The Singles (13 page)

"You're hiding under the desk in my mother’s office.” He stroked his thumb under my chin and tilted my face until his blue eyes penetrated mine. “And I want to know why."

“She’s my boss.” I reached behind me and spread my hands out on the glass, but my arms continued to tremble. That was something that probably wouldn’t stop until Oliver was far, far away from me. “Why else would I have been under there?”

He moved his face closer to mine, and I arched my back, my breasts swelling against his chest as he leaned over me. “That didn’t answer a damn thing,” he murmured, feathering his fingers over the sides of my face. “Should I let you go and make that call down to Carl?”

He had to be teasing, but the tiny hairs on the back of my neck still stood on end. Regardless of whether or not he was threatening to call security just to get a rise out of me, I had to tell him
something
if I didn’t want him watching me like a hawk for however long I was at Emerson & Taylor.

Think, dammit. Think!

My brain clawed through a dozen excuses, struggling to come up with one that would rapidly get him off my back. When the right one hit me, I almost let out a sob of relief. It was so perfect. And so believable, especially given how every nerve in my body was reacting to him at this very moment.

“I was under her desk—” I stared up at him from beneath my lashes, and his lips thinned into an impatient line. “—because I came in here to grab something for Margaret. And when I ... when I heard you out there with Dora, I thought the worst.”

“You thought the worst?” he repeated, accentuating each word, and I nodded, lying back a little further on the desk. His body followed mine. One of his hands dropped from my face to my back to splay dangerously over the clasps of my bra, and I gasped. “Unless you don’t want to keep making that noise, I’d suggest you explain, Lizzie.”

“I thought you were bringing her in to...” I stopped speaking deliberately, swallowing hard, hating that even though I knew that hadn’t been Oliver’s intention, the thought of him touching another woman’s body like this infuriated me. “I wanted to see for myself whether or not you were involved with Dora.”

The fingers stroking my back stiffened, and I watched as all emotion disappeared from his naturally tanned features. Had he bought it? I held my breath, waiting for him to move. Waiting for him to give me some sort of response. When his face stretched into a smile, I knew that I’d not only sold the bullshit excuse to him, I’d also stroked his ego.

“Oh, Lizzie,” he said, cupping the back of my neck and leaning his forehead against mine, “haven’t you realized? You’re the only one in the office I want to fuck.”

Wow. Self-control. Vanquished.

I wrapped my fingers around the blunt glass edges behind me so I wouldn’t reach up and drag them through his disheveled brown hair. “If your mother finds me in here with you, she’ll fire me,” I warned, butterflies spreading through my belly as he nudged my knees apart with his. I felt the coarse fabric of his pants sliding up between my bare legs, and a second later, his muscled thigh gently grinded against my sex through my lacy underwear.

My core clenching tightly, I tossed a panicked stare at the closed French doors on the other side of the room. “Oliver,” I panted, rubbing against his hard quad, “I
can’t
do this with you.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not.” Reluctantly, he released me. I lowered my head toward the onyx floor, breathing in deeply to catch my breath while he sat down in Margaret’s chair. His rough voice drifted casually from behind me. “When we do this, there’ll be no inhibitions between us. There will be
nothing
between us. You will be mine.”

“All that just for one night?” I readjusted my dress and turned to him. From the tiny pinpricks exploding over my skin, no doubt my face was red. “And here I was thinking you wanted a quick lay.”

“All that just
because
it’s one night,” he corrected. “Never confuse yourself for a quick lay. And there will be nothing
quick
about us.”

I hated the tingle in the passage between my legs where his thigh had touched me. “Pompous, aren’t we?”

“Honest,” he corrected. Stretching his arms up, he linked his long fingers together behind his head. “I don’t want to keep you any longer, Ms. Connelly,” he said, his tone suddenly one hundred-percent professional.

Two can play at this crap,
I thought.

“Of course not, Mr. Manning.” I started toward the door, but froze because a low chuckle erupted from the back of his throat. I glanced over my shoulder to see the look of blatant enjoyment on his face. “Yes?”

