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I stand and pick up my bag. "I’ve got work to do before tomorrow. How late are you staying?"
He glances up, his mind already elsewhere. I can tell by the way his brow is furrowed. "Until it's done."
"Of course." I leave his office and go to my own, plopping down behind my own much less ostentatious desk. I look out at the dark sky, the lights of the city down below us twinkling. I wish I had met someone good, someone I felt interested in. I would have preferred being truly torn about telling the guy I had to go and work instead of being glad to escape my date.
For the next two hours, until almost midnight, I work on the presentation, checking facts, getting the flow of the slideshow just right, all the animations working properly and all the main points of our business highlighted. I run it through one last time and am pleased, sure that it's polished and ready to go.
Jon pokes his head into my office, his bleached-blond hair falling in his eyes in that sexy way, his scruff framing his square jaw.
If he weren't my business partner, I'd want to go home with him and spend an hour in bed together before sleep.
But he is my business partner.
"How's the presentation?"
"Good," I reply, then correct myself. "Great. I think it's ready to go."
"We can run through it in the morning." He checks his watch. "It's almost midnight and I'm exhausted. I'm going now. Do you need a ride?"
"Sounds great." I gather up my things, my cell and my notebook, stuffing them in my bag.
We leave the office together and he arms the alarm and locks the door, walking beside me down the stairs to the main floor exit. Out on the street, a few cars down, is his SUV. He walks close beside me and we talk about my failure of a date.
"He talked the entire time about himself?"
"Yeah, I think I said three sentences other than ‘Oh, really? Is that so? Amazing!’ He was totally clueless."
"What a blind jerk," Jon says and laughs, and we bump together as we walk to the vehicle. "He doesn’t have the first clue about how to get a girl to like him. He should have been asking you a million questions and showing you how interesting you are instead of the other way around."
"Is that what you do?" I say, smiling at him when he opens my door for me. "Is that how you get all your many women?"
He grins and it's boyish and sexy at the same time. "It is. I read How To Win Friends and Influence People ages ago and I live by it. I always put it into effect when I meet new people, whether they're business contacts or potential fuck buddies."
I laugh, and think about his manslut ways. He has whomever he wants – his pick of women. He's up-front that he's not into relationships, and they seem to be good with being his means to an orgasm rather than girlfriend material.
I couldn't do it.
I'd love to see what he's like in bed, but at the same time, it would be the very worst thing I could ever do. It would ruin our wonderful business relationship and threaten my future.
So I don't go there.
At least, not intentionally. And not often. But every now and then it's hard not to wonder and imagine…
Yeah, there were a few times when I thought something might happen between us, but luckily, we both stopped before anything happened.
I'm smart enough to know that once you fuck your business partner, it's all over except the crying.
Chapter 4
Jon
I drive India home, and on the drive, I ask her more about her date with Thomas. It's not like I didn’t already know he was wrong for her – I could have told her that when he first walked into the bar.
But I wanted to find out why she’s bothering with this whole dating business. She’s told me – so many times – that she’s all about getting her millions and then moving away before she does anything serious on the boyfriend side of things. So what was up with the date? If she wanted sex, she knows she could have it, anytime and anywhere. There would always be some guy who would love to fuck her silly, but she isn't that kind of woman.
She’s either business or love.
I pull up to her house and hop out to open her door before she can gather her bag and do it herself. It's a small thing, but I'm all about chivalry, even if I feel that women and men are totally equal.
