s way of thinking, his whole life seems way more comfortable than the rest of the evening I had planned if I’d kept running.
I still feel bad for all those things I thought about him, which were just my imagination.
My insecurities and anger.
They all melt like the flakes of snow on the heated windshield once we pull up out front of a huge, towering luxury apartment complex.
A doorman opens the side door, welcoming Mr. Carter home. An umbrella at the ready to keep off any stray flakes of snow from us both as he guides us to the building's gleaming brass and glass doors.
“Tell me you don’t own this, too,” I hear myself murmur, making him chuckle.
“Nah,” he says, making a face and ushering me into the waiting elevator.
“Just the top floor,” he adds, trying hard not to smile, but once again, he’s beaten me at my own game.
He could own the whole city block, and he’d still be the same man and the same guy deep down inside.
“You remember this, though, being home?” I ask, needing to know he really is feeling himself again.
“I remember home,” he says eagerly as the elevator pings, swishing open and revealing a view of the city like I could only dream of.