Scandalizing the CEO

Ainsley sat quietly next to him as he drove through the city to her home. She lived in the posh neighborhood of Notting Hill. “What made you choose this area to live?”

She flushed and looked over at him. “The movie with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. They made it look charming and quaint.”

“Is that how you decided to become a magazine editor? You saw someone in a movie doing it?”

She shrugged. “There are worse ways to find a job. What about you?”

“Not so fast. You didn’t tell me why you chose your profession.”

“You can park there on the street.” She pointed to a space halfway down the block.

He pulled into the spot and turned the car off, but he made no move to get out and neither did she. “Which movie was it?”

“His Girl Friday. Have you ever seen it?”

He hadn’t. He wasn’t much of a film buff. He’d spent his life out doing things. Trying to prove he was better than his ancestry, and most days he was sure he succeeded.

“No. What’s it about?”

“A newspaper editor—Cary Grant and his ex-wife and star reporter Rosalind Russell…it’s just great. They made working at a newspaper look like so much fun. I knew I wanted to be a reporter.”

“But you’re not,” he pointed out.

“Once I graduated I found a different path. But I would never have thought of writing for a living if not for that movie.”

She sparkled with passion when she talked about writing and he wondered why she’d given it up. He knew she’d said that the new job better suited her but he still couldn’t believe she’d give up her passion for money.

“How old were you when you made the decision to be a writer?”

“Twelve,” she said. “What about you? Did you decide early on that you wanted to rule the world?”

He laughed out loud at her wry question. “Pretty much from the womb I knew I wanted it all.”

“Do you think you’ve gotten it?” she asked.

He tipped his head to the side to study her. She asked questions that no one else ever had—except that one reporter. The frumpy, clumsy woman had little in common with Ainsley except for her eyes and her probing questions. He remembered the woman’s eyes…so similar to Ainsley’s.

“Not yet, but I’m close,” he said.

He tried to recall other details of the woman but he couldn’t see anything but those wide violet eyes. He took his keys from the ignition and got out of the car to come around and open her door.

One thing his mother had been a stickler about was manners in a man. She said that women liked to be treated with respect and that they always deserved it.

He’d often wondered if Malcolm’s betrayal with his other mistresses had wounded his mum deeply. She’d buried herself in her lab and in her research after his birth. Steven could think of no greater disrespect than finding out the man you were having an affair with was seeing two other women at the same time.

He opened her door and offered his hand. She took it, her fingers small and delicate in his bigger grasp. She turned in her seat, stretching her legs out the door first. They were slim and yet curvy, one of the first things he’d noticed about her. Once she had one foot on the sidewalk, she stepped out and stood next to him. He wanted her again. Wanted to kiss her once more, but he knew better than to move too quickly.

He wanted to savor every moment with her. To make this quasi-emotion he felt—one he knew was lust—last a little while longer before he went back to the dull, gray world he usually inhabited. The world where he just worked and concentrated on proving he was the best.

“I’ll see you to your door,” he said.

“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I think I can find it.”

“I insist.”

He put his hand on the small of her back again and nudged her toward her door. She tossed that high ponytail of hers as she looked back over her shoulder at him. “You don’t take no for an answer, do you?”

“Not unless I have to. Men who back down usually end up losing.”

“I don’t like to lose, either,” she said.

“If you want what I want, then we’ll both win.”

“Somehow I’m not sure I’ll know if I really want it or if your will has made me think I do,” she said.

Her words had been carefully chosen. She was trying to tell him that he overwhelmed her, or at least that was what he suspected.

“I’m not going to ask for anything you’re not ready for,” he said.

She studied him for a moment and he hoped she found whatever it was she was searching for. Hoped she didn’t see that emptiness he always tried to mask. That spot inside him where he suspected other people had their hearts but he just had a driving impulse to succeed.