Chapter 31
. . .
Will
Sometimes, in life, everything goes right for you.
Like those car journeys where each stoplight goes green just before you pass through or when every touch I have in a game turns golden.
Thank Christ that tonight is one of those nights. The chances of gaining access to Drew’s office building were slim, and I knew that, driving over here.
But when a guy who works in the same building buzzed me through reception and then a woman held the security door open for me before it slammed shut, I knew luck was on my side.
And it needs to be because Drew still isn’t answering her phone, and following the conversation I just had with her dad, I need to talk to her more than ever.
Other than a few meeting rooms, the First Line offices are open plan and generally stark and bright. Not tonight. A single desk lamp in the far-right corner of the room is all that illuminates Drew’s face as she types away on her laptop, bottom lip pinned between her teeth in thought.
Like I anticipated, she’s the last one standing in the office, and I wonder how many nights she’s stayed late and put in extra hours she wasn’t paid for.
There’s something so beautiful about my girl when she’s like this—locked in and focused on her job.
While I could lurk out of sight and watch her forever, a painful truth weighs heavy in my mind—this career means the world to her.
If she didn’t have me as her client, I have zero doubt that she’d be scoring big deals and have an inbox bursting with new inquiries.
Quietly, I move toward her, the sound of her typing growing clearer with each step. She still hasn’t noticed me, and I can’t help but grin at her inevitable reaction when she finally clicks that I’m here.
Another couple of steps, and I’m less than twenty feet away when the floor creaks beneath my left foot, and her head whips up, eyes wide.
“Hey,” I quietly greet her, voice a little hoarse.
It’s a couple of seconds before Drew’s face breaks into a smile, and I stalk toward her, fingers itching to touch my girl.
She goes to stand from her chair, but I get there first, wrapping my palms under her ass so she can loop her legs around my waist.
Drew’s breath wafts over me in sweet waves, and it’s then I notice the empty mug of hot chocolate sitting by her laptop.
She has an email from a huge French fashion brand pulled up on her screen, and a sense of privilege rolls through me.
I get to hold this smart woman in my arms on the daily while she kicks ass on my behalf.
“Busy taking over the world?” I ask, nuzzling my face into her neck.
Her pulse point thrums against my lips when I set a chaste kiss there.
She just sighs, although it’s more despondent than happy.
I sit her down on the desk, crouching between her parted thighs so we’re eye level.
Today, she’s wearing the light-blue suit she wore to the Repeet meeting in New York. Drew in a skirt is hot as fuck, but there’s something about fitted pants and heels that just … yeah.
Gliding my hands up and down her thighs, I softly exhale into the room. “Shall I interpret your sigh as the reason why you haven’t been replying to my messages?”
Drew doesn’t need to answer for me to guess that it is, and my heart sinks an inch in my chest. Did she hear about Candice leaving the team, or has Coach already convinced her to pull away from me to save her career?
“I haven’t felt much like talking all day, if I’m being honest.”
My thumbs rub anxious circles over her pants. “Why?”
Drew’s eyes drop from my face to the floor, like she’s ashamed of something. “You’re looking at a First Line employee on her first official warning.”
Fuck.
I tip her chin up to look at me. “Did Colton find out about us?”
Drew shakes her head slowly, and my heart kicks back into life.
“I think if that was discovered, I wouldn’t be employed at all, don’t you?”
Coach’s warning to protect Drew’s career bounces around in my brain.
“Then what happened?”
Drew’s shoulders slump. “Lydia fucking West is what happened. She made an official complaint about me not reporting Silas’s request to transfer to my management.
” Turning animated, Drew randomly points ahead like she’s reliving the moment when it all went down.
“In front of all my colleagues, she accused me of stealing her clients and then lodged a formal grievance. Obviously, Colton had to take it seriously because it is a breach of code of practice, but …” Her eyes are narrowed in anger as she looks at me again.
“As if I was ever going to go behind her back. I already told Silas that working together wasn’t a possibility.
Lydia is out to get me, and this was an excuse to exercise the vendetta she’s had since I started working here. ”
As the first tear runs a track down her cheek, my already-troubled heart cracks clean down the center.
How the hell am I supposed to tell Drew about her dad now?
Or his comments about us stepping away from each other either personally or professionally?
I know nothing about PR, but even I can see that the seismic deal she’s working on is enough to catapult her career once again.
And that’s precisely why she’s still in the office at past eight in the evening.
