“What happens to the loser?” she asked interestedly. She liked the way that he had turned their work into a fun game.
“The loser buys dinner for the winner,” he smiled.
“That sounds like a good contest.” She grinned at him. “I’m in. When do we start?”
“Now,” he answered with a gleam in his eye.
“I get the bus driver and the Hendersons!” she announced adamantly.
“Done!” he grinned, pushing her file toward her. “I thought you might ask for that. They’re already in there. Let’s go. Game on!”
She jumped up from her desk and ran for her coat and purse, grabbing the file along the way and narrowing her eyes at the sight of Kyle’s back as he beat her to the elevators.
She sat in her car for a few minutes, sorting through her fourteen pages, putting all of the addresses into her GPS and arranging them so that they were in as much of a geographic linear line as she could get them. She didn’t want to lose time going back and forth. As soon as she had her map set, she put the car in gear and took off.
Two hours later, she sent him a text. “4.” She’d gotten four signatures in two hours, and she was pretty proud of herself. She wanted him to know it. He had stiff competition.
Half an hour later, he texted her back. “6.”
She felt her heart race, and she stepped on the gas and talked as quickly as she could to each house and business that she stopped at, trying not to rush her clients while still trying to beat Kyle. Jeremy signed it right away and thanked her sincerely for all that she had done. Two hours after she had seen Kyle’s last text, he sent her another one. “9.”
She replied with “9.”
They were tied. She hot-footed it as fast as she could go without speeding or running red lights, and without spending too much time talking to anyone, while still doing her best to make them feel like she was there to help them.
Three hours had passed since the last text. “11” she sent, hoping that she was ahead. It was another fifteen minutes before she heard from him. “10,” he answered. She was ahead. She squealed with delight and hurried on her way.
Another hour and a half later, she sent him her final text. “14.” She grinned at the number and the time stamp. She was certain that she had to have won, but she wanted to be sure.
Ten minutes later, he texted her back. “12. You win; I owe you dinner.”
Aleisha laughed with delight and drove back to the firm. She felt as if she was walking on sunshine when she strolled off of the elevators and into the office. She loved that he had made such a fun game of it and that they’d had a healthy competition that had not only gotten the job done fast, but had also seemed to lighten things between them.
She was just passing Grace’s desk as Grace chuckled at her and gave her a high five, when she happened to notice that Kyle’s office door was open. She heard his voice and stopped short. Taking a few steps over to his doorway, she looked in and saw him just getting off his phone. He grinned as he looked up at her, and she blinked in surprise.
“What are you doing here? How could you have beat me back to the office so fast? I thought you’d still be out getting your signatures.” She looked at him in confusion.
He stood up from his desk and walked toward her, sliding his hands into his pants pockets. “Oh, I drive fast. You know that. Anyway, good job on the challenge. You really nailed it today. Well done.” Kyle stopped a short distance from her, giving her his dazzling smile and making her stomach feel as if there were butterflies going wild in it.
“Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you for doing it that way.” She nodded and held the file out to him. “They’re all in there. Did you get all of your signatures?”
He took it from her and gave her a nod. “Yes, I did. Listen, I’ll take you out for dinner tomorrow night if you’re free,” he offered. “Since you won.”
She nodded. “Yes, that will work. Thank you. I’ll check with Julie to make sure she can stay longer with the kids.” Aleisha turned away and walked back to her office trying to figure out how he could have gone from twelve to fourteen and still have beaten her back to the office while losing. She was confounded by it, but she decided to let it go and just enjoy the treat of being the winner and being taken out for dinner with him.
When she got home that evening, Aleisha called her sister’s cell phone. It rang a few times, and finally, Rainy answered.
“Hi! Is everything okay?” she asked worriedly.
“Yeah, I guess everything is fine. I miss you, and I can’t wait for you to come back. Things are crazy here. I’m sorry to call you while you’re on international roaming minutes with your phone, but I need some advice.” Aleisha toyed with one of the buttons on her button-down shirt as she sat on the sofa.
“What’s going on?” Rainy asked curiously.
“It’s my new boss. You know I said he was really good looking… well, he’s also really amazing. Cara’s father had a stroke, and she had to rush out of town suddenly.” She began with the bigger things, hoping to somehow justify what she was thinking and feeling.
“Oh no! Honey, I’m so sorry. Gosh, and we weren’t there to help with the kids… um… who’s watching the kids? Are you working from home or something?” Rainy asked, trying to puzzle it all together in her mind.
“No, actually, the call came in while I was at work, and my boss, Kyle, brought me to the house and stayed with the kids while I went on an important appointment. Then he found one of the best nannies in the city and hired her to come in and start watching the kids the very next day. It’s been crazy. She’s amazing. I have no idea when Cara is going to come back, so this is really a life saver.” Aleisha sighed and turned to look out of the window to the city street below.
