Thirteen
Annalise
Monday morning, I hit the ground running, fires to put out all day for an especially needy author who was always fighting imposter syndrome, even though he was at the peak of his career. I understood, though. Really. Imposter syndrome defined me and my life choices, including this whole undercover operation.
Jared actually helped me by drafting a press release highlighting the author's successes and accolades, passing it along to him in an attempt toboost his confidence and remind him of his many incredible achievements.
And in the back of my mind, the Venus situation was spinning around and around as I kept thinking about the best ways to "woo" her, like an impossible puzzle piece I just couldn't quite figure out.
When it was almost time to leave, Veronica approached our desks, after being out all day, asking us how everything went with Venus. I filled her in, noting the slight look of disappointment on her face before she quickly masked it. She'd been hoping for that yes just as much as I had.
"What exactly are you planning on doing?" she asked.
"I'm not sure yet," I admitted. "I... I mean, we need to put our heads together and brainstorm some ideas. I just haven't had time today." I stopped myself from telling her about my day, not wanting to come across as a whiny complainer, something I knew bosses, in general, hated.
"I'm sure you'll come up with something. Preferably by the end of the week, before our retreat."
Oh, no. She had not just gone there.
"Retreat?" Jared asked. "What retreat?"
Veronica shot me a look. "You didn't tell him?"
Fuckety fuck fuck fuck. "I figured it was too late to add another person. So no. My apologies."
"It's not too late. You can call them yourself, first thing tomorrow, that is if Jared's available."
"I'm available," Jared said.
Great. This day had quickly gone from kind of sucky to super shitty with my boss now annoyed at me, thinking I'm not the brightest, plus the prospect of spending the weekend with Jared and all my other co-workers.
I loved my job—I really did—but did I really want to spend my supposed free time with work people?
"Good," Veronica said in a brisk tone. "Okay. Well, keep me posted on your plan with Venus."
And with that, she turned to walk away, leaving me staring at Jared. Everything in my life had been going swimmingly before he came along. All he'd proceeded to do since his arrival was throw me off course.
His smug smile rubbed me completely the wrong way, and my nerves were further frayed when he stretched out his hands, making his knuckles crack loudly.
"So..." he dared to say. "A weekend retreat, huh? Why didn't you tell me about this before? Didn't want me to go?"
"I figured you were busy, you know, jetting off to London for the weekend."
"I was going to jet off to Paris. but I'd much rather go to this retreat. What's it for anyway?"
"Team building."
His eyes lit up. "Team building? That sounds like a blast. What all are we going to do?"
"They won't tell us. It's a surprise."
He laughed, the sound grating on my nerves. "You sound so excited about it all."
My lips curved up in a half-snarl, half-smirk. "I'm thrilled. Now if you don't mind, I clearly have a ton of work to do with this Venus project."
Dismissing him and this conversation, I turned back to my desk, getting to work on one last email before I could completely focus on everything Venus La Fleur.
Popping in my earbuds and with my head down, I didn't notice the office clearing out, and I didn't notice Jared at all until I finally hit send and looked up, realizing that everyone had left. Or so I thought.
Precisely when I was about to get up and go to the breakroom to scrounge for snacks, Jared came waltzing back in with a large bag in hand. "Care for some sushi?" he asked.
Did I want sushi? That was like asking if the sky was blue.
My stomach rumbled as I watched him unpack everything he'd ordered onto his desk, the whiplash of my earlier annoyance shifting into unexpected appreciation, leaving me off balance and unsure how to feel.
He handed me a container, which I opened to find a perfect serving of spicy tuna on crispy rice, my absolute favorite. "How did you know?" I gasped.
"Duh. I saw you eating it two weeks ago."
"Oh." He was more observant than I gave him credit for. I took a bite then reached for my purse, grabbing some cash inside. "How much do I owe you?"
For a moment, he looked at the money in my hand, his brows creased, almost like he was confused. "What? Nothing. I, uh, had a gift card."
"A gift card."
"Yeah. A gift card I've been meaning to use."
Looking at the spread, I took in the large amount of food scattered across his desk. "Well, I'm sure it didn't cover it all."
"It was a very big gift card," he said with his mouth full.
"Um, okay, then. Thanks."
