HOT WORKAHOLIC
Sara
It’s six months later, and I’m getting the meal ready for dinner while Ian reads a script in the living room. We’re having Bryn and Christos over. I’ve never really hosted a formal dinner, and I want to impress my man, our friends, and myself.
Turning off the oven to make sure the brisket doesn’t overcook, I peer into the living room. Ian’s dark head is bent, and he’s got this cute, really hot and thoughtful look on his face. A hand covers half of his jaw, his lips unsmiling as his gaze scans the page.
I do a little pirouette in the living room, then leap into the air and land stealthily back on my feet. Like a cat.
Ian’s gaze slowly rises to meet mine, and his lips begin to twitch. “Do that again. I missed it.”
“No you didn’t.” I smirk and chassé forward, loving the way he looks at me, the way my Suit makes me feel.
“You’d say anything to get me to dance for you.”
“That’s right,” he says, setting the script aside and sitting up on the couch.
I oblige and do a sexy turn and begin dancing for him, the most seductive dance I know. Every bone and muscle in my body hurts after dancing my ass off for the past six months straight, but nothing else matters except pleasing my man.
It doesn’t hurt that I love it when he watches me dance.
It turns me on.
What can I say?
Come on, this guy lights me up so bad I sometimes can’t sleep for fear of waking up and finding him gone.
“Okay, enough.” I stop dancing, head over, and pull him to his feet, pecking him on the lips because I just can’t help myself. “We have guests arriving soon. I’m doing my best to impress, but you still need to pick the wine.”
He squeezes my ass and plants a kiss on my temple as he heads to the small wine fridge he set up by the bar. I hear Ian rummaging through the bottles, taking out one, inspecting the year, before sliding it back in and taking out another.
Getting busy, I plump up the pillows on the couch and straighten a photograph on a small side table. I drink in the image of us—our first photo together. It was a selfie, one we took randomly when we went out to dinner one night after I moved in, and it struck me that I didn’t have a picture to put up in our new place. Which we’d just finished furnishing.
Insisting he come closer for a picture, Ian took a bite out of my earlobe as I snapped the image. My eyes widened and my mouth parted as I faced the camera. I looked like I was shocked that he’d ever bite me.
He’s been the best partner I could have ever hoped for. He makes it a point to come home every day at 6 p.m. so that we can spend time together. We sometimes visit his Gran, or take a walk along the park. We sometimes hit up coffee shops, wine shops, or cafés—and have even found ourselves wandering down the bank of the Hudson, cuddling in the chilly air. He still loves to work, and I love his drive and determination. His ambition, too. So as long as he makes an effort to be with me, I have no complaints.
I know that relationships take effort. Ian Ford can be too much of a perfectionist and a little too possessive sometimes. He’s a territorial man. But still I love him. What can I say? This Suit turned my world upside down. Sometimes I think I left my heart in his pocket on the same day I gave him my panties in a tight little wad.
The sound of the doorbell pulls me out of my musings, and I jerk to attention when I realize Bryn and Christos have arrived.
“I’ll get it,” Ian calmly says when he sees the look of panic on my face.
I rush back to the kitchen to be sure the rosemary potatoes are still in the hot drawer where I left them. Then I thrust my hand into a glove and pull out the brisket from the oven. Setting it on the stove, I hear Bryn and Christos’s voices as they walk inside.
I hurry around the kitchen, trying to make sure everything is perfect.
Bryn and Christos are married now. His ex-girlfriend came clean about some secret dalliance she and his brother Cole had been having, and after a shotgun wedding that made the news all across Manhattan, she’s given birth to his little baby boy. The two lovebirds just left for their honeymoon, and Christos and Bryn are taking care of the baby until they return.
As I watch them come in with the baby in Bryn’s arms, I can tell they’re the happiest uncle and aunt there could be. Christos can’t stop admiring both his wife and the baby, while Bryn coos at the handsome blond-haired little boy like she’d rather talk to the baby than anyone else in the room. Even when she sounds half stupid as she does it. I step out of the kitchen and cross the living room to greet them.
