The doors chimed, and we exited on the top floor. Like the storefront downstairs, the space had been overhauled and turned into an oasis with sage green walls and khaki burlap-upholstered furniture. Potted palms and a small water sculpture in the lobby area by the elevator gave it the appearance of a waiting room for a world-class spa. The floors, once polished cement, were now done in small river rocks to make it feel like you were outside in a meditation garden. Jesus, who wouldn’t want to come and work here every day? “Boohoo, I have to go to the office and feel peaceful.” Today was Sunday, so the office staff wasn’t working, but I could genuinely imagine the place filled with smiling, peppy employees. Me included. This was so not the Maxwell Cole I’d met eight months ago—that man had been cutting edge, high-concept fashion, with sharp edges and an even sharper tongue. His office of stainless steel and minimal decorations had been a reflection of his icy disposition.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“What do you think I think?” I pointed to my smiling face.
“I wanted you to feel at home here, and I know how much you love being outdoors.”
If he’d done all this as a wedding gift, I couldn’t imagine what he might do if I had a baby or got his name tattooed on my ass. Or maybe our baby’s name tattooed on my ass?—something big and permanent.
“It’s really nice, Max.”
He lifted a dark brow. “Nice, huh?”
I grinned. “I said really.”
He chuckled with a tinge of cockiness. “All right, Lily. Let me show you something else that’s ‘nice.’”
We walked past a reception desk that held a few personal effects—coffee mug, framed photo I couldn’t see, and a name plate that was really an etched rock. I immediately recognized the name.
“You hired Keri back?” I asked.
Max nodded. “She’s been asking about you.”
Keri was a gorgeous tall redhead with an eye for fashion and a hot boyfriend who lived in New York and worked for a top dress designer, Babs Levine. When I died, I wanted to be buried in one of Bab’s hand-stitched sequin dresses, like the one Max had bought for me in Milan during our first weekend together. It was the same dress he’d torn off my body right before taking my virginity and fucking me against a wall. I’d never, ever be one of those women who wished for a do-over on the virginity-loss thing, unless you were talking about doing it over with Max. Goddamned stud.
My core began to ache and tingle with the thought, my skin sparking with hypersensitivity and increased blood flow.
I made a little cough. “Uh…tell Keri I said hi and that I’m still waiting for her to dump her man so I can snatch him up.”
Max glared with intense hazel eyes.
“I want him for the free clothes,” I said facetiously. Keri always had the nicest couture, compliments of her man, who received tons of freebies at work.
“Why the hell would you need free clothes?” Max asked judgmentally.
“Because I’m a girl?” Poor or rich, we all liked free.
“Anything worth having is worth paying for.” He stopped in the doorway of his office and gestured for me to enter.
I behaved casually, but my insides felt like the guts of a clock—wheels turning and cranking and spinning.
I walked three feet inside and stopped, covering my mouth. “What is this?”
Max ran his large hand through his messy hair. “This is supposed to be your new office. The desk reminded me of the furniture you used to have in your bedroom.”
Ohmygod. Once the sterile, masculine-looking office of the infamous Maxwell Cole, this newly decorated corner space overlooking downtown Chicago had light pink walls with etchings of white lilies. There was an overstuffed white couch with lily-shaped pillows and several armchairs, all surrounding a natural wood coffee table. Even the desk—a whitewashed antique-looking thing—was totally laid back and outrageous wonderful.
It was all so…incredibly thoughtful. I wanted to cry.
He continued, “But given you told me last evening you came to Chicago to say goodbye—”
“Max, let me explain—”
“No. Let me. As you pointed out, I was foolish to assume you would be waiting around six months after I gave no indication whatsoever of a reconciliation. But it took me thirty-three years to find you, Lily, and it never occurred to me that you’d fall in love with someone else. So now I see that I’ve made two errors since we met: one, not telling you how much I loved you before the scandal, and then taking six months to tell you where my head was at. So please don’t see all this as some sort of scheme meant to pressure you to come back. I simply never doubted we’d have a future together and, true to my flawed nature, I wanted everything to be perfect—for you, for us. This was all meant to be a new life and fresh start for us.”
My eyes teared. He had seen this company—and the store and this office—through the lens of a man who was already married. And now that he’d explained that, it made sense. Maxwell Cole was obsessed with perfection—he couldn’t help it. So why wouldn’t he take the same obsessive approach with us? His six-month absence from my life probably seemed like a necessary sacrifice to him in order to make everything just right.
I took his hand. “Max, you beautiful eccentric man, I can’t begin to articulate how blown away I feel right now. I mean, I get what you were doing, and as long as I live, no one will ever measure up to you.” I looked around the room. “This is all so…” I blew out a breath. “It’s wow.”
“But?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“But I’m confused about us. My heart wants you so badly; my body wants you, too. But my head keeps telling me bad things, and I don’t know how to get past it.”
“So you really are saying goodbye.”
I didn’t want that. I really, really didn’t. But I didn’t want to jump into this and fuck it all up again and get hurt or hurt him. I also needed to get my act together. It was time to shake some old habits and learn to love myself. As for him…
“This is what I wanted to talk about, Max. I feel like we both have a road ahead of us before we can be together. You have some things to work out, too.”
