Page 23 of Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee
I run, dodging moms with babies in carriages and gawkers watching the scene, coming up on the cop’s left while another cop stands across from me, glaring.
“Officer, I can explain,” I say, mind scrambling to figure out what exactly to say. “This is all a big misunderstanding.”
“Always is, bud.” I get a good look at the cop. Balding. Paunch. Mustache. His specialty is glaring.
Great. This will be easy. As James McCormick’s son, I’m not just fluent in glare. I could teach a class on it.
“This is my girlfriend.” I measure my breathing, pull up to full height. Time to show the cop who’s in charge here. “She saw me in the restaurant in a moment of distress. Came to help.”
“Help? You needed help so bad from her she had to abandon her car in a busy intersection?”
Amanda’s biting her lips and looking down. My heart starts racing, but my face tightens. The only way out of this is through sheer dominance.
“I’m sure you can find a way to let her go. We’re making a bigger mess right now than—”
“SHE ASSAULTED ME!” Jessica screams, coming around the corner in all her wine tie-dye glory.
“I’m gonna need backup,” the cop mutters to his partner.
“Sir,” I say, changing tactics. I shrug and give him a look that I hope engenders some sympathy. “I’ve got two women fighting over me.”
“Lucky you.”
“She just kissed me without my permission!” Jessica wails, pointing to Amanda, who slips her free hand into the crook of my elbow and gives the police officer a smile so sweet you’d think she’d just been crowned Miss Cornhole in a tournament in Lima, Ohio.
“This is my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. She’s stalking him all over town. Her name is Jessica Coffin and—”
“The Jessica Coffin? From Twitter?” the cop asks, eyebrows up as if impressed.
Great.
“Yes,” Jessica crows, flashing mad eyes at me.
“The one who made fun of the Arlington cops when we held our Brony dance for local kids?”
“Uh...” Jessica’s face freezes in a mask of uncertainty. Or a bubble in her Botox treatment hit a vein.
He gives her an up-and-down look only a cop can give, eyes turning from careful guardedness to a knowing cynicism I’ve only seen one other place.
Dad.
“Have a little too much to drink?”
“He poured wine on me!” she says, pointing at me.
Amanda shakes her head slowly and says, “She keeps stalking him. Ask the people inside the Turkish restaurant. They have pictures and film and everything. She’s obsessed with Andrew’s sister-in-law.”
“Hold on. Andrew. You’re Andrew McCormick?” The cop looks impressed. He should be.
“Yes.”
“And your sister-in-law is #poopwatch, which makes your brother #hotsanta.”
“Something like that,” I mumble.
“You’re the one who kissed me!” Jessica screeches. “Wait—someone was filming in there?” She starts to turn, as if to go back into the restaurant, when the cop’s partner clears his throat.
“I’ll need to take you in for questioning, ma’am,” he says.
“As well you should!” Jessica huffs, giving Amanda a victorious grin.
“I meant you.”
“Me!” Jessica cries out. “Why?”
“You’re clearly drunk.”
“I’m not!” She fumbles with her purse, pulling out her phone.
Which drips with wine.
Amanda lets out a low whistle.
“Who poured wine in my purse?”
I look back covertly toward the window of the restaurant, where Terry turns away, his shoulders shaking.
Amanda squeezes my arm. I can’t get the looping image of her and Jessica kissing out of my head. I’m trying.
Really. I am.
Not too hard, but...
Five minutes later, Jessica has stormed off, released by the cop, and Amanda’s moved her car to an open metered spot in front of the restaurant. I’m avoiding being anywhere near the Turdmobile. It’s one thing to make a scene.
Quite another to be publicly humiliated.
Add the Turdmobile, and you might as well give up.
“What the hell was that? You kissed Jessica?”
“It was her or Terry, and I figured you’d punch Terry. Kissing Jessica was strategic. Now you have a fantasy come to life.” She winks.
“That’s not my fantasy.”
“Every guy fantasizes about being with two hot women who are all over each other.”
“But not you and Jessica.”
Her eyebrows go up. Damn.
The cop reappears and Amanda goes up to him, arms open, and embraces him with a huge hug.
I didn’t think I could be shocked more today, but she surprises me.
“Hey Al, thanks.”
