I set my phone to Do Not Disturb before dropping it back into my purse. Hopefully, by the time he figures out he’s not about to catch whatever I’ve supposedly got, Verity and I will have enough chapters that it won’t matter.
“All right!” Verity says, appearing on the pool deck again. She’s changed out of her bathing suit into a flowy sundress cut low over her enormous bosom, a pair of rhinestone glasses on her face. “Ready?”
“Ready,” I tell her, hoping it’s not written all over my face that I have no idea what I’m getting myself into, that I’m nowhere near as confident as I sound. “Let’s get to work.”
12
Liam
Eliza is out sick for the rest of the week.
It should be a relief—after all, now I can finally buckle down and get some work done without her presence around the office pulling me away from the work. But try as I might (and believe me, I do try) I still can’t get her out of my head. I keep thinking I see her out of the corner of my eye: getting coffee in the kitchen, pressing the button for the elevator in the lobby. One morning I follow what I think is the scent of her perfume all the way down the hallway and around a corner—
Before bumping right into Irma, our seventy-five-year-old copyeditor.
Our payroll meeting is scheduled for Thursday morning, so I pick up an extra-large black coffee on my way into the office. I settle myself in a hard-backed chair in the conference room—I had all the leather ones removed to discourage dawdling in meetings—and try to concentrate as I listen to our team of accountants report glumly on even more budget shortfalls.
I try to pay attention. After all, this is important information for me to have, but we’re barely ten minutes in before I find my thoughts drifting to that night in Eliza’s apartment.
That mind-blowing, incredible, sexy-as-hell night I can’t seem to forget.
I remember her quiet moans and the way she clutched at my shoulders, the rhythmic feel of her body contracting around my fingers as she came. I’ve replayed the encounter over and over in my head dozens—maybe hundreds—of times in the last few days, and it still hasn’t lost its power over me.
Because hell, that might just have been one of the sexiest moments of my life… And I didn’t even take off my pants.
I reach for my coffee, hoping the caffeine will help me focus. I know I was an idiot to walk out of her apartment like that. But what was I supposed to do? She’s my employee—for as long as I can keep the company running, anyway—and I’ve got a job to do here. I can’t let my feelings for her get in the way.
Still, I can’t help but imagine in full Technicolor detail what might have happened if I’d stayed, instead of running out like my hair was on fire. If I’d swept her up into my arms and spread her out on her bed, taken my time peeling her dress down her body until finally, finally—
“Uh, Mr. Sterling?” One of the accountants is looking at me curiously. “Did you want to weigh in on this?”
Shit. I’ve been spending too much time worrying about Verity’s book, clearly. I’ve got romance novels on the brain.
“Yes.” I blurt, trying to pull myself together. “Let’s look at the footnotes on page six…”
The meeting wraps up not long after that, thank goodness, but instead of heading directly back to my desk and parking myself there for the foreseeable future, I find myself wandering by Eliza’s office. I stand in the doorway for a moment, gazing at her empty chair, her darkened computer screen. Inappropriate and unprofessional thoughts aside, I can’t help but be a little worried. She’s been out sick all week. What if I’ve been lusting after her, while she’s laid up with a nasty bug?
I call her cell to check in, but it goes directly to voicemail. I hang up without leaving a message, and try to decide on a course of action. The obvious answer is to do nothing… But I don’t like the thought of her alone. Being sick solo is the worst. And there’s no reason I couldn’t swing by her place to check on her in person. In a strictly professional capacity, of course. After all, what if she’s got something serious? If the whole office needs to be quarantined, I ought to find out as soon as possible.
Impulsive? Yes.
Stupid? Probably.
But I just can’t help myself.
I stop by a specialty foods store and pick up some soup on the way over, plus a baguette and some fancy tea. I might not be much for social graces, but my mother taught me that much. But when I ring the doorbell at Eliza’s building, there’s no answer.
I stand on the steps for a moment, debating my next move. I’ll admit, I didn’t really come all the way over here out of fear Eliza was lying feverishly on the floor of her apartment, unable to call for help. But now I’m starting to worry. Could something really be wrong?
I’m pulling my phone out of my pocket to try calling her one more time, when a pretty dark-haired woman comes downstairs and out the front door, an NPR tote bag slung over one shoulder. “Uh, excuse me,” I say, trying to look as little like a serial killer as humanly possible, “do you happen to know if Eliza is home?”
The brunette shakes her head. “I know she’s not, actually,” she says. “I’m her friend Maddie. I was just here to feed the cat.”
“Eliza has a cat?” I don’t know why that surprises me.
“Well, not technically,” Maddie says. “It’s a long story. Anyway, she’s not here. She’s is having some kind of crisis with one of her authors and she went out to Long Island to get it sorted.” She smiles. “Would be nice if everyone’s work crises involved holing up in a fabulous beach house for the week, am I right?”
That stops me. “She’s with Verity?” I ask.
“Um.” Maddie’s eyes narrow, like she’s realizing all at once that she may have said too much. “Sorry, I—” She breaks off. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t,” I admit, sticking a hand out. “I’m Liam Sterling.”
“Oh, crapwaffle.” Maddie grimaces, clapping a hand over her face. “Look, please don’t tell her I told you where she was, okay? I know she’s determined to handle this whole thing on her own.”
“What whole thing, exactly?” I ask, my suspicions rising.
Maddie shakes her head. “I’ve gotta go; I’m late for, um… a bikini wax. Yeah. Okay, bye!”
She all but sprints away, but I stand where I am for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. If there was some kind of crisis with Verity—especially one that needed to be handled in person—why wouldn’t Eliza have told me about it so I could help?
Possibly because you’ve spent the last two weeks telling her that her job depends on everything going 100% smoothly, an annoying voice in my head reminds me.
Ugh. I feel like a complete and utter ass.
I have to sort this out, and quickly. Because I’m betting the bank on this new Verity book, and any delay is unacceptable.
And anything that keeps Eliza out of town isn’t great, either.
I hop back into my car and make the drive out to Long Island. I ring the bell but there’s no answer, so I wander around back to the pool deck, where sure enough I find Eliza, who by all appearances is in perfect health. She’s stretched out on a lounge chair, pecking industriously away at a laptop.