"You're very welcome. I figure if we're working late, we need to go about it with full stomachs. Because hangry Dee is..." He paused to shake his head.
"I don't get hangry. You get hangry."
Tipping his head back, he laughed. Then choked, the coughing loud and annoying, just like everything else he did.
Sighing, I reached for his humongous cup, barely able to grasp it as I handed it to him, my eyes on his still-coughing face. Just as he reached out for the drink, my grip slipped on the wet surface of the cup, the whole thing toppling into his lap in a gigantic splash.
I gasped at the huge mess, Jared's clothes completely soaked, then held my breath at what his reaction might be. Would he be mad? Yell at me for being clumsy?
His coughing subsided immediately, his eyes widening in shock as he reflexively flung the ice cubes away from his crotch area, straight at me unfortunately.
"Hey," I said. "Watch it."
To my surprise, instead of yelling or shouting at me, he laughed, flinging one last ice cube my way. "Well, damn, Dee. I didn't know you wanted to see me wet so badly."
"What? No, I didn't."
"Talk about a chilly wake-up call for the boys."
"Oh, my God. The boys? Seriously?"
Standing up, the clear soda fizzing and dripping off him, he started unbuttoning his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, eyeing him warily.
"I'm just going to work in the buff while I let these clothes dry."
"Work in the buff?" I squeaked.
He chuckled. "Well, not totally in the buff. I remembered to wear underwear today."
"Um, um..."
"Cat got your tongue, babe? Surely, it's no big deal to have me sitting in my undies next to you, right? Nothing you haven't seen before..."
"Right. Of course. No big deal at all."
"Unless seeing me in all my half-naked glory might be so unbelievably tempting to you, that I'll drive you to distraction, and you won't be able to get any work done because you're too busy drooling over my flawless man chest on display."
God, I hated him. Because I was already having trouble breathing and all he'd done was remove his collared shirt, revealing a wet, skintight undershirt that left nothing to the imagination. Before I could properly catch my breath, that was gone too, and Jared began to unbuckle his belt, something about that sound sending a lightning bolt of desire right between my legs.
Holy shit .
Turning away, belatedly realizing I'd been staring, I tried to ignore him, instead eating more of my food as I told my racing heart and heaving lungs to shut the fuck up.
"I won't be drooling over you, Jared. Sheesh. It's not like I've never seen a man without a shirt before." Wait, did that make sense? Double negatives, er, actually triple negatives were very confusing.
Out of the corner of my eye, his back to me, I saw him draping his pants, dress shirt, and undershirt across a few chairs, a ton of bare skin on display, the only thing on his big body a pair of boxers, and not the loose, baggy kind either. Of course, Jared just had to wear the kind that hugged him tightly, revealing the curve of his ass. And what an ass it was. Tight. Not too big, not too small, the perfect handful to grab.
I gulped down a bite of my sushi as Jared turned to me, my eyes moving there , my mouth going slack at the enormous bulge on display.
"Guess I won't be impressing anyone with this level of shrinkage," he said.
If Jared considered that shrinkage, then I seriously questioned my understanding of the word 'big.' And every single man I'd ever been with in my life. Good God.
Grabbing a wad of napkins, he wiped his chair dry and straightened up the mess, while I sat there eating away and ogling him, trying not to drool too much. He disappeared to the breakroom, soon returning with another drink, more napkins, and a handful of food.
"More food?"
"Yeah. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a big boy."
Oh, I'd noticed all right. "Uh, right. Well, you're going to make Max Sterling broke if you keep it up."
Sitting back down, he laughed. "I doubt it will make even a miniscule dent. And I swear you're obsessed with that guy."
"I'm not obsessed with him. I just hate billionaires is all." With the exception of my parents. Most of the time anyway.
He arched a brow at me, and I tried to stay focused on his face, not his incredible body. "You hate billionaires? Why?"
I shrugged. "Just on principle alone, I hate them. No one gets that rich without being a total dick. And stepping all over everyone on their way up."
"Not everybody does that."
"Yeah, right."
"Maybe some people give back, give a lot back, and they're just private about it."
"Oh, like the way Max Sterling bought that painting during the auction? Flashing his money around for the whole room to see?"
