Page 4 of Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee
“That’s not how you drink water,” I explain. How drunk is she?
“I cannot have Donald Trump all over my breasts!” She takes a corner of a sheet and rubs furiously at her chest, her tits bouncing. It’s a delightful sight. I start to tent my pink silk bathrobe.
“Who were you talking to?” she asks as she rubs. I imagine her rubbing hand on a part of me that loves to be rubbed.
And I’m hard.
“Brona. My main person here at Litraeon. We’re moving.”
Amanda pauses. “We’re what?”
“In an hour. We’re getting a better suite.”
“Why?”
“Because this one is a mess.”
Because I can’t handle being surrounded by signs that I lost control last night and holy hell are we really married?
Keeping my mouth shut is my primary business skill. I don’t speak that random thought. I’m not stupid.
“Then get someone to clean it.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t stand to wait that long.”
“You’d rather move?”
“It’s easier.”
“Where are we going?”
“Next door.”
“Next door? Why?”
“So we can do some corporate espionage.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“You’re orange and you’re judging me?”
“You’re orange too, buddy. Go look in the mirror.”
She points to the bathroom.
Every bit of the room goes into soft focus, my eyes only on her. In the craziness of this morning, I haven’t really looked at her. For five days she’s been all I touch, all I see, all I feel and want to feel. We’ve spent these days in Vegas in a vortex of sex and damage control. Shannon and Declan’s wedding damage control. Between media reports and PR tracking and press inquiries and thousands of personal and professional messages that have eaten up nearly every waking hour of my time, the stolen moments with Amanda have been entirely about sex.
Not that I’m complaining.
I cross my arms over my chest. The cold metal ring registers against my ribs.
Being orange is the least of our worries.
“Amanda.”
The grin she gives me is part pain, part jaunty. “You can’t even look because you know I’m right.”
“Amanda.”
This time, her grin falters, her eyes tip up, looking at me. I take in the bandages on her arms, the curve of one breast against the pillow, the disorienting range of her chest, and the wild hair.
I love every inch of what I see.
“Amanda,” I say again, across the room in a flash, one knee on the bed, then the other, and my mouth is on hers before I realize what I’m doing. The wet sheets twist between us and her hands are under the damn pink silk robe I’m wearing, on my back, flat and imploring, pulling me to her. I wiggle out of the frock. We’re reeling from waking up married. Maybe. We’re half-drunk and hungover and embarrassed and confused.
At least, I am. I suppose I should ask her how she feels, but based on the little moans and sighs coming out of her, I’m guessing she’s not suffering right now.
Sex is easier than talking. Sex is better than working.
Kissing her is better than—
“Coffee,” she whispers.
“Sex is better than coffee?”
“Who said that?”
“You did.”
“No, I didn’t!” She pushes me off her and stands, holding her head between her palms. “I mean, it is. Normally. But not right now.”
Bzzzz.
I grab my phone. Gina.
“Is that a resignation letter from your new admin?” Amanda wanders out into the living room. “Holy shit!” she says, reacting to the mess out there. “Why doesn’t this hotel room have a coffee maker? You own the resort! Make them add coffee makers!”
I thought she was panicking about the sex toy cemetery out there.
“You don’t need to mystery shop our room.”
“I do when your company is so barbaric that they don’t provide coffee makers. You have complimentary bathrobes and you can’t manage coffee?”
Tap tap tap.
Amanda lets out a tiny scream of surprise. “Who the hell is that?” She half-shuffles, half-sprints back into the bedroom, a Cheeto-marshmallow treat in one hand, a glass of water in the other.
“Probably the coffee.” I set my phone on the nightstand and grab a white robe from the closet, shrugging into it. Amanda does the same, only this time she’s wearing the pink robe I left on the bed. She looks exhausted and sweet, all at the same time.
Her face softens. “You ordered me a breve?”
“Of course.” I don’t mention that Brona probably did.
