Six
The DC Insider: We are concerned, dear readers. It’s been five days without a sighting of, or peep about, the most interesting romance in town. Did it already fizzle? There are some nasty whispers out there about the lady’s last job. Goodness knows playboy Derrick Jameson has had some interesting things printed about him over the years but it’s believed he’s put those drinking and carousing days behind him. Maybe Ellie was too wild for her billionaire?
Derrick sensed Jackson hovering by the door. He’d stepped inside the office but remained quiet. No surprise since Jackson had an uncanny ability to blend in. He overheard more than he should but wasn’t the type to start rumors. His loyalty never wavered, which was only one reason Derrick considered Jackson his best friend.
After less than a minute of silence, Jackson cleared his throat. “Is everything okay?”
“With what?” Derrick didn’t look up. It was the universal sign for “not now” but he knew Jackson would ignore it.
“Only you would answer that way.” Jackson walked into the office. Sat in the chair across from Derrick without waiting for an invitation. “I meant with you...in general.”
“I’m fine.”
“Is that why you have a woman’s shirt in a dry cleaning bag hanging on your office door?”
At the mention of the shirt, Derrick thought about the woman who owned it. Days had passed since they’d talked, and that was no accident. A bit of distance struck him as a smart move. Something about her had him spun around. He wanted her in his home. He’d visited her house for no obvious reason. He never did stuff like that.
“The shirt belongs to Ellie.” Not that Derrick wanted to make a big deal about it.
“Yeah, I was hoping you didn’t have a second fake fiancée wandering around here.”
The comment got Derrick’s attention. He settled in his chair as he looked at Jackson. “She had a fight with her brother and spilled wine.”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “Is she okay?”
“In what way?”
Jackson exhaled. “The human way, Derrick.”
Derrick had no idea what that meant, but he did get Ellie. At least a little. She played the role of protector. She was the person who came in to clean up the mess, regardless if that meant she didn’t have energy left to rescue herself.
“She’s overly committed to babysitting her brother. She’s been job hunting and I’ve gotten calls curious about the implications of our relationship. As if I’d get her hired to get the inside scoop on a company. And to top it all off, she’s not that excited about moving in with me.” The part about her brother should have been the most annoying part, but the last really ticked him off.
“I can’t imagine why she doesn’t have her bags packed. You’re charming.”
“It’s a big house.” Derrick wasn’t sure why he needed to keep explaining that.
“Because that was my point.” Jackson shook his head as he shifted in his chair. “Is that why you haven’t been seeing her? Is she being punished for not jumping to obey your command?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s as if you’re hiding in your office to avoid her...and everything else.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Derrick rubbed his thumb over the leather seam at the edge of the armrest. “I’ve been slammed with work and am still trying to unravel this Noah mess. It’s almost as if he finished his work every day in about an hour and then spent the rest of the time working around our security and protocols and generally searching out every document and email ever sent around here.”
“That’s scary.”
Derrick couldn’t disagree with that assessment. “Understatement.”
Boredom. That could be the explanation for why Noah had turned on him. Derrick originally assumed greed, but the more he learned about Ellie, inadvertently the more he learned about Noah. From what Derrick could tell, Ellie had eased Noah’s way in the world. Maybe too much. It was all something a fake fiancé shouldn’t worry about, yet he did. He told himself it was because Noah had stolen from him and he had to fix this, not because he cared.
“He’s a genius, right?” Jackson asked.
Derrick was getting tired of hearing that excuse. He knew a lot of really bright people and none of them ever stole from him. “I guess you think that explains his behavior.”
“Let’s find a new topic. Have you seen the Insider today?” Jackson took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and tapped the screen a few times.
“There shouldn’t be anything worth reading about me since I didn’t leak a story.” Which made him realize he really had ignored Ellie and their arrangement. He should be two steps from putting a fake engagement announcement in the paper. Yet he couldn’t pull that trigger, at least not until his brothers hit town and they were on their way.
The hesitancy wasn’t based on fear. It was something else...a feeling he couldn’t name. This flashing warning signal in his brain that told him to slow down and think things through.
He never expected to want her. This deal was supposed to exist on paper only. He should be able to leave her and not think about her. This whole thing where he wanted to drop by and see her, to call her and talk with her about nothing, made him desperate to create distance between them.
“That’s the point. Someone did leak a story and it’s not all that flattering to Ellie.” Jackson turned his phone around and slid it across the desk toward Derrick.
“What?” Derrick glanced down, skimming the post. Then he read it again. One phrase stuck out: “nasty whispers out there about the lady’s last job.”
“Damn it.”
