by Jo Leigh
“Will there be an orchestra?”
He stalled on his way back to bed. “Yep. It’s a gala. There’s dinner and dancing and a lot of obligatory small talk. But if you’re there, at least I’d have someone I wanted to talk with. It would make the night more pleasant for me. But again, I’ll understand if you don’t want to go.”
“Why don’t you have a date?”
His half grin told her that her question wasn’t exactly delicate. Before he answered, he got under the covers and scooched up next to her. “Because,” he said, “I’m not seeing anyone, obviously.”
“How is that obvious?”
He drew his head back and looked at her with disappointment on his face. “Because I’m in bed with you. Would I be here if I was involved in a relationship?”
“Oh. Right.” She felt like a dope.
“Glad you think so highly of me.”
She shook her head, hating that he actually looked hurt. “I wasn’t thinking, okay? I just remember you from, you know, back in your glory days. There seemed to be a pretty steady stream of cheerleaders in your life.”
“They weren’t all cheerleaders. And I was a young punk. A very horny one. Besides, Rick and Logan weren’t exactly monks.”
She laughed. “No, they weren’t, but in terms of sheer numbers, you came out ahead.”
“I’m not ashamed of it. They were all perfectly nice women, and I never lied to a single one of them.”
“I didn’t think you would. Despite the odds, you’re a nice guy.”
“The odds?”
“Good-looking. Rich. Smart. Fit. You’ve got it all. You’re a perfect package.”
He put his hand on his junk over the bedding. “Thank you.”
“Ha-ha. Right. That sense of humor of yours took away a few points but my statement still stands.”
“No, I try to be. Nice, I mean. The Wilkinsons are raised to be conscientious and responsible... That is, when some, who won’t be mentioned by name, aren’t shopping.” They both laughed. “Seriously,” he said. “I’m thankful for the way I was raised.”
“Yeah, you were lucky. And yes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes,” she repeated, shocking the hell out of herself. “I’ll go to your fancy-ass party. With you.”
The way his eyes lit up filled her with a warm gush of pleasure.
“Thanks, Sam. Now I’m not dreading it.”
“Yeah, but you know how I am with people.”
“You’ll be with me. You don’t have to talk to anyone else.”
“Good.”
“You sure?”
She rolled her eyes despite being so utterly unsure about this whole proposition it wasn’t even funny.
His thank-you kiss was sweet and could have been trouble if she hadn’t had a bellyful of panic.
Matt seemed put out when she told him she had to go home, but it was for the best. She probably wouldn’t get any sleep in her own bed, but she had to try, considering all the work she had piling up in the lab. And now she had to figure out what she was going to wear to the gala.
Matt might be a prince of industry, but she was definitely not Cinderella.
9
SLUMPED IN HER CHAIR, Sam stared at the monitor. All the beautiful women in their beautiful dresses with their polite smiles made her sick to her stomach. Literally. It wasn’t like the flu, but her insides were definitely wonky. That was what she got for doing a Google search of past Wilkinson galas. Everyone looked so polished and at ease. Didn’t any of these people have social anxiety?
For all she knew, they did but hid it for the pictures. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be in any, because she was certain her discomfort would be written all over her face.
Although, if Matt really did what he promised and stayed by her side, she should be okay. Thinking of Matt and the things they’d done last night dropped her into a different state altogether. If she didn’t control her random smiles, Clark was going to start grilling her. And that most definitely wouldn’t end well.
Her Spidey senses told her that he was glaring at her again, so she quickly minimized the picture on her computer screen so only her work was visible. The drawings needed to be completed for a meeting tonight. Completed and sent to Macrotech so they could give her their notes. This was the last pass for this baby before production.
It was a great new design on a USB-sized fully capable computer. So complete you could plug it into any port-equipped TV and there it would be. All thirty-two gigs of storage and two gigs of memory.
The project consumed her until the middle of rechecking the processor, when she thought of Matt again.
Of Matt naked. In bed. Leaning over her, looking into her eyes as he entered her.
Naturally, she blushed with all the subtlety of a fire hydrant and, of course, Clark chose that moment to look at her. Maybe he was always looking at her so she’d never get away with an errant thought.
There was nothing errant about Matt. Or the flashes of memories stored in her personal hard drive of a brain. She just wished there were some way to stop blushes before they started.
She instantly hit up Evernote and wrote “End to Blushing” for future study, then finished her review. Almost two hours had passed since she’d thought of the gala, and just noting that fact made her stomach rumble. Coffee would help. Coffee helped everything.
She walked by Tina’s desk on her way to their break room. Tina was deep into her crash course on the 3-D printer, which made Sam so jealous she could spit, but that was one of the main reasons why Tina had been hired. She didn’t look up, buried in the instruction manual. Odd. Clark’s avatar of Obi-Wan Kenobi had migrated to the top right corner of Tina’s desk. He never let Sam touch it. To be fair, she didn’t let him touch her sacred Hermione Granger. Then her phone rang and she was off.
