I guess hewouldkick me out of bed.
All the better.
I swallow my mortification. “Good.”
Colin releases my hand and places his on his hips. “The party’s at their estate in Southampton. We’re leaving on Friday morning and coming back Sunday afternoon. I’ll drive. I’ll also make sure Margie knows you’ll be out of the office on Friday for work-related business.”
I nod. “Okay.”
He claps the side of my shoulder in a verybromanner, as though underscoring the fact that he would kick me out of bed andlaughsat the mere idea of having sex with me. “Feel free to take the afternoon off to pack.”
I tilt my head at a dramatic angle and force a placid smile. “I think I will, Colin.”
I turn and march out of his office before he has a chance to say anything, not that anything he might say would matter.
So what if he thinks the idea of sleeping with me is laughable?
I already have the best thing Colin Flannery has to offer.
Acheckwith his signature on it.
4
I’M NOT HAVING SEX with you, so don’t even try.
Elle’s words have been replaying in my mind for the two days since our meeting, and they’re still replaying as we depart from Queens on an oak-lined expressway that’ll take us through Long Island and all the way to the Hamptons. We’ve been driving for an hour now, and I nearly have to bite my tongue to keep from turning to her and retorting,Oh, and just by the way, I wasn’t even thinking about that.
Even though Ihavebeen thinking about that. For months. Ever since the day I bumped into her in the coffee shop and subsequently realized she was one of my goddamnedemployeesand therefore off-limits, I haven’tstoppedthinking about that.
Elle Kissinger is the pinnacle of forbidden fruit. And that just makes me want her more.
That said, my indulgence in the temptation of her this weekend doesn’t extend tothat. I can’t dothat. The indulgence I’m allowing myself is far more juvenile and prudish and only includes stuff like holding her hand or an arm wrapped around her. Probably a chaste kiss or two. Just enough to make the arrangement believable, and just enough for a taste of the hope of what could’ve been if she hadn’t ended up being my employee.
It sounds a little pathetic even in my own mind, but there’s so littlegoodin my life that I’ll settle for a weekend of pretending I actually have somethinggoodthat also makes it so I can finally get Archer off my proverbial tit. And, once I’ve had that little taste, I can finally move past this ridiculous obsession-like crush I’ve got on her.
Who knows? Maybe after sharing a guest room with her for the weekend, I’ll discover she’s got a bunch of obnoxious personal habits that turn me off completely. Maybe she snores. Maybe she leaves strands of her long hair plastered to the shower wall. Maybe, God forbid, she prefers to pee with the bathroom door open.
Maybe, over a weekend of being in close quarters with her, she’ll be such a bitch to me that I’ll really start to hate her. Maybe I’ll discover that she’s actuallynotas kind as she was on that first day. I know her passive-aggressiveness in the workplace is a reaction to my dickish treatment of her, but this weekend I can’t be a dick to her. So if her response to my best behavior is to up her own asshole game, I’m one-hundred-percent sure it’ll kill any lingering inclination in me to keep wanting her like I have this entire time. Hopefully.
I suddenlyreallyhope she’s actually a total bitch. That would make this so much easier.
In the front passenger seat of my gunmetal gray BMW M4, Elle’s got her legs crossed away from me in just the right position to cause the skirt of her filmy pink sundress to ride up her thigh just a tad. When she’s standing up, the skirt falls to her knees in a classy manner, but while seated, it inches up just enough to show me that line of muscle definition that draws up from her knee and disappears under the delicate fabric. The dress also has thin straps that sit demurely on the caps of her shoulders; a neckline that’s not high, but not too low that it abandons the same classiness of the skirt length. In short, she’s showing just enough skin to leave alotto the imagination. And apparentlymyimagination thinks that’s an invitation to materialize a hundred different scenarios in which I hike that skirt all the way up and tug those straps all the way down.
I,obviously, don’t mention any of this. In fact, we haven’t said much to each other during the drive so far, and I can’t help feeling like we’re sitting in an awkward silence.
“Are you cold or anything?” I ask, reaching for the vents to futz with them in an effort to simply make everything feel less awkward.
“I’m good, thanks,” Elle says simply, gaze fixed on the old brick homes and oaks passing in a maroon and green blur out the window. Her eyes flick all over the place as she takes in the sights, and I can’t tell if she’s focused on something or nervous. Because, now that I’m noticing, she looksreallynervous.
“I’m not a serial killer, Elle.” I glance at her just as she turns to me with her upper lip curling slightly at one corner. “You don’t need to be nervous.”
“I’mnotnervous.” Her green eyes do an up-and-down sweep over my form. “And if you’re a serial killer, you should be aware that I know how to subdue you without even turning in my seat.”
“Subdue me?” I chuckle lightly because it sounds like innuendo, and I really shouldn’t laugh, lest I let onto the fact that I think it sounds like innuendo when it’s clearly not.
“Yeah, I can cut off the oxygen supply to your brain, and you’ll pass out.” One of her slender shoulders hitches toward her earlobe. It slides the strap off her shoulder, which she quickly, yet absently slides back up the smooth skin of her arm. “Then I’ll escape.”
“Is that so?”
