Chapter 7
“Mmm . . . so, then the red velvet ottoman goes over there—” I murmur, but the disembodied client voice says they want it in orange juice—no, ice with a hint of whiskey. That’s not right, I think, and the discordance rouses me slightly.
I blink, soft light warming my eyelids, and I realize that it was all a dream.
I open my eyes more, fighting the gritty feeling, and see a silky-smooth comforter, an eggshell white wall . . .
Wait.
This isn’t my bedroom.
Oh, shit. This is bad.
In surprise, I jerk back, stopping when I feel a warm, thick, hard presence nestle against my ass.
Ohmyfuckinggawd. What did I do last night?
I sit up in the bed, my head swirling dangerously, and try not to scream when I turn around and see Ross lying on the other half of the bed.
He’s damn near naked as the day he was born, every inch of tempting flesh on display except for a decidedly skin-tight pair of boxer briefs that don’t hide a damn thing.
He’s carved out of wood, and I’m not just talking about his bulging boxers, which are barely containing a cock so large and thick that I can literally see the head start to push the waistband outward, like a snake ready to climb out of its cave.
“What the fuck?” I rasp, only it comes out a lot louder than I expect.
I flinch, my head pounding and begging me to keep the volume down.
I look down, and I’m stitchless, only the sheet puddling in my lap giving me any slight modesty.
I see my red dress and bra hung up on a hanger next to the door, my heels almost carefully placed underneath them.
Ross groans and stretches, opening his eyes and smiling at me, making my heart skip a beat. How is it that I wake up naked, in bed with Ross Andrews, with no real memory of how I got here, but the first thing I can think of is that I want to jump back in and drown in those sexy blue eyes of his?
“Good morning,” Ross says quietly, his smile widening into a grin as his eyes obviously trace a path along my bared breasts and belly.
“Oh, my God,” I gasp, looking around. I see a bathrobe hanging off a very expensive modernistic German armoire, and I hop up and snatch it, ignoring the tilt-a-whirl floor that threatens to take me down.
I pull it on as if it’s armor that can protect me against the awkwardness of waking up with my best friend’s brother, my archenemy.
As if it can protect me from my body’s reaction to his.
I tighten the belt and tuck the bows just to make sure it stays tied, but I have to admit it’s a very, very nice robe . . . and it smells like Ross. Which isn’t doing anything to help my embarrassment or my arousal.
“Okay,” I tell him finally, feeling my eyes pulse in my skull and the beginning of a headache coming on. “Let me guess . . . I got drunk?”
“You ordered mimosas for everyone in Club Red,” Ross says. He seems ridiculously at ease and not at all freaked out about our current situation, stretching out on the bed and displaying his sexy, leanly muscled body for me.
I can’t help but look on in appreciation. I’m stupid, not dead. He grins, seeing my expression. “Like what you see?” He traces his hand over his chest and down his abs, cupping himself. My hands itch to shove his hands out of the way and make the journey themselves.
But this is Ross.
“Ugh!” I protest, turning around to give him my back even as sinful thoughts of the six-foot-one-inch of man in bed behind me fill my brain.
Oh, shit . . . wait, did we—
I whirl back around, which is a big mistake for my precarious balance, but my shock and fear keep me vertical. He must read the horror on my face because he answers my unspoken question.
“Don’t worry,” Ross says as he gets out of bed and walks easily and comfortably across the room. I can’t stop my eyes from following him. “I was a gentleman, and even though you showed me quite an eyeful . . . we didn’t have sex.”
That’s good. Really good, but there’s a hint of disappointment coursing through me too.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him go over to a door, disappearing into what looks like a pretty big walk-in closet before coming out in a pair of workout shorts and a tank top that, while hiding a little more of his skin, still has the temperature in my borrowed robe a few degrees this side of warm.
I’m not sure if I’m happy or upset about that.
Physically, I’ve wanted to fuck Ross since about the time I knew what sex was. And then he basically tortured me through middle and high school, squashing any crush I’d had on him. Well, most of it, anyway.
What’s that saying? He’s pretty packaging on an ugly inside.
Okay, there’s nothing remotely ugly about Ross, except how he can zing me good and embarrass the fuck out of me, and somehow, I still enjoy it and live for that bright smile of his that marks his victory over me.
But that speaks more to my weirdness, probably, not his.