Once she’d finished her call, she slipped into the break room. Sam set the fancy espresso machine to make her a double-shot hazelnut latte. Then she called her friend Kensey. Sam had met her when Logan was staying at the smart apartment. Kensey worked for one of Sam’s earliest supporters, someone who’d put up a lot of money betting Sam would be a success. So when he mentioned his assistant was coming to Boston to attend a security conference, Sam had offered up the apartment.
Sam had come to really like Kensey, and their relationship had continued to develop.
By the time Sam had explained the situation with the black-tie affair and her wardrobe conundrum—complete with hyperlinks to photos from the past five galas—Kensey was way more excited about the whole thing than Sam was.
“Logan told me about Matt,” Kensey said. “And I saw a picture of him. He’s gorgeous.”
“I know.” Sam thought about running home, where she could Skype the call from the wall in private, but this had to be quick.
“Sexy, too,” Kensey said.
“I know.”
“And single.”
“Oh, shut up. It’s not like that,” she said, which made Kensey laugh. “I want to look nice, you know, just fit in.”
“Got it. I’ll be in Boston tomorrow morning by—”
“What? No. That’s crazy. Just look over the stuff I sent you and point me in the right direction.”
Kensey laughed again. “Do you have any idea how many links and pictures you sent? Trust me, it’ll be easier for me to take a commuter flight and do this in person,” Kensey said. “You need to be in your best underwear by ten so we can hit the shops.”
“My best underwear?”
After a long silent moment, Kensey said, “If we need to start there, you’d better be ready by nine. There’s a seven-thirty flight, which means I can meet you for coffee at Au Bon Pain at Copley Place at nine thirty on the dot. We’ll go to Intimacy at ten, and once you hav
e the right bra and stuff, we’ll go check out the designer gowns.”
“Are you insane?”
“Somewhat. But I don’t have anything too important going on tomorrow, and anyway, Logan is tied up with a new case.”
“This just keeps getting worse. Kensey—”
“Come on—it’ll be fun. And it just so happens I know a lot about dressing for galas.”
Sam hadn’t wanted a fuss. But she was over a barrel. Besides, seeing Kensey would be great. “I’ll pay for your plane ticket.”
“Just be ready. We have a lot to do. And stop freaking out. We’ll make everything perfect, including your makeup and hair.”
Sam hadn’t even thought about makeup or hair. “Thanks,” she said, then put her phone in her jeans pocket and drank her tepid latte in four big gulps.
Maybe Clark had a point about all this Matt stuff. Somehow her old college friend had managed to turn her world upside down in less than a week.
* * *
IT LOOKED LIKE a warehouse from the outside, but above the door was an elegantly crafted metal SOC. Matt rang the bell, knowing he could be sent away, but dammit, he wanted to see Sam. It had bothered him when she left last night. Since his divorce he’d had a few hookups and he’d always left the hotel room or her apartment. No big deal. Sleeping with a stranger was never comfortable. But Sam wasn’t a stranger. He’d assumed she’d stay.
The door opened electronically. And there she was, both eyebrows raised to the limit, a question on her lips.
“I’ll turn around right now if I’m interrupting something important. I was in the area, and I hadn’t seen the place, so I took a chance. Probably should have called, though.”
“If the only reason you came was to see the lab, then—”
He smiled as he crossed the threshold. “You know perfectly well I came to see you. I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s very inconvenient.”
“Tell me about it,” she muttered, sweeping a nervous glance to her right.
He wanted to pull her into a kiss, but this was her workplace and it wasn’t cool to take liberties given the circumstances.
“I would have told you not to come,” she said. “But now that you’re here, I can show you around if you like. It’s got to be speedy, though.”
“Really? You won’t hurt my feelings if you tell me to get lost.”
She stepped aside, smiling shyly. “Come on in.”
She smelled like coconut, her hair up in some kind of loose swirl. He liked that she was in jeans and a Nerdist T-shirt. Knowing what was under that shirt was even better. Jesus, maybe he could take her outside for five minutes. It wouldn’t be enough, but he’d feel better having kissed her.
“This is the creative team work area,” she said, pointing out the four desks, several drafting tables, walls of books, and bigger monitors than he’d ever seen. There was a young blonde woman Matt didn’t know, and there was Clark. Who clearly did not approve of Matt showing up like this.
“You remember Clark,” she said.
He walked over and held out his hand. He remembered Clark very well, but Matt didn’t understand the hostility in his eyes. “Good to see you again,” Matt said. “It’s great how well you and Sam have done. Congratulations.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Clark had ended the handshake abruptly and was already sitting down. After what looked like a warning to Sam, he went back to his work.
Sam didn’t seem put out by Clark’s behavior, which was strange. But Matt let it go as she moved him along past a massive printer and a small kitchen dominated by an espresso machine. Everywhere he looked, there were things stuck on the wall: pictures of characters from online games and photos of everything from dragons to the Mars rover. “Is that a massage chair?” he asked, noticing the distinctive-looking chair sitting off by itself away from any desks.
“It is. We also have a treadmill.” She pointed to the other side of the huge space. “We’re always hunched over a machine. The massage helps.”
He stepped closer and brushed a speck of nothing off her cheek. The touch was like a gateway drug, and he pulled her into his arms. “As good as last night’s?”
Sam blushed. “Not even close.”
