by Ivy Nelson
“Do you need me to come with you,” she asked, stifling a yawn.
“Nope. I do need to come back and find you sleeping in my bed so I can wake you up and fuck you senseless again.”
Her blush was deep and instant. He pressed a hard kiss to her lips and hurried down the hall to his home office where he quickly got China on the line.
When his call was done, he stayed in his office for a little while thinking about what to do with the sleeping beauty down the hall. He was her boss, and he’d just had some of the best sex of his life with her.
The contract they both signed said she couldn’t quit for six months but he wasn’t totally comfortable dating an employee. Something told him she was worth it though.
With a sigh, he poured a glass of scotch and downed it. There was no point worrying about it tonight. Not when she was naked in his bed.
Wandering back to the bedroom, he stripped off his lounge pants. Holly was sleeping peacefully but the very sight of her angelic face laying on his pillow sent his cock stiff again.
Climbing into bed with her, he pulled her close and nuzzled her neck until she stirred. When she was awake enough to acknowledge him, he asked, “Is it alright if I bury myself in you again?”
To his surprise, she turned in his arms and grasped his cock, stroking up and down seductively. “Please,” she begged. Needing no further encouragement, he rolled on a condom and nudged her legs apart so he could sink into her slickness once more. This time, he went at a slow and steady pace, taking time to milk two more orgasms out of her before he let himself go. Instead of the frenzied grabbing and fucking from earlier, there was lots of gentle kissing and caressing. When they were both spent, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Chapter Sixteen
The conference table was set with binders for each member of the marketing team. Holly turned to her easel to make sure each of the posters were in the right order. It was her first solo meeting to discuss the new project Elijah had placed her in charge of.
One week had passed since her first date with Elijah and they had spent nearly every night together since. Her father was asking questions about why she was never home and so was Grant. Daddy was easy to deal with, but Grant was calling constantly to ask if she wanted to do lunch or dinner. Of course, she kept turning him down. She just wasn’t sure if or how she could tell Elijah.
Grant wasn’t doing anything wrong and he didn’t know she was seeing someone. But since she didn’t have the guts to tell him, she just kept putting him off, claiming to be busy at work.
She squared her shoulders and told herself to think about all that later. Her meeting started in fifteen minutes and she needed to focus. As she was settling in at the head of the large conference table, her phone buzzed to indicate a text.
Come to my office before your meeting please.
Holly hated leaving so close to the meeting, but she knew he wouldn’t interrupt her without a good reason, so she left her binder and sprinted down the hall to his office.
Pushing the door open she poked her head in. “What’s up? I have that meeting in ten minutes.”
Elijah grinned and strode to the door, pulling her inside. “I know. That’s why I called you in here. You don’t wait in the conference room for them. You show up five minutes late and keep them waiting.” When his office door was closed, Elijah pulled her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers.
“But really, I just wanted a kiss,” he said when he pulled away.
Holly scowled. “You promised to be professional at work, Elijah.”
He laughed. “I’m being very professional. I’ve even got my tie on,” he teased. “But I was serious about the meeting. It’s not a good look for the owner’s assistant to have enough time on her hands to show up to a meeting fifteen minutes early. We’re busy people up here, baby,” he said with a wink.
Holly gave up trying to reason with him and sagged against his chest. “I’m nervous,” she admitted as she relished the feel of his hand sliding down her back.
“You’ll do fine. I believe in you.”
“I’m more nervous about other things.”
Elijah stepped away with a concerned expression. “What’s going on?”
“It’s my dad. He’s asking about why I’m never home. He wants to have lunch or dinner soon and I know he’s going to grill me about work. I don’t know how to avoid these kinds of topics.”
Elijah nodded. “As far as work is concerned, just tell him the truth. You signed an NDA and there’s only so much you can talk about. If you don’t want him to know about us—and I don’t blame you—just tell him we’ve been traveling for business a lot.”
Holly nodded. She knew he would have a reasonable answer. Now she just had to figure out what to do about Grant.
“OK. Can I have another kiss before I go back in there?” she asked, hating that she already craved his touch as much as she did.
Elijah’s gaze clouded with lust as he gripped her hair at the nape of her neck, something he’d taken to doing on their second night together. As he tugged, he covered her mouth with his in a rough, wet kiss. Her lipstick was going to be smudged.
When he pulled away, she saw her lipstick on the corners of his mouth, and it made her giggle. That is, until he caught her completely off guard by walking to his desk and pulling out a tube of the exact lipstick she used every day.
“There,” he said as he passed her the makeup. “Now you’ll have to be five minutes late so you can fix your lips.”
“Clever bastard,” she muttered as she took the small tube and made her way to his private bathroom.
Elijah followed her and stood in the doorway. “I heard that you know. If you were my submissive, I would spank you for calling me that.”
Holly blushed and avoided his gaze in the mirror. Spanking was another thing he’d been bringing up this week. Part of his kinky sex education. So far only threats, no carry through, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Without responding to his threat, she quickly fixed her lipstick and smoothed her hair. “I have to go. I’m more than five minutes late now.”
