Page 9 of His Bride Bargain
“At least a few weeks,” I rasp, leaning in to catch his mouth in a kiss again. To my delight, the thrill of it isn’t dampened the second time around, tremors of want tingling down my spine, puzzle pieces fitting together in ecstatic harmony.
He runs his tongue over my lips, then trails kisses over my cheek so he can whisper in my ear, “We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”
“Exactly.” I gasp as his kisses travel back down my face and neck, his teeth nipping at my tender skin, carefully enough not to leave a lasting mark. How would it feel for him to leave proof of our union on my skin? For me to do the same? As his lips brush over my collarbone, I let my eyes flicker shut, my head roll back, relishing in all the sensations of desire. It would be so easy for him to keep going.
I’m breaking my own heart as I pull the plug on us.
“Aiden,” I say gently, pushing on his chest.
To his credit, he stops at once, his face only slightly twisted up in disappointment and confusion. It’s not that I want him to stop. Right now, the hormones running through me would make me totally okay with him taking me here and now in the office, with him pushing my skirt up and running his hands over my thighs, with him sinking to his knees and making me see the stars. Thinking about it is enough to make me want to burst.
But I can’t. Not here. Not now.
The consequences of being caught like this in the office of my dreams don’t bear thinking about. The scandal of two interns messing around on company premises would make me so utterly unemployable that I might as well give up. Even the hot wetness between my legs won’t make me throw away the career I’ve always wanted.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice catching. “It’s not that I don’t want you, it’s just…”
“The job comes first,” he says, resigned, trying his best not to frown too hard.
“Yeah.” I reach out to take his hand. “Maybe when all this is over?”
He twines his fingers between mine. “Maybe.”
It’s cowardly, but I can’t bear to face his disappointment anymore. I reach over to save my work and turn off the computer, the whirring of the fan turning off the only noise besides our breathing. He moves away, and I grab my bag and cardigan. “Sorry,” I say again. “See you tomorrow?”
I barely wait for his response before I’m heading out the door, straightening myself out as I go, and he barely gives one. Only an affirmative hum follows me.
Still, as I cross the doorway, I can’t help but look back at him.
CHAPTER7
CANDICE
“And finally, Miss Metcalf, could you please explain why you thought it wasn’t necessary to change that piece of code when your colleagues disagreed?”
I take a breath to steady myself. I was expecting this question, but my palms are still sweating. All the lights in the room have dimmed except for the spotlight I’m in — the headlights I’m caught in, shone by the unwavering stares of managers and coders and colleagues, a spectrum ranging from neutral to bored to Kyle’s vindictive, beady eyes.
Only Aiden is smiling at me. He nods, his head only moving a fraction, but it’s an anchor. It’s stopping me from being washed away altogether.
This is something I prepared for. I swallow the lump in my throat and let myself look at Aiden until he’s the only person in the room. I can give a talk to him. We’ve discussed this hundreds of times, debated the pros and cons until there was nothing else to say. This is another late night in the office. Me and him. Alone.
“Yes, well, we spent a long time discussing it together, really. They both made good points about efficiency and bloated code, and I can see where they were coming from, but, as I argued to them, it’s always better, in my view, to have too many comments and more redundancy than you think you need.”
I’m kind of rambling, but I go back to the slide that shows the complicated sequence of loops and arrays at the end of our program and try to order my thoughts more coherently. The good news is, it worked really well — we barely had any glitches in our app at all, to my relief. So much could have gone wrong. Almost everyone else’s did have some major bugs, and it took me digging my nails into my palms to not grin in delight on hearing Kyle’s mistakes.
We took some risks, and it was worth it. Because the examiner is right — it wasn’t strictly best practice to do it the way I did it. But I stand by it, and I can tell him exactly why.
When I finally finish my answer, he nods slightly, his face inscrutable. I was hoping for at least a smile, but he gives me nothing.
I think I’m going to throw up.
“Thank you very much for your patience, Miss Metcalf. Your presentation was very interesting.”
As I head back to my seat, my legs are wobbling. “Interesting” could be good or bad, but he didn’t say it in that way people do when they’re trying to be nice. He grilled me hard, but I didn’t break. I did the best I could do.
And despite my nerves, I did pretty damn good.
The lights come back up in the room, and most of the company staff get to their feet, thank us again, and leave, until it’s only the six of us and Maeve still sitting. Maeve is my favorite of the senior managers because she doesn’t treat us like dirt.