“This is a very cool office,” he said. “I’m jealous. Mine is boring. I have no dragon pictures whatsoever.”
Her smile was genuine and her gaze full of fire. She touched his arm, two fingers. “I can’t stop thinking,” she said, “about, you know. And the gala...”
Goddamn, he wanted her. But instead of dragging her into the break room, locking the door and taking her on the little round table inside, he put some distance between them.
“Hey, um, I was wondering. When you left last night—”
“Sorry to interrupt—” Clark’s voice barged in like a battering ram “—but I need to know if we’re going to make that eight o’clock deadline. If not, I’ll have to—”
“We are going to make it. Matt’s only here for a quick tour, and we’re almost done. Give me a minute, okay?”
“Fine.” Clark met Matt’s eye. “Sorry about this, but we’re on killer schedules. Sam’s work is demanding. Everyone wants a piece of her.”
“Right,” Matt said, wondering if Clark was intentionally trying to bait him with that last line. “Don’t worry. I won’t keep her for long.”
Clark, who still looked like the beefy kid he’d been back in college, opened his mouth as if to make another comment, then closed it again, nodded and left.
“Sorry. I really shouldn’t have come today.”
Sam didn’t respond except to lead him back through the lab until they both stepped outside. All she truly wanted to do was take him back to her house, lock the doors and screw like bunnies until the day after tomorrow. No gala, no shopping, no angry Clark. But she had responsibilities. Taking off tomorrow meant she had to work like a demon for the rest of the day.
Matt took her hand in his. “I was thinking maybe after work, I could see where you live.”
“Oh, no. It’s a mess. I wouldn’t want you to see it. As it is, I’m going to do everything I can to be at the apartment by eight o’clock. If that’s okay.”
“If? Are you kidding? It would be great. And you could stay—”
She shook her head. She’d hoped he wouldn’t bring it up. Staying overnight would not be a good idea. Hell, just seeing him tonight was nuts. But her chances to be with him were finite. “I don’t think I can. I don’t tend to sleep well with other people, and I’m meeting Kensey at nine thirty tomorrow to shop for a dress.”
He nodded as he leaned in and kissed her. And it was only after his hand started moving lower down her back that she remembered the camera above the door.
If Clark hadn’t got the picture before, he would now.
Sam stepped back, breaking the connection she hadn’t wanted to lose. “I’ll see you tonight,” she said.
* * *
CLARK WAS STARING at her again. Disapproval dripping from his every pore. She’d had enough. Saving her work, she got up and went to his desk. “What the hell, Clark? Why are you so moody? Did Matt do something to you in college? Is that why you hate him?”
“I don’t hate him. The work—”
“We talked about this. I’m sorry I’m messing up the timetables, but come on. I’m not working tomorrow at all, because I’m going to the Wilkinson Gala. And if it runs late, I’m probably not going to make it in on Sunday. But Matt will be gone soon, and everything will go back to normal.”
He snorted. “You sure about that?”
“What?”
Clark stood up and crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t look at her. “Just, I remember how hard you crushed on Matt back at MIT. And now you drop everything for the guy—who doesn’t even live in Boston, I might add. When
he leaves, the odds of you seeing him again are pretty low.”
“Gee, it seems you’ve had a lot of free time to snoop into my business.” His words stung and she didn’t care that he looked embarrassed. True, she wouldn’t see much of Matt after this week, but she already knew that. She sure didn’t need anyone else pointing it out. “I’m not sixteen anymore, Clark. Please don’t treat me as if I am. I’m entitled to a life outside of this company.”
He turned to look at her, and she could see concern behind the anger in his eyes. “I worry you’ll end up getting hurt.”
She tempered her reaction a little. “You’re right—I did have a crush on Matt for a long time, but that was ages ago. When we were all kids. I’ve got this under control. Okay? You can count on me returning to base camp refreshed and ready to rock. So please, just let this happen, all right? I know it’s inconvenient about the work, but we can deal with that. As you pointed out, people want the stuff we make. They’ll wait.”
Clark nodded, then gave her the first smile she’d seen from him in ages.
“You know what?” she said. “You shouldn’t work this weekend, either.”
“Seriously? Someone’s got to—”
“They’ll wait.”
He didn’t respond immediately. When he did, he sounded like her best friend Clark. “Yeah, they will,” he said. Then he headed for the break room while she wondered if she’d just lied to him. This wasn’t like her crush back in school, and she had absolutely no illusions about a happily-ever-after. Those kinds of illusions were the reason she wasn’t going to spend the night with him. Going to sleep would be fine. But waking up to Matt? No. She needed to hang on to the fact that this was vacation sex. Period.
The scary part was, her heart was already beating in a new rhythm. Good thing she was an expert at burying herself in her work at the expense of everything else. She’d be fine.
Assuming she could get through the shopping trip tomorrow. And the gala. She tried her best not to whimper.
* * *
MATT CHECKED THE time again. Almost 9:00 p.m. Sam hadn’t called, which meant she was probably too busy to see him, and he should just get over it. Eat a burger, go to bed, beat off. The end. No drama necessary. He’d see her tomorrow—
