“And I thought you had vision. Also, it’s mer-dinosaurs. And alpha shifter crocodile heroines.”
“Knock it off. Lila clearly has a few other more important things to deal with today.” Parker rubs his hair, then winces and grabs a napkin and wipes his hair harder. “Gah. Sorry. Got some of my taco in there.”
Of all the women I’ve ever met in my life, Parker is my absolute favorite, bar none. She’s majestically awkward, and she owns it in everything from her autocorrected text conversations to—well, to rubbing tacos in Knox’s hair in a hospital cafeteria.
“I like your taco,” he says with a brow wiggle.
Her fair skin goes pink. “Shush.”
“You want to head home so you can lick it out?”
“Yes, but we’re being polite and having a meeting with your boss. And then we both have to get back to work. Unless Lila needs one of us to stay with her. The taco will, erm, still be there tonight. It’ll probably take a shower to get the clumped cheese out.”
His eyes go dark, and he doesn’t look at me while he talks. Nope, his attention is squarely on the woman he’s head over heels in love with. “I hate it when you say shower when it’s hours before we can take one.”
They’re a romance novel come to life. Him, a romance-loving librarian. Her, the geeky organic grocery store vice president who used to babysit him. The two of them together, utterly adorable.
“Go back to the real story idea, please. I’ll dismiss you both within five minutes so you can get to naked shower time. Promise.”
“We’re not abandoning you in your time of need,” Parker replies.
“Uncle Al and I weren’t close. Boarding school, remember? Besides, I have seventy-five other phone calls to catch up on for the day job, and more meetings to reschedule.”
“I thought Wellington’s retirement was basically done?”
It is.
My boss’s retirement was announced several months ago, which means pulling back from both the holdings part of Wellington Holdings, and also suspending work on the development side of things.
It’s not a normal holdings company.
But then, my boss isn’t normal either.
And I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of dismantling a company. So much so, I might’ve dragged out the process longer than necessary. In truth, those seventy-five phone calls are actually three, and they’re final approval phone calls that will leave me with only one project on my plate beyond the publishing house, which I’m terrified I’ll get bored with entirely too soon.
I have issues.
But I won’t use my issues to hold my friends up when they clearly need to be somewhere.
Parker squeezes my arm. “If Dalton doesn’t give you a two-week vacation soon, I’m going to go hunt him down myself and tell him to finish his own damn work.”
“That really won’t end well.”
“Stupid reclusive billionaires and their stupid security,” she grumbles. “You deserve time off. At least he’s giving you a good severance package.”
I gesture around the hospital cafeteria and swallow the guilt at telling my friends that I still have months of work to do to finish the retirement project. “Pretty sure the universe just gave me time off. But. In the meantime—finish with the story idea, please. I really do have to make some phone calls before I check in with the doctors. And I refuse to be a cock-blocker.”
They both grin—Knox naughty, Parker embarrassed, and I’d like to tell her that she has nothing to be embarrassed about since she knows he’ll actually close the deal tonight, unlike my last encounter with a man, but one, I can’t bring myself to ruin the fantasy of one of her favorite boy band members for her, and two, it’s not freaking appropriate.
Also, I really need to pay attention. Knox is talking about a self-published book he found about a woman keeping a diary about pretending to be Cinderella to snag a prince who’s at her college for a year of studying abroad, but how she’s actually falling for the guy playing her fairy godmother. It sounds fun, and I love Cinderella stories almost as much as I love secret baby stories, so I greenlight him to reach out about acquiring the book to repackage, re-edit, and market the hell out of it to take it from obscurity to superstardom.
He knows how to get in touch with the rest of the production and marketing team, so there’s not much left for me to do.
I gather my planner and notebook off the table and toss them into my messenger bag, because I know I can’t actually make phone calls without checking in with the doctors first.
And odds are good that instead of making my phone calls, I’ll be sitting in the waiting room on the twentieth floor, reading a book.
An erotic rock star romance.
About a lead singer who can’t get it up after a horrific break-up, and the groupie who’s accidentally turning into his physical therapist. Yes, that kind of physical therapist.
It’s super sexy, and I had to replace the batteries in my vibrator once already while reading it, and I should probably put that one on hold and grab a time travel romance instead. With shape-shifters. In space.
Dammit.
“You said your nana already has that book written?” I ask with a wince.
Knox grins, and I pretend I don’t notice that he’s palming Parker’s ass while he helps her out of her chair. “I’ll shoot it to you on email.”
“No judgment here,” Parker assures me. “Distractions are a good thing during times of high stress. Plus, we read it in bed the other night. You should really find someone to read in bed with. I highly recommend it. Just don’t think about the author while you’re reading, and you’ll be fine.”
Not a chance.
Hook-ups? Yes.
Love and reading romance novels in bed together? No.
That’s for people with normal families and normal lives and normal hang-ups.
“Don’t forget book club next week too,” Knox adds while we make our way to the trash cans. “We’re doing all four of those lady billionaire novels. I’m up to Kathryn Nolan’s. Fantastic hero—love the motorcycle gang angle.”
“I’m still re-reading the closet sex scene in Claire Kingsley’s book,” Parker whispers.
I manage to not wince at the mention of the book club’s selections for next week—the subject matter is unfortunately close to home—and instead make myself smile at the memory of re-reading the closet sex scene a time or seventeen myself. With my vibrator on standby.
It’s better than men anyway. No emotional attachments. No worries about having to confess to some of the things I’ve done in the name of business. No need to spill my secrets.
No hot kisses either, but a girl can’t have everything.
“Lila, seriously, we’ll stay,” Parker says. “I hate seeing you so sad, and I hate the idea that you’re all alone.”
“Go,” I insist, and I have to fight against the lump suddenly growing in my throat, because now I’m thinking about why I was in the club in the first place. Got something of your mother’s, Uncle Al had said. I’ll bring it with me to the club tonight. You’ll meet me?
He hadn’t had anything of my mother’s.
And he’d hinted that I should ask Dalton Wellington to lend him some money for the Fireballs baseball team.