My stomach turned over as I stared down at Mr. Blackwood’s email for what must have been the hundredth time.
Make sure your attire is as put together as your presentation this time.
Every time I remembered just how indecent I’d looked when the elevator doors shut, it was like reliving that mortification over and over again. The little gasp, the heat of my cheeks, the sinking stone in my gut all came back and hit me like a freight train.
I’d already agreed — Mr. Blackwood and I had exchanged fairly civil emails back and forth immediately following it. But I still found myself staring at that initial one time and time again, wondering if he was simply saying that I needed to avoid that happening at the presentation or if he was insinuating something else entirely.
Something that made the nausea turn to butterflies.
But that wasn’t appropriate.
I stared out the window of the taxi as we passed the Golden Gate Cemetery, temptation eating away at me. If he meant more than what was written, and if my potential full-time role depended on me playing along, surely that was something HR needed to be aware of. But it was his company and his alone. He could act the way he pleased no matter what HR said.
There was someone I could speak to about this, though.
I pulled up Sophie’s contact on my phone and pressed the call button, lifting my phone to my ear. I’d be at the airport in less than ten minutes with the way traffic was moving, and I needed to know in that ten minutes just how nervous and uncomfortable I would be for the next two days in Vegas.
“Aren’t you meant to be getting on a private jet right about now?”
I snorted into the phone. “I doubt Mr. Blackwood went that far.”
“Mr. Blackwood?” She cackled, the sound quickly becoming muffled. “God, you’re so lucky I’m on lunch. The rest of HR would have had a field day with that.”
The thought of the entire human resources department laughing at me instead of just Sophie made me cringe. “Should I not call him that?” I asked.
“Christ, no. I think you’d send him to an early grave if you called him that to his face,” she chuckled. “And for the record, you are flying private. All of the attendees are.”
“Jesus,” I breathed, directing my attention out the window as we went straight past the entrance to the airport. “I wanted to run something by you real quick if that’s okay. Work-related, not friend-related.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s something I, uh, failed to mention a few days ago when I told you about the offer he’d extended,” I started. I glanced at the taxi driver in the rearview mirror, tempting fate as his brown eyes met mine briefly. “He added a P.S. at the bottom of the email. He mentioned my… wardrobe malfunction.”
“You mean your breasts being in his face?” she laughed.
“They were not in his face, Sophie.”
“Same difference.”
“He said to make sure my attire was as put together as my presentation,” I whispered, hoping the taxi driver wouldn’t hear me over the car’s engine and the faint classical music from his speakers. “Should I… report that? Like, to you?”
“Report it?” The slight sound of her chewing filtered down the phone, and her next words were around a mouthful. “I mean, if it made you uncomfortable, go for it.”
I bit down on the end of my thumbnail as the taxi turned into the bay labeled Signature Flight Support. “I don’t know if it did.”
“Then don’t report it.”
“What do you think he meant by it?”
“What do you think he meant by it?” she parroted, a little giggle leaking from between bites of her food. “He was probably just giving you a word of warning in case you always walked around with your tits out.”
“He put a winky face next to it,” I added. I could feel my cheeks heating as the driver’s eyes met mine again briefly, his eyes crinkling at the edges as if he were grinning.
“Well that changes everything,” she drawled, sarcasm thick in every syllable. “Seriously, Liv, you’re overthinking it. Maybe he just wants to fuck you.”
I nearly choked on my saliva.
“Don’t act like you wouldn’t want that,” Sophie laughed. “You’ve been talking about him all Goddamn week. Just have fun in Vegas and if his behavior bothers you, I’ll note it down and handle it.”
“Oh my God,” I mumbled.
“Love ya! Have fun!”
The call disconnected the same moment that the driver put the car into park and shoved open his door. I swallowed, my nausea only doubling as I realized there was a very good chance that she was right. Maybe he did want to have sex with me.
The idea of telling him no was somehow harder to imagine than any other scenario I’d pictured involving him over the past week.
I stumbled out of the car, watching in silence as the taxi driver retrieved my small suitcase from the trunk, and flattened down any hint of a wrinkle on my dress. At least in something that almost reached my knees and covered the entirety of my chest—sans buttons—he couldn’t say I was dressing provocatively.