He shook his head. “That’s the point you continue to miss, Lily. We are much stronger together. We challenge each other. We definitely don’t take each other’s shit.”
All true.
He walked over to the desk and pulled out the comfy-looking exec chair. “Take a seat, Lily. Because this is where you belong. Here, with me, living your dream.”
I stood there, next to the coffee table only a few feet from the door, frozen in conflict. Meanwhile, Maxwell Cole looked like his usual, confident self, able to convince anyone of anything. A natural born salesman. And who could resist that face? Or body. Or hell, that long dick of his.
“I think I should…” I closed my eyes, barely able to resist the pull. But I had to do what was right here. “I should go.”
“Lily,” he growled.
“I need a little time. That’s all.”
“I think you need something else altogether.” He walked toward me, unbuttoning his pants.
My eyes shifted side to side. “Uh…what are you doing?”
He walked past me, shut the door, and faced me. “Turn around.” He pulled out his hard cock and my eyes stuck to it. My body immediately reacted with heated throbs between my legs and tingles erupting on my c-spot. My nipples tightened into little pebbles and my mouth went dry. God, I so want him.
“I said turn around,” he demanded in that low authoritative voice he always used when something displeased him.
I didn’t reply because my mind was a crazy hot mess. I should go before he fucks all sense of rational thought from my mind.
No. Stay. Look at that thick hard dick. You know you want it.
Max stepped up to me, grabbed my hand, and placed it on his hard shaft. He dipped his head and pushed his lips to mine, pressing his other hand to the back of my head, deepening the kiss. Th
e other hand he used to guide my fingers around his girth. Not that I needed help. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with him. I began to stroke him firmly, enjoying the feel of the soft velvety skin sliding over warm steel. I imagined him inside me, pumping hard, hitting that sweet spot that made me come in earth-shattering contractions that radiated through every nerve in my body. I loved how Max took control in the bedroom, how he knew how to use his body and deliver hours of mind-blowing fucking. The man made sex into an art form where he skillfully balanced giving and taking. He took and he took hard, but what he gave in return was sinful ecstasy.
Still, sometimes a girl wanted to take control, and if there was one sexual memory of the two of us that repeatedly seeped into my fantasies, it was my first encounter with Max’s magnificent cock. My first encounter with any man, for that matter.
Stroking him firmly, I broke away from our kiss and looked up at him. A smile curled my lips as I lowered myself to my knees.
Max’s gaze was hard with lust, but the moment I ran my tongue over his tip, he threw his head back and let out a deep, throaty groan.
I’d only done this once before—to him, obviously—but I still recalled the salt of him on my tongue. And now, like before, feeling him between my lips, sliding in and out, made me excruciatingly wet. I loved having power over his body like this, knowing that the deeper I took his cock in my mouth, the hotter it made him.
I ran my tongue down the underside of his shaft and up again to the tip, cupping his balls and squeezing gently.
Max flexed his hips and groaned again. “Fuck, Lily. That mouth of yours is fucking amazing.”
I smiled and sucked him back between my lips, wrapping one hand down at his base since there was no way in hell that big dick would ever fit all the way inside my mouth.
I began moving faster as Max pumped his hips, thrusting himself in time to my movements. He placed his hands at the back of my head and threaded his strong fingers into my hair. His pace quickened, and I knew he was close. Honestly, so was I. One little flick of my c-spot, and I would be jumping off the O-cliff with a huge splash.
“Fuck, Lily,” Max panted his words, “I’m going to come.”
I continued, feeling insanely aroused by the sound of his voice and the dirty thoughts of letting him come somewhere other than inside my mouth. Maybe on my tits or on my face—something I never would’ve considered in the past.
Max pulled away. “Stand up and turn around.”
He quickly helped me to my feet and bent me over the back of the armchair. He lifted my skirt, pulled down my panties, and thrust into me from behind. My breath whooshed from my lungs as he hit the spot like a bull’s-eye with the tip of his cock, triggering an orgasm that started deep inside. I froze, unable to breathe or think or speak. Max withdrew almost completely and then slammed into me again, triggering another delicious contraction.
“Oh, God. You’re so fucking tight, Lily.” He withdrew and repeated the thrust, this time reaching around to stroke my c-spot. That was it for me.
I whimpered with another hard orgasm that washed through my body, my nails digging into the chair.
“Yeah, that’s right. Come for me, Lily,” he whispered and pressed his fingers in time with his pistoning cock to draw out every last contraction.
I thought I might lose my fucking mind.
Just as I began to float down from cloud nine, Max straightened his spine, grabbed my hips, and fucked me harder. His hips slammed against my ass, and he drove into me again and again, so deep it almost hurt.
“Fucking hell, Lily…” he said with a gravelly voice and leaned in. His dick twitched as he poured his cum inside me.
After several long moments, he made a few tiny jabs, releasing those last drops, before he exhaled loudly. “Goddammit, Lily. You know I can’t let you go.”
At this moment, I didn’t want him to. “Yes, boss.” I smiled.
