Page 73 of Nothing to Tell

Talking to him was the highlight of her day, every day.“You’ve had my phone number for a while.”

“Yeah, but I came too close to losing you.”

An experience she didn’t want to repeat any time soon.Just thinking about it returned the weight of sickness to her gut.

“So now you have to phone me twice a day from work to prove I’m still here?”

“I didn’t call twice from work yesterday,” he said.“I phoned once from work and once from home.”

Playing with him brought more than satisfaction.She couldn’t explain why the delighted ease relaxed and comforted her in equal measure.Maybe it was almost losing each other or having their relationship scrutinized on the internet that brought them closer.Thankfully, the press were far more interested in why Roxie and Zairn had gone to such a low-level event.

Ah, how nice, her insignificance turned out to be a bonus.She didn’t know how her friend coped with such attention.

Though she had dealt with some of it herself.Calls about new business had skyrocketed.Wasn’t a bad thing, but she didn’t have an assistant, she’d never needed one.Since the picture, she spent vast portions of her day making appointments and discussing packages.More than she spent actually planning anything.

In some ways, that part of her job was becoming easier.One new client asked about having an event at a Grand Hotel.The chain was notoriously difficult to reserve for functions, especially at short notice.To satisfy an adamant customer, she called the hotel to request they send her an email confirming they were unable to accommodate the event.To her surprise, the staff wouldn’t do that and in fact did the opposite.She got that date and offered several others.Life was getting expensive.

Bastian swore he hadn’t sent out any memos on her behalf.Grand staff were choosing to elevate her company all on their own.The picture of them kissing was out there for all to see.Everyone and their dog had seen it.Pandering, Bastian explained to her, was an unfortunate side effect of notoriety.

As great as it was to be in professional demand, it didn’t compare to the excitement brought on by Bastian’s number flashing on her phone screen.

“There’s something kinky about you phoning me when I’m in bed,” she said, sitting up to doodle circles on her headed notepad.

“We should have phone sex tonight,” he said.“You never know what element of our relationship will be tested.”

“Phone sex!”She laughed.“It’s okay for you, you live in an empty house.I don’t.”

“I’d tell you to come over to mine, but then I wouldn’t be in an empty house.”The grin in his voice transferred to her lips.She closed her eyes, imagining his dimple.“And the phone part would become redundant.”

He loved to tease, and she could give it right back.

“You know for a big important businessman, you don’t seem to do a lot of work.”

His smile was still in his voice, though he seemed to be playing dumb.“I don’t?”

“I’ve had to return four of your calls this week.Every time I phone, Tina puts me straight through,” Harper said.“Do you just sit around all day waiting for women to call you?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not an easy guy to get on the phone.”

She laughed.“Could’ve fooled me.”

“You get special privileges,” he said.“You’re a rung above my mother on the calls ladder.”

“Wow,” Harper said, connecting her doodle circles.“That throws the phone sex thing into a completely different light.”

His single burst of laughter fired through her heart, awakening her hormones.

“Not the phone sex,” he asserted.“You’re the only one Tina will pull me from a meeting for.”

Whether they were dancing together or just talking on the phone, he flattered her.With words, with the look in his eye, with the way he admired her.His tone.His depth.His… everything.

“Is that why sometimes it takes you a minute to speak?”

“Don’t knock it, it’s more than my previous girlfriends got, believe me.”

“Which maybe explains the ‘previous’ in that sentence.”Pressing the point of her pen into her notebook, she winced when confessing, “My father wants you to come to dinner with us next week.”

“For your birthday?”