Cherishing Her: A Protector Office Romance

by Annabelle Love

  The Italian-accented voice popped the bubble into which we’d cocooned ourselves, and I jolted in surprise, jerking back and away from Max as I turned, wide-eyed, to look at the invader of our private, intimate moment.

  A private and intimate moment I totally wasn’t ready for.

  Let’s walk before we can run, girl, I chided myself, even as I turned a bland smile on the newcomer.

  “Giorgio!” Max declared, grinning as the man grabbed him and kissed his cheeks, European style.

  I was kind of stunned to see the older, portly guy kissing my date, but I guess it meant they were friends.

  Huh.

  Billionaire Max Greene was friends with a local mom and pop owner.

  It almost beggared belief.

  Max grabbed the man in a tight hug then clapped him on the back. “How’s Audrey? And the girls?”

  Giorgio beamed at him. “Audrey’s fine, and the girls aren’t so little anymore.” He made a sad face. “But they give me grandbabies. Soon. Very very soon.”

  “They’re pregnant? Wow, how long has it been since I came for pie?”

  “Too long, my old friend, but it’s good to see you. I’ll tell Audrey you stopped by and she’ll be upset she missed you.”

  Max’s smile turned sheepish. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Why? It’s the truth. You became one of the family all those years ago, Max. She misses you.”

  When his cheeks turned pink, I felt sure I’d wandered into an alternate universe. What the hell was going on?

  “You see here before you my favorite and most beloved and well-missed server,” Giorgio told me with a wide, mega-watt smile. “I’m Giorgio. Any friend of Max’s is a friend of mine.”

  I blinked in bemusement. I wasn’t even sure why I was bemused. Which part was the part that stunned me?

  That I’d suddenly picked up a new friend or that Max Greene, the aforementioned billionaire and hotshot playboy of the city, had been a server at this tiny restaurant.

  Realizing I’d been gawking, it was my turn to blush but I immediately shot my hand out in apology and grasped Giorgio’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you! I’m Jessica.”

  Giorgio grinned again. “Jessica, piacere. It’s wonderful to meet you too. Now, less of the talk—you came for pizza, and the best pizza in the state is what you’ll have!” He clicked his fingers with a sweeping motion, turning around the six-by-six space as he sought out a waitress. The motion seemed to work because a harried woman in her forties appeared, shooting us a tight smile.

  “Helena will be your server tonight, Max. Treat him like he’s royalty,” Giorgio warned the woman, who just nodded, then, after grabbing some menus, ushered us away from a still-smiling Giorgio into the body of the restaurant.

  The place was narrow, thin, but long. Really long. Cushioned banquettes lined the walls with tables for two propped in front of them and spaced apart. There were forty tables all in all, so the place wasn’t as small as I’d imagined, but it still managed to retain a cute cozy feel thanks to the brushed pine tables and chairs, the red rattan tablecloths, and the ubiquitous candles propped in chianti bottles with the straw bases.

  It was like something from the Lady and the Tramp, and I found it adorable.

  As Helena guided us to our seats, I knew we’d got the best table in the house—a corner seat at the bottom of the restaurant that had been formed into a corner unit, with a matching area directly opposite. It seated six, but because Max was Max, I suppose that meant it didn’t matter there were only two of us.

  How the other half live, I thought, amused.

  As I slipped into the booth, my stomach made a huge growling noise. I froze, horror surging as it happened again. And once more!

  For some reason, that seemed to break Helena’s flustered countenance, because she laughed as mortification swelled through me. “Even though I work here and should be immune to the scent of pizza, I’m not.” She patted her tush. “As my butt can attest. I’m a carb queen, what can I say?” she told us unashamedly.

  Max surprised me, once again. I’d expected an Ice King, had thought that aloofness might appear in front of servers or the like, instead, he chuckled. “If I still worked here, I’d have to live at the gym. Pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” He sighed, closed his eyes. “Heaven.”

