Page 37 of The Billionaire's Second Chance
“Oh,” I said. A while indeed. Charlie had been only a kid when his parents died, James only a few years older, and their grandparents had taken them in. Their father hadn’t lived to lead Verity Publishing; it had skipped to James. He’d always been the bookish one, I guessed.
“Yeah,” he said, and turned to me. “Hey.”
“Yes?”
“We can get a lot done when we aren’t fighting,” Charlie said.
“We got a lot done when we were fighting, too,” I said.
“Sure,” he said, smirking.
“What?”
“That wasn’t fighting, Sam, that was foreplay.”
I reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding my heavy leather tote and shoved him, my palm on his firm chest. He caught my wrist in one hand, holding it to him.
“Hey,” he said again. I knew what he was going to ask already. “You want to get out of here?”
I nodded.
“I was thinking,” he said. “It’s late. The Sterling’s all the way down past 42nd Street. My apartment, however…” He had his hands in his pockets, but gestured with a tilt of his head down the street behind me. “Convenient.”
I smiled. “I’m sure it is.”
“Very.”
“But it’s late,” I said.
“We closed the place down,” he said with a smile.
“Yes. And I…” I shrugged my tote bag.
“Ah, right,” he said. “Your billionaires.” He dropped my hand from his chest.
“And aren’t you going to the Bankworth?” I asked.
“I should, yes,” he said. “James is expecting me, I think.”
We stood on the street for a moment, facing each other, the warm glow of a streetlight illuminating the scruff of Charlie’s face, his soft tee shirt. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. Charlie wasn’t going to kiss me, and I didn’t want him to kiss me here, on the street.
But it felt like where a kiss should go.
And I wanted it, so badly.
So when he took one step backward, I couldn’t help myself.
“But…” I said.
He paused, expectant.Hopeful, I thought.
“How convenient?” I asked, and watched a pleased smile steal across his handsome face.
“Easilyas convenient as sleeping with the man you hate,” he said.
“That easy?” I said, raising my eyebrows, and he nodded. “In that case…” He jerked his head behind himself again, taking a few more steps backward. “In that case, call your driver.”
“We can wa–”