“Well, that’s good news. That was nice of him. What’s the problem?” Rainy asked, seeming to know already that there was a lot more to it than what Aleisha had told her.
“The problem is that I’m having a hard time keeping a level head about him. He’s just so… so nice, and he is taking really good care of me, and aside from you and grandma, I can’t remember the last time anyone took care of me. I’ve been doing most of it all on my own for so long, it’s just strange. I think… I hate to say this, but I feel like I’m developing a crush on him.” Aleisha could barely believe the words that had just come from her mouth. They sounded foreign to her ears.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Rainy stopped her right there. “Don’t you even talk like that! I don’t know what’s going on there, but you need to get your head back in the game right now. You have worked way too hard for way too long, like all of your life, to get where you are. The last thing you need right now, or at any time in the future, is to fall for a man who is in a position of authority over you. That’s just asking for trouble. No good is going to come of that! You need to let go of those kinds of crazy ideas right now. Do you hear me?” Rainy pulled her ‘older sister’ voice out and lambasted Aleisha with it.
“I know! I know…” Aleisha sighed miserably. “Believe me, I’ve told myself exactly the same thing, and I do know better, but I just can’t seem to stop thinking about him, and god help me, every time that man gets too near to me, it’s all I can do not to just reach out and kiss him.” She groaned and covered her eyes with her hand.
“You already know better. You didn’t need me to tell you anything; you just needed me to kick your butt back into the right place because you are way too swept up in romantic notions to kick your own butt back. This is not okay, Aleisha. This is not normal. You can’t do it. You need to hold all of those feelings back and get rid of them.
“They’re not going to do you any good, no matter how he responds to them. He might say yes to you and he might say no, but it doesn’t matter what he says because either one of those is only going to wind up bringing you trouble, and you know I’m right.” Rainy sounded more serious than she had in ages.
“Okay, sis. I know you’re right. We’re both thinking the
same thing here. I just need to get a hold of my emotions and control them. I can’t fall for my boss. Not even a little. Okay.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting the air out slowly. When she opened her eyes again, she decided to change the subject. The less she talked about him and thought about him, the better it was going to be. “How’s Mexico, and how are you and grandma doing?”
“Mexico is beautiful. The ship is really fancy; the water is gorgeous. We’ve see dolphins and whales and eaten everything in sight twice, and grandma won a dance contest on the ship. It’s like she’s twenty-five. I even caught her flirting with some of the older guys and the waiters. She’s on fire!” Rainy began to laugh, and Aleisha laughed with her.
“I’m so glad to hear that! Well, you keep having a great time. Bring me lots of pictures and stories. When are you coming home?” Aleisha was surprised that she wasn’t even sure how long they’d be gone.
“We’ll be home in a week.” Rainy answered.
“Good. I miss you. I can’t wait for you to come back. Have a fantastic time!” Aleisha bid her sister goodbye and thanked her for the helpful advice. She had already known it all, deep in her heart and at the back of her mind, but it was good to hear. The reassurance that she should keep her thoughts focused on business and let the growing attraction to her boss go was a big help.
She would go have dinner with Kyle the next night, and it wasn’t going to be a date.
Aleisha was just settling in for the evening with a glass of wine and a good book, curled up on the sofa with a thin blanket over her, when there was a knock at the door. She looked up at it in surprise and was still for a moment, wondering who would be coming over at such an hour.
With a sigh, she set her half-emptied glass of merlot on the table and laid her book face down. She pushed the blanket off and stood up, walking warily to the door.
She glanced through the peephole in her door to see who it was, and the moment her eye focused on her visitor, she hung her head down and groaned. Another knock sounded, more persistent than the first.
Reaching for the door handle, she turned it, pulled the door open as far as the width of her body, and planted her hand on her hip. Standing there before her was a man. He had on dark blue jeans and a jersey. He wore his black curled hair cropped close to his head with a ball cap over it. His skin was slightly darker than hers; his eyes were wide, framed with thick lashes, his nose wide, his lips full, and his neck and form broad -- though not all of it was muscle, much of it was extra weight.
“Hey, baby. I was hoping you were alone tonight so we could talk,” he began in a quiet voice, his eyes trained on her.
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Damien,” she told him unwaveringly.
He tilted his head to the side and slid his hands into his pockets partway, leaving them hanging halfway out as his voice took on a slightly whiney tone. “Yeah, we do, babe… we have a lot to talk about. Come on. You got someone in there tonight? Is that what it is?” he asked, scowling at the door as if anyone behind it other than himself shouldn’t be there.
“No, Damien, there’s no one here but the kids and me. I have to work tomorrow, and it’s already half past eight. It’s late. I need to get to sleep,” she stated firmly, keeping her eyes on him.
