by Ava Claire
Everyone turned to me. Natasha’s annoyance was aimed at me, and on full blast. Angelique looked grateful and more than a tiny bit perturbed by the fact that she was being treated like a trespasser, even if she technically was. Frank looked dejected because his services weren’t required.
“I forgot to mention that Angelique Entoine was coming in for a consultation.” The lie slipped off my tongue a little easier than it should have. I was still pinching myself because she was standing a few feet from me.
Geez, Lay. Didn’t you learn anything from the Cade fiasco? Publicist first, fan second.
I rolled back my shoulders and dusted off the front of my blazer, trying to seem professional even though I was wearing no shoes and five seconds ago, I almost asked for an autograph. “Shall we, Angelique?”
“Absolutely!” she answered smoothly. She scooped up her shoes with no concern for modesty. Frank was a perfect gentleman and looked away, blushing beet red. He bid us all farewell and shuffled back to the elevator. Natasha lingered, slowly chopping a hand through her bobbed white blonde hair, eyes narrowed in skepticism.
“You should get back to the pressing matters you mentioned earlier,” I told Natasha, as sweet as can be.
She scoffed and stomped back in the direction of her desk.
I led the way into my office, awkwardly shutting the door behind us and offering Angelique a seat. “Can I get you something to drink?” I cringed when I realized all I had to offer was room temperature ginger ale and bottled water. “I don’t have any ice. I could ask Natasha to grab some?”
“As much as I’d love to inconvenience that horrible woman, ice is an American thing,” Angelique replied with a smirk.
I started opening drawers and cubbies on my cube bookshelf, when I realized that I didn’t even have a lukewarm beverage to offer her.
“Mrs. Whitmore, please have a seat,” Angelique urged. “My mother would beat me over the head if she knew a woman in your condition was waiting on me.” She pivoted back to the door. “What would you like to drink, ma chère?”
Taken aback and flattered to have a client ask me what I wanted for once, I answered, “Uh, a sparkling water would be awesome.”
‘A client’. I made my way to my desk and dropped into my chair with a chuckle. I was definitely hoping she intended to ask us to represent her. Why else would she barrel her way up to the executive floor?
I tried to play my cards close to the chest, but she didn’t make it easy when she breezed back into the room, sparkling waters in tow, including a glass of ice for yours truly. She even poured the drink for me.
I thanked her and took a sip to calm my nerves before I spoke. I had a million questions to ask her. About the movie. About her. I stuck to the question that brought her here.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Entoine?”
“Please, call me Ang.” She unscrewed her bottle and took a swig or two before she draped herself in the seat in front of my desk and crossed her legs with a demure smile. “Can I just say, it is such a treat to finally meet you! Cinderella in the flesh.”
Heat tingled in my cheeks as I busied myself with folders, letting out a clipped giggle. “Me? I’m just a publicist.”
“Oh, you are too modest, Mrs. Whitmore!” she continued, her face lighting up like I was the celebrity. “I’ve followed your career from the start. Anyone that can represent someone as heinous as Rachel Laraby, and with such poise, is someone worth watching.”
I’d almost taken another sip but I was glad I hadn’t because I was pretty sure I would have choked. “You know Rachel?”
Angelique flicked her nude nails through her locks and nodded in a way that told me she knew ‘America’s Sweetheart’ all too well. “A few years ago I was her understudy when she was going through her theatre phase.” Her eyes flashed unpleasantly. “She was as insufferable then as she is now. And what she tried to do to you and your husband.” Angelique made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and let out a flurry of words in French that I was sure would have been bleeped out if we were on air. “No class, no humanity exists in that woman.”
I could have vented about Rachel Laraby for hours, but I settled for just sighing and making a face. “On that we are agreed.” An awkward silence passed between us and I rushed to fill it with the question that had brought us together. “So, what can I do for you? If your reviews and the magazines that fill the newsstand are any indicator, you don’t have an image problem.” I was definitely showing my hand with my tone and the fact that I could barely sit still, but I couldn’t help myself. I put it all out there. “Are you looking for representation?”