He slapped my ass hard. “That’s Mr. Cole to you.”
I could hardly see straight while Max and I put ourselves back together, but as I hiked my skirt down, I suddenly realized we had fucked in broad daylight and one entire side of the office was made of windows. One tall building down the street had a view inside.
“Please tell me those windows have that reflective stuff on them,” I said, feeling mortified.
Max laughed. “Of course. I’m not sharing you with anyone ever again. Not even visually.” He gave my ass another smack. “Now get dressed. We need to talk.”
“Ouch!” I stood up straight and shot him a look, rubbing out the sting.
He winked. “There’s more where that came from if you don’t change your mind and tell me this goodbye bullshit is behind—”
His phone rang in his pocket. He slid it out and glanced at the screen. “My apologies. I need to take this.” His expression melted from freshly fucked and playful to ice-cold serious. I didn’t like it one bit.
“Sure,” I said.
He put the phone to his ear, left the room, and shut the door behind him.
Nervous, I quickly straightened out my skirt and walked over to the window, looking for any sign of peeping Toms.
“Lily.” Max’s deep voice filled the room, and his solemn tone immediately put me on edge.
Crap. “What’s wrong?”
He lifted his beautiful dark brows. “Do you remember my sister?”
I’d never met her, nor did I remember her name. The only thing I recalled was that she’d disowned her family at some point, including Max, simply to extract their crazy mother from her life. Max had stuck it out with his mom mainly because she owned the majority share of Cole Cosmetics. As for his father, I got the impression that the man never stepped up for his children, perhaps a victim himself of his wife’s sadistic personality.
“The last you mentioned, you were looking for her,” I replied. At least, I thought that was right. He’d only brought her up once or twice and not in great detail.
“Yes. And that was the private detective I hired six months ago. He just found her.”
Then why didn’t Max look happy? “That’s great news. I’m so happy for you. But…?”
“She was so difficult to track down because she got married—took another last name—and moved to Argentina.”
I suddenly realized how disconnected I’d truly been from Max’s life these past months. While I’d been living in my world, trying to get my life back on track, he’d been doing the same.
Idiot. You started a boutique and got a shitty apartment. Max had been trying to lay the foundation of a new life for the two of us and reconcile with his estranged sister. Shut up, fugly voice. You’re a stupid loser.
“That’s good, right? You found her,” I said.
“She’s sick.”
Oh no. “What kind of sick?”
“She’s pregnant and something’s wrong—the detective is having a hard time finding out details. He’s not family, and I’ve given him strict instructions not to make himself known.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have to leave.”
My body recoiled with the thought, but I couldn’t be selfish. Not now. “Sure. I understand. If you need anything—”
“Funny you should mention that because I need you to run the ship while I’m gone.”
What? “Max, I can’t do that—”
“Lily,” Max grabbed my shoulders, “the reason you didn’t hear about LLL is because I kept my involvement a secret. I worked through my staff and lawyers. But that was only so I could get the initial phase in place and surprise you. I came to see you when I did because it was time to let the cat out of the bag and begin courting retailers. Those meetings will begin tomorrow morning and so will the media campaign about our new venture—you at the helm and me driving the marketing. It’s going to be big.”
Oh crap. Mr. Perfect strikes again. He’d had this all planned out. Surprising me, making a huge to-do about the company’s launch, he and I starting our life together
.
He went on, “I have the head of purchasing from the world’s most exclusive retail chain and her entire team coming to see the pilot store.”
“But I can’t—”
“Yes. You can, Lily,” he said without doubt or room for negotiation. “I’ve got the presentation all set. You simply need to smile, shake hands, and talk about our marketing strategy. It’s all stuff you’ve done before.” Yes. My background was in sales and, of course, I’d worked for Cole Cosmetics for a brief period as a senior sales manager, so the question wasn’t if I could sell or engage with customers. It was that up until a day ago, I hadn’t known this company existed.
“Don’t you have a head of sales or someone to step in?” I asked.
“You. You were supposed to be head of sales. And no, there is no one else, Lily. We have a skeleton crew in place to support the initial phase, but that’s it.”
“So…when you say that’s it, how many people are we talkin’?”
“Ten.”
“Ten?” My jaw dropped.
“Lily, we’re in proof-of-concept mode right now. And frankly, I held back doing any major hiring until you were on board.”
Ohmygod. He was just so damned…so damned…perfect. Dammit! Why does he have to be so domineering and aggressive and thoughtful? It just killed me to say no to him.
“Lily, I need you to step in for just a few days. I’m sure you can handle it, and considering it took a month to pull this meeting together, I can’t risk postponing. This isn’t Cole Cosmetics. We’re the new kids.”
Meaning, when he snapped his fingers, the entire industry didn’t jump. Not yet.
He continued, “Everything is in the presentation. Keri will help you with any questions, as will the team.”
I sighed. “Max, I really ca—”
“Thank you.”
“Max!” I dropped my shoulders. “I have a store to run in California. I can’t ditch it.”
“Who’s running it now?”
“My mother, and she’s absolutely terrified of being in charge.”
Max slipped his phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and held it to his ear. “Hello? Gladys?”