Now he and Gwen could sit together and have meetings.
The new space excited him, made him feel like he could be more productive. He’d been accumulating junk. Each year in the time-span between lines being released, there’d always been this pipedream he would have time to clean. That never happened. Enrico used that down time to whisk Andrew all over the world.
Exhaustion had taken ahold of him. He’d intended to walk earlier, but now he’d take a taxi. On his final scan of the room, he spotted loose papers peeking out from under Gwen’s desk. One of the porters must have knocked over the trash can. Andrew picked up the papers and crumbled them in his hand. Something didn’t bend like the other discarded papers and he opened his hand to have a look.
He unfolded the mini envelope. Loopy handwriting that Andrew didn’t recognize read: Gwendolyn.
It looked like a card he expected had accompanied a floral arrangement. However, there was no trace of flowers, dead leaves or wet muck that accumulated at the bottom of a vase anywhere in the office or the trash.
Andrew guessed it came from the soon-to-be ex-husband. Maybe asking her to take him back.
What idiot would leave her in the first place?
Waiting for the elevator, Andrew stared at the sloppy script, his heart pounding with anticipation.
He opened the envelope feeling as if he were about to sneak up on the woman who fascinated him to distraction.
Andrew’s eyes filled with rage taking in the words scrolled across the card. Nope, not the ex.
Think about it, bella- SC.
CHAPTER SEVEN
he bright sun stung Gwen’s eyes Saturday morning. Her skin soaked in the powerful rays Tbeaming through her wood blinds as she found her way to the coffee machine. The rich aroma already filling her kitchen, stopped her cold.
“Good morning, sunshine!”
Gwen whirled around. “Skye, don’t do that!”
Her sister’s blonde hair sparkled in the sunlight, and her shoulders and legs shined from a hint of perspiration. “Sleeping in so late?”
“It is a Saturday.” Gwen breathed in the steaming black silk heaven coming from her coffee maker. “How long have you been here?”
Skye returned to the rectangle wood breakfast table Gwen had classified as reclaimed since she’d found it at a garage sale. “This is my second cup.”
Her sister’s Golden Retriever padded over to Gwen. A large tongue splashed across her face.
“Hello, Casey.”
The dog sat and began to scratch. Casey was always welcome in her home, even if the clumps of strawberry-blonde fur she left behind were not.
“Hey, Gwen, who’s Andrew?” Skye asked behind a mug of coffee.
The carafe slipped from her fingers and hot coffee trickled down the cabinets. “What are you talking about?”
“You were murmuring the name Andrew while you were sleeping.” Skye unraveled several paper towels to clean the spill.
“I...I was?” Gwen dabbed her forehead, still moist with sweat.
She’d woken up with hard, sore nipples and a throbbing between her legs. Yeah. She knew she’d been dreaming about him, but she had no idea she’d been calling out his name.
In the dream, they were back in the bar. Their conversation had played out as it had before. She’d been standing outside herself, watching it like a movie. Andrew hadn’t reacted to her hug last night, but in Gwen’s dream his hands gripped her shoulders and he devoured her mouth with those full, pink lips and a warm, velvet tongue.
It’d felt so real because seeing him again had awoken the dirty memories of what he’d done to her body. In another flash, they were in his office, their office. He’d lifted her up and laid her out on his messy desk, shoving papers and folders aside. His free hand dove under her skirt where he found her slick and waiting. She’d thrashed around, her body sizzling, as his long fingers slid inside her to make her come in her sleep.
Her flailing hands had smacked into the picture of Andrew and his wife, sending it crashing to the floor. The glass sliced into her fingers this time. The pain had felt as real as the pleasure.
“Earth to Gwen,” Skye called out.
Rubbing a fingernail against the phantom cut, she gazed up at her sister. She’d not told a soul about that night, because she wasn’t a one-night-stand with a stranger kind of girl.
“He’s a guy I work with,” she said hoping to leave it at that.
“That hot, huh?”
“You have no idea.” Gwen draped her body against the cool marble countertop to lower her body temperature.
“Tall?” When Gwen pressed her eyes closed and nodded like she was agreeing to an ice cream cone, Skye hissed with delight. “You like ‘em tall. Which is why I never understood what you saw in Dan. What else?”
Ignoring the dig on Dan’s short stature, Gwen swallowed, and figured, what the hell. “Actually, I slept with Andrew last year.”
Now Skye almost dropped her coffee. “What?”
Gwen waved away the pouncing she knew she’d get. Her crazed family was full of protective lunatics. “I’m not in a mood to get into it. I met him in a bar, we had a drink, and then I went back to his hotel.”
“With a stranger who could kill you?”
“You sound like Greg.” Gwen gasped. “If you tell him, I’ll kill you myself. Do you see? I’m fine.
Oh, he slayed me all right. It was the best sex I ever had, Skye, which is why this is so hard now.”
“What is?”
She said if only to remind herself, “Andrew is completely off-limits.”
“Is there a no-romance policy at Prada?”
“Just the opposite. It’s like a meat-market there.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m an executive now. I can’t go home with a co-worker and then show up the next day in the same clothes.” Although she had plenty of opportunities to get more clothes, nice ones if she ever dared to let Andrew have her again one fine day after work.
“Hmph.” Skye pouted, annoyed Gwen had denied her juicy details about Andrew and that night in his hotel room.
“Anyway, I like the job. Thanks for asking about that.”
“You must love fashion for you to haul your cookies all the way to the city every day.”
“We can’t all have a nice little law practice here in town.” She gulped her hot coffee and burned her lower lip. “Ouch. And we didn’t all go to Columbia,” she said grabbing a napkin.
“Gwen, you went to FIT.”
“Yes, but I can’t break out mom’s old sewing machine and make clothes in my garage.”
Even if that were a viable option to make money, she had none of her mother’s sewing abilities.
FIT, however, had taught her valuable merchandising skills.
Gwen stood to take her coffee back to her bedroom. There had been a fire burning beneath the surface of her skin moments ago, but now her body had cooled. “Are you done with your run, or on your way?”
“Taking a break, want to join me for the second half?” Skye thumbed through a stack of papers on her counter.
“Yeah. I’ll put on something more appropriate for running.” Gwen had wandered into the kitchen wearing an extra small thong and a Love Pink tank top. One benefit of living alone.