He’s always seen me as an annoying little sister, so emotionally, I’d rather go celibate the rest of my life than sleep with Ross Andrews.
And that’s that. Problem, meet solution.
I’m just going to pretend last night never happened. And he’s going to do the same.
“Come on,” Ross says, stepping aside and gesturing toward the door. “We can talk over some breakfast. You’ve probably got a hangover the size of Australia brewing inside your head, and I can see the hamster spinning in his wheel with the lightning-fast speed of your thoughts crossing your face.”
I nod slowly, following a barefoot Ross out of the bedroom and down a hallway. As he walks, he calls out, “Geoffrey, dim the windows to twenty percent, please.”
Oh, no! Is there someone here? A witness to my embarrassment this morning?
Before I can ask if Ross has a butler or something, a masculine computer voice replies, “Of course, Mr. Andrews. Shall I start coffee?”
“Full pot,” Ross says before glancing back over his shoulder with a huge grin. “Geoffrey's the electronic assistant. Basically, Alexa, but a thousand percent better.”
“A thousand . . . percent?” The snarky challenge rolls off my tongue unbidden.
“Give or take a few hundred percent,” Ross quips back, unperturbed at continuing our usual banter in such a weird situation.
I’m at a loss for words as I pad into the main room of the penthouse. It’s huge, semicircular, and slightly tech-modern, with lots of blacks and brushed steel that strike me as Ross’s natural style. Not my personal choices . . . but it fits him.
The curved exterior wall is dominated by huge, two-story-tall windows that are tinted to a dark smoke right now, and the interior designer part of me loves it.
High-tech windows that can change at a voice command?
Talk about eliminating the need for drapes!
I’ve heard of this technology, even saw it at a conference once, but I haven’t had a client who wanted something that high-tech yet.
Usually, my clients want their estates updated, like Ms. Montgomery, so high-rise style is out of my wheelhouse, and even hungover, I’m tempted to play with it to see what all Geoffrey and those windows can do.
“When did you get the Starship Enterprise as your penthouse?” I weakly joke as he leads me over to the far side of the room to a high-tech chef’s kitchen.
While you couldn’t put a restaurant in here, it’s fully equipped, everything in tasteful matte dark colors and black marble countertops.
Ross opens the built-in fridge and pulls out a blender cup, swirling the contents before studying it carefully.
“Cover your ears,” he says right before slapping the cup on a blender base and pulsing it a few seconds.
Even with my hands over my ears, it’s painfully loud, but the shock of it is helping to clear my head.
When it’s ready, he pulls out a huge glass from a cabinet and pours me a light green smoothie.
“Here. My patented hangover cure, just this side of hair of the dog in terms of effectiveness. Drink up.”
He eyes me, daring me to disobey, and when I lift the glass for a sniff, he smiles like he knows he’s already won.
Answering my previous question, he says, “I had this place renovated three years ago. If I’d known how good you were going to get with interior design, I’d have hired you.
” The compliment warms me inside. I am good, and I know it, as does half of the city’s upper crust, but somehow, Ross saying it so casually is different from those accolades.
He takes the other half of the smoothie mixture and downs most of it, his throat working in a way that has me staring at him with decidedly non-breakfast thoughts in my head, and I have to remind myself to take a sip.
I’m worried. Usually, people who drink green smoothies in the morning tend to be those who live on Vitamin Shoppe supplements alone, and I am not that girl.
My breakfast usually consists of copious amounts of coffee darker than Satan’s soul and a single small, buttered croissant, just like Nana taught me.
But before I know it, the glass is empty.
“Wow . . . this is delicious,” I comment. “What’s in it?”
“Mostly fruit. Apples, cherries . . . a little spinach for the vitamins, and willow bark. It’s a natural aspirin.”
“Willow bark?” I ask, and Ross nods, going over to the far end of the counter. He picks up some papers and taps them carefully into order. “What’s that?”
He doesn’t answer directly but instead takes a roundabout way I’m not used to with him. He’s usually so decisive and direct, but I can feel him hemming and hawing.
“Do you remember asking me to marry you last night?” He stares directly at me with the question.
Flashes of the night come back to me. Talking. Drinks. Dancing.
I swallow, nodding. That part, asking him to be my fake husband, I totally remember now. I remember right up to the dance floor, and then turning around to show him my moves . . . but not much else until this morning. “I remember.”
“Did you mean it?”