AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“When we get to your place…” I inhale Clover’s sweet scent and try to make this sound like a perfectly reasonable thing for a boss to say to his employee. “May I come inside for a few minutes?”
“A few minutes…in my apartment?” Her words are suddenly fragile and I realize what I’m demanding.
I lift my voice. “Stop the car.”
The car stops.
“Rufus,” Clover says in a way I can’t read, but I want to imagine it’s endearing. As if she’s saying,really, must you be bossy?But in a way that suggests she likes it when I’m bossy.
God, I wish she liked it in all the possible ways, because I’m not sure I know another way to be. At least not when I’m this desperate.
I throw a generous fold of bills at the driver and leap out to get Clover’s door. We’re half a block from a high-end hotel, and if we can’t go to her apartment and my place is off-limits for now, that will do.
The second I open her door, Clover bursts out of the car. “What is going on?”
“I need to be alone with you, and I won’t force my way into an apartment you share with a roommate and I didn’t know you were allergic to grass.” I curve over her and cup her face in my hands before rasping, “That damn wall will be removed this weekend, Clover. I promise you.”
She blinks up at me, her eyes wide.
Then she spins around and slaps her hand on the taxi door. “Get in.”
“There’s a hotel just—”
She wrenches the door open and says to the driver, “Sorry, we still need this cab.”
He shrugs. “Sure. He’s paid me enough for a few rounds of this game.”
I growl, because nothing about this is a game. I lean in as Clover slides into her seat, and she flashes me a surprisingly wicked grin. “Come on,” she says breathlessly. “That wasn’t true. I just said that to throw him off his ridiculous witch hunt. You want to show me your green wall, Mr. Newton Smith?”
Chapter5
Clover
For the secondtime in less than twenty minutes, I’m alone with Rufus in an elevator, and my heart is pounding. For all of his bossy hard stares and the possessive way he holds my hand, he hasn’tsaidvery much.
The closer we get to the privacy of his loft, the more I worry that the reason he couldn’t talk to me in the back of a cab, or at my apartment, is because he’s going to let me down.
My heart twists. I’m not ready for a lecture about how I shouldn’t have interjected myself into his private life.
The elevator in his building moves more slowly than the one at the restaurant. The numbers tick up, up, up.
I look down at my feet. At the expensive heels I borrowed from my roommate.
When I look up, Rufus is closer. His face is twisted in concern. “Your business partner is a jerk,” I blurt out.
Surprise flares deep in his eyes, then he laughs. “Yeah, he is.”
“He wanted to embarrass you.” I chew on my bottom lip. “That’s why I showed up.”
Rufus frowns again. “So instead, he tried to embarrass you. That’s definitely worse. I can’t let that stand.”
“You don’t need to protect me from that,” I say softly. I’m a big girl. I made my choice, knowing it might get messy.
Rufus swears under his breath, then he closes the gap between his and hauls me into his arms. “God damn it, Clover, that’s exactly the wrong answer.”
I press my hands against his chest, the coiled tension there a real physical force. “What’s the right answer?”
He stares down at me, his gaze boring into mine, then zeroing in on my mouth. “There isn’t one. I’m your boss.”