The black fabric was fairly tight, though.
Cursing myself for not picking slacks and a shirt with some kind of blazer, I took my bag from the taxi driver and passed him a ten-dollar bill as a tip before making my way inside.
The interior of the private charter service was ornate and gorgeous, but since I was already late, I didn’t have a second to appreciate it. My bag was whisked away by workers who took it straight out onto the tarmac, and once I’d given my name and checked in, I too was led out into the abrasive sun.
The jet sat undisturbed around a corner, engine idling, with two pilots milling about by the bottom of the stairs. It looked large enough to seat at least twenty, and from the looks of the people in the windows, most of the twenty people were men.
“You must be Ms. Martin,” one of the pilots said, his lips taut as he looked at me. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Traffic,” I offered as a half-hearted apology.
“It’s fine. We’re only twenty minutes behind schedule,” the other said, passing a slight smile in my direction before gesturing for the stairs. “We should get going.”
I climbed the steps to the aircraft, fully expecting some kind of flight attendant to demand to see my ticket at the top and direct me to my seat, but as I rounded the corner, it didn’t look like assigned seats were even a thing. There were a handful still available, most taken up by men and a couple of women I’d never met but seen in passing around Blackwood. In the center at a table for five, Damien lounged, hunched over the polished wood table with a glass of amber liquid clutched in his palm.
The second he clocked me, his grin turned wicked.
“Ms. Martin,” he said, his voice booming above the others. “Sit wherever you’d like.”
————
I’d never been to Vegas.
The flight had been stressful — I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but Damien spent the entirety of it talking business with the close handful of men that sat at his table, leaving me toward the back alone. I’d spent most of it anxiously going over my notes and trying not to be tempted by the occasional glass of alcohol being passed around the plane.
When we touched down, we headed directly to the conference center in the Luxor. Thrust into negotiations without a single clue what was happening, I found myself huddling toward the back again, listening but not engaging. Damien watched me from a distance, his eyes always lingering, tearing me apart — and when it had been time for me to present to those who had come with us, the internal higher-ups and the handful of board members, he introduced me personally.
Our brightest intern. That’s what he called me.
All in all, the presentation went down well. Damien stayed next to me as our group huddled around me, flipping the page for me when I needed it. And afterward, when he presented in front of the other companies, he name dropped me when he mentioned the new and exciting changes that would be coming to Blackwood in the near future. He hovered as I spoke idly to a handful of business owners and local green initiative planners. He stayed close enough that I knew he could hear, but far enough that it left me alone and vulnerable.
I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.
But after, as the night progressed and we left the confines of the Luxor and padded down the strip, Damien announced to the twenty-or-so of us that he was treating us to dinner and drinks in celebration of landing the contracts.
That’s how I found myself almost at the head of the long table beside Damien in a luxurious cirque-themed restaurant I hadn’t caught the name of somewhere inside the Bellagio.
I was two drinks and a main course deep, with a ring and antique wristwatch laden hand far too close to mine on the table. His knee brushed against mine, and my stomach twisted with a hint of butterflies and mostly anxiety. Was that on purpose?
My pulse hammered in my ears. He hadn’t even said a word to me.
His mouth moved silently as he spoke to the man on his left, his fingers drifting ever so slightly closer to mine on the table. I tried to work out what he was saying, if it had anything to do with me, if the shape of my name crossed his lips — but I couldn’t pick apart any of it, not until he turned his attention to me instead.
“They’re all impressed with you, you know,” he said, his voice low enough that only I could hear it. He sipped at his glass of whiskey, a wry little smile creeping across his lips and puckering the wrinkles beside his eyes.
I needed more alcohol if I was going to survive this. I knocked back the last of my drink before reaching for my third.
Damien’s gaze was too much, too lingering, too daring for me to handle without it, and I kept finding myself getting far too lost in the sea of blue and the temptations it held. “Does that include you?”
He chuckled, his eyes locking with mine as his hand crept just an inch closer. He doesn’t want you. That would be insane. He’s the CEO, HR would go crazy if they found out. “Especially me, Olivia. You’re already proving my choice to hire you was an excellent one.”
Heat flooded my cheeks and the space between my thighs.
