Page 38 of Return Billionaire to Sender

The playfully witchy look is gone as quickly as it appeared. And I’m left panting. I need more of that look. I could feast on that look forever. Brave Elle, witchy Elle. I want to peel back layer after layer of her. I want to taste every inch of her.

Dimly, I’m aware of an annoying noise in my ear.

My Bluetooth. Tokyo.

“What?” I bark. “Say something worth saying and maybe I’ll fucking listen.” I storm off in the other direction, shaking her out of my head.

* * *

The next morningshe’s standing with the team and two of our West Coast lawyers in the seating area nearest the lobby door. People stiffen up when I arrive. I never cared about that before, but I don’t want Elle doing it.

Elle is wearing another one of her suits. We’ve seen maroon and green; today’s is brown, but otherwise identical, aside from a new color of butterfly bow tie—this one simply black. I look hard, trying to determine whether it’s a clip-on bow tie or some sort of a slim scarf, threaded under the collar. I find it infuriating that I can’t tell.

Also infuriating: that I’m expending mental resources on it.

“Cars out there yet?” I ask.

“Both,” Walt says.

I point. “Walt, Elle, Nisha, you’re with me.” I head to the cars. What am I doing? I need to be focusing on this inaugural session.

And why the iterated suits? I iterate my suits because I don’t like to use mental bandwidth on something stupid as clothing—a black suit for each day of the week. Decision made. But Elle’s in a barely skilled profession, regurgitating things she learned in some seminar. What does she need bandwidth for?

We settle in. Elle ends up next to me on my left, and I can feel her energy, her heat, her nearness in a strangely palpable way. I tell myself it’s because she’s different, an oddball here, a square peg for a round hole—if there’s anything I hate, it’s a square peg for a round hole.

I successfully force myself to stop thinking about the infernal tie, but that just leaves my wicked imagination free to focus on that witchy gaze she gave the mirror.

Then I’m running a scenario where she gives me the flirtatiously witchy gaze while I slowly draw the tie free of her collar.

I clear my throat. “What do you know about the meeting today?” I ask her.

“Not that much,” she says. “A large family-owned logistics firm that is not keen on selling.”

“Have you been instructed on protocol in the negotiating room? I have very strict preferences.”

She swallows. “No.”

“You will not react,” I say, “no matter what I do in there. You understand?”

She nods, color riding high.

It’s here that I realize she heard that sexy. I didn’t mean it sexy, but knowing she heard it that way nearly destroys my mind. And before I can stop myself, I lower my voice and ask, “Is that a problem?”

“No,” she whispers hoarsely.

And just when I need to be focused on the upcoming negotiation, I’m wondering furiously about her; what it would be like with her; what she would be like. In my mind I’m tracing the line of her collarbone. She’s in my bed looking up at me, watching me with that deliciously witchy expression.

I lower my voice to a deeper register. “I might do some outlandish things in there.”

Her expression is priceless.

“Things that might even shock you,” I continue. “But they will be effective.”

Her color deepens. “Okay,” she says.

What am I doing? This is my executive coach, a woman sent to punish and torture me.

I straighten up. “However, it’s far more likely I’ll seem friendlier than you know me to be,” I say. The truth. Hardball negotiation is for amateurs. “Let’s see your bored face.”

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