The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1) (14 page)

Only the thought of Grandmillie gave her the strength to say, “I have to go home.”

“Why?”

Hadn’t they had this conversation before? “I have responsibilities.”

“Tell me about them.”

Right. She was going to tell her hot new lover that her grandmother lived with her. “It’s personal.”

He gripped the arms of her chair and pulled it close so her knees were sandwiched between his. Stroking the back of his hand down her cheek, he asked, “Have we not gotten very personal?”

“Not in that way.” Unable to resist, she leaned forward to kiss him. “I’m going now.”

He still held her chair so she had no room to stand. “You’ll meet me here tomorrow.”

“Temps don’t work on Saturdays without authorization. It requires overtime pay.”

He gave a ghost of a laugh. “We are far beyond overtime pay.”

She had to admit the truth of that. “I need to be home tomorrow.” She had spent so little time with Grandmillie this week because of Nathan.

“Then dinner on Sunday. Surely, your responsibilities can spare you then.”

The temptation was nearly impossible to withstand. All she could force out was, “I’m sorry.”

Instead of looking insulted, Nathan’s face sharpened with the thrill of a challenge. “At least let Oskar drive you home. It will ease my conscience for keeping you late again.”

She knew she shouldn’t give in, but she was exhausted from the whirlwind of the day, and she’d have to wait nearly an hour for the next train home. “I won’t say no.”

His eyes went hot. “Good response.” He pushed her chair back a few inches before letting it go.

“To the car, not to what you’re thinking,” Chloe said, standing up. Nathan stood as well, and she found herself looking up at him. “Judith will let me know if you still need me on Monday.”

He swooped down to kiss the side of her neck. “There is no question that I will need you on Monday,” he said by her ear. “And Tuesday and Wednesday . . .”

She shivered and closed her eyes as his breath tickled over her skin. His words fanned a flicker of hope that she had no business encouraging. “Janice may have recovered by then.”

He stepped back. “My need has nothing to do with Janice.”

She knew what he meant, but she couldn’t go down that road with him right now. It was impossible to think clearly when he was looking at her as though he wanted to strip her clothes off. She started around the desk but stopped when he fell into step beside her. “I know how to get to the garage,” she said.

“A gentleman always walks a lady to the door.” His voice was smooth as silk, but there was an undercurrent to it that she didn’t trust.

“You don’t have to be a gentleman. You’re my boss.”

“As of right now, you’re off the clock.” He took her hand and tugged her into motion again, stopping briefly by the door to press the keypad. “Oskar will be waiting.”

As they walked down the hallway, he twined his fingers into hers and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. The arousal he’d been stoking while they worked burst into full flame. Her nipples ached where they pushed against the lace of her bra, and the tension low in her belly intensified to near pain.

The elevator doors slid open and she stepped inside, her breathing erratic. Before the doors closed behind them, Nathan had her backed up against the wall, his mouth on hers.

“I need one more taste of you to hold me for the weekend,” he murmured.

She could feel his erection against her thigh, and she was desperate to have him inside her for the last time. She tilted her head back to catch his gaze, hoping he would read the invitation in hers. “Is there a way to stop the elevator?”

If she’d thought his eyes burned hot before, now they nearly scorched her. Glancing behind him, he thumbed the touch pad and the elevator came to a gliding stop.

There was a flurry of activity as he shoved her skirt up and ripped her panties down while she unbuckled his belt and trousers. When he produced a condom from his back pocket, she scooped it out of his hand and rolled it onto his cock.

And then he lifted her and impaled her and braced her against the wall so he could drive into her deeper and harder. She locked her legs around his waist as he gripped her bottom to support her, the fierce pressure of his fingers intensifying the sense of urgency. She returned the favor, digging her fingers into the bunched muscles of his shoulders to brace herself.

His rhythm was hard and relentless, and she reveled in it, wanting it to go on forever, even as she panted for the explosion he was building to.

Then he came, pulsing inside her as his shout of completion boomed inside the enclosed space. He shifted angles and ground his pelvis against her so an orgasm crashed through her. Every muscle in her body tried to tighten, but she was crushed between Nathan’s big body and the elevator wall, so she couldn’t move, only feel. She had the sense of a storm contained in a bottle, the glass sides forcing the power to fold back on itself, magnifying the fury.

Her cries reverberated around them.

Then Nathan was slipping out of her and lowering her feet to the floor. He smoothed her skirt down over her hips and retrieved her panties. “That was . . . unexpected.”

“You started it.” Chloe turned her back to work her underwear up under her skirt.

As soon as she straightened, his arms snaked around her waist, and her back was against him. “And it was a spectacular finish. Maybe I’ll join you in the Rolls. It has a privacy screen.”

“Not a good idea.” She didn’t want him crossing the Hudson River into her private life. It would just make their parting more painful.

His hands were drifting up and down her body. “I think it’s one of my better ideas.”

She stepped away from him and raised her hand to the elevator’s control panel. “How do you start this thing again?”

