Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
We disconnect, and Lily appears in the doorway. “Have you signed yet?”
“Not yet, but my attorney said we just got the contract back. So, soon.”
“Yes! That’s what I’m talking about. I bought Godiva to celebrate.” The door chimes. “Darn it. Customer. But tell me when you ink the deal. We’ll open the box, and you can take the rest home with you.” She disappears into the store.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m trying to focus on a design and failing when the text pings on my phone. It’s ready. The contract is in my email. I pull up the document, and I sign. I’m barely breathing when I finish using the electronic program. Ten minutes later, Harper calls. “Congratulations! Maybe you’ll become the next Chanel.”
I laugh, nervous excitement bubbling from my lips. “Dream big, and then do the work, is what my mother used to say. I’m going to dream big.”
“I’m dreaming with you. And I’m here if you need me.”
Lily appears in the doorway, her eyes wide as she mouths, “You have a guest.”
Why is she acting that way? I cover the phone and whisper, “Can you please handle it?”
She shakes her head and points at me.
“Go take care of business,” Harper says, clearly hearing my communication. “Congratulations,” she adds warmly. “Call me if you need me or you want to talk.”
“Thank you,” I say, and disconnect, only to gasp as Lily disappears and Ethan fills my doorway.
Chapter Eleven
Sofia
Ethan is here, standing in my office, and I can barely breathe.
And Lord, help me, he’s so damn beautifully male that it’s impossible not to think about how perfectly the high-end fabric of his blue suit molds his tall, athletic frame. Or how good he looks naked, how dominant and hot he is when we’re naked together. Unbidden, I’m back in the hotel room with him, pressed to the beam next to the window, and I shove away the image. He might be the man who touched me with the skill of an artist holding a brush to canvas, but that was before he became my boss. Unless he’s here to tell me something went wrong and Moore’s is pulling my contract I’ve only just signed.
Somehow, I’m on my feet, my knees trembling with the very idea of this. “How are you here right now? Why are you here?”
Ethan steps further into the room and shuts the door, and my heart thunders in my chest. By the time he’s rounded my desk, I’ve turned to greet him, only remotely aware that my cotton dress is wrinkled and I’m not sure I’m wearing lipstick. Why is he here? That’s all I can think about until I know the answer.
For a moment, he’s stone, studying me, his eyes as unreadable as his handsome face, but I notice the disarray of his thick, dark hair, as if he fretted before coming here, as if his fingers dove into his hair, and his mind and body were as wild as mine feels right this moment.
“Are you cancelling the contract, Ethan?” I ask, desperate to know the truth.
“Of course not. We’re lucky to have you, and you’re the Zoey brand in our portfolio.” He runs his hands through his hair—just the way I imagined he did before he came here—before he closes the space between us and his hands come down on my face, tilting my gaze to his. “I swore I wouldn’t touch you until we talked, but damn it, Sofia, I can’t seem to help myself. I didn’t touch her. I don’t want her. I want you. I want to kiss you. I want a lot of things with you, Sofia, but if you tell me to let you go, if that’s what you want, I will.”
His touch is the fire that burns away the cold of my departure, but my emotions are jumbled, and I’m confused. My hands go to his waist and touching him reminds me how little control I have with him all over again. “I don’t know what I want with you, Ethan.”
“She showed up. She cornered me.”
“I saw you with her, and then you were gone,” I say, realizing now this detail has bothered me. “You didn’t come back to the room.”
“I met with her for all of ten minutes. She told me my brother is up to no good, and I believed her for one reason: she’s trying to save herself. I had to call Harper and meet her at the coffee shop next door.”
He was with Harper, not Anna. It takes me a moment to process what he’s telling me. “It was that bad?”
“Yes. It was that bad. He’s—it doesn’t matter. Or it does. I’ll tell you about it, but not now. Right now, this is about you and me.”
“There is no you and me, Ethan.” The words come out as a whisper, and then stronger, “It was a fling.”