“Oh. Sara! Becka asked me to give you this.” Bryn peers into her tote bag, and Christos murmurs to his wife, “I’ve got it,” as he reaches in and pulls out a large paperback.
“Is this her book?” I glance at the book that Christos hands over, and my heart swells in pride when I read Becka’s initials and last name on the cover.
“Here, hold him while I help Sara,” Bryn tells her husband.
I carry Becka’s book to the kitchen and set it aside while Bryn and I get everything ready to take out to the dining table. I can’t help but suspect the obvious. This girl is dying for a baby, or the stork might already be on the way.
“You’re pregnant,” I say with a smirk. “If not, you soon will be. Look at that.” I nudge her to look at Christos with the baby in his arms. I laugh. “Poop and diapers. Look at you, Bryn Christos.”
“Don’t laugh,” Bryn warns.
My smile fades when I see Christos hand the baby over to Ian. He’s frowning, as if he doesn’t know what to do with the creature.
My heart melts, tumbles, burns. Ian looks up at me with an expression of confusion, as if he has no idea what he’s doing holding a baby in his arms. Our gazes hold. My ovaries explode. Nothing new. My stomach clutches wantonly for my guy.
“Sara,” he says, sounding fierce.
I laugh and shake my head. “I’ve got my hands full of snacks; I won’t rescue you from that baby, Yummy.”
“Sweetheart,” he warns. “Help. Now.”
I shake my head, smiling, but set the tray aside as Christos recovers the baby with a low, rumbly laugh.
I walk over to Ian, who’s looking down at his hands as if they’re infected.
“You look very handsome with a baby in your arms,” I whisper.
“Don’t get any ideas.” He drags a hand restlessly along the back of his neck, but he’s smiling. And I know that one day soon, we’ll get there. He and I.
“I’m getting quite a few ideas.” I bite my lip saucily.
He reaches out to grab the back of my skull and leans over. “You drive me crazy.”
“That’s the point. My life mission.” I drop a kiss on his addictive mouth and scoop up the baby from Christos. Now I feel Ian looking at me and Bryn waggling her brows telling me, maybe we’ll be pregnant together.
I love testing Ford’s limits.
“I know what ideas. I’ve got a few of my own,” he murmurs huskily in my ear, leaning down to look at me with heavy-lidded, dark-lashed eyes, and the look he gives me as I hold the baby makes my toes curl, like they did after he watched me dance on opening night.
He’s still watching me oddly when we sit down to have dinner. Bryn sets up the baby in a stroller and the baby sort of dozes off to sleep while we talk about business, movies, Ian’s next film, House of Sass, and my Broadway show.
“So does Ian go and watch you dance every night or what?”
“Not every night,” I say, tongue in cheek. Because to be honest, he’s been there for almost every one—missing only a few performances when work got in the way.
I still remember opening night. Ian, along with the public, watched me dance my heart out. Ian received me at the end of the show with a townhome full of red roses. He kissed me and told me how proud he was of me.
He still looks at me like that every night he watches me perform; as if it’s the first time he’s watched me dance. He looks at me like a guy in love.
I fucking love you, you fucking hot Suit, I think, as our eyes meet.
Giving him a private smile and feeling flutters when he does the same, I carry the dessert plates to the kitchen and set them in the sink.
I spot Becka’s book and skim through the pages. It doesn’t take me even a minute to realize she’s writing something important. Something personal about her trip to New York.
Holy shit.
Is she in love?
Suddenly, I really want her to be.
Suddenly, I really want whoever this lucky guy is to respond to her in kind.
I’ve learned these past months that love can be lost at any moment, but it can also be found.
It can change and grow and shine and hurt, the way sometimes beauty hurts. But its mark is permanent.
Its power infinite.
You just need to open up and let it out, because when you open those doors, love can’t help but come in.