He reached around her and sent the elevator soaring upward. It stopped again almost immediately, and the door silently opened. Nathan took her elbow and escorted her to the main elevator a few feet away before he turned her into his arms. “How am I going to survive two days without you?”

Her own silent question was harder to answer.
How was she going to survive the rest of her life without him?

“There’s chicken marsala keeping warm in there,” Grandmillie said, waving her cane at the oven. “I ordered in from Vinny’s for dinner.”

“Bless you,” Chloe said, dropping her purse and jacket on the coffee table and leaning down to kiss her grandmother. “I’m sorry I haven’t been home much this week.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You were needed at work.”

Grandmillie’s choice of words evoked her last exchange with Nathan, and Chloe felt a flush of desire and guilt. “Shall I open the Chianti?” The wine would help calm her whirring mind.

“TGIF!” Grandmillie said with a nod.

Chloe took her grandmother’s arm to help her up out of her recliner and thought how fragile the bones felt. Such a contrast to Nathan’s powerful forearm. She shoved that thought away.

As soon as she was on her feet, Grandmillie gently tugged her arm free of Chloe’s grip. “Got to keep my balance muscles strong,” she said, starting toward the dining table.

Chloe carried food and wine from the kitchen and attacked the delicious chicken with gusto. She had good reason to be ravenous.

Grandmillie let her take the edge off her hunger before asking, “Where did you work today?”

Chloe choked on the wine she’d just sipped. “Swallowed wrong,” she croaked before taking a gulp of water. “In Mr. Trainor’s home office. Turns out his penthouse has three floors, not two. You get to the office in a private elevator.”

“So that’s why you came home in the fancy car. I saw it out the window.”

Chloe had a hot flash at the memory of Nathan wanting to join her behind the privacy screen. All the way home she’d been picturing what they might do on the deep leather seat.

“How was Mr. Trainor feeling today?”

Thank goodness she hadn’t taken another drink of wine. “Much better. He wanted to go to Trainor Electronics, but his doctor threatened to quit if he did.” How different would her day have been if Cavill had given the okay for Nathan to return to work? Would the heat between them have flared up even there, or would it have remained at a simmer because they were in a real office? She had an erotic vision of Nathan making love to her on the conference table.

“But he got up and worked anyway.” Grandmillie snorted. “Typical man. More muscle than sense.”

“Exactly.” Chloe swallowed the last of her wine in a gulp and refilled her glass. “Shall we celebrate our windfall with a shopping trip to the mall tomorrow? I need a couple of nicer blouses if I’m going to keep working in the executive suite, and you’re due for a pretty new top too.”

“I’m not done with Mr. Trainor yet,” Grandmillie said. “So he wants you back on Monday.”

Needed
her back on Monday, according to him.

“I knew if you got your foot in the door, they’d figure out how smart you are. Here’s to a permanent job offer.” Grandmillie lifted her wineglass.

Chloe clinked hers against it and drank without tasting the wine. She’d completely screwed up any prospect of staying at Trainor Electronics. Even if they offered her a position, how could she accept it now that she’d slept with the CEO?

“He has an excellent executive assistant. As soon as she recovers, I’ll be back on the reception desk.” Unless the receptionist had already recovered, in which case, Chloe would be at another company altogether. The thought dropped her into a trough of depression.

Until she remembered the wedding. Her spirits soared again. If nothing else, she’d have one more day with Nathan, even if they couldn’t do more than hold hands. Just feeling his long fingers wrapped around hers would be delicious. And she could brush her shoulder against his, and maybe their thighs would touch in the church pew. If the wedding was in a church. She frowned as she realized she knew very little about the upcoming event.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Grandmillie said. “I can see the gears turning behind those brown eyes of yours.”

Chloe tried to disarm her with a wry smile and a partial revelation. “It’s kind of weird, but Mr. Trainor hired me to go to a wedding with him next Saturday. It’s a family wedding, and he didn’t want to take a real date because tensions are running high.”

Grandmillie’s gaze felt like a laser on Chloe’s face. “A very sensible arrangement,” her grandmother finally said. “More people should do that.”

Chloe couldn’t believe she’d gotten off that easily. She let out her breath and stood up to clear the dishes. “You’re the best, Grandmillie.”

“Oh, I know that’s not the whole story, but you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

Chloe fled to the kitchen.

Two hours later she was pulling her cotton nightgown over her head when the cell phone buzzed on her bedside table. The screen said “Private Caller” and she almost swiped it into the dismiss side when a hopeful little voice in the back of her mind said,
Telemarketers
don’t call late Friday night. Answer it.

“Chloe, it’s Nathan. I wanted to wish you sweet dreams.”

She hadn’t really believed he would call. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“That’s not my whole wish. I want you to have sweet dreams of me. Of us. Together.”

“
Sweet
would be the wrong adjective for those dreams.”

“What adjective would you use?” His voice had dropped half an octave.

She sat down on the side of the bed. “Steamy, hot.”

“Keep going.”

