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I bring my hand up to smooth his tie. “May I?”
“Take it off me and tie me to your bed?” His low gravelly voice thrusts that image into my brain.
Vividly.
“My bed is currently in Ford’s apartment.” Biting my lower lip, I twist the tie around. “Prada. I thought so.”
“You’re good.” He cups my hand. “Wanna be bad?”
“If you mean bad, as in cheat on my financial diet and buy some comfort art supplies, then yes.”
Emery steps back. “I’ll let you go, then.”
“No.” I feel this pull toward him.
The pulse of the city beats around us, but I feel like we’re in a tunnel.
Just him and me. “You can tag along.”
“I’m a billionaire CEO with hundreds of people vying for my attention.” His eyes go dark. “What do you say, Bernadette?”
I swallow at his raw intensity. “Please?”
He makes me wait to know if I got the answer right. His penetrating stare unravels me.
“Oh, sweetheart, I love hearing you beg.” A smilewidens across his beautiful mouth. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from you right now.”
Emery steers me to a limo idling a few feet away. I worry all this spoiling will ruin me when I work for Stella and go back to driving the clunker I left on the West Coast. Not to mention eating mac and cheese alone on a Friday night and passing out from an entire bottle of red wine I’ll be drinking all by myself.
In the limo, I rub my sweaty palms on my jeans. Emery makes several calls, all of which end with him telling the caller someone will call back to finalize.
A CEO is basically a well-paid delegator.
Rolling up to Indigo Art Supply gives me chills.
Emery helps me out of the limo. “After you, sweetheart.” He follows me to the entrance.
Walking in, I feel eyes on me. Lingering glances travel from hot-as-sin Emery to me. I wonder if people think he’s my rich father.
I shake that away since Emery has made it clear he has very non-fatherly thoughts of me. Plus, I can’t help but absorb the excitement of this place.
“What do you need?” Emery asks, glancing around.
“Just some colored pencils and a sketchbook to start.” I see signs overhead and point. “That way.”
It’s kid-in-a-candy-store overload for me. Before I figured out how to draw on a tablet, I sketched by hand with charcoal pencils on thick, grainy paper.
My earliest sketches were lost in the fire.
How I felt after the fire smacks me like a physical blow. I’m starting over again with nothing. The loss triggers me into a massive panic attack. My throat tightens, and next, I’m sinking to the floor trying to breathe.
The stress of the last week knocks me off balance. It was only a matter of time before it caught up to me.
“Bernadette!” Emery pushes his coat open and crouches. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“Can’t...breathe.” I clutch him but hide my face in embarrassment.
“I need help here,” Emery shouts from a kneeling position because he’s holding me.