“You’re not the type to let details slip by you, so I’m guessing you knew about Ellie’s job issue before you entered into your agreement?”
“Of course. It’s all bullshit.” He’d made it a point to investigate Ellie before offering her the agreement.
At first, he’d hoped to win her to his side with logic or even bribery, if needed. But the more he’d studied her photo and some bits and pieces of her history, the more the PR firm’s offhanded comment about needing an old-fashioned, fake-relationship arrangement to make the Noah problem go away had sounded like the right answer.
And that’s how he’d ended up in this mess, wanting her in his bed and at his breakfast table. Smelling her, touching her...tasting her.
“It still sucks for Ellie to have it out there, so public,” Jackson said.
“I’ll take care of Ellie.”
* * *
“Did someone mention my name?” Ellie smiled at how the sound of her voice made two grown men freeze in their chairs. Just a handful of words and she had them spinning around and stopping. Now, that was power.
A few seconds later they both continued to stare at her. Jackson recovered first and returned the smile as he rose to his feet. Derrick’s reaction was not as welcoming.
“How did you get in here?” Derrick practically barked the question.
Every single day she came up with more things she should have added to their ridiculous agreement. Today? A “no shouting” clause.
“I walked.” And she did that again after closing the office door. In a few steps she joined the men by Derrick’s desk.
“I’m serious. The protocol and security lapses are starting to annoy me.”
Derrick’s voice sounded low and growly. She refused to find that sexy. “So, I’ve been subjected to your nonannoyed personality to date?”
“Ellie.” That’s it. He said her name in a flat, monotone voice.
He truly was exhausting.
“A very nice woman showed me back. I told her my name and said we were dating—it’s weird how much attention that attracted, by the way—and that I needed to talk to you about what was posted in the Insider.” It had been the first time she talked to anyone about dating Derrick. The way the words had rolled out of her scared her. The lies should have caught in her throat, but no. “I think she took pity on me, probably because I said the part about us dating.”
Derrick picked up his phone. “Who was it?”
“Why?”
“She should have called me first.”
Truly exhausting. “Then I’m not telling you.”
Derrick lowered the handset again. “The person works for me.”
Every conversation with him turned into a debate. The few days apart hadn’t done anything for his bossiness. She’d hoped he’d also magically turn less attractive. No luck there, either. “The person helped me. I’m not tattling on her.”
“Tattling?”
She sighed, letting him know she was done with this topic, then glanced over at Jackson. “Did he really forget about dating me like the gossip post said?”
Jackson winced. “That’s unclear at the moment.”
“Trust me, ignoring you would be impossible,” Derrick said.
“It’s been days since we signed the agreement, then we had the canceled dinner plans because of your work emergency and then you went into hibernation mode. Even the Insider noticed, which is weird because I thought you were the one who fed them their intel.”
She’d tried not to let the newest post bother her. Her ex-boss’s accusations bordered on horrifying. They were the type to disqualify her for a human resources positions if they were true, which they were not. But no one would care about the veracity of his claims. It was his word versus hers, and now that her supposed relationship with Derrick fueled the town’s gossip machine, those untrue accusations would grow even louder.
“Did you need something?” Derrick asked her.
She noticed he skipped right over her comment about the gossip post. She turned to Jackson for assistance. “Do you think he hears his tone when he talks?”
“I can only hope not.” Jackson shook his head. “You should hear him when he actually yells.”
She snorted. “No, thanks.”
“Ellie!”
This time Jackson laughed. “There, that was close.”
Yeah, it looked as if they fully had Derrick’s attention now. He held the edge of his desk in a death grip.
Ellie took pity on him. From the exhaustion tugging at the corner of his eyes to the rumpled shirt to the loosened tie, he seemed to be working nearly round the clock after all. “I’m going to ignore the near shouting because I was purposely trying to prick your temper.”
“Good Lord. Why?”
She hated to admit it but part of her was testing him. After a few tough years with Noah, running through their parents’ life insurance and holding on to the family home only with the help of an aging aunt who lived with them to satisfy a well-meaning social worker, she needed to see if Derrick could control his temper. Then there was the issue of being ignored. “I texted you yesterday and you didn’t text back.”
Jackson cleared his throat. “So that we’re clear, I really want to stay and listen to the rest of this and see how it turns out, but I sense you two need to hash this out without me.”
Something in his tone, a mix of amusement and general fondness for Derrick, broke through, making Ellie smile. “Does that mean you’ll make him tell you later?”
Jackson nodded. “Definitely.”
With a final wink at her and a small nod in Derrick’s direction, Jackson took off. He slipped out, closing the door behind him.
