When Whitten saw her, a slow smile spread across his face. He pushed back his rolling chair and stood.
It all began here.
“Here’s what I want.” Dispensing with opening pleasantries, Shea moved to the end of the table. She tapped a nail on the burgundy wood. Linda leaned forward, but Shea ignored her and kept her focus on Whitten. One of the younger guys scrambled to wake up his laptop, while another pulled a pad of paper close to his chest and raised a pencil. Shea ignored them, too.
“I want to do the travel series,” Shea began. “To Scotland, of course, but also to other whiskey-making areas. Canada. Kentucky. Japan. Ireland.”
Whitten’s nostrils flared, but in a good way. He nodded once.
Shea wasn’t finished. “I’ll write about whiskey without being told what brands to mention or what to say about them from advertisers. I get final say on all wardrobe, regardless of media. There will be no photos of me below the shoulders without my approval. No half-dressed female models will be used for any story I do. I get final creative approval. And above all”—now she took in the wide-eyed stares of the other Right Hemisphere employees in attendance—“there will never be any mention of my current personal life, my ex-husband, or what happened in the media two weeks ago.”
In the ensuing silence, Shea crossed her arms and waited.
“Well then.” Pierce grabbed a pen as he slowly sat back down. He met her eyes and added, “We better get to work.”
* * *
Four hours later, Shea wandered from the building and out onto the hot, bright Madison Avenue sidewalk. A million people surged around her, and she barely noticed.
She was flying above them all. Elated, buoyant, filled with possibility and promise. Up there, in that New York City office building, her life had turned a sharp corner. And the change in direction no longer scared her. The fact that she had smart, supportive people who shared her visions standing at her back erased most of the fear.
Taking out her phone, she opened the text message that had come through earlier that morning, the one that had made up her mind to come. She read it one final time before deleting it forever.
It was from Douglas Lynch: Have you seen the receipts for the past 2 weeks? There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
* * *
Byrne hopped up the concrete steps to Shea’s apartment, taking them two at a time. He was already sweating, having jogged from the far corner because of a car accident that had blocked access to her street, and because of course she’d summoned him to her on the hottest day of a New York City summer.
He’d strap on a sixty-pound pack and sprint through the Sahara if it meant she were on the other side.
The call had come through barely a half hour ago. “How soon can you get here?”
He’d had no idea how to read her tone of voice.
“If only I were magic,” he’d replied, “I’d be there in an instant. As it is, I’ll grab a cab in the next minute.”
“I’m not taking you away from anything, am I?”
He’d looked down at the half-eaten deli sandwich his assistant had brought him for dinner and the greasy letters and numbers on his keyboard. Everything on that desk could wait. He’d had to set her aside for Switzerland because there was no way to get out of it, but the emails he was composing would wait until tomorrow.
As he’d clicked off his cell phone, the trail of her voice lingering in his ear, he realized that he’d never set aside or delayed work before, no matter how small an issue or project. For any reason.
It felt pretty damn good. It felt mighty freeing.
Now he stood on the front stoop of her building, tapping his foot, shaking his head and smiling to himself. Hoping that the reason she’d called him here was the reason he wanted.
He wanted her. He wanted them. Fuck the farm, if that’s what it had to come to.
The door buzzed without the preamble of the intercom, and he ducked out of the hot setting sun into the only slightly cooler space of the stairwell.
Upstairs, she was standing just outside her door. The deadbolt was engaged, keeping the door open just a hair. She was wearing these black shorts that were about an inch shy of being called underwear, and a red tank top.
“You look hot,” she said.
He arched an eyebrow and growled. “Why thank you.”
Swiping at beads of sweat along his temple, she grinned. “It’s like Rugby Byrne is trying to bust out.”
A trickle of sweat rolled down his back. “No kidding.”
She cocked her head, a mischievous glint striking her blue eyes. “I think I should help him.”
When he felt a tug, he looked down to see her hand pulling out his belt from the buckle. Yes. Good thing she was the only apartment on the top floor.
Belt loose, her hands then moved up to the buttons on his shirt. He opened his arms to give her access while peering at her through narrowed eyes.
“I can’t believe I’m questioning this, but what are you doing?” he murmured.
“Getting you ready. I have a surprise for you inside and you’ll enjoy it with fewer clothes.”
As she undid the final button on his shirt and parted the flaps, exposing the white cotton underneath, he realized that he hadn’t seen her this way—this animated, this carefree—since before his apartment and her privacy had been snatched away.
There was evil, delicious promise in the quirk of her mouth as she turned around and opened the door to her apartment. He found himself entranced by her ass in those shorts, and the creamy length of her legs.
“Are you coming in?”
“Huh?” He grabbed at his sagging pants and hurried inside. “Yes. Definitely.”
As the door snicked shut behind him, he stopped dead in his tracks and gaped at what sat before him. A huge beige dome tent took up the entire open space of her floor.