“Tell them Mr. Barrett was being a pain in the ass. They’ll appreciate it and feel like they can relate to you,” he said as she brushed past him on her way to the door.
Holly giggled as her hand reached for the knob. “I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Barrett, Sir.”
Elijah was on her in a second. “Looking to see if I’ll follow through on my threats to turn your ass red, baby? Because I will. Call me Sir one more time and see what happens.”
Holly swallowed as a rush of heat flooded her core. Standing on her tip toes she pressed a kiss to his cheek and said, “I’m running late, Elijah. I’ll see you when I’m done.”
As she walked out the door on now shaky legs, she could hear Elijah laughing.
By the time she got back to the conference room, she felt relatively composed enough to talk about marketing campaigns to sell diamonds and raise money for charity at the same time.
“Sorry I’m late everyone. Mr. Barrett can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”
The chuckles she got from her audience made her grateful for Elijah’s silly advice.
The hour-long meeting flew by in a flurry of brainstorming and questions as Holly outlined her vision for the advertising campaign. While everyone was receptive to her ideas, she couldn’t help but feel like they were uncomfortable around her.
“Does this new approach have anything to do with the ad campaign Sutton Jewelry is running?” one man asked.
Holly shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.” Really though, she had no idea if that’s why.
“What about the FTC petition Mr. Barrett recently filed that would allow his diamonds to be marketed as real just like any other diamond?” asked a second team member.
Holly cleared her throat. “I think that falls outside the scope of this meeting, but an FTC petition should have no bearing on what we do for this
ad campaign.”
Luckily, Holly was trained in the art of bullshit and had been able to cover for not knowing what the hell they had been talking about.
When the meeting was over, Holly lingered in the conference room. Overall, the meeting had gone well but she couldn’t help but feel like there was a lot Elijah wasn’t telling her, and she didn’t know how to ask him about it. Despite the fact that they were sharing a bed almost nightly, he wasn’t obligated to tell her anything he didn’t think she needed to know.
She was so deep in thought, she didn’t realize she had kicked the table to propel herself around in circles in the comfy office chair.
“You are by far the most adorable assistant I’ve ever had.” Elijah’s deep voice startled her, and she whirled the chair around to the door, but it kept going and she barely caught a glimpse of him leaning in the door.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked when she got the chair stopped and facing him.
“Long enough to know you’re deep in thought. What’s on your mind?” With long, purposeful strides, he closed the gap between them and sat in the chair next to hers.
Holly looked around anxiously. The conference room walls were mostly glass.
Relax, Holly. I’m not going to lay you out on the table.” Looking around, he leaned in close and whispered, “At least not during business hours.”
“Elijah!” Holly exclaimed, kicking at his chair. “I don’t think that counts as being professional.”
Elijah flashed her a thousand-watt smile before he sobered again. “Seriously, baby, what’s on your mind?”
Holly took a deep breath. “It just feels like you’re still keeping things from me and it’s making it harder to do my job.”
Elijah frowned. “Like what? I’m not sure I follow.”
Holly told him about being ambushed by the ad campaign her father was running as well as the FTC petition. She also brought up the feeling she’d had since coming to work for him that she was missing something. Elijah listened intently, never interrupting or trying to explain himself. Holly appreciated that.
When she was finished, Elijah leaned back in the chair and said, “You’re right. I probably should have told you about the ad campaign and the petition. I’ll get you all that information today. There are a lot of things I haven’t told you yet. But that’s because I would rather you do the job without all my bullshit hanging over your head. I come with a lot of baggage and if you can do the job without wading into that disaster area that’s even better.”
Holly wanted to be satisfied with that answer. Since she wasn’t, she just gave him a smile and stood to clean up the conference room. Elijah stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.
“Stop. This is the sort of thing we have interns for. Did you set all this up yourself too?”
Holly nodded and Elijah scowled. “That is a waste of my assistants time. Learn how to delegate.” His tone was demanding, and his gaze bored into her, causing her to squirm. But she made herself look at it from his point of view. They paid interns to do the more menial tasks and he paid her to look at the bigger picture and make his life easier. Running around trying to do everything herself wasn’t going to accomplish that.
“You’re right. I didn’t have interns at the Sutton Foundation. I practically was the intern. I’ll be more mindful in the future.”
“God. I just want to take you home and fuck the worry out of you. I can still hear it in your voice, Holly.”
Her head dipped. If she couldn’t convince herself that she bought his answer of course she wouldn’t be able to convince him. But thoughts of him fucking her pushed the worry to the edges of her mind and she said, “Speaking of fucking, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
He raised an eyebrow and folded his arms. “I’m listening.”
“I want to go back to Solitaire.”
Elijah relaxed his arms and picked up one of her hands. “Are you sure? You kinda flipped out on me last time.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “I didn’t flip out. I got overwhelmed. I’m positive I want to go back. Just… not on a night when Patrick will be there. I’m not ready for that.”
