Tempting the CEO(18)

And I don’t know what my mom thought, but I was going to dash her hopes right now, no matter how much it embarrassed all three of us. I tossed my napkin down. “Nobody’s going up to anybody’s house in the Hamptons, Mother.”

She threw me a wounded look at the use of “mother,” but I didn’t let it stop me. I told Jed, “She has extrasensory perception when it comes to trying to set me up, or maybe it’s just with rich guys, but she’s obviously detected there wasn’t only work between us. Fine.”

Jed’s face was unreadable, but he was looking at me, not my mother. Probably thought I was acting like a spoiled brat. Which is a step down from bitch, so I guess I was falling even further in his estimation.

I turned to her. “You’re right, Mom. Happy now? But it was just a hookup. I hooked up with him. Okay? That’s what’s going on. That was all there was to it.”

Mom colored, a pleasant shade of pink that made her look even younger. “Ah, okay. A little too much information, Ang, but ah…”

Jed stood up. “I’ll get going.”

He shook my mother’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Natalie.” And then he nodded at me.

“See you at the closing,” I said, lips pressed together and trying not to think about how his felt against mine.

His gaze drifted down to my mouth. “You can count on it.”

When he walked away, Mom let out a huge, “Angie!”

“What?”

But I knew. God, I knew.

…

By the time I made it back to my apartment in Royal Oak I was bummed. I live in a cool, young city on the outskirts of Detroit with the kind of sidewalks to stroll on and outdoor cafés to sit in that New York probably had when it was first invented, before it got teeming with money-grubbing graspers.

I love my apartment, looking down on the shops and bars, and I love my life there, with friends from the firm and a few left over from high school. Like Cassie. Cassie is my oldest friend and my most annoying. She’d sent me about twenty texts in the day since I told her I was walking eyes wide open into a hookup with a gorgeous guy. Most of them I just ignored, but it wasn’t until I was on the plane back that I saw the one she had sent after I sent her the picture. It was short and sweet. That’s Jed Worth.

Might have been nice if I’d seen that one before I climbed into bed with him. Because once I had, I was having trouble imagining not climbing right back in. Whenever he wanted me. Poring over his file on the plane hadn’t helped on that score, either. I started to notice a lot of details that didn’t fit in with the rich-guy stereotype. Sure there were the usual puff pieces about him donating to this cause or that—standard rich-guy fare, since money was easy to spread around when you had a lot of it and often meant nothing more than a payment for good publicity—but Jed volunteered his time for these causes as well, which said a lot more in my book. He’d been a Big Brother long before he could afford to build the Boys & Girls Club a new activity center. He served up Thanksgiving dinner in a homeless shelter year after year and didn’t just pay for the turkeys. He was worried about some kid who was hooked on drugs. Somebody else’s kid. He seemed like…a good guy.

I had managed to make my grand exit and kick him to the curb, twice in fact, but for what? I could have been rolling around in the sack with a master who probably would have been nice to get to know when all the sweaty antics were over. Instead I was back home with my pride and my professional ethics. Alone.

I flopped down on my bed, facedown, turning to the side only as my kitty jumped up beside me, meowing to welcome me home. “Hi sweets.” I petted her silky black-and-white fur. “You missed me, didn’t you?”

Oh God, I was becoming a cat lady. Years shy of thirty and I was a cat lady already. It didn’t bode well.

I figured I should probably check my messages, and sure enough when I switched on my cell, it rang right away. I saw it was my assistant. “Hi,” I answered. A good offense always being the best defense, I said right away, “I just got in. It’s too late to come in.”

You never knew what partner might have been looking around for a free associate.

“Well, you should at least check in, Angie. I’ve gotten about a dozen calls on this Worth deal you were on. That obnoxious guy from New York keeps calling.”

For a minute, I thought she might mean Jed.

“You know, Bob,” she clarified.

“Oh. Great. All I need. What the hell does he want?”

“He says it’s urgent, but I wouldn’t give him your cell.”

“Bless you, my dear.” We never did get around to compiling a working group list. “Fine, just plug him in.”