“You’re walking out of here empty-handed. I’d assumed that since you were in here to grab something for Margaret, you’d be taking it with you.” Using his thumb, he scratched the end of his slightly crooked nose. “But maybe you’re so attuned to her needs, you realized she changed her mind.”

Shit. Stalking over to the desk, I snatched the first thing that snagged my attention—the folder I’d given her yesterday with her new Paris itinerary. I coaxed my expression into a grateful smile. “Thank you for reminding me.” I walked away, and the sensation of his blue eyes strategically peeling away each article of my clothing seeped through my body, making me ache all over with need.

Just before I stepped across the threshold to cross the hallway, his husky voice addressed me one last time. “You’re welcome, Ms. Connelly.”

I didn’t have to turn around to know he was grinning.

*

O
liver continued to wait in Margaret’s office, even though she didn’t return until after the takeout from a nearby Italian restaurant was successfully delivered. Despite the double doors being closed, I could hear the argument taking place on the other side. As I chewed the lasagna I’d ordered for myself, it didn’t take me long to figure out the reason behind his visit.

His mother was intervening in his love life, specifically by trying to pair him with one of his former flames.

And he didn’t like it one damn bit.

“I don’t care why she’ll be in the area; I have absolutely no interest in her. We’ve gone over this before. It’s not happening again,” I heard Oliver growl at his mother, followed by a cry of frustration from Margaret.

“But she’s—” my boss began in a frosty voice, but a second later, something slammed, cutting her off. The sound of footsteps marching closer to my door startled me, and I hastily rolled my chair across the hard floor, wheezing for air when the edge of my desk hit me in the stomach.

“You’re very bad at pretending to not give a damn, beautiful,” Oliver commented as he passed my door. “I’ll see you early next week when I get back from out of town.”

I was dying to know what he was leaving for, but I shook the thought of asking out of my head. Not smart. Especially since I was still shaky from what had happened in Margaret’s office.

“Have a wonderful afternoon, Mr. Manning,” I called after him.

He muttered something under his breath, and I could have sworn it was, “It would be wonderful if it ended with you in my bed,” but I didn’t have the chance to ask him because I heard the ding of the elevator opening down the hall, signaling his departure.

Several minutes later, I was finishing up my lunch before I was due to return to the board meeting to take notes for Margaret and answering a few emails she’d forwarded to me, when a new message from Oliver showed up in my inbox. It was the first he’d sent me since he had Easton remove the block, and I almost considered ignoring it until the end of the day.

The last thing I needed was for him to get me all worked up, just so I could spend the next few hours with wet panties, parked in a seat right next to his mother.

Popping a piece of gum in my mouth, I tossed the rest of my lunch into the trashcan beneath my desk and gave myself a fast once-over with the compact mirror I kept in my desk drawer, right beside the unused gift card Oliver had given me. As I smoothed stray strands of my hair back in place, my brown eyes kept darting over to the screen and the unopened email waiting for me. Teasing me.

Dammit.

Snapping the compact shut, I clicked on the message, the pressure in the pit of my stomach returning when I scanned the email.

I can’t get your scent out of my head. It’ll be the only thing I’m able to think about while I’m in Philadelphia. Not good for business, Lizzie.

My desk phone rang, and I breathed into the receiver, “You’ve reached Lizzie Connelly, how can I help you?”

“I need you in the boardroom, Ms. Connelly,” Margaret snapped. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t answer the phone like that. This is a business, not a phone sex operation.”

The irony was almost too much.

Promising her that I was on my way, I hung up and returned to the boardroom—my thoughts pinging between the photo I’d seen on Margaret’s laptop and Oliver.

*

F
or the next week, he was freakishly silent, which I attributed to him being away on business. Not that I had much time on my hands for flirting. With Margaret’s Halloween event quickly approaching, I hardly had time to breathe. Before I even made it out the door to go to work Tuesday morning, she was already sending me a string of text messages.

I will be out of town until tomorrow. Stop by the Heritage to check in on Roche.