I’m right. Room service appears with a rolling table filled with all of our favorites. Two pre-made breves, a small pot of espresso, a small pitcher of frothed light cream, fruits and baked goods, and scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Coffee’s all I need.” Amanda turns green, which is a good color to go with orange. I motion for the staff person to push the rolling table closer to the door and grab Amanda’s breve. All deliveries to our room come with built-in tips, so within seconds, he’s gone. I sit on the couch and Amanda curls up in front of me, her back to my chest, her long sigh gratifying. As she melts into me, I drink my own fortification and all the thoughts I’ve held at bay come rushing in.
Dad.
The Sultan.
Declan’s resignation.
Acquiring Greg’s mystery shopping company.
A merger in—
“Stop,” she says suddenly.
“Stop what?”
“Worrying about work.”
“How did you know?”
“You roll your shoulders when you’re tense and it’s work-related.”
“You’ve catalogued that?”
“I’m perceptive.”
“Amanda.” Her name trips off my tongue so easily. She snuggles in, draining her breve and setting the empty cup on the end table.
“Yes?”
“A week ago,” I begin. She stills. Her hair’s matted and wet at the ends, and her soft pink lacy bathrobe only half-covers her orange-stained skin. Her eyelashes flutter against her cheekbones and I can hear the soft rasp of her breath as she waits for me.
Talk about control.
“A week ago,” I say more firmly, wondering how to convey the last week’s tumult through the inadequacy of language. “A week ago, I refused to let you love me.”
“You failed,” she says under her breath.
Dark laughter pours out of me, making me choke. She isn’t making this easy.
And yet she is.
“We haven’t really talked.” Isn’t that the woman’s line?
“No. We haven’t. When were we supposed to talk?” She reaches up with her left hand and touches mine.
Our rings clink against each other.
“And then there’s that.” My voice drops as the sentence ends.
Along with my stomach.
“We’re not—you don’t really—we can’t be—”
“Married?”
She laughs, but it’s a brittle sound. “Come on. We didn’t actually have a wedding last night.”
“We didn’t? You’re sure?” I perk up. Great. She remembers last night. I squeeze my eyes and try to recall something—anything—that happened after Declan and Shannon said their goodbyes at the reception last night.
“I’m, well, I mean...” Twisting in my arms, she looks at me with those big, wide, trusting eyes, her left hand splayed against my bare chest, digging in where the robe has separated. “You don’t remember what happened?”
My voice drops with uncertainty.
Hers goes up.
“No.”
“Quit joking.”
“Not joking.”
“We both can’t remember any part of last night?”
“When does your memory end?” I ask.
Mascara is streaked along the corner of her eye, and any makeup she wore last night currently resides somewhere on my skin or on the bedsheets. I can only imagine what I look like.
Amanda, though, is gorgeous. In my arms and looking at me with a perplexed expression, biting her lower lip while she flips through the filing cabinets of memory in her mind, and—
“I don’t know.”
I sit up. “You’re the fixer.”
“I know! But I remember saying goodnight to Shannon, hugging Declan, and then—poof! Nothing.”
Poof.
“That’s when my memory ends, too,” I say, my skin beginning to crawl. “I know one thing: we did not have a foursome.”
“And I soooooo did not sleep with Josh. He’s gay. The man can’t handle watching a birth video. A real-life vagina would send him into cardiac arrest.”
“I know my heart pounds whenever I see yours,” I whisper. She gives me a reluctant smile, in spite of her hangover.
“That was baaaaaad,” she groans.
“All signs point to the sex question being put to rest. Worst case, all we did was sleep with each other,” I note.
“Worst case? Buddy, sleeping with me is best case. Best case. Always best.”
That was an unfortunate choice of words on my part. Before I can do damage control, she speaks.
“What if we are?” she hisses.
“Are what?”
Her eyes dart to mine.
“Married.”
Chapter Three
Tap tap tap.
“Who the hell is that?”
