Page 22 of The First Deal

I was becoming so familiar with the route we were taking; I reckoned the pair of us could sit here with our eyes closed and know exactly where we were at any given moment, not that I’d ever suggest that we try it, I quite liked living.

“How do I get him to open up?” I asked.

Boris hummed thoughtfully, then lowered the upbeat music coming from the speakers. “I barely know him myself. I know his habits, his tastes, and I know what I think of him. I know that he is a good man, talented, and smart. I know his sense of humour, and you know all of these things too.”

“I do,” I agreed. “But what about the rest? He knows me inside out.”

“I bet he does,” Bo said with a suggestive snort, and I almost told him off, but he went on. “This is new for Mr Hudson. It’ll take him some time to reveal all of himself to you. He’s never needed to open up before. The only people who know him better than I do are his family and Violet.”

Ah, the mysterious Violet. I had heard of her, but Shane had avoided speaking about her when I had asked who she was, simply telling me that she was a close, old friend. I had come to Bo to find out more. He claimed to barely know her but knew of their bond, their decades-long friendship. He told me that Violet was important to Shane. So I guessed that when I also became important, I might get to know more about her.

“But how can I help him get there? Bo, I really like him, but I don’t know if I like the version of him that I have been creating in my head, or if it really is the real him,” I admitted, my skin prickling with a rushing heat. This wasn’t like me.

Bo turned in his seat as we waited at a red light. “I think you can safely say that you like the real him, but if you really want to know his secrets, you’ll have to stick around, maybe suggest that you stay for a few days. Would your work schedule allow for that?”

It wouldn’t with the way it currently stood. Juno—my boss—was suffering, drinking too much, and barely coming into the bar. I was feeling guilty enough just visiting Shane for one night, let alone adding more.

But my life mattered too, and as much as I wanted to be there for the woman who had started off as just my boss and had slowly turned into a friend, I knew that I needed to try to find out how real my situation was.

So I unlocked my phone, pulled up Juno’s number, and called her. Ten minutes later I was calling one of the twins who spent every day at the bar, asking them if they could keep an eye on my boss while I was away. He gladly agreed, and with a weight off of my shoulders, I slumped in my seat.

“All sorted. Looks like I’m his until Thursday.” Holy crap, was I about to suggest that I spend three days with Shane? The longest amount of time I had spent with him was when he had whisked me away to Rome, but time had moved differently there—faster, so much faster.

Shane had worked while we were away, and we had spent so much of our time buried in mountains of pasta and pizza whenever we weren’t exploring each other’s bodies. Conversation had not flowed, but it hadn’t needed to. Not then.

Now though, sure it was still early days, but I knew what I wanted.

Did he?

My stomach dropped as I considered those two simple words. What if he was holding back because he wasn’t sure how to tell me that what I wanted wasn’t the same as what he did?

Shit, I really needed to work this out.

For a moment, I wondered if I could be bold enough to just outright ask him: what do you want, Shane? Is it me?

But then I felt weird, like some needy girl begging a boy to love her. And Shane was so far from a boy.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Han,” Bo said with a laugh.

“Huh?”

“Overthinking, I can see your brain tick-ticking away.” He was watching me in the mirror, eyes flicking from the road to my face as we drew closer to Limelight Studios where I would be meeting Shane.

He was taking me out to dinner and Bo would be dropping my things to Shane’s place, not that I had much with me. I’d need to pop out and grab some clothes tomorrow if I was going to get dressed at all during my stay. If Shane even wanted me here that long that was.

“He’s going to want you here, trust me, he’s hooked on you, his‘little raven-haired beauty,’ ” Bo teased, doing a scarily good impression of his boss.

“He damn well better be,” I said, trying to pull some confidence out of thin air as we turned down the street, the sign for Limelight glimmering gold on the front of an epic building. “I aim to be a drug he can’t quit.”

“You’d be the first,” Bo said, pulling up outside the building and staring at me in the mirror, his eyes telling more than his mouth was.‘You already are.’

Thanking Bo for the ride, I stepped out of the car and gazed up at the building. It was flashy in a way that screamed Shane. I made my way inside, the sliding doors opening for me, revealing a gold and black foyer.

The floor was black marble, with white and grey swirls creating a flowing pattern beyond the huge doormat that had the label’s logo printed in the centre.

As I crossed towards the reception desk a citrus scent enveloped me, and then I was being warmed with cinnamon, or was it something else? Something spicy yet soothing. Shane no doubt had personally picked a scent for his workplace, it felt like him, not that I had actually met Lynda—the woman who co-founded Limelight with him—but I got the impression that she was cold and harsh. If she had curated a scent, it would likely feel icy, minty perhaps. Something blunt and to the point.

I instantly felt comfortable in the foyer, and when the receptionist looked up from her computer, she was smiling. “Welcome to Limelight, what can I do for you?”

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