  When I laughed, those eyes of his popped open and he speared me with a glance. I felt that look straight down to my core, and as heat flared to life, as I felt myself slowly start to burn up, I realized this man was what I needed.

  He was going to be my tonic, and I’d had no idea that I needed one.

  The thought cut my arousal down by half. Reminders, memories, the past…

  It all swirled around me as I dove into the menu and looked over the options even though I knew I’d be having deep dish pepperoni. It was the only thing I ever had when I ate at pizza restaurants, so looking at the options like I was reading for the bar exam was kind of over the top, but it was the lifeline I needed.

  Something Max seemed to sense like the Jessica Whisperer he was coming to be, because he kept the server engaged. So much so, she slapped a hand to her forehead after he made a pun about mozzarella. “I’m so sorry; I should have taken your drinks’ orders by now.”

  Max preened. “I consider it a job well done if I’ve distracted you.”

  The server chuckled and shot me a look; I was helpless to ignore her. In the depths of her gaze, I saw her appreciation of Max, as well as a ‘you’re one lucky sister.’

  I blew out a shaky breath, accepting that I was lucky, and the shaky smile I sent her way told her I knew it.

  Max was different, and different was good.

  “I’ll have water please.”

  Max snorted. “We’ll have Rioja too, please,” he told the woman, naming a brand. “Two glasses.”

  As she nodded and walked off to fill the order, I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t drink.”

  “A glass will calm you down.”

  “Who says I need calming down?”

  He smirked. “Me? I can see your pulse beating in your throat, Jessica. I think we need to calm you down before you have a heart attack.

  “I mean, I know Giorgio’s pizza isn’t health food… so, really, you should have the heart attack after the pizza. It’s bad form to have it before.”

  “Bad for his rep, you mean?” I asked, nodding sagely, even as my fingers fluttered to cover my throat, wanting to hide the visual proof of his effect on me.

  His grin flashed. “Exactly. We don’t want to harm Giorgio; this neighborhood’s bad enough for business as it is.”

  That had me snorting, but the server returned, eying us brightly as she awaited our orders.

  Max waited patiently for me to place mine, and when it was his turn, he asked, “Just make it large for both of us to share.” When the server retreated, he told me, “I knew it was love at first sight. You’re a pepperoni girl.”

  Amused, and flustered at his words, I replied, “None of that salami crap.”

  His grin told me he agreed. “Pepperoni, FTW.”

  Considering he sounded like some overgrown college grad, I had to snort. “FTW?”

  “People still say that,” he argued.

  “Yeah, when they’re twenty.” I winked at him. “I won’t hold it against you.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  I could tell he wasn’t offended though. In fact, I wasn’t sure exactly what would offend him.

  In the face of that, it was easy to take a deep breath and come to the realization I could enjoy the night. There was no pressure here, I knew. Max was open and witty, caring and smart—well, the last was a no brainer. A man with his reputation? I knew his IQ preceded him. But it went deeper than that. He was intelligent enough to see I was fragile, and he reacted and treated me accordingly.

  I appreciated that, and it helped me relax even more.

  When the pizza arrived, they were joking about the Dolphins’ performan
ce that year, and Max started sobbing into his glass of red.

  Despite myself, I had to burst out laughing. “You’re so melodramatic.”

  His head popped up instantly and there was a twinkle in his eye as he declared, “I should have been a thespian.”

  “Not a regular old actor for you, huh?” I teased.

  “Nope. Only the bard’s work would be good enough for me.”

  I cocked a brow. “Shakespeare? I’d never have put you down as a fan of Will.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have math geek written all over you,” I retorted, amused as I waved a hand in his direction while waiting for the deep dish to cool down some.

  “I’ll have you know I have many strings to my bow.”

  “You do?”

  “Yep. Why do you think Giorgio loved me? We had to split tips with the management and mine were always three times everyone else’s.”

