By the next day, optimism was on high. Throughout her sleepless night, she’d swung back and forth on what to do. Reaching a decision sent her into slumber. This was it. She’d figured it out.
Work had whizzed by that morning, which was great. Lunch couldn’t come quick enough.
Xander was at their table in the coffee shop. She went over, smiling at him as he rose to pull out her chair.
Before sitting down, she curved a hand around the back of his neck and drew him down to kiss the corner of his mouth.
“Feeling good, Button?” he asked, seating himself.
Their chairs were closer than normal, she had noticed, but wasn’t objecting.
Linking her fingers together, she pulled her forearms close to her chest. “Mr. Gauge.”
Her formal address raised his brows. “Miss Tait.”
“You’re a businessman.”
“Yes.”
“You understand contracts. Arrangements. Consideration.”
“Yes.”
Squeezing her fingers tighter together, she leaned closer, admiring his earnest gaze. “I have a proposition for you, businessman.”
He adopted a similar pose, listing her way. “I’m listening, Miss Tait.”
“It’s important that you let me finish and don’t give me your answer right now. Can I borrow your phone?”
Lifting his hips, he retrieved it from his back pocket, unlocked it, and handed it over. Under the moniker “Button,” she entered her phone number.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
“Not really,” she said, returning his phone to the lock screen and handing it back. “Not until I made my decision.”
“And what’s your decision?”
Examining his face, his features took on new light now the truth was out. How had she missed so many details? The flecks of gold in his chocolate brown eyes. The angle of his strong jaw, the inviting bow of his lips.
“You have a choice,” she murmured, resisting the urge to touch his arm.
“Between?”
“My number is in your phone. I don’t have your number.”
“Baby, you can have—”
“You have a choice, businessman,” she said, her hand going to his on impulse. “If you want, you can choose to call me.”
“I choose to call you,” he said, flipping his phone over.
She laid her hand over his to stall him. “I said it was important you hear me out.”
“Sorry,” he said, turning his hand in hers, threading their fingers together. “I’m listening.”
“I’ll come over whenever you’re ready, and we’ll…” It felt weird to anticipate saying something explicit. Usually explicit sentiments tumbled out of her without forethought. “We’ll have sex. I’ll let you do anything and everything you want to me. I’ll do anything you ask. I will be completely at your sexual beck and call until your ninety days in the real world are up…”
His breathing grew shallower, and his throat bobbed before he asked, “Or?”
She filled her lungs. “Or we try to rebuild our friendship. Spend some time getting to know each other, the real each other, and see where it goes. Option two comes with no guarantees.”
“Does it come with a time limit, like option one?”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “But it also doesn’t come with a minimum term either. Option one, you get me the whole of the rest of your ninety days, no matter what. Option two, I can choose to walk away any time and you have to respect that choice… You can’t switch from one to the other either. Once your decision is made, that’s it.”
“What’s the point of this?” he asked. “To find out if I’m just about the sex?”
“No, it’s not a trick, I promise. I can’t say if I want to be in a relationship with you until I know the real you, until we’ve rebuilt trust. And who knows? That may never happen. Maybe we won’t get there, and this will just fade away… If you don’t want to take that risk or you want to make best use of your time, I’ll go to bed with you.”
“And we’ll have forty-seven days together.”
With a shrug, she nodded. “So that’s your choice. Forty-seven days of guaranteed physical intimacy or the potential for a lifetime of intimacy in its every form.” She put a finger on his lips. “Don’t answer me. You have my number. I want you to really think about this. Call or text me later when you’re sure of your choice… I suppose option three would be we go our separate ways and—”
“There’s no option three,” he said, capturing her hand in both of his. “How long do I have to wait before I give you my decision?”
“I want to be confident that you made the right choice for you. Xander…” she murmured, sliding their linked hands to her chest. “We can’t tell each other only what we think the other wants to hear. You promised honesty. You have to trust me to hear you, to consider you. I’m not trying to trick you. I swear…” Opening her fingers, she slid them up his jaw to the hair at his temple. “You are attracted to me, right? You said that you’d thought about sleeping with me.” She smiled and pushed closer, moistening her lips. “If that’s what you want, you can have it, baby. No judgment. I won’t reject you for being honest.”
“Sex wasn’t the only thing on my mind,” he said, his hand skimming over hers. “I thought about waking up with you. Coming home to you. Asking your opinion on issues… Pouring wine for you after a hard day. Joining you in a bubble bath… Lifting your veil to kiss you.”
Laughing, she drew back, putting some space between them. Falling into him would be so easy.
“We need some coffee,” she said, sweeping up her cup. And some perspective. It had been an intense few days. After a long drink, she put the cup down again. “I suppose now we’re being honest, I can ask about Lance. You didn’t want to talk about him before. Can we talk about him now?”
“What do you want to know?” he asked. “Unfortunately, I can’t fire him for a personal dispute.”
She showed both hands in surrender. “Your personal issues are your own, I won’t get involved. But I am curious how he got you to make the agreement. Did he just goad you into it or were there stakes?”
He hesitated for a second. “I mentioned the Summit Sponsorship?” She nodded. “We disagreed over a potential investment opportunity. If I stuck it out here, we’d never talk about it again. If I didn’t, he gets the investment.”
“That’s huge,” she said with concern. “What if it fails? You could lose a fortune.”
