Chapter Eleven
ISOBEL
Boston
Evan didn’t take long to decide which one of my authors he wanted to work with, and I was pleasantly surprised he chose Chase. She’d also been my first choice because I knew she was easy to get along with and had never met a stranger. I was a little afraid for Evan because of his introverted nature, but if anyone could teach a masterclass on writing a steamy sex scene, it was her. Chase’s writing methods were a little unconventional, but maybe pushing Evan out of his comfort zone would spark something.
Adrian had played nicely during the weekly staff meetings, keeping his snide comments to himself for the most part. Unfortunately, he’d actively antagonized Chase when she’d been in the office for me to pitch this idea of consulting to her. But a few well-placed barbs, aimed directly at Adrian, and she’d calmed down enough to agree to help.
She’d left the city a week ago to help Evan, and it took all my willpower to let her do what she did best without my interference. We’d exchanged a few texts, and I’d forwarded information from Adrian, but things were quiet on her end. It’d seemed important to Adrian that this intervention work, so I was letting it play out naturally.
Kristine, my copy-editing intern, was less enthusiastic about being forced to work with Adrian and Sam, but it wasn’t her decision. I’d just have to find creative ways to keep Adrian’s mouth shut in her presence. Sam could probably handle her prickly attitude. He possessed more tact than his abrasive supervisor, not that it’d take much.
But, of course, Adrian just couldn’t resist riling up my intern and intentionally provoked her in my office when I was trying to explain to her why she needed to play nice during this collaboration. As much as I hated to admit it, Sloane was smart to call in someone internally, because all our authors had signed NDAs in their contracts regarding internal communications from the publishing house.
Which meant that even if she wanted to—not that I thought she would—Chase wouldn’t be able to breathe a word about the reason she was helping Evan polish up his book. The last thing we needed was it getting accidentally leaked to the press that one of our top performing authors was having trouble with his manuscripts to the point where another department was being called in to salvage his work for print. Not to mention that his readers were less likely to take his book seriously if they thought he wasn’t capable of writing what he was putting out without someone more experienced holding his hand.
Now I was left standing in my office, staring down at the man who couldn’t control the filter on his mouth long enough for me to convince my intern to play nice with his.
“What the hell do you want?” I asked after Kristine’s silhouette had stormed past my window. “Surely you aren’t that much of an asshole that you came down here to pick another fight. Because I’d hate to talk to Sloane about cutting you out of your author’s novel because you couldn’t play nice with an intern.”
“What the fuck, Is? That’s out of line. He’s my author and I am not letting you hijack his work. You’ve never overseen a thriller in your career.”
Stepping around him to push my office door closed, not wanting to give the gossips any fodder. “And you were out of line suggesting that my direct report was anything less than a professional. That’s twice now that you’ve picked a fight inside my office, once with my employee, and don’t forget how you insulted one of my authors. That shit isn’t going to fly with me. I know you apologized for what happened when we talked to Sloane, but this is becoming a nasty habit for you. That aggressive bullshit better stop now, or I will no longer be providing my assistance on this project.”
His eyes were comically wide as I laid into him, and he shifted, awkwardly pulling at the seam of one of his pant legs while his eyes were focused somewhere on my face, but certainly not my eyes.
“What?”
“I don’t want to get slapped for telling you the truth, so let’s just move on.”
Taken aback by his comment, I opened my mouth, but wasn’t sure exactly what to say to him.
“It was hot,” he whispered, his eyes filling with mischief.
“What—?”
“When you put me in my place just now. That was hot.” He continued to stare at me, the atmosphere in my office shifting as it had in the car the other night. While neither of us had directly addressed our mutual physical attraction to each other, it was clearly still there, even if I didn’t want it to be.
“You didn’t come down here to flirt with me. What do you want?”
He leaned forward, cupping his chin, and slowly rubbed the stubble he surprisingly hadn’t shaved off this morning. “I think it might actually work. The new pages, they’re…” He trailed off, and I watched him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing heavily. “They’re hot. Like I didn’t know Evan was capable of writing this kind of hot. I can tell he had help, but it’s still his writing. I know I made a crack at Chase being flirty, and I’m sorry for that, but I think she’s getting through to him.”
