Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
OLIVER
CHASE
Autocorrect must have lost its mind, because your last text says you slept with her.
ME
Please don’t ever try to make a comedy movie.
And we didn’t “sleep together” the way you mean it. We just shared a bed. And it was fine.
CHASE
It’s not fine, Oliver.
ME
Now you sound like my father.
CHASE
I realize everyone’s supposed to think she’s your girlfriend. (Also a terrible idea, if you recall.) But you don’t need to sleep with her for people to think that.
ME
Again, you’re making it sound like we had sex. We did not have sex.
CHASE
If you keep sharing a bed with her you will.
ME
No I won’t.
CHASE
Did you like it?
ME
Did I like what?
CHASE
Jesus. Sharing a bed with her.
ME
It was a damn sight more comfortable than the chaise I was on the night before.
CHASE
And that’s the ONLY reason you liked it?
ME
Yeah.
Of course.
Yeah.
CHASE
Oh, fuck. You like her don’t you? You like the person ghostwriting your memoir. Which makes her the last person you should get involved with.
ME
She’s also the last person I should get involved with because she’s being assigned to Eastern Europe as soon as it’s written.
CHASE
So you DO like her?
ME
Stop it! No!! Of course not!!!
CHASE
I’ve never seen you use a single exclamation point in your life, so clearly you do.
ME
Nope. She’s the enemy, remember. A reporter. I just have to tolerate her for the time it takes her to write enough wonderful things about me to make people realize I’m not as bad as they think I am. That’s all.
CHASE
That’s all?
ME
Now you sound like my mother.
CHASE
What I’m trying to sound like is your one friend who knows what it’s like to be TMZ fodder and who knows this is going to leak out and then the press will be all over her as much as you, and they’re bound to find out she’s a journalist, and from there they’ll find someone who’ll tell them she’s writing your book, then everyone will know you’re not writing it yourself, and your parents will find out there’s going to be a book, and everyone will be pissed off with everyone.
ME
The local press already know she’s my girlfriend. She went to the bog treasure hunt as part of a PR thing that communications HQ wanted her to do.
CHASE
Oh my good God. First, she’s not ACTUALLY your girlfriend. You are remembering that, right?
Second, BOG TREASURE HUNT?
ME
Local tradition. Long story. Will tell you when I’m back. If you’re still interested by then.
CHASE
It sounds like the sooner you get back here the better, before you disappear into a bottomless pit of nightmares of your own making.
ME
Now you sound like my grandmother.
CHASE
Well, take care, buddy. I have to head off to try to persuade a studio to take on this godforsaken film I’m trying to produce. But if you need anything, you know where I am.
ME
Cheers, mate. It’ll be fine.
Just as I set down the phone on the large mahogany desk in the study—well, my dad calls it the study, my mum calls it the library—and recline in the button-back tan leather chair behind it, Lexi walks through the door.
She’s still wearing the black pantsuit she had on for the hospice event. Having worn only casual clothing when I’ve seen her before today, this more formal outfit is a whole new side of her. It’s equally as cute, but in an entirely different way.
Of course, I knew from the moment I met her, when she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, that she’d take no shit if anyone she’s interviewing gave her a bollocks answer. But this makes her look like she’d take no shit at a cocktail party either.
“Finished with picking out a shirt for me?” I ask.
My sister said I was too useless to choose my own and that Lexi should do it.
“For now. We’ve narrowed it down to three for the stylist to bring up for you.
” Her eyes rove the room, touching on the wingback chairs, the leather Chesterfield sofa, the side tables with the lamps that all look like they could have come from a garage sale but are in fact valuable heirlooms. But mostly she looks at the bookshelves that line the walls.
“How high are these ceilings?” she asks.
“Not sure.” I get up from the desk, move toward the wall, and stand with my back to one of the bookshelves. “I’m six foot. How many of me could you stack in here?”
She tips her head back to look up, revealing a stretch of the luminous skin of her neck that looks like it would be soft to the touch and delicious on the lips.
“I’d say this room is about two-and-a-half Olivers high,” she says.
“Excellent,” I reply. “A whole new unfathomable measurement to add to the imperial system.”
She rests her hand on the wooden ladder next to me that’s attached to a track that runs around the room at the top of the bookshelves. Little wheels at the bottom enable it to trundle along the floor.
“You’ll think I’m silly, but…would it be okay if I…” She tips her head at the ladder as she pushes it back and forth.
I step away from the shelves to clear her path. “Be my guest.”
“Childhood fantasy.” She puts one foot on the first rung of the ladder and pushes off the wood floor with the other.
Her face lights up with innocent joy as the ladder rolls along the wall.
“Wow, it’s all smooth and…rolly…”
I can’t help but chuckle. “I believe the wheels were especially selected for their high rolly quotient.”
When she reaches the far end of the room, she turns around and scoots back, stopping just in front of me. “I need to go higher.”
This time she pushes off harder and climbs farther up the ladder, giggling blissfully as she goes.