“I am,” she confirmed with a toothy grin. “You are right, no public bumps in the road and with Whitmore and Creighton’s help, I’d like it to stay that way.”
Her enthusiasm was contagious and I clapped my hands together with glee. “Fantastic! I thought you were incredible in Train. You will make an amazing addition to the Whitmore and Creighton family!”
She took a gulp of water and put her bottled down with a clunk, like she was putting her stamp of approval on some invisible contract. “I do have one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to represent me.”
If my jaw wasn’t attached, it would have hit the floor. “I’m so flattered, Ms. Entoine-”
“Ang,” she corrected with a wink. “If you’re going to make my right hand woman, I think we can dispense with the stuffy formalities.”
“You’re the client!” I smiled, leaning forward, hand outstretched. “You can call me Leila.”
“Leila,” she repeated, her smile broadening. “I can tell this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”
Chapter Four
“So, this is what 'easing back into work' looks like.”
Usually, biting, sarcasm-tinged comments from my husband made me pause, blush, then throw a comeback his way that would make his blue eyes sparkle with equal measures of annoyance and amusement. Tonight was an exception to the rule. I was fresh out of comebacks and way too engrossed in the jam-packed week ahead to do much more than grunt and finish the email I was sending to one of our contacts at GMA.
The high of being back at work was too much to turn off like a faucet. With Angelique added to the docket of clients I was personally managing, a fashion show in two days for a designer I was assisting, a junket in LA next week that I was managing remotely, and the fact that I was surrounded by takeout containers and decaf mochas that I pretended were the real deal, I didn't even have the energy to lift my eyes from the computer screen.
And that to-do list didn’t account for my off the clock duties. Megan had been lighting up my phone all day with questions about the baby shower and my preferences on the schedule of events. You’d think it was a sweeping gala instead of a small, intimate affair with us, my mom, and Alicia with all the bells and whistles she had planned.
My fingers froze on the keyboard, my eyes widening. Surprisingly, it wasn’t because my calendar for the next month would make any sane person certifiable.
“The baby shower is tomorrow!” I massaged my temple, like that would do anything for the ache that had taken root a few hours ago.
Natasha and I had continued our confrontation from this morning. I'd approached her with a list of numbers to call since my assistant, Jessa, was off this week for her sister's wedding. Jessa had been so terrified that she'd stammered her way through her request, qualifying it by telling me she understood if I needed her and the schedule was too hectic. I must have been high on baby hormones and the lure of ukuleles because I'd stopped Jessa short of offering her first born and told her that it was fine. In fact, I told her that squeezing a trip to Seattle to celebrate her sister and visit her family into a weekend was unnecessary. I was the one that insisted that she take off the entire weekend.
In hindsight, dealing with Natasha's exaggerated sighs and the angry keyboard tapping that followed me back to my office was a high p
rice to pay in my efforts to be the Best Boss Ever. And now that I was looking at my day tomorrow, a day that I hoped would be more than thrilling than stressful, my money was on the latter.
The massaging was just intensifying the ache. It was officially a dull, probing thing that set my nerves on edge. “I think I need another vacation.”
“Just say the word and I’ll call Scott and give him our ETA.”
The words on my computer screen blurred as I rubbed my eyes, a little awed that Jacob was being 100% serious. Just like that, we could be wheels up and headed somewhere warm and tropical. A new island. Hell, maybe even our own island. This voyeuristic, on the outside looking in feeling, would never fade. I would forever be in slack jawed disbelief that this was my life, billionaire husband, deadlines, arch-nemesis secretary and all.
It was hard to fathom that a few minutes ago I’d attacked my to-do list like a woman hungry for the challenge. Making all the pieces fit felt like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube, twisting my schedule and skimming the free time I had to make it all fit.
