Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Laughter bubbled up in my chest. It was so quintessentially Dominic. He might be making me breakfast, presumably to be brought up to bed, but he was still swearing and glaring as much as ever.
“You’re supposed to be in bed,” he told me, grabbing the bacon off the floor and tossing it in the trashcan on top of broken eggshells.
“So were you. I woke up alone.”
“You were supposed to be asleep. I was going to surprise you.”
He looked so genuinely irritated that the laughter in my chest moved up to my throat. “Sorry. Next time I’ll stay in bed.” I slipped my arms around his torso and warmed my cold hands on his bare skin.
“Do that,” he said, the irritation in his eyes replaced by a dark, smoldering expression that made me forget my stomach and awakened a hunger for something else. “Always stay in my bed.”
He kissed me, walking me backward toward the staircase. I moved my hands up the hard panes of his chest to wrap around his strong neck, holding on for balance. My eyes were closed and my senses were full of him.
The bacon was cold by the time we got around to eating it.
Time took on a dream-like quality. My days were as busy as ever between work and helping Mrs. Kloss and spending evenings with Christi, but now my nights were filled with Dominic. When I was with him, everything else fell away. Our dark, stolen hours never seemed to be enough. I was careful not to say anything, though. I was afraid he’d hear the truth underneath the words–that I was falling in love with him. That I was afraid nothing short of everything would ever be enough.
One night, as I was laying with my head on his chest, my ear pressed to his heartbeat, he said, “Why the hell is it that we spend all day together in the same building, all night together in the same bed, and it still feels like I can’t get enough time with you?”
My heart leapt at the sound of my thoughts on his lips. “Because even when we’re at work, we’re not together,” I said, rolling over to face him in the dark. I pushed myself up on my elbow. “We’re not even the same people. At work, you’re Dominic White, CEO, and I’m Selena Sinclair, junior associate.”
Dominic winced. “Not for much longer.”
I nodded. In the new year, I’d interview at a few other companies. I’d spurned his offer of calling in favors. I needed it to be a clean break with no ties back to him so that when my heart inevitably got broken, I didn’t have to leave the job.
The problem was, there weren’t that many companies I was interested in. I wished that Christi and I really could just start up our event planning business, or at least move into that field. The problem was, it wouldn’t pay enough to begin with to support us and the baby. Not unless we wanted to live under Clyde and Maribel forever.
“What’s wrong?” Dominic skimmed a hand down my cheek. The whites of his eyes glimmered in the dark. I heard the guarded, wary shadow in his voice, the one that darkened when what he was really asking was: is this wrong? It was like he was always waiting for me to change my mind, to decide this was all a mistake.
I understood it because that was how I felt, too, and it was terrible. I spoke before I thought, wanting to reassure him. “I was just thinking…I don’t like my job very much.”
I felt the laugh rumble from his chest to his lips. “I’ll let the boss know.”
Mortified, I dropped my head to the hard plane of his stomach and buried my face, even though it was too dark for him to see the heat rising to my cheeks. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.” Dominic smoothed his hand over my hair, tugged lightly so that I had to look up at him again. “Why do you do it?”
I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “It just kind of happened.” I explained about my parents pushing me toward it and then my natural aptitude for it keeping me on the path. “And then there’s the money,” I said glumly. “It’s too good to quit. Especially with the baby coming.”
“It is good money,” Dominic agreed. “What would you do if money wasn’t a factor though?”
The question felt too loaded. I wasn’t sure if he was just asking, or if there was an offer lurking behind it. I wished the light was on so I could read Dominic’s face.
“Selena?” he prompted.
“Something creative,” I said vaguely.
“Something like an event planning business,” he said astutely.
I shrugged again. “Maybe.”
He shifted in the dark. I felt him going into his head, contemplating it. His voice was different, more business-like, when he said, “You’d be good at it. I could–”