This hadn’t been what I’d expected when I sent my resume to Blackwood for the internship. I couldn’t deny that I was absurdly attracted to him, couldn’t deny that I liked the way he talked to me or said my name, and more than anything, couldn’t deny that a part of me that I didn’t let see the light of day might let him fuck me if he asked. “You can’t just say things like that,” I breathed. Oh, shit. The alcohol was making it too easy to speak to him.
“Like what? I was paying you a compliment,” he chuckled.
“I…” I reached for my drink, downing almost half of the mojito in a single gulp. Horrible idea, Liv. Make it easier to say how he’s making you feel, why don’t you? “I don’t know.”
He set his elbow on the table, resting his chin on it and blocking out the man to his left entirely as he gave me his full attention. Somehow, it wasn’t intimidating, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the alcohol or if it was because his shields were lowering. “What does that mean?”
“Are you flirting with me?” I asked, the words falling out of me before I could even process them. My cheeks heated further, practically burning, and his eyes widened in response.
He took another swig of whiskey. “That would be against HR policy,” he said. “But if you’re wondering if I’m attracted to you, then yes.”
Oh, fuck.
“Does that bother you, Olivia?”
If I wasn’t borderline drunk, I would have ran. I would have taken my things and asked him what hotel room I was in, thrown myself onto the bed, and sent in a resignation email.
But I was borderline drunk, and he was looking at me like I was the only person in the room. “I don’t know,” I squeaked. “I’m not… I’m not good at this kind of thing.”
He chuckled as he sipped again. “We’re just having fun. If you’re worried that you need to act a certain way with me or feel okay about this just to get ahead, don’t. That’s not how things work at Blackwood’s.” His lower lip tucked between his teeth for a fleeting second as he let his gaze drift just slightly lower down, taking in my neck, my shoulders. Oh, my God. “But if you mean you’re inexperienced…”
“That one,” I blurted, clutching my drink in my grasp like a vice. The alcohol was doing the talking. Admitting that, speaking it out loud, almost felt like I’d walked into the restaurant fucking naked. I was twenty-four for fucks sake, a fully-fledged adult, and because of what I’d promised myself, I still hadn’t done it with anyone. “That.”
His smile widened further and he scrubbed at his lips with his hand to hide it. “Olivia,” he mumbled in a low voice, my name sounding like fucking butter in his mouth. “I can guarantee I’ve got enough experience for both of us.”
Jesus fucking Christ. I didn’t doubt that for a second, and neither did the space between my thighs. I crossed my legs to dull the ache that blossomed there.
“With flirting, of course,” he laughed, one eye closing in a wink.
This man was going to tempt me far too much. “Is this… what you do? I mean, I’ve heard rumors that you, uh, sleep around.”
His unexpected laughter nearly sent his whiskey spraying into his glass. “That’s a bit forward.”
My face felt like it was on fire. “I’m sorry—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” he grinned. “You’re tipsy. I’m not expecting you to have a filter. But to answer your question, yes. Casual is what I prefer. Not at the office, though. That’s off limits for me.”
Off limits? Does that mean I’m off limits? “I don’t think I could do casual sex,” I breathed, hating the words the moment they left my mouth.
“Why?”
I blinked at him, trying to weigh up the positives and negatives of speaking the truth, but in the haze of the alcohol and the wild laughter down at the other end of the table, I couldn’t find a negative. Screw it. “I’m a bit more conservative when it comes to that kind of thing,” I said, my voice a little low, a little quiet.
He leaned just a little bit closer, his eyes sparkling with intrigue. “How conservative, Olivia?”
I swallowed. “Ask me when I’m drunk.”
————
At the bar, Damien’s hand held me in place on my lower back, my feet feeling far too clumsy in my heels after a further two cocktails. I was in dangerous territory — the kind of drunk where my filter was gone entirely, my inhibitions left behind and dunked in the Bellagio’s fountains. He was getting there himself, too. I could see it in the way he looked at me, with his heavy-lidded eyes and the way his mask of authority had slipped entirely. We were tucked away around the corner from the table, just the two of us standing at the side of the bar, and every second we spent here felt like a ticking time bomb.
“You’re touching me,” I breathed. He’d ushered me forward to order with his hand on my back, and it just hadn’t left.