He took a step toward her, his big body filling the frame of the door. “Come on, let’s just talk for a few minutes, and then I’ll leave. I promise. I miss you, and I want to know how you’re doing, and how the kids are. I haven’t seen you in a minute, and I just need to stop by and see you. Come on, let me in. Just for a few. I won’t stay long.”
Aleisha knew that she was making a mistake. She knew that if she let him in, he would try to stay longer than a few minutes. She knew in the back of her mind that she was going to regret it, but something about his pleading tone touched her heart, and she relented with a heavy sigh.
“Alright,” she said quietly, “come in, but just for a few minutes, and then you’re going to have to go.” She meant it, and she gave him a sharp look that told him she meant it.
He nodded, and his forlorn expression turned almost immediately to one of happiness. He smiled wide and stepped through the door, closing it behind him and then reaching for her hands. He held them in his for a moment and looked her up and down slowly.
“You sure are looking good, baby. I don’t know what you’re doing, but whatever it is, you need to keep doing it, ‘cause it’s working. You’re smoking hot.” He grinned and nodded his head at her.
She rolled her eyes and looked away, but she did smile a little because it was nice to hear someone say something so flattering, especially when it was an ex-boyfriend. It was somewhere between ‘eat your heart out because you could have had this’ and ‘I’m so much better off without you,’ and it tasted good in her mind.
Aleisha was going to let go of his hands, but he pulled her toward him and nuzzled the side of her face, kissing her cheek. “Mmm, you smell good too, baby. Just like you always did. I remember this scent. It always makes me think of you, and it makes me miss you so bad.”
His voice was low and deep, and she felt an old familiar knot form in her lower belly as he spoke near her ear. She pulled away from him and took her seat on the sofa, regretting that she hadn’t sat in the armchair when he sat beside her and left almost no space between them.
“So, what you been up to, baby?” he asked, wrapping an arm around the back of the sofa and leaning in close to her.
She sat forward more toward the edge of the cushion and tried to put a little air in between them. “I’m working a lot, as usual, and raising the kids. That’s about it, really.”
She didn’t want to go into all of the specifics with him. He didn’t need to know that her grandmother and sister were on a cruise in Mexico, that the babies were nearly a year old, that she’d gotten a big promotion at work, and that she was wrestling with a serious crush on her new boss. No, she thought, he didn’t need to know any of that.
“How come you don’t call me no more?” Damien asked, reaching his hand up and running two of his fingers ever so lightly down the side of her arm. “You haven’t called me in a long time, and I wish you would. I miss you. We were good together.”
She frowned and turned to look over her shoulder at him. “It doesn’t matter if we were good together because you didn’t know if you wanted to stay together. We tried it, Damien. We did. I gave you a lot of my time, and you just couldn’t make up your mind if you wanted me or if you wanted to be single. You decided that a commitment to me and a family of our own just wasn’t important enough to you.
“That’s why I never call you. If I was worth something to you, you’d be sitting here right now as my husband and the father to my babies, not as someone I haven’t seen in ages. I don’t even know what you’re doing here!”
Ire had begun to rise in her. The soft light in the room shone on his dark skin, giving it a golden glow. She had spent what felt like eons looking at his face during all of the time they were together – sometimes when he was awake, and sometimes when he was sleeping beside her. Oftentimes imagining what their children would look like: if they would have his big eyes and thick lips or her high cheek bones and delicate facial features. She wondered if they would favor him more in build, or be more like her, or be some exotic and beautiful blend of them both.
She had wondered what kind of husband he would be; if he would be one who surprised her with unexpected bouquets of flowers and dinners out on the town, or if he would sit on the sofa with his feet on the dining room table on Sundays, watching football and yelling at the television. She wondered if he’d be the kind of dad who took his kids to the park and pushed them on the swing or read them bedtime stories, or if he’d be a weekend father, only there when he wasn’t working during the week.
She had wondered a great many things about him in their years together, but all of the things that she’d wondered all boiled down to one thing
, and that was if he was ever going to marry her and start a family with her.
“Baby,” he began in a velvet tone, leaning close to her, “I was just scared, that’s all. I’ve always loved you, you know that. I wanted to be with you; I just wanted to keep it like it was because I didn’t want to risk the future. It’s all unknown, you know… when we were together, we knew who we were and what we had.
“You wanted to change that, and I was just afraid to make any changes. It was so perfect for us that I didn’t want to risk anything. I didn’t want to take any chances. I was scared that I’d lose you and what we had, and then I ended up losing it all with you, anyway.”
She scowled at him. “Well, if you’d believed in us, we could have made it. If you’d wanted anything more than what we had, like I did, we could have been together for the rest of our lives and it would have been even better than it was, but you couldn’t see that. You couldn’t see what you had when you had it and that we had the potential to become even more and have such an incredible life!”
The Billionaire's Twin Fever (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 1) Page 9