Bound Beneath His Pain (Dirty Little Secrets 1)

“No kidding.” I really look at the flowers he gave me, noticing a mix of red roses and white hydrangeas. The flowery scent spirals around me, and I can’t deny the beauty of the flowers, or the sweetness of his gesture.

The girl in me wants to jump up and down in excitement that any guy put this much effort to go on a date with me. Clearly, Micah’s determined to get a yes out of me. And he’s damn well making sure I can’t forget about him. My throat dries uncomfortably when I reach for the card and open it, finding Micah’s handwriting.

Allie—

One date.

Don’t make me wait too long.

—Micah

I run my fingers over the writing on the card, acknowledging the butterflies fluttering, and wondering what happens when you make a man like Micah wait too long. Part of me loves the attention and realizes he has no intention of giving up. In fact, I’m a bit surprised he hasn’t pulled the I gave you Richardson. You’ll give me this card. The other part fears this is a battle that I won’t win. But all the lessons from my mother echo in my mind.

I can’t repeat her mistakes.

I won’t.

/> “I take it a date is in your near future,” Liv states before sipping her coffee.

I snort, placing the card in the drawer and out of sight. “Oh, yes, because that would be a great idea. Let’s date the very well-known playboy who happens to be my boss. Definitely a CLM, if you ask me.”

“Oh, yes, career limiting move, for sure. I mean, because dating a gorgeous billionaire is every woman’s worst nightmare.” She gives me a well-deserved You are an idiot look.

It is crazy!

I should be overjoyed about Micah pursuing me. Most women would be all over this. But Liv doesn’t know the true reasons I can’t be with him. She doesn’t know the real me and where I came from. She doesn’t know about my mother. She doesn’t know about the money.

“Might I remind you that he is Micah Holt?” I shoot back at her. “The guy’s splattered all over the tabloids with a new woman on his arm every month. Anything between us would be short-lived anyway—he’s not what I want in a guy.”

“Oh, I’m not saying to date him seriously.” Liv shudders a little, twirling from side to side in her swivel chair. “He’s a heartbreaker, for sure. But he’s also pretty, so you could”—she grins and waggles her eyebrows—“enjoy that pretty package for one night.”

“No.” I shake my head, adamantly. “You know I hate one-night stands.” I had one once with an Irish man when I traveled to Ireland. It was the accent, sexily spoken to me while I was intoxicated, and my panties disappeared. That experience was enough—been there, done that.

“What I know is,” Liv drawls, her foot clad in a black high-heel shoe bouncing in time with the music coming from the radio, “you need to remove your halo and get some horns on that pretty little head of yours.” My lips part, and she waves me off. “I know. I know. A one-night stand is against your angelic morals.”

Liv loves her bad boys, including her one-night stands. She’ll never understand this about me. “There’s nothing wrong with having morals.”

“In the nineteen hundreds,” she counters with a level look. “You live in the twenty-first century. It’s okay to want sex and a lot of it.” Her eyes dance as she sips her coffee again. “But since you’re clearly in a state of denial, where you somehow think you can refuse the powerful and damn hot Micah Holt, tell me more about what happened with the Lowes yesterday?”

I sigh, grateful for the subject change. “I got their wish list,” I report, “Last night I stalked the MLS and found four possibilities that I’m planning on showing Jenny in an”—I glance at the time on my monitor—“hour and a half.”

“Perfect.” Liv smiles, placing her coffee cup down beside the stack of papers on her desk. “That gives me enough time to fill you in on all things Holt.”

I settle into my seat and reach for my coffee. “Okay, hit me with it.”

“Our go-to guy about new clients is James,” Liv explains.

“What department is he in?” I take a sip of my coffee, catching a whiff of the vanilla syrup before the warmth slides down my throat.

“They call the department Real Estate.” Liv riffles through the papers on her desk. “James is one of the team leads who works under the Director of Real Estate, who reports to the Vice President of Real Estate.” She looks up from the papers and gives me a tight smile. “We’ve been placed into James’s division, so he’s our guy.”

I shake my head, trying to get my bearings. “This company is huge.”

“Yup, it’s massive.” By the strain between her brows she’s struggling to wrap her head around all of the different departments now. Because she knows I rely on her for that stuff. “Get this, though. James sent me the background info for the Lowes.”

“Background info?”

Liv nods, grabbing a folder out from the papers and bringing it to me. “It’s like Mission Impossible around here.” She hands me the file, and as I open it, she returns to her desk, adding, “Everything, and I mean everything, about the clients is in that file. Like, what their previous houses look like, what charities they’re involved in, their income bracket, things like that.”