Elijah chuckled. “I don’t know that I’m ready either, but he likes to show up even on nights he’s not scheduled. I don’t exactly know how to tell him to stay away so I can give his sister another tour.”
Holly blanched at the thought of Elijah having that conversation with Patrick. “OK. You’re right, I’ll talk to Patrick. It will be easier coming from me.”
Elijah seemed skeptical but didn’t object. But if things were going to progress between them, it was a conversation that needed to happen. Even with the secrets he still seemed to hide, she really wanted to explore this relationship.
Wanting to lighten the mood, she said, “I should really get back to my office so my pain in the ass boss doesn’t fire me.”
Elijah grinned. “Sounds like a real bastard.”
His expression sobered a bit and he asked, “Will you come home with me tonight?”
Holly nodded. She should really go home but being in Elijah’s bed was so much more satisfying.
Back in her office, Holly noticed her alerts were lit up on her desktop. Clicking, she noticed it was a headline alert about Elijah. She’d set up her browser apps to alert her anytime new headlines about him or his company popped up. She wasn’t aware of anything happening right now that should land him in the news, so she clicked to make sure it wasn’t important. It was a link to a tabloid link so probably just billionaire gossip.
Holly’s hand flew to her mouth when dozens of pictures filled her screen.
Pressing the intercom, she said, “Elijah? You might want to come in here.”
Her phone rang before he could answer. “Elijah Barrett’s office, Holly speaking.”
“Miss Sutton, is Mr. Barrett available? This is Jacob Lester downstairs in PR. We might have a bit of a problem on our hands.”
Elijah appeared in her doorway and she motioned him in.
“I think I know exactly what you mean. The Lifestyle Reporter?
“You’ve seen the pictures then. We’ll want to get on top of this right away if we don’t want Mr. Barrett’s business interests to suffer.”
Holly turned her monitor so Elijah could read the splashy headline.
Is the Barrett-Sutton Feud Over, or are they Romeo and Juliet?
“Mr. Barrett just walked into my office. I’ll need to call you back,” Holly said.
“That was PR. They’ve already seen these.”
On the screen were dozens of pictures of Elijah and Holly from the past week on various dates. There was even a fuzzy image of what looked like Holly leaving Elijah’s house early one morning.
Elijah cursed under his breath and ran a hand down Holly’s hair. “I’m sorry. I should have known this was going to happen. Can you do me a favor and not read any of this crap? They’re going to say some pretty nasty things about both of us and none of it is going to be true.”
Holly stared up at him. “What do we do? I feel like we should try to avoid being seen together.”
Elijah glared down at her. “Fuck that. We’re not hiding just because a tabloid wants to write salacious bullshit about us.”
Holly looked back at her screen. “What do they mean, the Barrett-Sutton feud?”
Elijah blew out a deep breath. “I don’t know if I should tell you. I need to talk to Patrick.”
It was Holly’s turn to glare. “What does Patrick have to do with this? I’m tired of being in the dark.”
Elijah cupped her cheek gently, but she could feel the anger radiating off of him. “Please, Holly, just trust me on this. I’ll tell you everything I can in good time. For now, I’m going to set you up with a different vehicle. I would rather just give you a driver, but I know you like driving.”
Holly smiled. He was thoughtful. “I appreciate the thought, but I don’t mind having a driver in this situation.”
E
lijah’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Thank you. And maybe a trip to Solitaire would be best. Gets us out of the city while we strategize. It means seeing Patrick there though.”
Holly sighed. “I’ll deal with it.”
Leaning down, he pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Let’s go see how PR wants to handle this then.”
Chapter Seventeen
Elijah stared at the story in the Hollywood Chronicle and cursed again. This was not how he needed Holly to find out the truth about their mothers. For the half dozenth time, he picked up his phone to call Patrick. Each time, he chickened out and put the phone down.
Holly agreed not to call him yet but remained confused as to why. He despised keeping her in the dark.
His phone rang. It was his lawyer, Jeremy Stockton.
“Jeremy, this needs to be important, I have a lot on my plate right now.”
“You’re about to have a lot more,” the lawyer said.
Elijah sat up straighter. “I’m listening.”
“The word down at the courthouse is that the Sutton Foundation is filing a lawsuit on Monday against you and Holly.”
Elijah felt his face warm with rage. “For what possible reason?”
“Did you put Holly in charge of some charity thing to do with the diamonds?”
Elijah scratched at his neck as he stood to pace. “Yes. I thought her experience would lend itself to a new campaign I wanted to run.”
Jeremy whistled into the phone. “OK. It’s not a huge deal but a Mr. Troy Wilson is claiming she signed a non-compete clause and by working on this for you she’s in violation of it.”
“Since when does a fucking nonprofit have a non-compete clause?”
Jeremy laughed. “That’s what I said. This is just a source I’ve got that reached out to me. We’ll find out on Monday how much truth there is to it. It sounds like something I can get thrown out. It also sounds like something they’re using to tie up resources you could direct to winning the FTC petition.”