  I blinked, finding it strange that he’d brought that up. It was odd, I supposed, that I knew a lot about the Max Greene standing before me today, but nothing about the Max Greene of before—the foundations of his life were a mystery to me, to everyone I supposed unless they were into reading biographies of the mega rich.

  “They took half the tips?”

  He nodded as he sipped at his wine. “They pay above minimum wage here so it was only fair. Plus, you got to eat and drink on the house.” He grimaced. “I swear, some days, the pizzas and salad were what got me through training.”

  “Training?”

  Another nod as he cut into the ginormous pizza before us. I seriously hoped he intended on packing three-quarters of this bad boy away. I had an appetite, boy, did I, but not enough to take down this monster.

  “Yeah. You really didn’t google me, did you?” he asked, sounding amused and disappointed in equal measures.

  I snorted. “No. I don’t google bosses or first dates.”

  That had him smirking. “What about second dates?”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “You’ve got me.”

  He chuckled then winced as, after taking a bite, he immediately chugged down some water. “Sheesh, that was hot!”

  “It’s fresh from the oven!” I retorted, quite content to sip at my water and Rioja as the deep pan pizza cooled. I knew from experience that could take a while, and considering the size of this one, it might take all damn night!

  “I’m hungry,” he complained.

  His whine made me giggle and I shove some breadsticks Helena had brought with our drinks his way.

  His sigh was exaggerated but I watched him dunk the stick into the gooey cheese as I asked him, “You were saying about training?”

  “I moved to Chicago for college; got here on a football scholarship.”

  “But you still needed to work?”

  He grimaced. “Yeah. My scholarship covered close to eighty per cent of my fees, but there were things I needed… I had to work, which was a pain in the ass until I found this place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had to study, keep my grades for the scholarship, all while training far too many hours a day. Then, I had to work, and I was also working on the software that started Avalon up. There weren’t enough hours in the day.”

  “I can imagine,” I told him, winded by how busy he’d been. “You ate here a lot, huh?”

  “Enough to know the menu back to back and to know that it won’t have changed in all those years,” he replied with a grin. “I tried everything at least once. It kept my weight up for the games and the chefs used to help me out by making things with less cheese when I needed to control my numbers midseason.”

  I laughed at his grimace. “You weren’t joking about needing to live at the gym if you ate here every day.”

  “Nope, it’s the honest truth,” he told me wryly, then he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I nearly ate these guys out of house and home. Crap, I’m glad those days are over,” he said suddenly, the words a sigh. “There was a lot of uncertainty back then, a lot of hope and some of it wistful and unsure.”

  The sudden insight into this man came as a surprise. A welcome one but it stunned me nonetheless that he’d opened up so easily to me.

  What stunned me more was that I liked it.

  I wanted more.

  Was that greedy of me?

  Maybe.

  Okay, definitely.

  “Why was it so uncertain?”

  “It’s a really long story; especially for someone who hasn’t read my biography on Wikipedia,” he said drily, and I giggle-snorted some red wine at his words. He winked at me, then cut some pizza and sighed again, this time with pleasure, when it didn’t burn his mouth. “It’s a good temperature to eat,” he informed me.

  I smiled and picked up my cutlery. Daintily cutting into the pie, I murmured, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “You’re not prying, it’s just a hell of a long story,” he said with a grunt. “My background is poor. Dirt poor. Actually, dirt poor looks generous when I think back to where we lived when I was a kid. Getting that scholarship was my ticket out of there, but more importantly, it was the ticket to get my family out of there. My brother took the army, and that screwed with him, my sister went the college route too but it didn’t go so well for her although she has her own business now,” he conceded. “I knew, I always knew, that it would rest on my shoulders.”

  I tilted my head to the side at the conviction in his voice. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just was really aware that I could make a difference. Teachers always told me I was good at math and science. I shot into AP classes back when I should still have been learning basic trig. It always just made sense to me, and though we were in a shitty district, the teachers rocked and helped me succeed.” Once again, he wriggled his shoulders, like unease made him edgy. “If I hadn’t been good at football, I’d have probably got another kind of scholarship, but that was the easiest way. Or, so I thought. At least, it paid for a larger chunk of my fees, so there’s that.”