“Oh.” Well. That was good, at least for Evan and Chase. It meant they might finish up quicker than expected. “That’s good. Then we can stay out of each other’s hair if they complete the rewrites early.”
“Right,” he nodded, his gaze traveling lower and running down my body like a caress.
“Right.” Snapping to get his attention, I pinned him with a loaded look, not knowing how to deal with his blatant ogling. Clearly, he was attracted to me, but we’d agreed that weekend had never happened. It was a one-off that I wasn’t planning to repeat.
“I think we should sit down and go over the pages together. I know they’re vastly improved from the originals, but if everyone else is working together on this, shouldn’t we?”
“They’ve already gone through four sets of eyes by now, and I trust Kristine and Sam to make sure they catch any further issues. I don’t think we need to sit down together. Anything you need regarding the document can easily be handled via email.”
He frowned, clearly not liking my dismissal, but the two of us spending time alone together was a terrible idea. While I hated myself for it, I couldn’t repress my attraction to him anymore, and the temptation of having him near wouldn’t help that.
“I know we can communicate by email, but sometimes it’s easier to brainstorm and have a discussion in person where I can see your reactions to things and get real time feedback. Isn’t working that way a little distant?”
He wasn’t letting me off the hook. But I knew he had to have an ulterior motive to get me alone. I didn’t want to talk about my impulsive behavior, or the fact that he was the first man to give me a satisfying orgasm in years. “We can sit down in my office next week once we’ve got the final documents ready for the proofers.”
“You seem to be giving me excuses as to why you won’t work with me. When you’ve been insisting this entire time you want our offices to work as a team on this release. This is me being a team player. Are you capable of being a team player, Is? Or was that little display of dominance in front of your intern just another way to get back at me?”
“You seem to think I want to spend more time with you than necessary on this project.”
He smirked, knowing I was having a hard time coming up with reasons to avoid what he wanted.
“That was still avoiding the question. But nice try at blowing me off. We know how much you enjoy doing that.”
My cheeks ached as I clenched my jaw, gnashing my teeth together. My blood pressure started to rise, my heart pounding as I fought the urge to tell him exactly where he could shove that blowing comment.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
My pulse raced as I thought about his request. Tomorrow was a Friday, so after 5:00, we were off the clock. This didn’t sound like a professional invitation. It sounded more like a come-on, and I hated that my nipples were standing at attention at the prospect. It’d been a while, but I wasn’t sure that opening the door to something like this was a good idea.
“You can send me your notes, and I’ll review them this weekend.”
Adrian’s smile widened fractionally as he stepped forward, his palm settling on the outside of my arm. “Or I can use my expense account to order dinner, and we can go over this together. You said you wanted this to be a collaboration, so I think we need to discuss where we might make some changes. If everyone else is working together, it only makes sense that we spend time together to ensure this document gets the attention it deserves. I know you’d rather do that here in your office, where you think I’ll behave myself. But I secretly think you like it when I misbehave. Come on. Work with me. One working dinner won’t kill you.”
As his thumb caressed the front of my arm, I felt like he wasn’t talking about the document. He wanted to give this tension between us attention, which was a scary prospect to indulge in. Office affairs were messy, and while my quickened pulse and the increased wetness between my legs in the last few minutes confirmed that my body still wanted him, my brain was screaming to run in the other direction.
I opened my mouth to shut it down, but the heat in his gaze made me change direction. “I’m not coming to your fuck pad. We’ll do this at my apartment. I get to pick the restaurant. You go pick it up. And I’m still not sleeping with you.”
Completely ignoring my last comment, he nodded. “Done. Text me with the details. I’ll be there at 7:00. Do you like red or white?”
“You’re not getting me drunk if we plan on getting work done.”
“Not drunk,” he smiled, stepping forward and leaning toward my ear again. “Maybe just enough to loosen you up. You’re a bit tense .”
Adrian quickly realized he was borderline outwearing his welcome and retreated, smirking at me as he turned in the doorway and gave me a slow once over again, making my skin break out in goosebumps.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
This had to be the dumbest decision I’d ever made. Next to getting married and then divorced before I even hit thirty. Hopefully, this didn’t wreck me like that had.