Page 203 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

I laughed. “Is it… fun? What you do?”

Carter wavered his hand in the air, over the steaming plates of food set before us. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Honestly, I could do without all the meetings and budget planning. I could always hand off more of my workload to others, but I would feel bad in doing so. This is my empire and I feel like I should know what’s going on in it. I’m not going to be some fat king who kicks back, ignorant of what his men on the front line are experiencing.”

I giggled. “I think you mixed a lot of metaphors, but I get it.”

Carter smiled at me and touched my hand. “We can’t all be as good with words as Maggie evidently is.”

“She’s something else, I told you before.”

“That’s definitely something I’ve seen for myself.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Carter gave a little start and that worried me. Listening to him talk had really been calming me down. He was so admirable, but so funny and relatable all at the same time. He liked some parts of his job more than others, like any other human being on the planet. He had trouble keeping track of all his responsibilities, but felt obligated to continue with all of them. But this little jump, this flinch, told me I may have stumbled upon something he wasn’t so ready to discuss.

I had done something wrong.

Carter smiled at me and reached over to take my breadstick. I let him have it, the delicious food I’d been eating suddenly weighing heavy in my stomach. “Brian brought her along on a lunch meeting with me.”

“Really? She didn’t tell me about that.” Fear spiked like ice through my heart. She hadn’t revealed anything about me, had she? She couldn’t have. She had promised she wouldn’t.

“How often does Maggie tell you about her activities with her male conquests?”

A laugh escaped, startling me. It was funny to think of Maggie as having conquered Brian, especially because it was true. “She usually doesn’t, unless I ask. But she doesn’t go out a lot. I would have thought she’d tell me. I mean, well, she goes out more than me, but not usually with guys.”

Good job with making yourself sound really lame, Megyn.

“Honestly, I’d be impressed if she remembered,” Carter joked. “It was a boring time. Leave it to Brian to think she’d want to sit in while we jabbered about business.”

If Maggie had indeed said something about me, Carter sure wasn’t letting on about it. I tried to let it go. There wasn’t anything I could do about something that had already happened.

“How’s your food?” I asked.

Carter was having genuine fish and chips, the proper kind made in England, not America’s sad replacement. “It’s amazing. And yours?”

“It’s so rich I honestly don’t think I can finish it.”

“We’ll get a box for it. Dinner for tomorrow.” Carter chuckled. “Wait, actually, I wanted to ask if you had plans for tomorrow night.”

“I don’t think I do,” I said slowly. My heart tried to lift. Was this going where I hoped it might be?

“The city is going to be having their Halloween party, at the city hall. I wondered if you might like to come with me.”

“I’d love to,” I burst out, my heart suddenly beating twice as fast, sending hope flowing through my veins. He was asking me out again! I hadn’t messed up anything too badly so far. “But the only costume I have is Cinderella.”

“That’s perfect,” he said. “I’ll go as a prince again. Our costumes will get some more use until next year, and we’ll be iconic.”

“Iconic,” I repeated, scrunching my nose.

“Legendary?”

“Even worse.”

“We’ll be cute,” Carter amended.

I laughed. “What time is the party?”

He pushed his plate aside and leaned to me. “I’ll pick you up at 7. Where do you live, Megyn?”

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