Page 12 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

“What we did didn’t feel much like a punishment to me.”

“Promise me.”

She laughed, a sound that was part music, part magic. "Maybe," she teased, leaning in to kiss me softly. "If you're lucky."

The kiss deepened, and I rolled over, pinning her gently beneath me. My body was ready again, my desire for her reignited by the mere sound of her voice, the taste of her lips. "I don’t rely on luck," I whispered against her mouth. "I make my own."

“That’s why I have a four-leaf clover tattoo on my ankle. I had to make my own luck a long time ago.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.”

She smiled, and it was enough to take my breath away. “Yeah. But I already gave you one of my secrets. Tell me one of yours. Something no one knows.”

“That’s not how this game goes?—”

“It is when you play with me,” she said sharply. “Unless you don’t want to play with me again?—”

“Fine, fine, a secret for a secret. Brat.”

She grinned. “You bring the brat out in me.”

Lucky me. “My secret, if it can be called that, is that I miss simpler days.”

“How is that a secret?”

“Because anyone who knows me would think I have the perfect life. The truth is, I miss the old days when I was starting my company.”

“I assume that means you’re a big success now?”

I chuckled. “If you’ve ever had surgery for a heart murmur on the East Coast, there’s a significant chance the hospital used some of my company’s equipment.”

Those hazel green eyes go wide for a flash. “Oh, wow. Impressive.”

Shrugging off her compliment felt wrong but accurate. “Thank you, but I miss the days from the start of things. Twenty years ago, when things were sketchy, and we didn’t know if we were going to hit the way we wanted to…it was me and two partners working with manufacturers and others to move our products to market ourselves instead of selling to one of the big corporations. Those are the days I miss.”

“That sounds terrifying. Why would you miss it?”

There were some secrets that I couldn’t tell her, so I kept things as clean as possible. No sense in dragging her into my sorrows. “Back then, the company was small and nimble. The three of us against the world. I was finishing my degree in Chicago when I met my partners, and that’s where we started the company. Life is simpler there than in New York. I assume that’s where you’re from, too?—”

“Born and raised.”

“Same. I love New York, but Chicago has a Midwest charm. People there are friendlier and warmer. Things move at a slower pace. I miss that.”

“What’s so different about things now?”

“Now, Morbinski Incorporated is a behemoth by comparison. Over two hundred employees, a board to answer to, all the trappings of corporate life. My partners sold me their stake in the company, so I own all of it, and there are days it is more than I want to handle. So?—”

“Simpler sounds better.”

I nodded once. “I’m here to escape…that and my son. He has refused to go to rehab again, and we had a shouting match about it. Again. What about you? What brought you here?”

She sighed and laid back, taking her delicious warmth with her. So I laid on my side to be closer to her. She licked her bottom lip, a hesitation. “I don’t want to bring you down. Don’t?—”

“Whatever you’re holding back, there is nothing you could tell me that would diminish the high of having you in my bed.”

“You sound very sure of that.”

“I am.”

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