"Maybe he thought it'd be a silent auction, that it wouldn't actually be announced."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Why are you defending the guy so much anyway?"
"I'm not."
He squirmed in his chair, drawing attention to his muscular thighs, one of my biggest weaknesses. Tearing my eyes away from them, I let my gaze travel upwards, along that happy trail— fuck —up rock-hard abs, pecs that were perfection. Holy hotness... the alliteration.
It was on the tip of my tongue to share it with Jared in a moment of madness, but his smug smile stopped me, his arms going behind his head in an ultra-cocky gesture that made every single arm and chest muscle pop, contours and ridges rippling beneath his skin like a well-oiled machine.
Damn .
"Like what you see, Dee?"
"What? No," I scoffed, fighting the heat traveling up my cheeks. "I, uh, I just, yeah, not used to seeing this sort of thing in the office." I waved my hand in his general direction as I returned my focus to my meal. "It's ridiculous. You really should find something to wear."
"Ridiculous?" There was a rustling noise that I tried my best to ignore. "Happy now?"
Against my better judgment, I turned to see that he'd draped two large napkins over his chest, covering his nipples. That was funny as hell, and I burst out laughing.
He laughed too, dislodging the napkins in an instant. This whole thing really was ridiculous.
Shaking my head, I turned back to my sushi, resigning myself to this annoying situation. Was I ovulating? Was that why I was so horny for Jared, of all people?
Whatever it was, I'd just have to hold it all inside until I got home and could take out a trusty toy, most certainly not thinking about Jared. For now, I needed to be all business because I had a boss breathing down my neck and a temperamental diva to win over.
"So what are your ideas about Venus?" I asked a loudly crunching Jared. "Do you have any suggestions for how we can coax her to work with us?"
"Nah. Not really. Do you?"
"Not a single fucking one," I admitted.
"What have you done in the past besides the cake thing you mentioned?"
"Honestly, just talk to people. That usually works. Some people communicate better via email, the written word... actually, that's most writers. But others respond from an actual face-to-face conversation. And we've tried both of those already."
"Well, it seems to me like we have to dig deep into what Venus likes and loves and try to convince her that way. I kind of made a list already."
"You did?" I braved facing a nearly naked Jared once more. "Really?"
He shrugged one large bare shoulder. "Yeah. When you had me write that big ole dissertation on her life story, I had that in there, then discarded it."
Disappointment shot through me that it'd been deleted. "Oh, that's too bad."
"I saved it though. I always create a separate document with deleted portions."
Brawn was one thing. But a man with some brains? That was the hugest turn-on ever.
I mentally slapped myself. Get it together. Why on earth are you thinking of Jared in those terms?
As I watched, he pounded away at his keyboard, and seconds later, my computer pinged. "There you go. Venus La Fleur's love list."
"Love list?"
"Yeah. Her passion picks. Her... her favorite finds."
"Oh, my God, Jared. Not the fucking alliteration again."
He laughed loudly. "What can I say? It's a sign of my genius."
"Mm-hmm, whatever you say."
Opening his message, I studied the document, reading every word, a quite random list of things she liked, encompassing many different aspects—physical, spiritual, emotional, and even odd things like the way a man puts his hand on the passenger seat when driving in reverse.
Honestly, that was super hot. I had to agree.
Mostly, the list was about animals. "Maybe we should just send her a cake with her precious Freddie's face on it," I said with a sigh.
He laughed. "She'd never cut into it, though."
"You're probably right."I rolled my eyes. "It's too bad we can't just get Max Sterling to gift the painting he won to her."
Jared stared at me, slack-jawed. "Dee, you're a fucking genius. Of course, that's what we should do."
"Right, like we can just call him up and say, 'Oh, hey, you know that painting you bought for one million dollars , can you just give it to Venus La Fleur so we can get a book deal?'"
"Why the hell not?"
"Because first of all, Max Sterling doesn't take meetings with just anyone, and certainly not lowly worker bees like us. And secondly, well, it's a huge, huge favor to ask of him."
"Maybe we can just, uh, manifest it."
"Manifest it? You think we can just manifest something like this? What the hell does that even mean?"
"You know, will it to happen, send a message out into the universe."
"Um, I'd rather not."