Al. Why does that name ring a bell?
“Let me introduce you two,” Amanda starts.
“You know each other?”
The cop laughs, his face lighting up. He looks ten years younger when he smiles. “You could say that. Me and Amanda go way back. She called me when she realized your ex-girlfriend had gone nutso on you. Didn’t mention it was Jessica Coffin! That was a nice twist. She skewered us when we did the Brony dance for local kids with special needs. Could have really given that event a boost, but instead she poisoned it.” He makes a face.
Al.
Al—
“Al Barkin?” My voice goes up and down like a puberty rollercoaster.
Amanda turns bright red.
The guy standing in front of me, balding and in uniform, an actual gun on his hip, is the man who took Amanda’s virginity on prom night.
“Yeah.” He looks at Amanda with a questioning look. “How’d you know?”
“Amanda and I have been together a long time,” I say, trying to recover, wrapping my arm around her. “The name rang a bell.”
A twelve-foot gong.
“We had some good times back in high school, didn’t we, Mandy?” He reaches for her hand and uncuffs the metal handcuff on there, sliding it back on his belt.
Her smile to him is so genuine, I see the seventeen year old in her.
His smile back makes me want to rip off his balls and stuff them down the nearest Brony’s throat.
My phone buzzes. I reach into my pocket and read a text from Terry.
Gotta go walk Mr. Wiffles. Have fun!
Al’s walkie-talkie crackles with some numbers.
“See ya,” he says curtly, jogging off to his squad car.
Leaving me alone with—
“Mandy.” I look down at her, wondering what the hell she just orchestrated to make that sequence of events unfold without anyone ending up in handcuffs or jail.
“Andy.”
I bristle.
Her laughter blends with the sound of a church’s clock, the peals mingling with music, until I have to join in, too.
“As lovely as this accidental meeting is,” she says, “I’m late for a meeting with Greg.”
A kiss. A deeper kiss. A promise to explain later.
She’s gone.
And then I realize that I still don’t know why Terry left Anterdec.
Damn it.
Chapter Thirteen
Unlike the morning after Shannon and Declan’s wedding, this time I’m waking up with my face between Amanda’s thighs and the only person shouting at me is her.
It’s a good kind of shout. The best kind.
The kind only I can elicit.
She arrived late last night, and before we could talk about the craziness at the Turkish restaurant that afternoon, we were in each other’s arms, then bed, then out cold, tired and spooned, curled against each other in sleep as if we made each other into a fortress.
And now we have our morning spread out for us.
At least, she’s spread out.
She has this sound she makes when she’s about to come. We all do. Everyone has a sex tell. If you think you don’t, you’re wrong. Amanda’s tell transmits a signal to my brain that says Congratulations.
Achievement unlocked.
Except it’s not the achievement you think. Not a sex goal. Those are easy. Anyone can do that with the right skill and enough alcohol.
This is love. Complete release and abandon with someone you trust so deeply, you take the leap of faith that they’ll catch you.
You can only catch the tell if you have that kind of love.
“Andrew,” she says in a voice reserved for when we’re between the sheets. “Andrew.” Her hand is threaded in my hair and as I rise up, I taste the silky smoothness of her skin, which unfolds before me like a perfect, lush valley, hills and curves, rolling sweetness and a place of discovery. No woman captivates me like Amanda, and when our eyes meet and I slip into her, the way her head tips back and her throat begs for a kiss makes me offer up my tell.
It’s the sound of gratitude. I’m not grateful for sex. I’m grateful for having her.
The balcony doors are open and a massive breeze pushes the curtains in, the sound of billowing fabric catching my ears as the rush of ocean air chills my back. The sunlight in the room dims suddenly, making the room surreal, as if we’re in the eye of a storm and chaos is about to be unleashed.
Which is apt.
She’s so damn beautiful under me, her hands on my back, my shoulders, my ribs, just touching me with a possession that fires my soul. Her hair tickles her shoulders and it’s thick and tousled, makeup long gone, her lips bright red from long kisses all night. Those impossibly-big eyes peer up at me and make me stop breathing, though I keep moving, making love to her with long strokes like a clock tower bell calling out the hour, the slow, sonorous beat designed to mark time.
