by Holly Rayner
Still holding onto my hands, he swung me around like we were dancing. My back was facing the wall and Seth’s chest was at my eye level. He bent his head down so that we were eye to eye and then he said, “I should have kissed you, Erin. I’m going to kiss you right now to make up for it, as long as you don’t object.”
I thought about objecting, I really did. The words ran themselves across my brain but for some reason they didn’t reach my tongue or my lips. I was strangely okay with that. The only thing I wanted on my tongue or my lips at that moment were his tongue and his lips, so instead of speaking I tilted my head back further. Seth took a step forward and with his arm wrapped around my waist, he pressed my body against the wall. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and that fire he’d lit in my belly the night before was now burning hot in my chest. He leaned down and swiped his lips across mine. It was like he was testing me out to see if I was going to object. When I didn’t he brought them down again, this time to cover mine and I heard myself moan slightly as my lips fell open. He slid his hot tongue in between them and found mine. I felt his hand slide down and grip my backside and lift me up off my feet while we kissed. I was completely engulfed by this man I purported to hate and I loved it.
After several minutes he broke the kiss. We were staring at each other and panting, both of us wondering what the hell we were doing making out at work like a couple of teenagers no doubt. I thought he was going to pull back, but instead he took out the comb I had holding my hair up at the back and let it spill down across my shoulders. Then he wrapped his hand up in my curls and used them to position my head where he wanted it, and he kissed me again. The first kiss had been passionate; this one was erotic. By the time we came up for air again I was so satiated I felt like I’d had sex. As I struggled once more to catch my breath he said, “Wow. I knew I’d missed out by not kissing you last night but damned if I knew how much until now.” My plans to avoid or ignore were gone, just like that. I was staring at him, still trying to slow my breathing a full minute later. He finally grinned at me and said, “Are you okay?” I nodded. “Are you upset with me for kissing you here at work?” I shook my head. “Are you mad at me for disturbing your neat little bun?” I laughed.
“No,” I said at last. “None of the above. That was just…”
“The best kiss you ever had?”
Definitely. “I was going to say, unexpected.”
“Sometimes unexpected makes it sexier, don’t you think?” I could hear talking in the hall outside my door and suddenly remembered where I was at. I stepped around him and started twisting my hair back up into its bun. He watched me with those cool blue eyes and once I was satisfied that my hair was back in place he said, “I like you Erin, a lot. I’d like to see you, socially.”
I sat down behind the desk and said, “I’m just not sure that’s such a good idea, Seth.”
“Why?”
“Because of work, of course.” I wasn’t lying. It was all about work. He just didn’t know the depths of my intentions. “It’s not really appropriate, I guess is the word.”
He moved back around to the other side of my desk and sat down in the chair there. He gave me a serious look.
“Do you like me, Erin?”
“Of course I do, but…”
“Are you attracted to me?”
“Obviously I am, but…”
“Do you want what you do for a living and what others think of you to dictate your life?”
It always had. “No of course I don’t, but…”
“Then there are no buts.”
I laughed. He was at least not going to hear one out that was for sure. “What about the other executives? What about the employees? What is everyone going to think?”
“I don’t care,” he said, simply.
“Have you dated other employees here?” I’m not sure why I asked him that, it just came out. I had wondered about it. He seemed like a player to me, although I had no direct evidence of that.
He leaned forward onto the desk and said, “No Erin. I don’t date women who are employed by the company. At least I didn’t, until now.”
“Why would you change the way you do things all of a sudden?”
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“That’s it?” I said, with a little smile. “That’s all it takes to change your convictions?”
He laughed, “It wasn’t a conviction. It was a rule that I followed in order to protect myself and the company. I don’t want to be accused of sexual harassment someday and risk everything my father has worked for being taken away.” As soon as he said that my mind froze on that single sentence, “Everything my father worked for.”
“What makes you think I won’t take that from you?” I asked him, dead serious.
“I could be wrong, but I just don’t see you as that type. Besides, some people are worth the risk. I’ve never been so infatuated with a woman in such a short time. I have to explore that… if you’ll let me.”
The ice packed around my heart with the Hunters’ name engraved on it began to melt. I knew I was in big trouble but there was a part of me that still wanted to say getting close to him could be about helping my cause and if he ended up collateral damage then so be it. There was another part of me, an even bigger part that had no desire whatsoever to hurt this man. Everything I wanted to do to him and with him was just the opposite of hurt.
“So?” he said, after I had obviously been lost in my head for way too long.
Impulsively I said, “Do you ride horses?”
