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“You mean you prefer to do nothing and let your friend do the roleplaying. Makes sense.”
The smirk is unmistakable. “Well Sera, just so you’re aware, I do plenty. For hours. I just let her do the dressing up.”
The tension between them is bizarre. It’s almost like they know each other from somewhere else. Sera’s worked for Loughton House for a lot longer than me, so maybe Andrew had been more involved back then.
“Right. Hours. I’ve always known that men get confused about the difference between three and eight inches, but confusing two minutes and hours is a new one.”
The smirk shifts into a glare. The rest of us kind of just stare at them. Then Sera stands up, everything about her exuding an anger I’ve never seen before, and grabs a card off the stack. She makes Phillip look like he’d just won the lottery when he looked at his card.
“Nope. I’m not doing this one.” She tosses the card to me, and I frown. “I’ll do a different one, or we can say that we lost this one, but I’m not doing it. At least not withhim.”
I glance down at the card.Tell Santa what you want for Christmas.“How about we take a break? Maybe get some food and pick a different game?”
John and Trish glance at Sera, who’s looking pissed and nod. “That sounds good.”
Sera and Andrew keep a wide distance between them as they make their way to the dining room to make plates, and as Phillip tries to go with them, I stop him.
“Is there something I should know about them?” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Not that I know of. I didn’t think they’d ever met.”
Phillip is definitely wrong on that account. Those two have a history, and I can’t imagine it has anything to do with work. “Maybe we shouldn’t invite them to the same events anymore,” I whisper back.
He frowns and nods before walking toward the dining room to get some food for himself. Who knew that I’d learn so much about my friends from a simple game of charades?
And who knew that I’d come to realize things about myself as well? Like how I can’t help but think about Phillip as my partner.
I don’t know how I could have been so naive to think our roommate agreement could work out. I am a romance author, after all. All I can do is hope that we can make things stick even after he goes back to being my boss.
Thirty-Seven
PHILLIP
“Let me read it. Please.”Addison is wearing my favorite pajamas on our last lazy Saturday morning while she leans back on the couch, her legs over my knees. Just the button-up shirt I left with her on that fateful night at the motel. She’s started wearing it around the apartment on lazy weekend mornings. I can’t help but think how beautiful she looks.
She throws her hands up. “I can’t let you read anything! It’s not done, and I haven’t even started touching edits. You’ll go all publisher-slash-editor on me and rip me apart.”
I run my fingers over the bare skin of her inner thigh and grin. “I only tear you apart in bed, Addison.”
She doesn’t let out the little moan I’m used to hearing when I touch her like this. This is a more serious topic than I’d thought. “You know what I mean. That’s my baby, and if you rip it apart, it’s like you’re telling me I’m stupid or my story is stupid. Plus, you don’t even like romance!”
I push her legs apart just a little, and I get a glimpse of what’s between them. It makes my cock swell, but this is a serious topic for me too, so I push those thoughts away. There’ll be plenty of time for that after.
“I have edited two different romances since becoming a junior editor, and James Pritchard hasn’t had a problem with any of it. I may not choose romance as my first choice, but it’s grown on me. Anything you write is officially my favorite genre, though.”
She frowns and shakes her head. “No, Phillip. I already said I didn’t want to talk about my book with you. I don’t want to mix business and pleasure, and there’s no way you can read it without critiquing it. Please don’t push this.”
“Fine.” I don’t want to let it go, but I’ve learned to recognize when Addison has drawn the line on a conversation. “Will you let me read it when you’ve finished it?”
She chews her lip, not sure whether she wants to give in and push this conversation to a later date. I’ve come to understand a lot of things about the beautiful woman with her legs across my knees. One of them is that she doesn’t like to tackle problems that she can push into the future.
“I don’t think I’ll want you to read it then either,” she says.
“Well, when you publish it, I’m going to read it for sure.” I take one of her feet in my hands and begin to massage it. “And don’t you dare tell me you aren’t getting it published. You’re in a relationship with the Director of Publishing for the largest publisher in New York.”
Something snaps in Addison, and she pulls her feet away from me. “No.” She twists on the couch so she’s sitting on her knees. Not a single inch of her body is relaxed anymore. I don’t really understand what changed, but I’m sure she’ll tell me.
“No, Phillip. You will not push my book through and get it published just because we’re sleeping together. Thatwill nothappen. Either I’m good enough, or I’m not, and if I smell even one touch of your influence on its success, I will turn down any offer and stop talking to you completely. Do you understand?”
