Private Player

I needed some space.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” she replied.

“A yes to what?” I asked.

“I told you that I wanted to come home with you.”

My stomach dived into my knees. It was exactly what I wanted to hear and everything I needed to avoid. “Come home with me?” I asked, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. She wouldn’t have a particularly difficult task convincing me to strip her naked and bury myself in her again, but it was news to me that this option was back on the table. There’d been a few flirtatious glances, a few accidental touches that had Madison jumping away like I’d set her alight, but I’d thought we both agreed that our personal relationship was to remain in the past.

“Yeah. I think it’s important for the article that I see more of you. The man behind the title and the headlines.”

Right. She wanted to come home for the article. Not to get naked. I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved, but either way the stiffening in my cock loosened.

“You want to come home with me . . . now?”

“You were planning to head out, weren’t you? Or are you going to see your dentist?” She made quote marks in the air.

“No,” I said, opening my desk drawer and pulling out my keys. “No dental appointments this evening.”

“So, you’re worried you’ve not put out clean guest towels in the downstairs loo?”

“I’m not worried about anything.” That wasn’t quite true. I was a little concerned that it would be more than her third button that would come undone. Here in the office, out in public, it all seemed completely realistic to keep things professional. But in private? In my house? I wasn’t sure that a few flirtatious glances wouldn’t turn into something else. And there were at least a million reasons why that would be a bad idea.

“Perfect. I’ll even buy you takeout. I can expense it.”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

“You said you weren’t worried about me coming back,” she said, following me out of my office and along the empty corridor to the lifts.

“I’m not sure it’s a great idea, Madison. It’s late and I need to—”

“I won’t outstay my welcome. And you have to eat. We’ll have dinner and then I’ll leave. I promise.”

Apparently, she didn’t think she’d have any trouble keeping things strictly professional. Maybe I had misread the tension between us, or maybe I really was still a fourteen-year-old boy on the inside. But I had enough self-control not to make a pass at her while we had dinner, didn’t I? I had promised Gretel that Madison would have uninterrupted access to me . . .

“I’m kicking you out by ten thirty. I need my beauty sleep.”

As the lift pinged open, she grinned at me like she’d won some kind of battle. “I think you’ve had quite enough for one lifetime. But ten thirty’s a deal.”

Had Madison Shore just called me beautiful?

Madison was quiet in the car. Unnervingly so. I kept glancing across at her but it was her turn to have her nose buried in her phone.

“Everything okay?” I asked, when we were just a few minutes from home.

“Yeah. Fine,” she replied, putting her phone down and looking around for the first time since we started our trip. “We’re in . . . Camden. You live here?” She sounded shocked.

“No but I could live in Camden.” I didn’t like Camden—full of people trying too hard to be cooler than they were. “We’re en route,” I said.

“I thought you’d live in Mayfair.”

“I wanted a garden.” That was one of several reasons I wanted to live a little farther out. I liked the space, the community. And I was closer to the family home.

She snapped her head around to look at me. “Really? You have green fingers?”

“I pay a gardener.”

“Of course you do,” she said. “If not Camden, where are you taking me?”

“Highgate. The wine is better,” I said.

“Interesting,” she said, and I could almost see her making a mental note. I just couldn’t work out what that note might be.

“Plenty of people live in Highgate,” I said, trying to see off any criticism she might have.

“Maybe,” she said. “It’s just not where I’d pictured you.”

I wanted to ask what that meant but at the same time, I didn’t want her to think I cared what she thought. “George Michael lived two doors down. Kate Moss the other side. Plenty of people live in Highgate.”

We pulled into the drive and I found myself feeling oddly self-conscious. I rarely had women visit me at home.

“Pretty,” she said, getting out of the car and looking up at the three floors of small-paned windows and red brick. “Is it Georgian?”

“On the outside,” I said, locking the car. “Where do you live?”

“Hampstead,” she answered as she ran her delicate fingers over the big round bell on the left-hand side of my door.