With a little confused chuckle he said, “Excuse me?”
“Do you ride?”
“Um… yeah, I mean of course I have… it’s been a while. Why?”
“I thought since tomorrow was Saturday and it was my turn to pick the date, I would take you horseback riding.”
“Your turn?” he said, with a slow smile. “I guess that means we’re dating then?”
“We’ll see how you do on a horse first,” I told him. “I’ll pick you up at nine a.m. Just write down your address for me. Then, you will need to leave my office. I have a ton of work to do and my boss is a tyrant.”
Seth picked up a pen and wrote down an address on one of my new business cards. He winked at me before he left the office. It never failed to amaze me how incredibly sexy I found his arrogance sometimes.
~
CHAPTER EIGHT
~
I went out to dinner with Grant that evening. I did my best to avoid the subject of Seth at all costs. We went to a cute little Basque French restaurant in SoHo and as they brought out way too much food one course at a time, we talked about Grant’s new love interest. Yes, it had only been a week since he’d broken up with the last girl, but that was my Grant.
“So what is this girls’ name?” I asked him between spicy bites of my curry chicken.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
I laughed, “Is it that bad?”
“You’re going to poke fun, but I really like this girl.”
“Okay, so we’ll put the name aside until I know more about her. What does she do?”
“She’s a waitress at La Boulogne.”
“You did not!”
“I did not, what?”
“You did not meet this girl the night that you took Bethany to that restaurant?”
“I may or may not have gotten her number after I tucked dear Bethany into a cab. I had to go back in for my jacket.”
“She saw you there with Bethany and she went ahead and gave you her number?”
“I told her it was a first date and it didn’t work out.”
“Oh my goodness. You are such a player.”
He grinned. For some reason that term didn’t hold negative connotations for men the way it did for women. “I really like her.”
“So you’ve been out… twice?”
“Sort of. The first “date” was just a cup of coffee on Sunday afternoon, and then on Thursday we had dinner.”
“Thursday? Wasn’t that the night you were… never mind.”
“The night I was giving you a hard time about Seth? Yes, that was the same night. I got home right before you did.”
“Oh, so how old is she?”
He grinned again. “You’re trying to steer me away from him. That means that you didn’t break it off, doesn’t it.”
“We were talking about… What was her name again?”
“I haven’t said.”
“Oh that’s right.”
“What is going on with you and the CEO?”
“Nothing. We haven’t been out since Thursday.”
“But, you’ve seen him at work. Did you tell him that you couldn’t see him?”
“I tried,” I said. It was true. It was a half-assed effort, but I had tried.
“You tried? What does that mean?”
“I told him it wasn’t a good idea that we saw each other.”
“And?”
“And he stated a very strong case in favor of it… sealing it with the most incredible kiss I’ve ever experienced.”
Grant rolled his eyes, “OMG!”
“Stop it. I like him, Grant.”
“And what happens when you crush his father to dust?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. What if he’s the one?”
“Wouldn’t that be ironic? You wait half your life for the chance to get your revenge on these people and you end up in love with one of them.”
“I’m not in love with him.”
“Yet. What happens if you are in love with him when all of your plans to take this company back come to fruition?”
“Once again, I’ll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. Besides, I’m not finding anything worthwhile the way I’m going about it. Maybe if I get close to Seth, I can find something out that way.”
“Ay yi yi,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I love you.”
I smiled. “I love you too. Thank you for letting it go.”
With a heavy sigh he ladled more vegetables onto his plate and said, “I can’t promise to let it go forever. If I see it affecting you in a negative way…”
I reached out and covered his hand with mine. “We’ll deal with that if and when we come to it, okay?” He nodded and I said, “So what’s her name?”
“Juniper.”
I tried not to smile. I know it was juvenile of me and it was just plain mean. A person can’t really help what their name is… of course I did change mine, so I’m assuming she could too… “Isn’t a Juniper like a bug or something?”
“It’s a plant!”
I lost my battle, I laughed. Grant gave in and laughed with me. I love spending time with him. Sometimes I worried when we both do get into relationships that I’d lose my best friend. I really hope not. I wouldn’t know what to do without him.
***
I was up bright and early the next morning. I showered and dressed in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved green t-shirt. People don’t realize when you’re a true red-head with green eyes, how hard it is to buy clothes. There are so many colors I can’t wear. Anything red or orange or pink is out. Most people have to match their clothes and shoes; I have to match mine with my hair. I wore a pair of short tan boots with a flat sole that would make getting in and out of the saddle easier. I pulled my wild hair back into simple ponytail and with more butterflies in my stomach than really had a right to be there, I left to pick up my date.