We’re a team in every sense of the word, and I can’t—no, I won’t—be the one to shatter my girl’s dreams all because some fucking clause in our contracts says I can’t hold her like this or lie down next to her in my bed tonight.
“Baby, look at me,” I whisper, pointing at my eyes.
Drew’s glassy gaze reluctantly finds me.
“Hurt people hurt other people because it makes their shitty lives feel less painful for a few minutes.”
Drew sniffs and shakes her head. “But why me? Sure, it was a mistake not to report Silas’s inquiry, but I’ve only ever tried to be honest. When I joined First Line, I actually referred a client inquiry to Lydia because I thought she would be a better fit for them than me.”
A proud smile breaks out across my face. “Of course you did—because you’re beautiful inside and out, and that’s why I’m falling so fucking hard for you.”
Mouth agape, Drew stares at me for the longest moment before I nod once and kiss away all of the stress from today.
“Will …” she purrs against my mouth. “Rule two in my revised list: The client cannot catch feelings for his publicist, no matter how amazing she might be.”
“Tough,” I argue, moving my lips over hers. Goddamn, she feels so fucking good. “I’m falling fast, and no one can stop me. I don’t want to be stopped until I’m on my knees, begging you to be my girlfriend.”
A delighted giggle rises up her throat, and I swallow it down like the simp that I’ve become.
“Y-you want to date me?”
I cup the back of her head in my palm and deepen the kiss, showing her how serious I am about us with my tongue.
“Close your laptop and take my hand. Come back to my place and sleep with me. I don’t want your answer until the delicious ache between your thighs renders you powerless to resist me anymore. You belong with me, Drew.”
Her hands fall to my black training top, and I could scream at myself for halting her before she removes it.
“You don’t want the second time we fuck to be here. You’re too professional for that, and there’s no way I can take my time with you either.”
Her lack of protest confirms I’m right as she dips her fingers beneath my collar and finds the gold compass.
“I think it’s high time you told me when and why you got this. You weren’t wearing it last Christmas, and I refuse to go home with you until you tell me more.”
I drop my chin to look at the pendant as Drew twists it around in her fingers.
“Do you believe in fate?”
Inquisitive blue eyes continue studying the compass. “I guess. I’ve never really had an experience that’s caused me to feel strongly either way, but the older I get, the more I agree that everything happens for a reason.”
Reaching behind my neck, I unclasp the chain for the first time since I saw it in a jeweler’s window the day before my twenty-second birthday.
I hand it to Drew. She might as well keep it since it’s always belonged to her.
It wasn’t expensive, and I wasn’t out shopping, but I was instantly drawn to the store window. The second I saw it, I wasn’t leaving without it.
“You have to promise me you won’t laugh when I tell you this,” I say.
Drew tips her head from side to side. “I’ll try my best.”
“Brat,” I softly scold, going in for another kiss. “Back in February, I saw a tarot reader.”
Drew’s shocked face almost makes me laugh. “Seriously? Of all the things I expected you to say, that was not it.”
I kiss her again. “I love it when I keep your smart-ass guessing.”
She frowns and plays with my compass again. “Did the reader give you this?”
“No,” I reply, taking the chain from her hand and securing it around my girl’s neck.
“What are you doing, Will?”
I take a step back to appreciate how fucking beautiful it looks on her. “Gifting it to you because it’s only ever been yours.” Pulling my phone from my pocket, I open the camera and take a photo of her wearing it, determined that, in the future, the image will feature as my screen saver.
I set my phone down on the desk, and Drew shakes her head, voice a little wobbly as she says, “I don’t understand. What has the tarot reader got to do with your chain, and why does it belong to me?”
I just smile, knowing that I’ll likely tell her the whole story one day. “Patience, Baby. When the time is right, I’ll explain everything. Tonight isn’t that night.”
She opens her mouth, but I silence her with my tongue, whimpering when I lace my fingers through hers.
“If you don’t walk this cute butt out of here in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you to my car. Your choice.”
Drew melts into the kiss, throwing her arms around my neck. “Make me, Hotshot.”
I growl because this woman makes me all kinds of crazy. “Fine. Have it your way.”
Throwing her over my shoulder, I slap her ass and make her squeal as a preview of later tonight.
“Now hold still,” I command, stalking toward the elevator. “The time to writhe around is when you’re beneath me and I’m fucking you senseless for being a disobedient rulebreaker.”