Page 89 of Burning for You

“Your fault.”

I sigh, absorbing her every ravaging move. “You said to bring my handsome self.”

“You’re so evil!” she says and slowly lets me go. After a few breaths, she says, “Sit down.”

I take a seat in front of her. “Gosh… it’s so scary to be on the other side from you.”

“Oh please, don’t say that,” she says, inviting me to use the sofa instead.

“By the way, I know you said Rhea is in security, but is she your secret assistant or something? She looked smitten, but I know it’s not because she liked me,” I say.

“She’s my spy,” Carolyn admits. “She led me to you, so she knows everything about you. The first time she saw the footage of you sneaking around Brilliance, she said you were handsome.”

“I really should be afraid of you,” I tease her, placing my hand on her exposed thigh.

“And she just revealed this to me,” Carolyn says, showing photos of Josh with a woman, kissing her. “Rhea said these were ready to go out to the press, but Josh’s PR people managed to stop it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why.

“I’m not the least bit jealous. I have you. It’s just the way it’s meant to be.” She grabs my hand.

After kissing her, my eyes pans across the room. With a view over Manhattan, her office is truly magnificent.

“I’m thinking of opening the space up even more, so I don’t have an office per se. If there’s anything confidential to discuss, I can always use one of the meeting rooms,” she says. “I think these views should be shared.”

I smile at her thought. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Hey, are you ready for some fitting?”

“Sure.”

“Pretend you’re a model.”

I throw her a lopsided smile.

“What?” she says.

“Nothing. I never fancied myself as a model.”

“Come,” Carolyn says and ushers me to a huge meeting room.

There are markings on the carpet. On every side of the room, there are racks and racks of clothes, one of which Carolyn is pulling toward me.

She explains, “We use this space to practice catwalking.”

I cast my eyes over the rack of suits and formal shirts. “All these? You want me to try all of them on?” In my mind, I’d only need a couple of new shirts to choose from. Is she going to turn me into a Wall Street hedge fund manager?

She chuckles. “No, just have a look. If you like something, then you can try it on.” Then she looks at her watch. “Where the hell is Bear?”

“Bear?”

“He’s my best friend. You’ll love him,” she says. “He’s the chief creative director. He knows menswear like an astronomer knows stars.”

“Does he know about me? I mean, me and you?”

She pats my shoulder. “Of course.”

I nod a couple of times when someone comes into the room.