I swiveled away from the computer with a groan, hoping a few minutes out of sight could ease my mind. I met Jacob’s concerned gaze and flashed him a weary smile. “I appreciate the offer, but leaving would probably make me even more stressed out. Wishful thinking, I suppose,” I mused, eyeballing the new addition to my desk. Multicolored porcelain flowers hugged a picture of Jacob and I in kukui nut leis, white teethed happiness flowing from the frame. Looking back, I finally understood why Jacob nudged me whenever we were sightseeing and I was half paying attention. I longed for the nights I’d been too preoccupied to shut off Leila Whitmore, PR extraordinaire, and missed my own vacation. Now, I was reaping what I’d sown. “What I need is another Leila.”
Jacob’s look of disbelief told me he wasn’t onboard with the whole Leila clone thing. “Another Leila? I don’t think the world could handle that.”
I lassoed a rubber band I’d been moments away from using to tame my hair and flung it at Jacob instead.
It barely made it past my desk, but he growled at me nonetheless. “I just offered to sweep you away, shared a simple observation, and you’re launching projectiles at me.” He pulled out the chair in front of my desk and eased his tall, muscular frame into the cushion with a heavy sigh. “I guess the honeymoon is over, huh?”
His playfulness put everything else that was bothering me on the back burner. Jacob Whitmore didn’t joke, and when he did, it was worth pausing and taking notice. After his greeting, complete with sarcastic thorns, I’d expected a lecture. A not-so-gentle reminder that while I was fine, and the baby was fine, the doctor still insisted not to to overdo it, just to be safe.
But Jacob’s smirk told me he wasn’t on the warpath, or there to scold me. That twinkle, paired with a perfectly timed joke no less, meant he was happy.
“You’ve got jokes,” I grinned, leaning back in my seat and welcoming the gentle, kneading sensation that massaged the kinks in my lower back. “Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?”
“Oh, I wasn’t joking.” His smile turned dangerous, the tilt of his lips telling me that our conversation was headed toward erotic territory. “I can barely handle one of you. Two of you...” He trailed off, licking his lips suggestively. “Two of you would mean I’d get quite the workout.”
“Is that right?” I mused, bringing a hand up to cradle my chin. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Whitmore, but it sounds like you’re more than willing to accept that challenge.” I met his gaze, the blue swirling with lust that matched my own. “Too bad I don’t like sharing.”
He tugged his tie loose, his jaw sharp and unyielding. To the rest of the world, his intensity built an impenetrable wall that very few had the balls to try and approach. Scaling it to see what was underneath those fierce lines? Madness. But I’d been losing my mind, and my own insecurities, bit by bit from the moment we met. I not only wanted to play with the fire in his eyes, but I wanted to dance in the flames.
“I don’t like sharing either.” He lounged in my seat as effortlessly as some sexy spread in a magazine come to life. He should have been untouchable. Too good to be true. I knew better, though. Believe the hype, because Jacob Whitmore was pure ecstasy in the flesh. “You know what else I don’t like?”
I brought a hand to my mouth, chewing on my thumbnail as my body screamed, ‘Tell me! Then bend me over and fuck me until it’s seared in my flesh.’ Smiling on the inside, I coyly stole a look in his direction and shook my head. I knew exactly what I was doing, foregoing a verbal answer. His eyes flashed, just like I knew they would. He pulled himself upright and even though I was in the chair behind the desk, he set the record straight in a single, fluid motion, turning his seat into a throne.
“For starters, I don’t like it when you answer me in nods and head ticks when I ask you a question.” He rose to his feet and even if I wanted to, his energy, wouldn’t be denied. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
It had been hours since I flicked on my desk light because the sun had set on the city. I knew I looked like I was on the other end of a long day. The hairspray I’d doused my curly hair in to keep it in check had clocked out around lunchtime. My clothes were a wrinkled remnant of the sleek, put-together professional that had sauntered off the elevator this morning.
If I was on one end of the spectrum, the disheveled end of the spectrum, Jacob was on a whole other level altogether. Sure, his choppy ebony locks were longer in the front than usual, but he still could have walked off the pages of GQ, the waves brushing his brow in a delicious, let-me-bend-you-over-the-conference-room-table kind of way.
He tugged his tie off the rest of the way, tossing it on top of my desk, directly on top of my literal stack of stress. Like he owned the place. And when his eyes rounded my breasts, then slowly worked their way back to my face, my hardened nipples and breathless anticipation made it clear that he owned me.