“I like him.” She did a second glance when something about the door caught her eye. The shirt. The dry cleaning bag.
“I was working.”
Derrick’s comment dragged her attention to the conversation. She slipped into the seat Jackson had vacated. “Oh, you’re answering my previous question now? No texting because you’re a busy, busy man?”
“Yes.”
“Just so you know, being ignored is frustrating even in a fake dating situation.”
For a few seconds Derrick didn’t say anything. His gaze searched her face then he leaned into his chair. “I’ll do better.”
“I’m impressed that’s your response.” Stunned was more like it. But at his words, she relaxed into the chair, letting her hand fall over the edge of the armrest.
“You strike me as the type who could bolt at any time, so I’m being careful.”
Which lead her to another one of the reasons for her visit. “You should know my brother keeps calling me to complain about you. Fair warning, I think another video is coming.”
“I’ll try to talk to him.”
She wanted to believe Derrick could get through to Noah before his behavior spiraled much more. He was fixated on Derrick. Part of her wondered if it was the shock of being fired. But she loved that Derrick promised to try and was holding firm to that vow. Her father used to promise a lot and never follow through. She sensed Derrick was not that kind of man.
“It’s not easy to win him over.” She hesitated, not sure who much more she should share. “I’ve tried.”
“I get that, but let someone else carry the load for a change.”
That sounded so good, so promising, that a wave of relief rolled through her. “We lived together for so long. Right up until he got a job with you and moved into his own studio. Even in college I commuted and went home to him each night.”
“You raised him by yourself after you lost your parents?” He sounded horrified at the thought.
“A great-aunt lived with us, which made the court happy. Little did the judge know she chain-smoked, spent her days watching baseball and swearing at the television and was really eighty, even though she looked at least a decade younger.” Just thinking about Aunt Lizzy made Ellie smile. “She died my senior year of college. By then I was old enough that the social worker didn’t make a fuss.”
“You haven’t had it easy.”
She didn’t know anyone who did.
“We have this other thing we need to deal with.” She bit her bottom lip as she tried to come up with the right words to describe what really happened. “Joe Cantor. The Insider brought up my work history. That can only mean people are whispering about it and making up details... Joe was my boss... He’s been saying... I mean, it’s not as if it actually happened.”
Derrick reached his arm across his expansive desk. “Ellie? Breathe.”
She did. “I did not come on to him.”
Saying the words brought the frustration crashing down on her again. She had enough to deal with without Joe and his lies. But what she really wanted was to reach out, to grab on to the lifeline Derrick offered. Fighting that urge, she stayed still in the chair.
“Of course not.”
“Yeah, that’s...” Her brain caught up with the conversation and the air whooshed right out of her body. “Wait, you believe me?”
Derrick’s chair squeaked when he got up. Footsteps thudded against the floor as he came around the desk to sit on the edge right in front of her. “Your former boss is a raving jackass.”
“I could insert a general snide comment here about businessmen in DC.” One that fit a lot of the men she’d met and worked both with and for in the two jobs she’d had since college, the first at a department store then the last one with Joe. But it didn’t fit Derrick.
He folded his arms in front of him. “Please refrain.”
“I’m stunned you’re taking my side. I thought you rich sit-behind-a-desk dudes stuck together.”
“And I’m ignoring that description.” He continued to watch her. “But the firing was not news to me.”
She wrapped her fingers around the edges of the armrests. The wood dug into her palms but she held on. “Technically, I was laid off.”
“Actually, you were marched out of the office building by security.”
She felt something inside her deflate. “Gossip really does run wild in this town.”
“There’s also rumor you kicked Joe during this argument?” There was no judgment in Derrick’s tone. If anything, he sounded amused by the thought.
“Right between the legs.” She sighed. “Yeah, that happened.”
“Well, there you go.”
“Excuse me?”
“Joe is said to enjoy the chase but he clearly doesn’t like a woman escalating it to the point of kicking his...”
She laughed. “You can say it.”
He smiled at her. Big and beautiful and warm. “Balls.”
The amusement died down, leaving behind one unanswered question. “You know about how Joe acts but...”
“What?”
“Are you friends?”
“Hell, no.” Derrick made a face that suggested he was appalled at the idea. “And since I hired four women in management positions away from his office years ago, before you were there, he’s not my biggest fan.”
“You did? I might need their names for my employment attorney. And maybe your testimony.”
He nodded. “No problem.”
Score one more for Derrick Jameson. He wasn’t anything like she expected...well, in some ways, yes. The bossy, intimidating, totally hot part—yes. The kind of sweet side that peeked through now and then? Nope. She had not been prepared for that at all.