She swallowed hard. “Erotic.”

“Did you think erotic thoughts in the Rolls on the way home?”

“You wore me out, so I napped,” she lied.

His chuckle was smug. “I don’t believe you.”

“You really are a genius.”

She heard the intake of his breath. “Meet me tomorrow. Anytime, anywhere.”

Her plans to take Grandmillie shopping rose up in her mind. “I can’t. I—”

“—have responsibilities,” he finished for her. “My father will like you.”

He hung up before she could respond. Now she’d never be able to go to sleep.

Nathan was about to toss the phone onto the bed beside him when it rang. It was his doctor.

“Ben, I’m in bed, as ordered.”

“I’d better get there fast. You must be dying.” Ben’s voice turned serious. “Be honest, how do you feel? Any fever, aches, pain?”

“No flu symptoms. Just some fatigue. That’s the God’s honest truth.” Of course, the fatigue might be due to his high level of activity that afternoon. Nathan felt a stirring in his groin.

“Not surprising, given that your body tried to cook itself from the inside out. Can I persuade you to stay home for one more day?”

“No.”

Ben’s sigh was heavier than mere exasperation with his friend would warrant.

“Tough day at the clinic?” Nathan asked. Ben worked as a concierge doctor in order to fund the free clinic he ran in the Bronx.

“The administrator quit. Again.”

“I’ll get Roberta to find you a replacement.”

Ben gave a ghost of a laugh. “Thanks, but Roberta is too good at her job. The last two admins she found for the clinic were so skilled they got hired away for twice the salary.”

“So why did this one quit?”

“One of the patients became violent and scared the heck out of her. I can’t blame her.”

The administrators reminded Nathan of Chloe—not that she was ever entirely out of his thoughts. “Ben, why does Chloe Russell need to rush home every night?” And stay home all weekend. Without him.

“Ask her.”

“I did. All she would say is that she has responsibilities. Is it a mad husband in the attic?” A thought struck Nathan, sobering him. “Does she have a child?”

“All I will say is no and no. After that you’re on your own. If she doesn’t want you to know, it’s not my place to tell you.”

“Your conscience has always been a problem in our friendship.” Nathan considered a different approach. “I’ve become interested in Chloe as more than an employee.”

A long silence met Nathan’s announcement. “What happened to Teresa?”

“Our entire relationship was built on the lie that she didn’t know who I was when we met.”

“Ah.” Ben managed to inject sympathy, disapproval, and comprehension into one short syllable. “Do I need to remind you that Chloe works for you?”

“I believe I included that fact in my first mention of her name.”

“Don’t you think that gives you unfair leverage?”

“Do you think I would use my position to force a woman to do something she didn’t want to?” Nathan was getting a little angry.

“Not deliberately, but the leverage is there nonetheless.” Ben paused a moment. “Consider this: you don’t even know why she insists on being home at night.”

“Because I haven’t applied any undue pressure to make her tell me.”

The next day Nathan remembered his words as he paced to the window of his office at Trainor Electronics yet again. He couldn’t focus on the reports he’d put off reading while he was ill. He kept wondering what Chloe was doing and how she could so easily refuse to see him for two days after the explosion of desire that had brought them together.

Was it a ploy as Machiavellian as Teresa’s? She would play hard to get so he would want her even more?

It seemed to be working.

There was no point in staring at the computer screen any longer. He strode back to the desk and signed off. He would go home and swim until he stifled the yearning in his body with sheer exhaustion.

In the elevator, he started to push the button for the ground floor when Chloe’s voice floated through his mind.
You have a key project floundering, and you’re the person best qualified to rescue it.

His finger hovered over the array of numbered buttons for a long moment before he touched the one for the research-and-development department.

When the elevator doors slid open, he stepped out into the open-plan room with a sense of familiarity that gradually disintegrated as he looked around. The bundles of wires hanging from the ceiling at regular intervals and the worktables outfitted with triple-layered shelving were the same. But the electronics arrayed on them were all several generations newer than what he’d worked with. He recognized their general function, but the screens and controls were configured differently.

He’d been away too long. He pivoted on his heel to return to the elevator.

“Mr. Trainor?” The woman’s voice held a mixture of incredulity and awe.

Turning back, he watched heads pop up from behind racks of equipment. Some people looked curious, some shocked, and most appeared nervous. He was impressed with the number of people working on a Saturday.

The woman stood up from a desk. She was short and thin, with long, straight black hair twisted into a sloppy knot at the back of her head. “Mr. Trainor?” she repeated. A low murmur filled the room. He could hear the repetition of the
T
at the beginning of his name ticking through it.

He combed his memory of the Prometheus reports and came up with the assistant project manager’s name. “Ginnie Tsai?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, surprise and apprehension skittering across her face.

“I’ve read your reports,” he said. “I came to see what I can contribute.”

“Yes, sir!” she repeated, this time in a tone of breathless excitement. “It would be an honor to have you work with us.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a development lab,” Nathan said with a wry grimace. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve got so far?”