"Come on, Dee. It can't hurt anything to try."
"You can't really believe in that stuff."
"I do believe in that stuff. How do you think we got into the gala in the first place?"
"Right. Okay. I suppose you manifested it."
"Maybe I did."
"Well, a lot of good that did us."
"Hey, you didn't hear back from her via your methods, and at least now, she knows who we are and we have a foot in the door," he argued.
The man had a point. "Okay. Fine. So how do we manifest this thing?"
"For starters, we set a clear intention and visualize success."
"Are you serious?"
"Write it down and use it as inspiration, set a goal, and come up with a plan."
Write it down. Write it down. Something about what he said flipped on a light bulb in my head. "We can email Max Sterling about the painting. That's what we do. Why didn't I think of that to begin with?"
Jared looked at me, a smug smile stretching across his face. "Because you just manifested it. That's why."
Clamping my lips together, I tried to bite my tongue. I really did. "That's still such bullshit."
His soft chuckle washed through me. "Whatever you say, Dee. Whatever you say."
"Can we just write the damn email already?"
For what seemed like an eternity, the two of us worked on this email, Jared especially dragging it out, debating each sentence with me, scrutinizing every single word, him saying how absolutely crucial it was to get this perfect if we were daring to send it to the CEO, asking for such a huge donation essentially.
He was right. It was imperative that we crossed every 't' and dotted every 'i.'
And we had to strike just the right tone too, confident in our ability while also kissing ass, but not too much ass, always keeping in mind and circling back to how this book deal could benefit not only Insight Ink but also Echelon Enterprises as a whole.
There was an energy about Jared as we worked, something electric that wiggled its way inside me as well, something that took me a while to figure out.
It was called happiness. Like what we were doing, working so well together at this goal, was actually fun.
What the hell was that about?
It dawned on me that everything Jared tackled, he did it with that same energy. I'd never seen the guy mad or even slightly annoyed. He approached everything with positivity, his good nature shining through. What a rarity that was in life.
"All right, Dee. You should do the honors and press send."
After a moment of hesitation, I clicked send, a thrill shooting through me that we'd sent it. A second later, though, I let out a gasp. "Oh, my God, look at the time. He's going to think we're really weird for sending something to him so late."
"Nah. It just proves we're hard workers. That's all."
"I really hope so."
I sat back in my chair, stretching, exhaustion suddenly hitting me like a freight train. The adrenaline and rush and excitement of the evening, plus all that focus, had all left me feeling drained.
Jared eyed me from his chair, still mostly naked, still hot as fuck. Unable to help myself, I let my gaze roam once more, swallowing hard at the slow thrum of lust pulsing inside me.
Forcefully, I turned my chair away. "We should get going."
"Yeah," Jared said, his voice low and husky. "We should."
While I cleared my desk and gathered my stuff, Jared put his clothes back on, and I had to admit, I snuck a few peeks as he did so. More than a few peeks.
"Oh, sorry, Dee," Jared said, once he was dressed. "I should have offered to let you take a picture before I was fully clothed again."
"Haha, like I need a picture of that ."
"You think you're sly, but I saw you checking me out all night."
"I did no such thing," I huffed, grabbing my bag and stalking off toward the exit.
His laughter followed me, still ringing in my ears as we rode down in the elevator together and walked through the empty lobby.
Outside, a black SUV was waiting for us. "What's this?" I asked.
"Oh, just another gift card I had."
"A gift card for a car service?"
He opened the door for me. "Yep."
Settling in, I clasped my seat belt. "And why do you have all these gift cards?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. I cleaned out my junk drawer recently and found a bunch."
Something seemed off about it, but I didn't have time to question him further because the driver needed my address and then proceeded to talk our ears off.
Even though we were in a large SUV, Jared seemed cramped, spreading himself out and taking up so much space, his leg brushed up against me with every bump and turn, which didn't help the low-key horniness that'd been simmering inside me all night.
Maybe it was all in my head, but there was a strange physical tension between us now that hadn't been there before. And by the time I got out of the car, I was ready to explode, mortified that I was suddenly feeling this way.
All I needed was a little time alone to take care of myself, and then I was sure the feeling would pass. It had to. Because the last thing in this world I needed was an attraction for Jared.