Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“January.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Calm and pleasant when I felt neither. “I need to go now.”
“Oh.” A suspicious pause. “Boss, are you feeling sick? You took your supplements, right?”
“I’ll be in touch later,” I said in lieu of an answer. Without taking my eyes off the man who’d turned my whole damn life on its head in less than a day, I disconnected the call.
Reagan and I stared at each other for a long moment as I slid my phone back into my pocket. I was dimly aware of McGee clambering onto the bus behind me, the shush as he closed the curtain that separated the driver’s area from the living area, the click click click of him fiddling with something on the dashboard before we departed. I knew he was probably waiting for me to take my seat since it wasn’t safe to stand while the bus was in motion, but I couldn’t make my body move. Half of me was ready to climb back down the steps and call this whole thing off.
Reagan straightened in his seat and lifted his chin in the air defiantly. “I don’t bite unless provoked.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Pardon?”
“You look terrified.” His wary expression shifted into a smirk. “Like you expected to find a cute little bunny waiting for you in the bus and instead found a rabid beaver who might tear you limb from limb. I thought it might help if I reassured you that I only bite if provoked.” He smiled slyly. “Or if asked really, really nicely.”
So many things were absurd about this statement—a rabid beaver?—I couldn’t decide where to begin. Most egregious first, I decided.
“Terrified? Of you? Hardly.” I tossed my coat and other belongings onto the sofa and casually slid into the booth opposite him to prove my point. “I’m pissed off.”
His mouth twisted. “So you weren’t about to run back into the building, Mr. Pennington?”
“Not at all,” I lied. I folded my hands together on the tabletop, knitting my fingers together against the urge to touch him. “I was just thinking you’re making quite a habit of turning up when I expect to find someone else, Mr. Wellbridge.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and for a brief moment, I felt like I’d scored a point in whatever strange game we were playing.
But then his voice, saccharine-sweet now, spoke again, evening the score. “Who, me? I just do as I’m told… sir. Like, if my boss’s assistant tells me to get on the bus, I get on the bus. And if a sexy stranger in a Roman mask tells me to come to his room and get naked, I—”
“Stop. Talking.” I glared at him, my breath coming too quickly. With just a few words, he’d taken me back to last night. To the ballroom, and the dancers, and the moment I’d spotted a pair of pouty lips beneath what I’d wrongly assumed was a distinctive feathered mask and had pictured them wrapped around my dick. “That’s… inappropriate.”
Reagan leaned back against the padded bench, those changeable eyes sizing me up from beneath half-closed lids. “You know, I sort of expected to be fired by now,” he said too casually. “Isn’t fraternizing against the rules?”
“Pennington Industries rules? No.” I’d confirmed it earlier today, just to be sure. “My rules? Yes. But if you think I’d fire someone for a consensual… occurrence… like the one we had last night, you don’t know me very well. And hell, even if I did want to, and even if there was a policy you’d violated, I’d hardly fire you when you could turn around and make a sexual harassment claim that could sue my company out of existence.” I gave a humorless laugh. “Congratulations. No employee at Pennington has job security like you do at this moment, including me.” I ran a hand over my jaw and the day’s worth of stubble I hadn’t bothered to shave. At the moment, I deeply regretted shaving my beard in the first place. “Frankly, I was expecting to get an angry call from your father or paperwork from his attorney today—”
“Ew.” Reagan’s lip curled. “If you think I’d tell my father… Jesus, literally anything ever, let alone the sordid details of our occurrence… then you don’t know me at all. I’m not planning to sue anyone. I just want to keep doing my job, even if it means embarking on the world’s least-scenic road trip as your boy Friday.”
The last bit was thrown out in challenge, like he assumed I was already mentally making plans to kick him off the bus.
He was absolutely right.
“Reagan, you must see that you can’t… we can’t, especially after…” I shook my head, annoyed at myself. “You’re not going,” I bit out. “There’s no way.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “You need a support person on this trip to coordinate with the PennCo PR team while you’re busy doing CEO stuff—or at least everyone seems to think you do—and I’m the most logical choice since I’m actually on the PennCo PR team, even if I happen to be at the very bottom of the food chain. If you pick someone from another subsidiary to replace me or, worse, say you’d rather go alone, people are going to wonder what’s wrong with me.” He lifted his chin. “They’re going to think I can’t do the work, which is bullshit because I absolutely can, or that you don’t like me, which is ridiculous because I’m a fucking delight. I want my Pennington employee file to show that I’m a dedicated employee and a team player, thank you very much.”