Page 296 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

“What?” I ask.

“I think the plywood looks worse than the tents did,” she says.

“Probably,” I tell her, “but if you catch your foot against the wall of one of these, it’s not going to bring the whole thing down on top of you. Here at Stingray, we like to avoid lawsuits.”

“Are you getting snarky with me?” she teases. “Wait, hold on,” she says. “I have an idea.” She skips off toward my office at the end of the row and stops. “Is this one still yours?” she asks.

“Yep,” I tell her.

I have no idea what she’s doing.

She ducks inside but doesn’t come back out again. Am I supposed to follow her in there? She told me to wait. What’s she doing?

A moment later, I hear my pencil sharpener going and I start walking toward the office to see what the hell she’s up to in there. Before I’m halfway across the room, though, the sharpener stops, and a bright yellow No. 2 pencil comes tumbling over the front wall of the office and bounces off the ceiling slightly less than halfway across the room.

“Did I make it?” she asks.

I’m laughing, though I’m more confused at what she’s going for than ever. “That depends,” I answer, coming to the open doorway of my office. “Where were you trying to make it to?”

“The office on the other side of the room,” she says. “The dream shot would be landing it in a pencil holder on the other side, but I’m realistic, so I’d settle for just getting it in the office. Get over there,” she says. “You try to make it across the room into here, and I’ll try to make it over there.”

I smile. “I think the front walls are going to be too high to get the right kind of angle,” I tell her. “Your last one hit the ceiling before it was halfway across.”

“Did you get to be CEO by saying ‘it’s never going to work’?” she asks. “Go on, get over there.”

I laugh and start walking to the office on the opposite wall from Grace, snatching the pencil she threw from the ground on my way. When I get to the door, I stop and turn around, calling, “Why’d you bother sharpening the pencils? If you’re just trying to get it in the room, or even with your dream shot, wouldn’t it work just as well if they were dull?”

“It’s not fun if there’s no element of danger,” she says. “Of course, you hit me in the eye with one of those, and we’re going to have some problems.”

I don’t know why, but this sounds like a fantastic idea. Getting into the office across the room from mine, Malcolm’s, I grab a couple of pens from the desk and have a seat.

“Tell me when you’re ready!” I call out. We don’t have to be quiet if this is what we’re doing. I just didn’t want someone walking in on us if things took a turn for the risqué.

Grace doesn’t answer my question verbally, though I do hear the sound of another pencil hitting the suspended ceiling.

“Your turn,” she calls out.

She’s a little weird. I kind of like that.

I lean back in Malcolm’s chair and let fly with one of the pens, but it catches the top edge of the wall and bounces back into the room in front of me.

“Did you go?” she asks.

“Hold on,” I tell her. “I’m taking a mulligan.”

I take one of the pens that were on Malcolm’s desk, and I try again. This time, the pen sails over the wall, and I don’t hear it land.

“Did I make it?” I ask.

“Not in this office,” she says.

We go back and forth a few times until we run out of writing utensils to lob across the room, and when we meet in the middle to regather ammunition, we’re both laughing.

Grace stumbles a bit as she goes to pick up her last pen, but I’m quick to reach out and catch her.

“You all right?” I ask even though she didn’t fall.

She sputters laughter but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she repositions my hands from her shoulders where they were down to settle over her breasts. Sitting there, lobbing pens at each other, I’d almost forgotten she never changed out of her robe.

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