Shea moved behind him, slid her hands over his shoulders, and drew his dress shirt down his elbows and off his arms. “Surprise,” she whispered in his ear.
“No fucking way.” She peeled off his undershirt, and even as the cotton came off he was still staring at what she’d set up. “I get my tent.”
“You get your tent.”
He remembered the dome from the campground, and how tiny it had seemed beneath the canopy of the trees. Here, set up in her apartment, it felt huge. He got all giddy with excitement, and then quickly vowed never to use that word again to describe himself.
“And I get something, too,” she said.
Finally he looked to her, saw how much he loved the loose, long braid sweeping over one shoulder. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Take off those pants, get inside, and I’ll tell you.”
Then she bent over, the shorts stretching over that gorgeous, tight ass, and unzipped the front flap.
She didn’t have to tell him twice. In a hurry, he toed off his new loafers, stripped off his new socks, and let his new pants fall. He crawled into the tent just behind her, clad in only his underwear. Inside, she’d flattened out a sleeping bag.
As she knelt in the center, he walked on all fours to her, the mesh top of the tent brushing his hair. The almost painful urge to kiss her drove him forward, but her fingers on his lips stopped his progress. Torture, that’s what she was.
“Sit down,” she told him, as she crossed her legs in front of her. He did the same.
Placing her hands on her knees and closing her eyes, she breathed in through her nose and out through the tight circle of her mouth, like she was about to do yoga or something. When her eyelids fluttered open, her gaze fixed directly on him.
“I want the farm,” she said.
He couldn’t help it. He let out a whoop and some other spontaneous, indecipherable sounds of celebration. She was letting him do this for her. She was letting him help.
Thirty
-plus years of hardship and shame and schooling and working grew wings and lifted off his shoulders.
“But!” She raised a hand and he settled down, though he couldn’t for the life of him erase the smile. “There’s a condition.”
“Okay.”
“My name goes on the deed. You close the deal and it’s my name on the papers. I’ve looked into it, and if you do that, then I’m the one responsible for the taxes. Once the purchase goes through, you’ll step back. That’s the only way I’ll let you do it.”
He rubbed a thumb across his bottom lip, considering. The tax thing made sense. In case something did happen to them.
Which it wouldn’t.
“And I would like to try to pay you back,” she said. “It may be in small increments, and it may take forever, but that’s what I want.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying, But what if I marry you?
“Done,” he said instead. “So does this mean—”
“That I met with Whitten today. This morning.” Her face cracked wide open. One of the biggest smiles he’d ever seen on her face.
“And if you’re prepared to take on taxes for a good chunk of New Hampshire while starting up a new business and trying to pay me at the same time, I take it you and Pierce reached some kind of deal?”
Her head bobbed, the braid swinging. “Nothing formally contracted yet, but the salary numbers we kicked around were more than I thought. Twice as much. And today’s brainstorming session . . . Byrne, I felt like I was right where I needed to be. His staff had all these ideas for me, and yes, some of them were shit, but they probably hated some of mine, too. The bottom line is, we were on the same page about the projects I want to do under his umbrella. And he gets me. He’s behind me.”
“Of course he is. He’d be a fool not to be.” That’s when he touched her, reaching out to fit his palms over her smooth knees. “And the Amber?”
The smile faltered and she looked away. “Part of me will be sad to let it go, but the other part, the larger part, will be glad to be out from under Lynch. Did you know he actually had the gall to text me this morning and tell me how wonderful my embarrassment had been for the Amber’s bottom line?”
Byrne’s fingers tightened as anger took over his brain. “What?”
Shea pushed her hands into his hair and brought his forehead to hers, instantly cooling him down. “Never mind. Forget it. It’s done and I’m gone. You are not Lynch. And you’re definitely not Marco. I know this and I don’t fear you or what you want for me, and us. I think I was subconsciously still trying to lump you in with them, to protect myself. But I don’t have to do that with you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She smiled. “And now I have something new.”
The feathers of her breath tickled his mouth, and his lips dropped open, wanting her taste. Instead his eyes closed and he just felt. Felt her skin beneath his hands, the heat from her body enhanced by the close quarters of the tent, and the greater meaning of her words.
“Please say you mean me,” he whispered.
A finger touched the outer corner of his eye, and he opened them.
“I do. My dreams are partly made of you,” she said. “But we have so much to figure out. I mean, the farm’s six hours north. In New Hampshire. And your job is here.”
“Well, you’re not moving up there tomorrow, are you?”
She laughed. “No. But eventually . . .”
“Eventually I may be doing something else with my life, too.”
She blinked several times. “What do you mean?”
Shrugging, he said, “I have no idea. But I say that from now until you move up there, we play everything by ear. See how we feel. Go for what we want, determine how to get it, all while we figure out how to be together. Piece of cake.” He grinned.
She stared at him for a long second before tightening her hold on his head, and then she smashed her lips against his. The groan that vibrated in his throat came from so deep inside he felt the strain on his heart.