I honestly can’t remember the last time this house saw so much happiness. It’s almost like it doesn’t even belong in this room, like the walls don’t know what to do with it.
When the ladder comes to a stop at the far end, Lexi repeats the process heading back toward me. This time she manages to scurry even higher and hold her arms out Titanic-style with a wheee.
She’s pushed off so hard that I have to step out of the way to let her glide by.
But what I hadn’t realized until I turn around, is that someone’s moved a rug into the path of the wheels.
“Shit.” I lunge toward the ladder to grab her before it reaches the rug and sends her flying like a kid hurtling over the handlebars of a bike that’s hit a pothole.
Completely unaware, she’s still in full wheee mode when, before I reach her, the wheels hit the rug and the whole thing comes to a sudden halt.
The wheee turns to a whoa and Lexi’s outstretched arms circle in the air as she tries to grab back onto the ladder and stop the momentum from flinging her forward, but she misses, and a hard landing seems inevitable.
Her flailing buys me just enough time to race around in front of her, and she falls like a writhing bundle into my arms, knocking me off balance and stumbling back into the Chesterfield behind me.
My arse hits the arm, and the momentum throws me backward onto the cushions, taking Lexi with me.
When the whole world stops moving, I look up to see her face right above mine, framed by her tousled dark hair.
Instinctively I reach up to push it off her face. “You okay?”
She’s as breathless as I am, and I imagine her heart must be racing even faster than mine from the shock.
“Yeah, yeah.” She rests her hands on my chest and throws back her head to blow out a long phew.
“But are you?” She looks down the length of our bodies to check out how we’ve landed—her on top of me, my legs dangling over the arm of the sofa. “I seem to have crushed you.”
“I’m totally fine.” The sensation of Lexi lying on top of me makes me finer than I could have imagined. And there’s an embarrassing hardening in my groin that’s going to make her realize any second exactly how very fine I am.
“Thank you for saving me.” When those blue, blue eyes meet mine, that feeling returns—the surging in my chest, the unique sense that there’s something that connects us, something more than her contract to write the book, something more than each of us needing the other to secure our futures.
It’s outside of us, like a tightening string that pulls us together because that’s where we’re supposed to be.
“I’m happy I was here.” My pulse ratchets up another notch. Now not from the shock of the fall, but from an undeniable desire to touch her.
She makes no attempt to move, just lies there gazing down at me, and it’s like she’s the greatest gift that’s landed right in my lap.
I reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear, exactly as I did in the bathroom. But this time I know with absolute certainty it won’t stop there.
The electricity in the air between us says we both know we’re about to kiss. Her gaze is on my mouth, giving mine permission to settle on hers.
She pokes out her tongue just enough to moisten her lips.
And I swear to God, I can feel her heart beating against mine.
I allow my hand to slide from her ear to her cheek and ease her face toward me as I lift a little to meet her.
This is crossing all kinds of professional lines, and if it were to go wrong, it would create a nightmare working relationship. I watch her every move to be sure this is what she wants.
Her eyes drift shut as she leans her head into my hand and parts her shiny lips.
Holy fuck, I’m really going to kiss Lexi Lane this time.
I brush my mouth over hers as gently as she did with mine in the garden, testing the waters, making absolutely sure.
My hardening dick shifts, and there’s no way she didn’t feel it.
Then she takes my top lip between hers, and I’m gone.
Leaning back to rest my head on the cushion, I pull her down with me, kissing my way along her bottom lip and then the top, before daring to run my tongue along them.
She responds by tipping her head and parting her lips wider, letting our tongues meet. It’s a smoldering exploration, a slow-burning flame, and the most sensual fucking kiss of my entire life.
I slide one hand into her hair, the other down her back to that pert round arse I’ve admired so much these last few days, and hold her tight against my rock-hard erection.
She tips her hips into me, and the signal that she wants this as much as I do floods me with relief.
“Oliver,” my mother shouts in the distance.
Lexi’s head pops up and looks down at me, her expression rigid with panic. “Shit.”
“Oliver! Where are you?” She’s louder now, closer.
Lexi scrambles off me with such speed that she slides onto the floor with a thud.
“You okay?” I sit up and reach for her.
She gets to her knees. “Apparently I’m determined to fall today.”
I gaze at her pinkening, glowing face as she tosses her hair back, and can’t help but think I might have fallen too.
“Oliver!” Okay, that’s very close, like almost-in-the-room close.
I push myself up, legs accidentally straddling Lexi, and turn to look over my shoulder at the exact moment my mother appears in the doorway.
She takes in the sight before her for a second—me sitting on the sofa, Lexi on her knees in front of me, both of us disheveled and guilty.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” My mother lets out a long sigh and rolls her eyes to the approximately two-and-a-half-Olivers-high ceiling. “I came to get you because dinner’s ready. So please make yourselves decent.”
Then she spins around and strides off, her heels clacking on the wooden floor.
I turn back to Lexi—she’s burying her face in her hands and groaning.
This had better not put her off kissing me again, because now I know what it feels like, I want to do it over and over and over.