Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
What would it say about me if I invested all this time and walked away with nothing? It would say that I wasn’t up to the challenge. It would say I could be deterred by a few annoying emails.
Nobody’s ever going to be able to say that about me. If they say anything, they’ll say that I was too determined. That I wouldn’t stop at anything to get what I wanted. If this business has taught me one thing it’s that patience is immeasurable.
I respond to Porter’s latest email and click over to the app for the building’s security system. A window showing twelve small rectangles, each with the view from a separate camera, pops up on the screen. This, unlike working on the acquisition, gives me a sense of peace. I can see that everything is how it should be in the parking area. A delivery man taps away at his tablet at the back entrance, then jogs back to his truck, climbs in, and drives away. In the lobby, an older tenant chats with the doorman, who looks like he’s explaining something to her, his hands flying.
This is the place I’ve made through my money and my effort and my force of will.
I’ve built something to be proud of, something that runs smoothly and provides for others, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing else I want in my life. It doesn’t mean I don’t have other goals. My heart speeds up, stress spreading across my shoulders and back. What I want is something physical—a trip to the gym or a run, something to let my muscles work.
What I want is Maddie.
How does she fit in to a life like mine? I can’t be the man who never gives up on anything if I want her and don’t go after her. I can’t be the man who goes after her and keeps his eyes on the prize at the same time.
It’s like she hears my thoughts, or the universe does, because the instant her name enters my mind, a woman walks into view of one of the security cameras.
It’s her, crossing the street to the building. She tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear and waits for traffic to stop. Then she strolls into the sidewalk, looking gorgeous and elegant in heels and a dress that hugs her hips and shows off her collarbone with a square neckline that makes me want to stick my hand underneath it just to feel the softness of her skin.
Maddie is completely put together as she moves across the white painted lines on the road. She flashes the drivers in the cars a perfect smile and gives them a little wave to thank them for stopping.
I’m hard just looking at her. Out there, in public, she looks lovely and demure. She is lovely and demure. But I know how she sounds when she’s bent over a piece of furniture and moaning for my cock. I know how wet it makes her to come to filthy secret agreements with a man with money—very, very wet. And fuck, it’s hot. That damned voice in my mind tries to remind me that there’s so much more than raw sexual desire. There’s so much more I could give her beyond a few hundred dollars and a quickie.
I’m not going to go there right now. I take a deep breath and adjust myself in my pants. A more decent guy would turn off the security app, but I’m not exactly interested in being a decent man when it comes to this situation.
Maddie strides into the building, smiles at the doorman, and says something to him. My brow creases as a touch of possessiveness overwhelms me. It’s unexpected and my finger hovers on the key to turn the camera off. Tom is a trustworthy man, otherwise I wouldn’t have hired him, but another man’s eyes on her makes my stomach knot with jealousy.
I can’t even be jealous. She’s not mine.
She’s just beautiful and holds a spark I haven’t felt from anyone else.
If there was a woman waiting for me in my apartment at the end of every day, I’d want her to be Maddie.
Fuck. I can’t think like that. What we have isn’t anything long-term or deep, no matter how much I think I want that.
I dig my fingernails into the arm of my office chair to keep myself in the damn seat. Maddie has every right to walk into the lobby of my building, where she lives, and talk to the doorman. She has every right to talk to whoever she wants. She doesn’t belong to me.
Just when I’ve finally fucking lost it and started to get up from the chair, Maddie turns away from the reception desk. For a split second, I can see her face before she heads for the elevators. The kind smile that she wore into the lobby drops away into a worried frown.