“You almost sound likable.” More than almost, but that was enough to admit for now.
“Don’t start that rumor.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Really, though, I’m surprised you lasted with him for more than a day. I can’t imagine you taking his nonsense for five seconds without lecturing him to death.”
“See, I think there was a compliment in there somewhere, so I’ll just say thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He dropped his arms and let his hands rest on his lap. “And I’m sorry I ignored your text.”
“I believe you.” But that left one big question. “So, who planted the gossip in the Insider? It sounds like someone wants to discredit me.”
“I don’t know but I’ll find out.”
An edge had moved into his tone. Usually that sort of thing touched off her guard and her defenses rose. But not this time. She knew the temper wasn’t directed at her. “Now you sound angry. Why?”
“Why?”
He sure did enjoy raising his voice. “It’s a simple question.”
“I don’t want anyone messing with you.”
“But this is...us...it’s fake.” She sputtered through the explanation.
“That doesn’t mean I want people to spread false rumors about you. How much of a jackass do you think I am?”
“That’s kind of sweet.”
He frowned at her. “What is?”
“The protective thing. Well, so long as you don’t go nuclear about it.” She felt obliged to add that caveat since he tended to do things in a big way. The last thing she needed was him following her around threatening people.
“Let’s say I know what it’s like to be on the wrong end of gossip.”
Her shoulders fell as some of the comfort that had seeped into her bones seeped right out again. “You’re talking about Noah.”
“I wasn’t.” Derrick stood, looming over her. “I don’t want to fight with you tonight, and talking about your brother is a guaranteed way to get you fired up.”
“What do you want?”
He inhaled deep enough to move his chest up and down. “This.”
Then he reached for her. Those strong hands wrapped around her arms and pulled her out of the chair. The move was smooth and gentle; she was on her feet before she even knew what was happening.
He stopped right before kissing her, so she took over. Slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him in closer. He clearly took that as a yes because he regained control from there.
His mouth slid over hers in an explosive kiss that had her pushing up on her tiptoes. Heat washed over her and her muscles went lax. The soft sounds of their kisses mixed with a low grumble at the back of his throat.
This wasn’t a test. This kiss lingered and heated. It seared through her, burned a trail right through the heart of her. Stole her breath and left her dizzy and more than a little achy.
When they finally broke apart, her brain had scrambled as her insides turned mushy. Seconds later, she still clung to him, half hanging off him. Those dark eyes searched her face, focused on her mouth, until she could barely breathe.
“Was that to make the engagement seem more real?” The question came out as a whisper. She regretted it a second later, sure that he would use it as an excuse to switch to the cool, in-control Derrick she’d met that first night.
He smiled at her. “Do you think there are cameras in here?”
“I meant were you trying to get me accustomed to kissing you.”
“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you.” He skimmed his thumb over her lower lip. “For the record, fake engagement or not, I don’t want you to kiss me unless you want to.”
“We seem to be stepping into dangerous territory.”
“Agreed.” He pressed one last quick kiss on her mouth then stepped back. “Dinner?”
The sudden space between them had her emotionally flailing. She tried to act detached. Unaffected. “Okay, is that for the fake engagement?”
“You’re going to make my head explode.”
“Very sexy.”
He cupped her cheek and his fingers slipped into her hair. “Yes, you are.”
The simple touch, so light, felt so good...and so scary.
This was fake. This was about saving Noah and restoring Derrick’s reputation. But still. “Derrick.”
“Just dinner. For anything else I’ll need a clear green light.” He dropped his hand again.
“Wait, do you—”
“Since talking tends to get us in trouble, let’s eat.” He slipped around to his side of his desk and opened the top drawer. Out came his wallet and keys.
“This feels unsettled.” Probably because she wanted to jump on top of him, wrap her legs around his waist and keep kissing him.
“That’s my reaction every second since I met you.” He headed toward the door, clearly expecting her to follow him.
She still was not a fan of the way he assumed she’d acquiesce like everyone else seemed to do for him. “Is that my shirt?”
“Well, it isn’t mine.” He took the hanger off the hook on the door and handed it to her. “Here you go.”
She decided to ignore the sarcastic part of his response. “I’ve been looking for it.”
“I had it cleaned.”
The bag crinkled in her fingers. “For me?”
“I don’t plan to wear it.”
It sounded like they were back to the clipped sentences and defensive tone. She wondered if he was going to slip into that mode every time they kissed. “Are you being grumpy because I caught you doing a nice thing?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant the grumpiness or the nice gesture. Right then, she didn’t care.