“Great,” she mutters. “Well, we should hurry up and get on with things before I lose an eye.” Bella rises, taking out a laptop from her bag before settling down beside me on the kitchen bar stool once more.
The screensaver I get a peek at is a photo of her and a redheadwith blue eyes. Both their cheeks are flushed, their eyes slightly glazed. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re intoxicated, but it isn’t the location or the strapless outfit Bella’s wearing in the image that makes my heart skip a beat.
It’s the smile on her face the photo has captured.
The one that makes me remember what happiness feels like. It’s radiating off her, rolling toward me in waves and it’s like I’m a starved man in the desert gulping down the droplets of joy I’ve been isolated from. Until it’s ripped away from me as Bella pulls up her notes app with one titled,Grayson To-Do.
That shouldn’t be dirty and yet I find myself holding my body very still as the scent of her perfume greets me. It’s such an intoxicating fragrance it takes everything in me not to turn to her and sniff like a dog.
It’s heady, powerful and distracting.
So much so I don’t notice she’s talking to me until she jabs my forearm.
Why am I getting goosebumps from the tip of her finger?
“Earth to Grayson.”
Clearing my throat, I scoot my bar stool away an inch just to allow my brain the space it needs to function. “What exactly are we doing?”
She looks me over as if that’s the most foolish thing I could have asked. “Covering my duties? Lucy didn’t send me anything besides the contracts and your front gate code and a key.”
Assistant.
Not my future girlfriend.
Why didn’t Lucy set this up? She has for the rest of them. Perhaps this is my punishment for making her find me several new assistants.
For what feels like the millionth time since I’ve met her, heat climbs up my neck. “Of course, let me just get my season roster.”
Jumping from the stool slightly faster than I should, I ignore the eyes searing a hole into the back of my head as I go to the printer I keep down here. Except when I open the cabinet between the kitchen and living room, all I find are half-empty bottles of alcohol.
So this is where my alcohol cart contents went. Even my mixers are in here.
Who the hell moved my printer?
“A little early for a drink, don’t we think?”
A dark laugh escapes me and I hope it sounds like a real laugh because I feel like I’m dying on the inside over the fact I don’t know where my own printer is.
How did I get to this point?
Opening the next cabinet, the lustful sensation over Bella’s presence slowly ebbs away, quickly replaced by panic as I find one thing after the other isn’t where it’s meant to be.
Have I been so utterly drunk that I didn’t realize someone rearranged the contents of my house?
“Grayson?” Bella’s voice dances along my skin like a calm balm.
“No, not drinking. I just got…confused?”
It comes out more like a question than a statement as I move through the rest of the kitchen and the living room. Nothing is where it usually is.
Where the hell is all my shit?
Chapter 9
Bella
BELLA
