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you were fantastic,” I said, smiling. “I am so fucking proud of you.”
She threw her body onto mine and wrapped her arms around my neck while the cab driver looked at us. He was waiting for where we wanted to go, and I could tell he was getting agitated.
“The DoubleTree Suites, please,” I said.
“You don’t want to go celebrate?” she asked.
“I thought maybe we could go back, relax a bit, possibly do a bit of work, and then I could take you to dinner tonight. You know, to celebrate the incredible job you did back there.”
“Spoken like a true workaholic. Work until dinner it is,” she said.
“We could work naked, if you wanted,” I said, grinning.
“Of course, you’d be alright with that. But, you won’t get any work done. Clothes on until after dinner, then we’ll see where the night takes us,” she said.
I contacted some web developers in the San Diego area and reached out to schedule a few meetings, so I could nail down getting our e-commerce site up and running as soon as possible. The deadline I’d fed the men was a little tighter than I was initially comfortable with, so I’d have to pay a little more for the right person to help us with this store. It was going to be as much data entry as web design, which meant I needed a top-notch designer in our corner to help us field this project.
But, I knew it would be worth it. This would single-handedly launch Harte to Heart into modern-day processes. This was how businesses did the bulk of their annual sales now. They catered to the community and allowed their online store and relationships with their warehouses to do the rest.
Dinnertime rolled around, and my stomach was growling. Stella looked fabulous in a royal blue dress and black high heels, and I couldn’t peel my eyes away from her. She was beaming over her success from this morning with her crimson red lips, and the way her jet black hair kept falling into her face made me want to get up and tuck it behind her ear. She kept going on and on about how nervous she was and how she could feel her mind internally battling her mouth, and all I could do was sit there and watch her lips move.
It was as if time slowed down with her. In this scenario, with her beautiful green eyes and her big, bright smile, there was nothing else that mattered. I hooked my eyes with hers as she smiled and laughed, regaling me with stories of how she could’ve used my “tutelage” further. The way her lips wrapped around the edge of the wine glass mesmerized me, and I realized at that very moment what was happening.
Stella was everything I had ever been looking for.
She was resilient, independent, with just the right amount of stubborn. She was vibrant and vivacious, warm to her core but not a pushover. She was sexy as hell and had curves in all the places I wanted to lick with my tongue. She was the first person in my life whose concept of myself I had changed merely by spending time with her. She didn’t look at me with the annoying, arrogant look I was so used to.
Now, she looked at me as if I was a man.
Her man.
And I realized that’s what I wanted to be.
Her man.
“To our company,” I said as I raised my wine glass. “May it always treat us with kindness and may it always benefit from our tactics.”
“To our company,” Stella said as she held my gaze. “May it only bring us closer.”
Then, as we clinked glasses, I raised up out of my seat and bent over to capture her lips. She tasted of wine and mint, no doubt from the toothpaste she used before we came out. There were no teeth clattering or voracious tongues licking and sucking each other up. There was only us, her pillowy lips against mine, and the panting of her breath against my skin.
“What was that for?” she asked, fluttering her lips against mine.
“You look stunning tonight,” I said.
And the glimmering look of salacious admiration in her eye was one I wouldn’t forget anytime soon.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Stella
Tuesday morning came around too soon, and I wasn’t ready to go back. The weekend had been perfect. I felt like leaving it behind would somehow portend a bad omen for Christian and me. The city had brought out the best in the two of us, both as lovers and as business partners, and I wasn’t ready to leave our perfect little cocoon to return to California.
We packed our suitcases and rode in a cab to the airport and laughed as we double and triple-checked our tickets. The secretary had picked first-class seats next to one another so we could chat on the ride back home.
Right after we made it through the security checkpoint, I got a phone call from a number I’d forgotten about.
“Hello?” I asked.
