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I shake my head a little.
“Very. Fucking. Crazy. And then, you walk into my office this morning in your little black dress, looking like you’d just materialized out of my wildest, manic fantasies. I found you. I thought—no, I knew—that I’m fucking in love with you. I don’t care if we just met each other. I’ve been able to think of literally nothing but you since you left me. Nothing. I don’t care if you work at my company, Tex. I don’t fucking care! That’s not a stumbling block because I won’t let it be.”
Wow. He just pulled out the L word.
I mean, these are without a doubt the sweetest things anyone’s ever said to me. But the realist in me pokes her head through the fog of wanting to believe him so badly—because he’s perfect, it’s the only way to describe him. “But…you hardly know me, Ace. We’ve met…twice.” Okay, both times were extremely orgasmic and downright magical, but still. This is the little girl with major abandonment issues he’s dealing with. The one who’s never known a man that’s stuck around. “What if you end up changing your mind?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“What if it does?”
“Then you’ll still have a job and no student debt.”
I don’t say it. I can’t say it, after all the things he just told me.
“Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” he demands.
“It’s nothing. Never mind.”
“Say what you were going to say.” With our history, I guess it’s understandable: he gets agitated now, I’ve noticed, if I’m not completely honest with him.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Sternly: “Tell me.”
I say it softly. “Because…I could sue for wrongful dismissal?”
His lightness instantly fades at the reference to Rylee and his eyes flash. His voice is gruff when he continues. “You think I say what I’ve just said to you to every woman who comes along?”
“No, Ace, that’s not what I?—”
He lifts me into his arms. “All right. You doubt me, that’s fine. I need to prove myself, I can do that. All this has happened at the speed of light and there’s a lot to lose, I get that. I have no problem proving myself to you. I’ll fucking prove myself right now.”
“Ace. I don’t doubt you. Where are we going?”
“To start phase one of proving that I’m not making this shit up.”
He sets me down on my feet next to the hot tub. There’s a sort of tropical-leaf privacy screen around part of it, and we’re higher up than all the buildings around us. With the open air around us and the view, it feels like we’re looking out over the entire world.
Slowly, watching my eyes with a dark fire in his, like he’s challenging me, he pulls on the tie of my dress. Despite all my earlier resolve, I don’t stop him. I don’t know why. I’m too far gone. He’s not the only one with the L word etching itself into his heart, even though it’s the very last thing I expected or even wanted.
Ace eases my dress over my shoulders and it falls away. It has a built-in bra, my panties disappeared early this morning and I left my shoes at the door. So I’m standing here completely naked.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs. “It’s a crime for you to wear clothes, angel girl. Now get in.”
Of course I could refuse. I could storm out of here—tipsy, horny and half in love—and stick to my original game plan.
He just obliterated the money problems that have plagued my family our entire life, set my mother up and is giving Sky a real chance.
Because I made him happy.
None of this feels real. Maybe I’m dreaming.
And that hot tub really does look inviting…
Damn it!
So I climb into the warm water as Ace goes to get the champagne and our glasses. The warm, bubbling water feels like heaven.
