His Big Offer

“Like, almost too big to fuck huge.” Darcy says.

Lila smiles. “And that he’s pierced.”

“Prince Albert. God, what I wouldn’t give to see that,” Lila says with a dreamy look on her face.

“Where do these rumors come from if he doesn’t date anyone he works with?”

Emily smirks. “He still dates other people. And being the young, hot, single CEO of a groundbreaking dating company gets him plenty of press. The rumors come from the tabloids. We all assume that they’ve talked to the girls he’s actually slept with.”

“Wow.” I’m fighting the urge to picture what he would look like naked in all his glory, because I’m not sure that I would survive it. But a part of me is relieved. Even if he is brilliantly perfect, if he’s made himself off-limits to employees that makes it that much easier to make sure I don’t screw this up by screwing him. Not that he even wants to, but it’s nice to know that I won’t have to worry about it.

“Good morning, ladies.” As if appearing straight out of my thoughts, Chance is in the doorway of the break room, and a hush falls. His eyes land straight on me. “Caroline, can you meet me in my office to finalize the contract and talk about some things?”

“Sure.”

He gives a quick nod to the other girls in the room and steps out. All of their heads swivel to look at me at once.

“What contract?” Emily asks.

“Non-compete,” I say. “While I’m employed here I can’t write for anybody else aside from my own personal blog.”

They all nod, but the rest are still too stunned by Chance’s sudden appearance to say anything. I give them a little shrug. “Don’t want to keep him waiting,” I say, stepping out and heading back to my office to drop off the coffee and doughnut and grab the signed contract. I have a feeling that after that little interaction—innocent as it was—there’s going to be some entirely different rumors floating around, possibly involving me.

Marcy waves me straight into the office when I approach, so I don’t bother knocking. I hold up the folder. “I signed it.”

He smiles at me, coming to take it from my hands. “Excellent.” He lingers for a second, almost like he’s unsure of what to do, and then heads back to his desk. “To start, I thought we might knock off some of the simpler ideas quickly, like an article per day, so that we create a backlog of content to post for when you’re taking more time with the more in-depth topics.” He gives a long look again, like he’s forgetting himself. Then he shakes his head a little. “Does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That sounds fine.”

“For today, there’s a pitch in the documents about having a good first date. Let’s do that one.” He’s looking away from me now, like he’s avoiding my eyes.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, suddenly nervous. “Was the article okay? I know it may need work. I’m not used to doing multiple drafts but I’m willing to do whatever work you think it needs.”

He turns back to me and smiles softly. “Your article was fine. I thought it was really good. I loved it, actually. The tone is exactly what I was looking for.”

Sweet relief runs through me, and I didn’t even realize how panicked I was about losing this job before I even had it until I started rambling about the article. I step forward out of instinct, and before my mind can catch up, I’m hugging Chance. I see him move to stop me, but it’s not fast enough, and my arms are wrapped around him.

This is…totally inappropriate. And–oh my God–it feels so good. I should pull away, but Chance suddenly relaxes and his arms fall around my shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And then, he pulls me closer. For a second, I think that I imagine it, but he holds me a little tighter.

I pull away quickly. “I’m so sorry—I was just really happy that you liked it—”

The words fall out of my mouth because I’m looking up into Chance’s face and the look there is one of pure lust. It’s there and gone in an instant, and then he’s completely professional once again. But it was there, and the same lust that I’ve been feeling since I set eyes on him flares in response. Shit. This is bad. This is really, really bad.