Page 42 of Final Proposal

Christ. I can’t get the image of her out of my head. The peaches and cream of her skin only accentuated the pink of her nipples and the gorgeous curve of her hips.

Curves are my kryptonite and damn, does she have them.

I shift again, the sheets falling off me as my dick hardens and thoughts run crazy.

She’s all I can think about.

A wall between us.

A bed away.

A closed door apart.

And I was tempted. God, how I was tempted with her body beneath mine—soft and warm and inviting—until I looked to the wrist my hand was pinning and was snapped back to reality.

To the tan line on her finger.

To the Daily Transcript article I read this morning and the picture accompanying it. One about Chandler Holcomb and his fiancée Ellery Sinclair as he accepted his award for Architect of the Year.

And that reminder was like a shock of cold water despite the heat between us.

Ford

Twelve Years Ago

I know he’s standing there. Even if I hadn’t heard the click of the front door or his even breathing, I would know he was there. My dad most definitely has a presence about him that owns any room he walks into.

Even my apartment.

“Who let you in?” I groan as I roll onto my back on the couch and cover my eyes with my arm.

“I own the building. Last thing I need to do is ask for access from anyone.”

The thought has never bugged me until right now. Until this moment when I simply want to wallow in my own sorrow and drink myself into oblivion without him being him.

“Invading my privacy doesn’t come with the landlord duties.”

“Then answer your phone, and I won’t have to show up here.”

I hear the motorized blinds moving open and already hate him for doing that. Besides the extended hangover I’ve been wallowing in, I don’t think I’ve seen sunlight for a few days.

“You can spare me the lecture. I already know what you’re going to say.” Get up. Don’t let a woman steal your worth. Fuck her if she doesn’t see your value.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

“I’m not here to give you a lecture, son.”

“Ha. That’s funny. Isn’t lecture your middle name?”

“That’s not exactly fair.” I hear him move about the room. I feel the dip of the couch’s cushion beneath his weight. “I like to think I offer more than that.”

Huh. There is a tinge of something in his voice. Did I just insult the great Maxton Sharpe and it affected him?

His sigh hangs in the stagnant air of my place. “It’s inevitable, you know.”