Felt like it had been fucking forever since they’d kissed. Really kissed. With no bullshit or worry stacked behind the action. No doubts poking at the breaths in between. Nothing but them together, and the sweet, hot taste of her tongue. The unquenchable need.
Sure her whole future had been upended and then righted with none of the original pieces left, but just one look at her told him she was doing the right thing. She had everything she needed to embark on a new life. All the new pieces, right there in front of her. All she had to do was arrange them.
Her brilliance and enthusiasm and initiative and charisma would send her sky-high. The industry was hers to do with as she pleased. And he’d be standing back, watching and loving her. There if she ever needed him again.
Breaking the kiss, he slid his hands around the backs of her knees, then yanked her legs out straight, pulling her closer. She laughed, her torso slanting backward, and she had to catch herself on her hands. Too bad he had the full intention of sending her even more off balance—both in body and in mind. He wrapped her ankles around his lower back and scooted her onto his lap. As his dick hit hard against the warm cradle of her body, the flare of desire in her eyes was almost the perfect reward.
Almost.
“It’s a big deal.” She was breathless. “A huge thing, what we’re doing. Are we ready for it? Can we do it?”
A wave of warmth cascaded over him. “I’m convinced you can do anything.”
Since he had control over her bottom half, he circled her hips one way and ground his growing erection in the opposite. He loved the feel of her body so much, the firmness of her muscles and the utter softness of her skin.
But he loved her even more naked.
“I don’t really care what you do with the farm,” he said against her mouth, “as long as I get my tent sex. Right here, right now.”
“So I could sell it and take the money and move to North Dakota as long as you could orgasm on a sleeping bag?”
He pretended to consider that, until she broke out laughing and wrapped her arms around his neck. He’d had rugby players take him down with gentler grips, and he didn’t care. Didn’t care if she ever let go. They kissed hard in the heat of the tent.
“Tell me you love me,” she panted.
“Gladly.” His fingers dipped into the back of her shorts, his thumbs grazing the sweet dimples above her ass. “Just as soon as I’m inside you.”
Chapter
24
Shea kicked through the fresh, powdery snow on her way back to the main house from the outbuilding that was still in the process of being renovated into her personal office. Five o’clock in the evening and it already felt late at night, dark and cold and mysterious, the shortest day of the year having recently come and gone.
The Christmas lights outlining the house’s windows and every peak and valley of the roof clicked on, courtesy of a timer. Though the lights had been put up weeks ago, it was the first time she’d been standing outside to watch them come on, and part of her saw it as magic. Like the stuff in the crazy books she always caught Byrne reading. Like the portal to her own private world she’d described that first time she’d brought him here.
That had been a lifetime and four and a half months ago. So much had changed since then. And everything for the better.
Hers. This whole place was hers. The future was a bright, never-ending road.
She stopped halfway between the office building and the house, her boots settling on the shoveled stone paver pathway. From the huge barn off to her left came the whir and bang of saws and hammers as the workmen finished up another day of overhauling the space to accommodate the distillery. The mash tuns and fermentation tanks and barrel racks, and about a hundred other needed things would be delivered in the spring.
The first shipment of grains would arri
ve when the weather warmed, the harvests were ready, and the country roads were clear. She’d already had a horticulturist out to determine the viability of eventually growing her own rye and corn and millet in the back fields, and the outlook seemed promising.
The cold bit through her bulky fisherman’s sweater, and she hurried the rest of the way down the path, then stepped through the back door that opened into the spacious, warm kitchen. Eventually this room, too, would have to be refurbished if she wanted to make an old Scottish-style manor house hotel out of the place. But . . . one thing at a time. There was the first batch of whiskey to distill and get stored in barrels. That was priority number one. Then there were all her exciting obligations to Right Hemisphere to fulfill, including the first couple of parts of the travel series that would send her back to Scotland in April.
And of course, there was Byrne.
It had been two weeks since she’d seen him. Two arduous weeks full of torture, longing, long-distance love, and physical self-gratification. She’d learned rather quickly, however, that her hand wasn’t nearly as talented as any part of Byrne. And so she made herself wait, comforted by the fact that he, too, had vowed to keep his hands off himself in preparation for their reunion.
Just as she set the teakettle on the stove, her phone rang. She hadn’t realized how eager she’d been to hear its sound until she fumbled getting it out of her pocket and almost shattered it on the slate floor.
“Hi, hi!”
“Were you running a marathon?” came the wonderfully familiar and terrifically sexy voice on the other end.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. About to cross the finish line. Where are you? Sounds like you’re driving. Are you on your way here?”
“Almost there, actually. Took a day off work and got an earlier start than planned.”
Kind of ridiculous, how the butterflies danced in her stomach upon hearing that. Usually when he came up to the farm, he left after the workday ended and didn’t pull in until nearly midnight.
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