“My time is worth more than my money and he didn’t ask for that. Losing only costs me a million dollars—”
“A million dollars?” she asked, stunned. “Oh my God!”
His warm smile didn’t settle her hammering heart. “No amount of money could replace you. Ethan is in Sydney dealing with a complicated negotiation. It’s not even four a.m. there yet. I’ll call him in a couple of hours, tell him to release the million for Lance’s BlueGold investment. He can run point on it.” He winked. “And deal with the paperwork.”
“I thought you had ninety days. Why are you conceding now?”
Might he just vanish overnight? The prospect was unsettling.
“The deal was I commit myself for ninety days. He gave me credit for nineteen days ‘cause he fucked my chances with you.”
“So for seventy-one days, you have to commit yourself to a woman who doesn’t know you’re a billionaire playboy?”
“I’m not much of a playboy, Button. And yeah, that was the point.”
“Was there a time limit? He couldn’t have expected you to meet a woman on day one.” Although he had. Clarity switched her thoughts. “Hold on, back it up and forget I said that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she said, lacing their fingers together. “You’re handsome, and smart, and charismatic. If a woman knew you were straight, she’d go out with you in a heartbeat.”
“I’m straight,” he said, coming over all serious for a second before conceding a smile. “Just making sure you know.”
“You shouldn’t give up,” she said, squeezing his hand. “According to what you’ve said, I’ve been the main woman in your life since we met and that was…”
“Forty-three days ago,” he said before she worked it out.
Astounded, she recovered by liberating a short laugh. “Was that quick math or have you been keeping track?”
“Both.”
“Gwenie still wants to go out this weekend,” she said, distracted by their linked hands. “You can come with us. We know plenty of bars that would be target rich… Does your lady have to be committed to you for the full term?”
“No, we talked about that. I can’t bring up commitment on day one.”
“No, or you’d be the same as the women trying to race you down the aisle… You don’t want a woman who gets serious from day one either. She’ll be harder to shake in seventy-one days.”
He raised her chin with a finger. “None of that matters anymore. I’m done with that. I only want you.”
The notion was seductive in itself. “You’ve been committed to me for forty-three days.”
“Yes, I have.”
Mischief came to mind. “He doesn’t have to know that I know.” Her smile was slow. “I know you haven’t made your choice and I’m not suggesting you don’t ultimately make the investment…”
“But we can keep him in the dark for a while, let him think he lost.”
“I don’t condone lying,” she said with wide, innocent eyes.
“If there’s even a chance we can’t salvage this because of his fuck up… Baby, I don’t even want to think about what I’ll do to him.”
“He’s one of your closest friends,” she said. “You don’t throw that away for the sake of a woman.”
He nodded, though his conviction told another story. “I wouldn’t. Not for the sake of a woman. But for the sake of the woman…”
It didn’t matter how much rope she gave, he didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
“Xander,” she murmured his name, angling her head to look deeper into him. “Xander.”
“Yes?”
He drew out the word like he didn’t have a clue what was going on.
“Xander Gauge… are you a third? Sounds like a regal sort of name.”
“No,” he said, humoring her. “Everything I told you about my past is true.”
“Where did you learn to write software?”
“School.”
“Fancy school.”
“I went to boarding school with a couple of geniuses,” he said and lowered to whisper, “not that I’d call them that to their faces. Another couple of guys there had the gift of the gab too. It’s amazing what you pick up if you listen to the right people at the right time.”
“Friendship means a lot to you?” He answered in the affirmative with a brow raise because his mouth was busy with his coffee. “Have you thought about my mouth on your cock?”
He spat his drink across the table, hit by a sudden coughing fit. Tables around them glanced and gawked at her sputtering friend.
“I’m sorry,” she said, grabbing for the napkins on the table to offer them to him. “I’m sorry. My mouth worked faster than my brain.” Though given what she’d said, in such a non-seductive way, that may not be the right way to put it. “I’m sorry.”
He wiped his mouth. “Would you like to walk me through the thought process behind the question?”
“Depending on what you choose, this could be the last time we ever talk.” She turned over his hand on the table to trace the lines on his palm with a fingernail. “I didn’t just want facts you’d share with anyone. I want to know something personal… and I was thinking about our hands… how often we hold hands and… My hands might touch you… in places I haven’t seen.” Pressing her palm flat on his, she met his eye. “One day I might have your dick right here in my hand.” His glazed look accompanied his lips parting. “And your fingers…” Drawing around his digits with a fingertip, she smiled. “One day you might be inside me. Everywhere…” She exhaled her disbelief. “It’s crazy, right? We’re sitting here talking like normal adults, drinking coffee in public because that’s what people do. But if you decide you want it… the next time we’re alone—”
“Rainie, baby,” he said, holding onto his calm with fraying resolve. “I love the train of thought. But if you finish that sentence…”
“It’s okay. I know I said too much.”
“Not too much,” he disagreed. “You never have to apologize for what you say, and I want you to have those thoughts about us. About me. Just… Have mercy on a man who’s been jonesing after you for weeks.”
Before he’d made his choice, it wouldn’t be a good idea to climb in too deep. There was so much about him she wanted to know, but if he chose to keep their association strictly sexual, she wouldn’t ask any more personal questions. Her body would be his for a limited time, but every other part of her, she’d keep locked up safe.