“I am.” His eyes met mine from beside me, his hand resting just a little more insistently against me. “Is that a problem, princess?”
Exhaling shakily, I let myself move toward him, let myself get just a little bit closer. “No.”
“You can tell me if it is.” He gulped down the last of his drink and motioned idly toward the bartender for another, his attention almost entirely on me.
“It isn’t,” I insisted, and God, why did I mean that?
He grinned, turning to lean on the bar with his side as he gratefully accepted the next whiskey. “Well then… Are you drunk enough?”
“Drunk enough?” I asked, struggling to remember through the far thicker haze that clouded every thought. “What do you mean?”
He chuckled as his hand idly began to draw circles on my lower back. “How conservative are you, Olivia?”
Oh, shit. That.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
I swallowed, my body naturally inching closer to him. “I want to tell you,” I said, my voice so low that I could barely hear it over the chaotic sounds around us. It wasn’t a lie — with the alcohol in me and the way his hand felt against me, it was making things too easy.
“Would it be easier if I guessed?” he laughed, lifting the empty glass out of my hand and replacing it with my abandoned replacement.
I grinned. “You can try.”
“Okay. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say… you’ve only dated two men, one in high school and one in college,” he said, a little smirk creeping up his lips. “You didn’t have sex with the first one, but you lost your virginity to the second. Never had to flirt with a man because you’re just that pretty.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong,” I snorted.
“Really? Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.”
I paused with my drink halfway to my mouth. “So what if I am?”
“No, absolutely not.” He shook his head, his cheeky grin unwavering. “Not a chance.”
I swallowed past the little surge of soberness that hit me. “I am, though. I’ve never slept with someone.”
Wide eyes met mine as he sipped at his drink. “Genuinely?”
“Genuinely. No sex till marriage.”
His cheeks heated as he sipped at his whiskey. His fingers dug in, pulling me just an inch nearer, just a little bit closer to temptation. “I need to be more careful with you than I thought, then.”
My chest was almost flush with his, and I could feel the heat building in the small little gap between us. My heart pounded against my ribs, and in my haze, I just wanted to lean into him, wanted to close the distance. He was my boss, and so what? If HR had a problem with the CEO sleeping with an employee, it wouldn’t apply to us. “Why?”
He set his glass of whiskey back down on the counter and closed the gap himself. “Because if I’m being wildly honest, Olivia, I’d like nothing more than to take you back to my room. And now I can’t, for two reasons.”
The chill of his hand that had clutched his glass seeped into my skin as he cupped my cheek in it, his thumb drifting across my lower lip. I had to grip the bar for stability, and as I looked up at him and the intense, overwhelming temptation that face filled me with, I couldn’t help but have a flickering want for the same thing as him.
I didn’t trust myself with him.
“You’d have to marry me, then,” I chuckled, my face burning from the heat he imbued me with.
He leaned a little closer, the scent of whiskey, almonds, rum, vanilla — everything encapsulating me. He hovered, just an inch from me, just an inch from what I knew he could tell we both wanted.
He glanced around as if to check if anyone could see us. “Fuck it,” he rasped.
His fingers dug into the small of my back as his other snaked around the rear of my neck. His lips met mine in an instant.
Heart pounding and head swimming, I let him kiss me, let him have control as he moved his mouth against mine demandingly, roughly, feverishly. His tongue dove between my teeth, ensnaring mine, and I could taste the whiskey on him.
I clutched the front of his suit jacket, far too overwhelmed to know what to do with my hands, but good fucking God I wanted more of this, more of whatever he wanted to give. If he wanted sex, there was a part of me that wanted to give that to him regardless of what I’d promised myself.
But even in my drunken stupor, I wouldn’t let it happen.
I couldn’t.
His mouth devoured me as his fingers slipped up further into my hair, twisting around the tresses of waves, tugging, fisting it. The burn of my scalp was almost enough to cut through the numbing effects of far too much alcohol.
His lips left mine, his chest heaving, his mouth just barely stained from my lip gloss. Those fucking piercing blue eyes met mine, wild now instead of heavy, and when he spoke, I was convinced I didn’t hear him correctly.
“We’re in Vegas, princess. Marry me.”
