Some Like It Charming - By Megan Bryce Page 0,42
with that and she shrugged. She didn’t know what she was going to do when this was all over.
He said, “Don’t leave. You can move to the London office and I’ll stay away until it all blows over. Go see if you can win over a foreign market with your particular brand of ‘charm’.”
She could feel her blood start heating at the thought of a new challenge and she pushed it back down.
She said, “Doesn’t HGC have offices in Tokyo? Now there would be a real challenge.”
He groaned. “HGC! I forbid you to work for them. In any country.”
She laughed. “Good thing for you that I’m getting used to sleeping in.”
He muttered, “I should have forbid you from working for them in the pre-nup.”
“You’ve still got that half million to work with.”
“It would almost be worth it.”
She smiled at him and he shook his head. “I’m saving it for a real emergency. You’d work for HGC a week before you realized they were a bunch of sneaky, no-good thieves only out for themselves, and come crawling back to me.”
“You’re just pissed that Bob Givens got the cover of Forbes.”
He glowered at her and she patted his arm with her free hand. “Just remember you looked better on your cover. And probably sold more copies.”
“Did I? Look better?”
“Of course you did. And you actually said something instead of just hyping your company.”
He looked mollified, then said, “It’s because he went public.” He shook his head. “Now he’s focused on selling bits of his company instead of selling product.”
She shook her head. “It’s because he’s not making any money. He only has hype.”
“Revenue has tripled! What a fantastic year!”
“And he forgets to mention that costs have quintupled.”
He looked at her. “Would you buy stock in it?”
She shook her head, then paused. “I might trade it. HGC is flavor of the month right now. But when the buzz fades?” She shook her head. “I’ll be shorting it at the first hint of a turn-around.”
“Would you buy into O’Connor?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Are you thinking of going public?”
“Not while there is breath left in my body,” he said and she laughed.
“But if we did, would you buy it?”
She shrugged. “I’d have to see a few years of annual reports first.”
He smiled slightly and squeezed her hand. “Come on. Tell me you would.”
“The OC will be there to mop up HGC’s clients when they go bankrupt. So, probably I would buy stock.”
“Then why didn’t you take the shares when I offered?”
“Because I have a personal issue with the owner. He keeps stealing my chocolate.”
He nodded at the doorman, then leaned down to murmur, “I’ll have to think of a way to make that up to you.”
He held on to her hand on the elevator ride up to the apartment.
And all the while he stroked her hand with his thumb. Up, down, on the inside of her palm. Again and again.
Her breathing picked up and her skin became extremely sensitive. She tried to pull her hand out of his and he pulled her out of the elevator and down the hallway. He shut the door and crowded her back up against it.
She said, “You can stop now.”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I’m just getting back at you for the reading material crack.”
“It wasn’t a crack. It was legitimate concern.”
He nuzzled her neck. “That’s nice. How concerned are you?”
He scraped her neck with his teeth and her hands curled into fists. She shook her head but couldn’t get any breath past her lips.
He paused, his mouth hovering over hers. “I’m going to kiss you.”
Mackenzie thought about his mother inviting that red-headed vixen to pick out her engagement ring and murmured, “Okay.”
He moved his lips a smidgen closer. “Mm-hm. I was looking more for ‘God, yes’ or ‘what took you so long’.”
She found some spare air in her lungs and said, “Okay is all you’re going to get.”
He ran his hand down her hip. “Is that so?”
She nodded and he smiled. He laid his lips against hers and whispered, “Ethan. God. Yes.”
She looked at him out of lidded eyes and whispered back, “It’s never going to happen.”
She rose onto her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his neck, and opened her mouth. He groaned and kissed her, his tongue coming out to play.
His hands slid up her shirt and he said, “Aren’t you tired of fighting it, yet?”
Oh, she was. Tired of her stomach flopping every time he got near. Tired of his cologne