  “You mean being on the football team gave you a better scholarship than a mathlete?” I gasped in mock outrage. “You don’t say.”

  He grimaced. “Not fair, but true. Still, I took advantage of that but I burned the candle at both ends, you know? Worked too many hours, didn’t sleep unless I had important games. Lived off coffee. I almost tried cocaine once, almost, until I reasoned that if they did a drugs’ test, they’d pick it up in the screen.”

  “They did drug tests on your college team?” I demanded, aghast.

  He nodded, but he was smirking too. “For good reason. Half the team was doped up on steroids.” He pumped up an arm and tensed his bicep. Now he’d taken off his thick woolen coat to reveal a wool sweater with a thick cable knit, I could still see how huge he was—the wool didn’t hide that damn much. “This was built on Giorgio’s pizza,” he teased. “Speaking of which, how is it?”

  “Pretty damn great,” I told him with a grin as I covered my mouth to hide the bite I’d just taken.

  And it was. Cheesy and gooey and meaty and delicious.

  Wow, I’d needed this tonight. My ready meal was waiting in the fridge and would feed me tomorrow, but tonight, I feasted.

  He winked. “Told ya. Still on for that second date though?”

  Having finished my mouthful, I grinned at him and nodded. “I think you might like mine too.”

  He quirked a brow. “It must be pretty damn special if you think it can compete.”

  “I think it can,” I told him confidently, but what I didn’t tell him was that I just wanted the second date.

  The desire had crept up on me, leveling me from out of nowhere. I’d gone from being semi-hounded and coaxed into being here into wanting more.

  Especially now I’d seen this side of him.

  He was more than just the face on a magazine cover, and I wanted to know the man behind that face, warts and all.r />
  Chapter 5

  Max

  The evening couldn’t have gone better.

  I knew it, she knew it. When I dropped her off, I kept it light, fully aware that one wrong move could shatter the perfection of the evening.

  And that was no bullshit.

  Perfect. It really had been perfect.

  As I climbed in the passenger seat beside Mackenzie, I could feel the stupid grin on my face as he chauffeured me away from the grimy estate where Jessica lived. I’d hated dropping her off here, had hated leaving her period.

  Every instinct in my body had yelled at me to grab her, take her home, and keep her somewhere safe.

  It didn’t even have to be in my bedroom, my bed, just somewhere in my apartment. Hell, camping out in my office would be safer than that dump she called home.

  As I thought about the tender kiss she’d pressed to my lips as farewell until the morning, I, unconsciously, reached up and rubbed my mouth.

  It had been as innocent as a peck between five-year-old cousins at a wedding party. Simple, demure. Nothing risqué about it.

  And yet, she’d ruined all of that by staying a moment too long close to him, hovering in front of him, her body close, so close that less than an inch separated them. Her hands had wavered at her side, and I could feel the need in her, knew she wanted to touch me. Knew she wanted to do so much more than offer me that chaste kiss, but, I let it go. Let her go.

  I wanted her to feel in charge. Needed it, in fact.

  Was it going to drive me crazy?

  Without a shadow of a doubt.

  I hadn’t reached my lofty position by waiting on other people to make the first move, but everything that had happened tonight? It had convinced me that waiting on Jessica might be the best thing I ever did.

  “You like her.”

  The blanket statement had me jolting in place. “Huh?”

  “You heard me, boy,” Mackenzie grumbled, and despite myself, I had to laugh.

  “I don’t have to answer, coach.”

  Mac sighed. “Don’t ‘coach’ me. That was too long ago.”

  “Hardly. It all started there for me.”

  “True. You were the best player I ever coached too. Shame you had to ruin it by going into business.”