Seth lived on the upper west side of Manhattan. I wasn’t even a little bit surprised about that. I’d expected his address to be somewhere pricey. I pulled up in front of the townhouse and debated whether or not I should go up to the door. It was a huge place and I assumed his father lived there too. I still didn’t know if I was ready to come face to face with James. I took out my phone and started to send him a text. Right in the middle of it I decided that was not only rude, but slightly juvenile. Sucking up my apprehension, I got out of the car and stood there looking up at the five story Renaissance Revival style townhouse with its turrets and rounded windows. I thought about the house I’d grown up in. It was big, just like this one and if James and Seth Hunter weren’t living in this house right now, maybe I’d be living in mine. I tried to shake off that thought as I made my way up the steps towards the massive oak doors with the stained glass windows. I reminded myself that Seth had been a child at the time, just like I was. He didn’t steal my father’s company. He wasn’t guilty for the sins of his father.
I stood at the top of the stone steps wondering what the hell I was doing. I was about to knock on James Hunter’s front door. I must be insane. I turned and looked down the cozy tree-lined street. The houses were all big and wide and built in early 1900’s style. I wondered how long they had lived here. Did the money he made stealing my legacy buy this place for him. As I stood there letting my mind run off on a tangent, I heard the door open behind me. Sucking in a breath and praying it wouldn’t be James, I turned around. There was a woman standing there in a freshly starched gray and white dress.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
“Yes, I was looking for Mr. Hunter,” I said, quickly adding, “Seth.”
“Yes, Mr. Seth is here. Can I tell him who is calling?”
“Erin,” I said. She continued to stare at me so I said, “Summers. Erin Summers. He should be expecting me.”
“Please come in,” she said, stepping back to allow me to enter the gold and black marble tiled foyer. The ceiling stretched up about thirty feet and a heavy crystal chandelier hung in the center of it. A staircase with a heavy oak banister spiraled up five stories just to the right of us. Everything was so clean and polished that it shone so brightly it almost hurt to look at it. “I’ll be right back,” she said. She disappeared down the long hall and while I was alone, I took the opportunity to look around at the artwork on the walls. The paintings looked to all be originals and some of them were Monet’s. The whole place reeked of money. Some of it had to be old money I assumed. Even in its heyday, my father’s business couldn’t have sustained all of this alone.
“Hello, Erin.” I turned towards the voice and saw Seth coming towards me. I was glad that I didn’t have heart trouble because the sight of him in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt might be enough to kill a woman with a weakened heart. His biceps bulged out underneath the short sleeves of the shirt and the jeans emphasized his long, muscular legs. He also had on a pair of black boots. He looked like a demi-God. He was gorgeous. It was really no wonder that he was so full of himself.
“Hi Seth. Are you ready?”
“I am,” he said, grabbing a black denim jacket out of a closet near the front door.
He reached over and opened the door for me and I stepped out, sucking in a lungful of the fragrant spring air. I felt like I’d been holding my breath the entire time I was in there, waiting for James to appear. “Do you live in this big old house alone?” I asked him, on the way down the steps.
“No. My father lives here too, sometimes. It’s a family house. He stays where he feels like it. I should get my own place, I know. But, we hardly ever even run into each other. I have the entire second floor to myself and Dad and I aren’t home at the same time a lot so I stay.”
“It’s a beautiful home,” I told him.
“Thanks. My mother decorated it herself. She was really into decorating. We haven’t changed anything since she passed away. I suppose some of it may be outdated, but it’s nice sitting on the things she picked out or seeing a painting on the wall that she loved.” I knew how he felt. I wish I had been able to keep more of my parents’ things to remember them by. Once we were inside the car he said, “So where are we going?”
“Pelham Bay Park,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow, “In the Bronx?”
“Yes. Is Mr. Upper West Side too good for the Bronx?”
“Stop it,” he said with a smile. “I’m not a snob. I just haven’t been to the Bronx in a really long time. Not be
cause I’m too good,” he said with a smile. “I just haven’t had reason to go, I suppose.”
“Well today you are going and you’re going to love it.” As we drove I decided I was going to try and gently coax information out of him to make myself at least feel a little better about dating the enemy’s son. “So, when I was doing my research on Hunter Corp, the history only goes back about eleven years. What did your father do before that?” I could see an almost imperceptible change in his posture out of the corner of my eye. The mention of his father made him sit up straighter… stiffer in his posture and more serious in his expressions.