“Leaving so soon?” he asks with a cocky grin, like he can read my mind.
“Yes. Goodnight.” I turn and take one step away from the table.
“You don’t even want to know the first favor?”
I stop immediately and turn to face him again, securing my clutch under my arm. “Is favor number one that you’re going to keep me here against my will?”
He chuckles. “No.” He slides out and stands, his hand running down the length of my arm and I suppress a full body shiver. “Favor number one is that I can call you Hannah and you call me Roarke. There’s no more Ms. Crowley and Mr. Baldwin.”
“Fine. Goodnight Roarke.” His name falls off my tongue way too easy, and I can’t help but wonder what it would sound like if I was screaming it while he drove into me.
I am in such deep shit with this man.
He leans in, his light scruff scratching my cheek before his soft lips land where my cheekbone meets my hairline. “Sweet dreams, Hannah.”
Chapter Seven
“Five favors?” Victoria cringes across from me.
Chelsea’s eyes light up.
Two completely different reactions from two very different women.
I always enjoyed our morning recaps at the office but now that it’s me in the hot seat, not so much. They were waiting this morning to find out exactly what Mr. Bald—Roarke wanted.
“Kinky. I like his style,” Chelsea says, the traitor.
Victoria flips through the contract that was waiting in her email this morning. “You’re right, there’s nothing sexual.”
“Seems like a waste.” Chelsea shrugs.
“I take it Dean’s still tapped in? No more tears.” I raise a brow.
“Only from coming so many times.” She smiles and I sip my coffee ignoring the grating jealousy.
I haven’t had sex in way too long and even then, it wasn’t with a man who could do much for me. Having your two friends living their lives with a post-coital glow isn’t easy. Maybe that’s why I signed that contract last night. Subconsciously maybe I thought Roarke would solve that problem for me.
“It’s a little romantic, no?” Victoria hands the contract to Chelsea who flips through it even though I’m sure she’s only really searching for the juicy parts.
“A contract is never romantic.” I lean back in my office chair.
Chelsea tosses it on my desk. “I kind of agree. But he’s gone to great lengths to win you over.”
“My bet is that he’s still only really interested in sex,” I say.
Victoria’s lips dip.
Chelsea’s lips tip up even more. “Perfect. It’s a win-win. You’re not looking for a long-term relationship or marriage, right?”
“Yes. But doesn’t this make it seem like he’s going to win me over by the time this contract is fulfilled and then what? I sleep with him and we both walk away?”
I won’t tell them about how restless I was last night. Lucy kept getting up and moving because of my tossing and turning. Eventually she went to her dog bed on the floor. I can’t help but think I’m being paid for sex in some twisted way.
“Please. You don’t have to sleep with him if you don’t want to. Five favors and he already used one up. That’s four left. You totally have this.” Chelsea acts like my little cheerleader.
“I agree. You do as he says with one arm out. Don’t let him get too close. You were cornered and the fact he’s using his connections over you says what kind of guy he is. So, just do what he asks you to and be done with it. Whatever you do, don’t fall for him.” Victoria’s inner mama bear roars loud.
“Girls, you know I can handle myself. We’re good. No worries.”
“Shame really because I bet he knows his way around a woman’s body. Foxes know how to hunt.” Chelsea stands, taking her box of donut holes with her.
“You’re really taking this whole I eat what I want to heart.” I point to the powdered sugar covering her breasts.
“Shit,” she mumbles and sweeps the white sugar off of her, but it smears.
“Live it up but remember it’s hard to work it off your ass off after the baby’s out. Trust me on that.” Victoria leaves the office.
Chelsea looks at me. “I have no complaints. I’ll just have Tad whip me back into shape.” She smiles through another mouthful of donut and then heads down the hall.
I swivel in my chair to face the skyline of Chicago through the window. Out of the millions of people who live and work in Chicago, how does my path keep crossing Roarke Baldwin’s.
My phone vibrates on my desk and I swivel back around to pick it up.
My dad.
I accept the call and put it on speaker.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, pumpkin. How are things at the foundation?”
“Good.”
“Did you contact that guy for the gala? He said he’d love to speak there.”
“I told you it’s about female empowerment so I’m having only successful women give the speeches.”
“Don’t you think that’s kind of reverse discrimination?”
The highway noise in the background tells me he’s talking on his Bluetooth while driving. Probably on his way to the golf course.
“No, I don’t.”
He chuckles to himself. “I’ve always loved your bullheadedness. Who trained you so well?”
“You did.”
“That’s right. I taught you how to act like a man.”
I roll my eyes. My dad loves me, but there’s no doubt he missed the opportunity to raise a son.
“I’d rather think of it as you taught me to be a strong female.”
He chuckles again like what I said is funny. I toed that line with my dad for years when I was younger—trying to get him to see that his ideas were sexist and his beliefs were from fifty years ago. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting and I don’t want to spend my adulthood in conflict with my dad.
“I told your mother that we had nothing to worry about.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I pick the pen up off my desk and start flicking it side to side in my hand.
“I mean so what about Todd, right? We’re lucky to have that bastard out of our life.”
I drop the pen. Whoa, back the bus up. I thought we were talking about me being successful and able to stand on my own? That my mother who has never earned one dollar herself doubted my abilities?
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Todd,” he says louder. Like I’m his golf buddy who turned down his hearing aid. “The announcement of his engagement.”
I spring up and out of my chair. “He’s engaged?”
“Oh, you didn’t know. I assumed you heard before we did. It was all the buzz at the club last night during dinner. Supposedly she’s a nurse at the hospital. Seems a little sleazy to me, sleeping with someone who works underneath you, but his parents were raving about her.”
The pit of my stomach shouldn’t feel as though I just ate a hearty helping of street meat. I shouldn’t give one shit about Todd or his upcoming nuptials.
“He took her to Tahiti or somewhere tropical and had the ring put in some shell and wrote something in the sand. You know me, I zoned out after a little while, but your mother, she was worried about how you’d handle the news.”