Did you schedule a driver for my guests and myself for Thursday night?

Make sure you meet the Scotts at my home this afternoon and see to anything they might need.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sank down on the edge of my leather couch, rereading her texts. Not only was this the first I’d heard of her going out of town today, but I also had no idea she had guests coming in.

“The Scotts,” I whispered under my breath, wondering if Oliver’s former girlfriend would be among whomever was scheduled to arrive. After his argument with her last week, I would have thought Margaret had let that go, but it was too much of a coincidence not to be Finley. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

I pulled up my work email on my phone, scanning through the messages until I found the one I was looking for buried under a handful of messages my boss had sent to me yesterday.  With the subject line
IMPORTANT
, it hadn’t been opened, and I groaned as I scanned the contents.  

Ms. Connelly,

As I have an important engagement in New York tomorrow morning, I will need you to meet my guests at my home and let them in. The access code to the gate is 0451 and the combination to the lockbox and the alarm is 1283. DO NOT MISPLACE THE KEYS, and give them the blue key. Below you’ll find my guests’ itinerary, along with my address, to give you an idea of what time you’ll need to be at my house. These are very close family friends, and it’s imperative that you make sure they’re comfortable.

I will be back on Wednesday, in plenty of time for the event on Thursday.

-M

“That woman,” I whispered, my brows pulling together.  The sound of rubber sliding against the laminate flooring drew my attention up to Pen, who was coiling her dark hair in a bun on top of her head. Even though it was well before nine, she was already dressed for the day in a pair of ripped skinny jeans, turquoise flip flops, and a matching tank top that made her giant chest seem impossibly larger.

“My boobs are jealous,” I said, causing her to stare down and grab her chest.

“You don’t think it’s too much do you?” When I nodded, she straightened the hem of her tank top. “So what did Margaret do now?”

“It’s more what I
didn’t
do,” I explained, carefully studying the Scotts’ itinerary. Three people would be arriving at two-thirty this afternoon, which would give me plenty of time to check in on the event planner and catch up on my in-office duties. “She sent an email yesterday asking me to let some guests in—” As soon as I said those words, my breath caught.

Holy crap. Margaret had just given me access to her house.

“You’re creeping me out,” Pen announced in a singsong voice, kneeling beside the couch to look inside her laptop bag. “What’s up?”

“She’s out of town and left me the key to her place.”

My best friend’s head whipped around, and she stood upright, her hands on her curvy hips. “Get the fuck out of town.” I flashed my phone up at her. She took it, reading over the message before tossing it back to me. “What kind of idiot sends all their passcodes in an email?”

“The kind who doesn’t think their system can be penetrated and who doesn’t put a password on their laptop.”

Pen snorted.  It had taken her all of two days to get into Margaret’s laptop this past weekend, and she was slowly starting to sift through the hundreds of files. There were more pictures of Margaret and my father, more proof that he was involved with her while he was married to my mom. I tried not to let it bother me, but it did.

No matter how jaded I might be, I still wanted to believe in that happily ever after.

Two purple-painted fingernails snapping in my face jerked me out of my thoughts. My best friend’s grayish-blue eyes hovered in front of mine. “How long is she gone for?  You need to get off your butt and get the hell over there.”

“Just until tomorrow.” I slid on my shoes. “I’m supposed to be meeting her guests at her place this afternoon.”

“Screw this afternoon,” she said, reaching for her laptop bag and slinging it over her shoulders. She backed toward the front door. “Go.
Now
.”

Nodding, I drew myself to my feet, hobbling a little on my high heels. “Where are you going?”

A guilty expression passed over her features, but she replaced it almost immediately with a frown. “Unfortunately, I
can’t
go with you,” she said evasively, sounding genuinely sorry.

What were she and August working on that would make her be so secretive? Before I could do something I rarely did when it came to her extracurricular activities—ask questions—she said, “You can make up an excuse why you’re there but explaining me would be a stretch. You remember how to use that app I installed to your phone?” When I rolled my eyes because she’d added several apps recently, she continued, “The scanner one?”