I knew his day was filled with three times as much to do as me, as much coffee with the caffeine, lunch meetings, drinks, and enough stress to leave anyone unkempt, but his white shirt was as crisp and unblemished as it had been when we parted ways this morning. His belt gleamed and-
I gulped, my heart dropping to the pulsing, wet place between my thighs when he loosened his belt and slid it through the loops. The leather sighed as he folded it in his massive hands, eyes darkening.
“I don’t like it when my wife, the woman whose face got me through the day, whose touch kept me from wringing several necks, whose eyes and moans and grins fill my daydreams when I got a moment to breathe, barely looks up from her desk when I pop over to say hello.”
“Well, that’s because Natasha didn’t inform me that you were popping over to say hello.”
I shrugged my shoulders innocently and bit back a triumphant smile when he glowered at me. The walls, the bookshelf, everything seemed to expand and contract with his breaths. Breaths that were becoming more agitated as I pretended like we weren’t on the precipice of doing something that HR would frown on. Hell, we’d already broken so many rules, written and unwritten, just to get to this point.
I scooted up a few inches in my chair, welcoming whatever came next. What was breaking another rule or two in the Whitmore and Creighton employee handbook, or in Jacob’s?
“You like to provoke me, don’t you?” he growled.
I opened my mouth to say ‘Hell yeah!’ or something equally provocative, but he wasn’t done.
“You will address me as sir. I think I’ve earned it.”
Desire raced through me like a shot of adrenaline. “Yes sir.”
“Yes sir, what?” He followed tersely, folding the belt in half. Muscles flexing. Teasing me, making my mind run wild with possibilities. Would he spank me with it? Bind my wrists?
The disapproving curve of his lips told me he wasn’t a fan of me making him wait while I wondered.
“I-” I stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes were even more petulant and disobedient th
an my nipples. Than my core, already pulsating and growing wetter by the minute. All without his permission. “Yes sir.” I paused for a heartbeat, long enough to say the words that would ensure whatever would come next would hurt as much as it pleased. “Y-Yes sir, I like to provoke you.”
The way his fists tightened on the leather strap, I knew it was only a matter of time until it whistled as it cut through the air and collided with my skin.
He crooked a finger, a smile so sinister, so deviant brightening his face. “We’ll see if you’re still so eager to provoke me when we’re done.”
~
I knew the in and out of my Jacob’s touch. I knew what his fingertips felt like against my fevered skin; the way my flesh came alive at the way he skimmed my spine. How he whispered against my cheek, tucking dark spirals of my hair behind my ear. The way those fingers went from measured and contemplative, skating over my exposed skin, then turned hungry, digging into me as he was overcome with desire. His whole world revolved around a single truth: he had to have me, and he wouldn’t rest until he made it so.
Knowing how he’d take stock of me, tasting me with his fingers and making me wait until the moment that he unshackled himself, demanding my submission, guiding me to bliss, was a dance I knew well. I could close my eyes and I wouldn’t miss a step, breathless as we spun around the dance floor of our own making.
When he told me to rise, and take off every stitch of clothing I was wearing, my fingers flew over the buttons and he didn’t have to arch a brow, clear his throat, or glare me into submission to remind me to fold every piece. My fingers trembled, but I managed to gather my things, underwear and shoes included, and perch them on my desk.
Naked and flushed, I cast one final, longing filled look at the belt folded in his terse grip and locked my hands behind my back and lowered my chin to my chest.
“I’m ready, sir.”
I thought ‘I love you’ were three words that changed my life, but every time we were here, completely raw and exposed, I knew what we had was so much deeper than love. So much more than trust. So much more than domination and submission. ‘I’m ready, sir’ was the starting shot that set the silence on fire. It gave us permission to not only let our freak flag fly, but it was a naughty embrace that confirmed the obvious. His soul spoke to mine. My body belonged to him. We trusted, without a shadow of a doubt, that we were safe with each other. That we were a team.