I was still catching my breath, my voice coming out in a rasp as I answered. “So fucking good, Holland.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” she smiled as she leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Because you’ve got a minute till the phone rings. Have a good conference call,” she said softly, her eyes sparkling with a bit of mischief on me, because as good as I felt right now, she knew the last thing I wanted was to watch her go. But I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of her if she stayed, and she knew well I needed to work.
So off she went.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she grinned over her shoulder as she headed out the door, waving goodbye in the hallway before she disappeared, and leaving me sitting alone at my desk completely mind blown.
Because fuck, this girl was out of this world.
And I was just now processing in full what she had done to me.
She’d come back into my life and turned my world on its head. Completely upside down. She made me want what I thought were the wrong things for me. Made me question every way I’d been living my life—just by being her.
Sweet little Holland Maxwell.
It wasn’t that she had become my weakness. She’d always been.
From day one. She had always been the girl my cold heart bled for. The girl I needed to protect. The only difference now was that she was back and my feelings for her had only grown, matured, to something exactly the same yet completely different. They had multiplied every day since I saw her again, and every hour since she came to find me at that party, and by now they were unstoppable. Indestructible.
Because she reminded me of the human being I was.
Of the life I could have. The life I actually wanted.
The girl was my angel.
And I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I did to deserve her.
30
HOLLAND
I told myself, for getting-a-tan reasons, that a little beach time was exactly what I needed before officially kicking off my weekend, but thirty minutes into Freya’s goodbye party and I was already antsy to leave—which was terrible considering she’d been such a kind and generous boss to me in the two months that we’d worked together.
She even gifted you the lingerie you’re planning on wearing for Iain tonight, I thought with a smirk while lying on my back.
Which was exactly the problem, really.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Iain.
All I wanted was to start our weekend together, because after just twenty-two minutes with him in his office last night, I’d wound up sleepless, thinking about him all night.
Because something had shifted last night.
And I was always the first to tell myself I was imagining things, but I knew I’d felt it before I left yesterday. Seen it in his eyes.
I didn’t know I could put that look on a man’s face let alone Iain Thorn’s, and it made my heart want to jump out of my chest. It made me want to just be in his arms, but according to my team, Freya was going to make goodbye toasts to each and every one of us—as soon as her assistant came back with plastic cups so we could pour the champagne.
Whenever that happens.
It took long enough that I actually dozed off for a bit. Between the sun and my sleepless night, I was in need of a nap. But I g
ot about fifteen minutes of toasty shut-eye before I felt my phone ringing under me somewhere.
Patting my hands all over the towel and reaching under my back, I finally grabbed it, squinting at my screen before I picked up the call. But I didn’t even get a greeting out before Adam spoke.
“If this is payback for all the years I’ve missed your texts and calls, message received.”
I blinked. Then processed.