Page 62 of Return Billionaire to Sender

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll consider a check mark for you.Today.”

I grin.

She leans over, snatches her iPad, and takes her seat just as my door is pulled open by my driver.

* * *

I order roomservice in my room that night, but my attention is still in that limo; my entire mind and soul are still in that limo. I should be preparing for the next day’s session but I can’t stop thinking about the way she felt, eyes dark with desire, pulse a drumbeat in her smooth throat.

Unless you can persuade me otherwise.

I keep replaying the moment. Everything in her turned just then. Rose up, somehow. She was hot before, but shy Elle being sassy and demanding is mind-blowingly sexy.

I grab my phone, telling myself I’ll review new intel we have on the Germantown legal team, but I find myself studying her Instagram again. I’m looking more carefully this time, reassuring myself there aren’t other guys in her life. I’ve officially gone mad.

There are lots of pictures of a city—is it Newark? Manhattan? There are very few people in the photos she takes; she seems partial to colorful signs, ephemera on hidden corners, and random images of hedgehogs that she spots on street pole signs and so forth. What happened to the girls’ squad she was longing for? Did she not find one?

I would find that incredibly sad.

I use Google Maps to determine that quite a few of the earlier shots seem to be in The Bronx—did she visit there at one point? Did she have friends there?

When you go even earlier, you get to her Mapleton roots. Rolling hills. Landscape panoramas that show rivers catching the light like shining slashes through wooded valleys.

And of course, more postal-themed shots. Whereas most of her newer pictures are of things, these older pictures feature more people, including a number of shots of a woman in her late sixties with dyed white-blonde hair who could easily be a relative. Is this Elle’s mother? She plays a banjo in one of the shots. She’s rather frail in later shots—not entirely healthy looking, but she has Elle’s defiant green gaze.

After dinner, I try again to crack into her locked-down Facebook page—unsuccessfully.

And then I wake up. This was an evening specifically earmarked for negotiation prep, for gaining insight into Gerrold’s team. What am I doing?

16

Noelle

I’min a daze of shock—at myself!

Not only did we kiss; I instigated it. It was so surreal, us fighting over the iPad, and I was laughing, and feeling just so happy, and I practically threw myself onto his lap, and suddenly I was right up against his body, looking into those eyes, the color of tea in the sunshine, his gaze soft beneath the harsh dark slashes of his brows.

And he was so…everything, all muscle and whiskers and infuriating Malcolm, right there under me.

And I wanted to kiss him. It was all I wanted, but it also seemed somehow impossible and even dangerous, like kissing a god who has lightning bolt-throwing powers.

But I felt like I was going crazy, that’s how much I wanted him. And then I said that thing about him persuading me, and he kissed me, and the kiss he gave me turned me inside out.

I never knew a kiss could be like that.

It’s a good thing he had to go to a meeting, because I might not have stopped. And honestly, what was I thinking? Kissing Malcolm Blackberg?

I’m here on a mission and kissing him is not part of it.

As soon as the door shut behind him, I told the driver to take me back to the hotel. I told the driver that I had important business, and that the session would be marked as complete. But really, I just didn’t trust myself to see him again while the kiss still buzzed through me.

And oh my god, what would my friends say? I came here to inspire Malcolm to have empathy, not to encourage him to have bow-chicka-wow-wow sexytimes with me.

Even so, our sizzling hot kiss is all I can think about all night, and it’s the first thing I remember in the morning.

I worry things will be weird between us. Will there be strange sexy undercurrents that everybody detects? Will he expect me to fall into his bed now that we’ve kissed?

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