The Boyfriend (The Boss 7)

I hopped up on my toes to kiss him on the cheek. “You had help.”

“I did,” he admitted. “I called your personal shopper in London. She said this was a little out of season but that you’d love it, anyway.”

I hurried over to the box and wiggled the lid off. Multi-colored sequins sparkled through the paper.

“Is this…” I gasped, lifting the dress from the box. “It is!”

Jenny Packham’s amazing sheer white gown spattered with a rainbow of multi-colored sequins of different sizes and shapes that drifted down the nearly transparent skirt like confetti.

“I thought you might wear it for New Year’s Eve,” Neil suggested. “Though it’s a long way off.”

I held the gown awkwardly against my chest and twirled as much as I dared without stepping on it. “Do we have plans I don’t know about?”

“Not yet. But I’d like to make some soon. Some...grown-up plans. Maybe leave Olivia behind this time?” He sounded almost guilty.

“It’s perfectly fine to leave your kid—grandkid—at home on New Year’s Eve. That’s an adult holiday. But do you think you’d be okay to…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence. I didn’t like tiptoeing around his addiction issues, but he didn’t want me to treat him like a child, either. We’d rung in the past few New Year’s quietly at home.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been sober so long that I’ve honestly forgotten.”

“Liar,” I said with a sad smile.

“All right, perhaps I haven’t quite forgotten,” he admitted. “But I’m not going to lose control of myself. And I would have you and hopefully El-Mudad as a support system.”

I had an idea so good, I dropped my birthday present. I scrambled to pick it up. “Sorry. I just had a thought. What if we spent New Year’s...in Venice.”

“Oh.” Neil blinked.

“I’ve never been there,” I reminded him. “And how long has it been since you’ve even visited it? You’ve got an apartment in Venice, and you’ve been there, like, what? Twice?”

“Once. My honeymoon with Elizabeth,” he said, clearing his throat reflexively at the mention of his ex-wife.

“Then let’s make it like a new honeymoon!” We hadn’t had one with El-Mudad, yet, but there was no reason we couldn’t, just because we weren’t all officially married. Moving in together was pretty much the same when there wasn’t any way we could make our union official. “Wouldn’t it be amazing to go back there? The three of us together?”

“New Year’s tends to be very popular there,” Neil mused. “And I know El-Mudad is fond of the city.”

“Good. That’s settled.” I sighed happily. “He said he sent you a present for me?”

“He did,” Neil confirmed with his half-smile. “But I’m not to give it to you until this evening.”

I clucked my tongue. “Is it a sex thing? It’s a sex thing, isn’t it?”

“Not strictly. But he knows how you are about presents and told me to make you wait as long as I possibly could.” Neil gestured for me to come to him, and I obliged, leaving the dress on the longue. He wrapped his arms around me and leaned down for a kiss. A small moan mewling from my throat as his tongue traced the curve of my lower lip. He grabbed my butt and boosted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I was just considering telling him to close and lock the door when I heard the slap of bare feet in the hallway. Neil heard it, too, and put me down just as Olivia burst into the room.

“Come on, Sophie! Cake!” She ran to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the door.

“You’re not really going to hide in here from my mom, are you?” I asked Neil as Olivia dragged me along.

“Cake, Afi! Cake!” Olivia urged him, with a passion for sweets that only a toddler could summon. “Let’s go!”

He sighed. “All right. I’ll go. But Rebecca has to be nice to me.”

I turned and glanced down. “Maybe...go put on some real pants.”

* * * *

Because my birthday fell on a weekday—and because I so was not into the idea of an opulent celebration to remind me of my fading youth—the only plans we’d made had been for a quiet dinner at home with some of my friends.

“We can’t make it.”

I frowned at the phone on the counter and almost burned myself unwinding my hair from the curling rod. “Why not?”

“Teething.” My best friend Holli and her partner, Deja, had welcomed a gorgeous baby back in April, but that gorgeous baby always seemed to be a shrieking hellspawn of snot and fevers these days. Occasionally, I wondered if they used Piett—so named for the admiral, due to Deja’s total Star Wars nerdery as much as for gender neutrality—as an excuse to not see me. It had been weeks.