Where it wants to be.

Through the next ten slides, Chloe shows us exactly how brilliant she is, while I struggle to grasp the landscape of the meeting. She walked in here with a fringe idea and a slim chance of convincing Andrew McCormick to invest on the scale she wants.

And now they’re talking New Orleans, San Francisco, and—

“Rio would be a great target for 2018,” Chloe says, sitting down across from Andrew, tapping the end of a pen against the front of her teeth. “What about Tokyo for 2020?”

“The Olympics!” Andrew and Amanda say at the same time, then laugh.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” I declare.

“You’re not convinced I’m worth taking a chance?” Chloe asks, her nose twitching with amusement, that curled lip driving me mad.

“You’ve convinced me,” Andrew says, standing and finally looking at his phone. “Nick, make it happen.”

“What?”

“Give Chloe whatever she needs.”

“Whatever she needs?” I choke out in surprise. Quickly, I recover, face showing no emotion, even if my pulse and half the blood in my body has migrated below my belt and I can’t stop wondering what’s under that corset. One peek of a nipple is like being given a single sip of Hennessy cognac.

It’s great, but you want the whole thing in your mouth eventually.

God help me, her eyes meet mine and her smile widens.

Best. Job. Ever.

“Right. Chloe, why don’t you go back to your office for an hour or so, while Nick and Amanda and I hash out some details in the conference room. We’ll call you,” Andrew says, standing and reaching for her hand. The only hint of emotion in Chloe’s face comes from the micro-movements in her eyes. She is pleased.

I want to please her. And not just with Anterdec’s money.

In this business setting, she should be pleased. Sharp and perceptive, she’s turned the meeting around. A green light from Andrew McCormick isn’t easy to obtain, and she marched right in here in secret dominatrix lingerie and she did it. I am intrigued and a little spellbound.

Maybe I’m just lightheaded from the lack of blood flow to the brain.

She unmoors me, turning back decades, making me feel like an awkward, uncoordinated teen.

But with a man’s appreciation for all that goes into making her her.

“Nick?” Andrew’s clipped tone makes me realize I’m in my own head. Chloe’s standing before me, her nose twitching with amusement, the rest of her face revealing nothing.

“Great presentation,” I say, shaking her hand. My eyes float down to her rack.

“It’s an eyeful, isn’t it?” she jokes.

“Certainly impressive,” I confirm. “The graphs.” I need to dial this down. Andrew’s giving me looks that could peel paint. “You give great data.”

“I aim to be Good, Giving, and Game.”

“Isn’t that what Dan Savage says about sex?”

“It applies to business, too.”

“A universal set of tools.”

She shrugs. “Everyone can have the same tools, Nick. Tool acquisition? Anyone can do that. The real skill is in implementation.”

With that, Chloe Browne leaves me speechless, hard as a rock, and the object of my boss’s ire.

One hell of a hat trick.

“Coffee?” Andrew’s admin, Gina, appears with a smartphone in hand, an app for a local coffee shop open.

Grateful for the save, I give her my order and will myself to think about subjects that deflate. She takes Amanda and Andrew’s requests and disappears with quick, nervous steps.

“Didn’t know Anterdec added a dating service to our portfolio. Cut it out, Nick,” Andrew says with a warning tone as he settles back into his chair.

Amanda snorts.

Catalogue that, too.

I say nothing. Eyebrows up, eye contact with my boss, but no words. I don’t challenge.

But I don’t back down.

“Oh, good Lord,” Amanda finally says with a sigh, reaching for Andrew’s hand. “We’re together. Nick can flirt.”

Before I can reply, Andrew leads her into the room we’re using here at O. I follow, loving the hypocrite he’s become in the course of three sentences. We settle around the table, Amanda perched on the edge, Andrew in his chair, me in the chair with the view behind him, the Financial District spread out for us, the ocean stretching behind him as if it were there for his pleasure alone.

It’s good to be the king.

“She’s good, isn’t she?” Andrew says.

And giving and game, apparently.

I give Amanda a look. She shrugs.

“Chloe?” I ask.

“Right. Smart, intuitive, an eye for design, and a great presenter. Gets three layers deeper than anyone in the room ever considered. She’s strategic and composed. Perfect face of O.”

Her O face sure does come to mind.

Damn it.

“You want to fund her?”

“The RV spa thing seems farfetched, but figures don’t lie.”

Chloe’s figure, bent over the edge of a bed, that sweet ass—

“Nick?” Andrew snaps his fingers. I shake myself like a wet dog.

“Right. How much should I put in her?”

Andrew’s jaw grinds, but before he can answer my garbled question, we’re interrupted.

Thank God.

“Twelve inches!” Gina exclaims from the doorway.

Timing really is everything.

“What?” Andrew sputters.

She’s holding a tray with three enormous white coffee cups in it.

“Twelve inches! The size of these coffees from downstairs. They’re so big!” As she hands out the coffee, Amanda stifles a giggle. Sunlight bounces off her ring. A wave of memory pours through me, lightning fast, like a retracting cable that snaps hard at the end, leaving marks.

Simone. Our engagement. Working nights through undergrad to pay for her little diamond chip of a ring...

The same ring she mailed back to me from France, along with her signed divorce papers.

“Jesus, Nick, what is wrong?” Andrew’s gone from anger to a furious concern, the irritated worry radiating off of him with a masculine sense that triggers my testosterone, sending me into high alert. We’re playing male hormone ping-pong, only without the paddles.

Paddles.

Chloe and a paddle....