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  He was right—the rug was all wavy with the end curled up.

  “I am so sorry, sir. I will get someone right away to get rid of that.” I shot a look over to Shannon, who immediately picked up a phone to dial maintenance to replace it. The curled end would continue to trip people if we didn’t get it out of the way.

  He huffed, clearly annoyed. “I need to check in.”

  “Name on the reservation?” I asked, not wasting any time. I was immediately in work mode.

  “Grayson,” he replied, pulling out his identification and a credit card. I glanced at his ID and took in his full name and age—Gavin Grayson, thirty-five.

  Damn, he didn’t look thirty-five. There wasn’t a line on his face.

  I scanned the computer and found he was booked for two weeks. “Thank you, Mr. Grayson. I’ve found your reservation. It looks like you have one of our beautiful executive suites. You are all set up, so let me get your keys and a signature from you,” I said with a smile, taking small notice that he was staring at me.

  I pulled the receipt from the printer and coded the keys. “Please sign here. You’ll be in room 1208. Elevators are across the hall. Once on the twelfth floor, you will take a right and your room will be on your right. Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Grayson?”

  He glanced over at Jaqueline and Shannon, who were still smiling at his trip. I watched his jaw clench, and he stared at me for a moment before shaking his head. “No,” he replied curtly, any fleeting cordiality gone.

  I stayed extra friendly; his mood swing wasn’t going to get me down, especially since it was nothing compared to what I’d faced earlier in the day. “Thank you for staying with the Cameo Hotel. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Thank you,” he said with a nod and headed toward the elevators, his large, expensive rolling suitcase in tow.

  He was way out of my league, but it didn’t hurt to look. We received a lot of good-looking guests, along with celebrities, but he was in the top ten in the looks department. At least to me.

  “Wow,” Jaqueline said from beside me. “Girl, I don’t know how you do it sometimes.”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Be so professional all the time.”

  I smiled and gave a little laugh. “Years of practice.”

  We checked in another guest, and then Mr. Grayson appeared again. His face was twisted in fury, making the hackles on the back of my neck stand up.

  “Are you fucking kidding me with that room?” he yelled once he was within a few feet.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s a fucking disaster! You people couldn’t even bother cleaning it between guests?”

  The blood in my veins froze. Fuck. I was so enamored with him that I didn’t even notice his reservation had been defaulted to the cursed floor.

  “I am so very sorry, sir.”

  “I highly doubt that. Are you so incompetent you can’t even read the screen to show if a room has been cleaned?” he seethed.

  “I apologize, we had an issue earlier—”

  “I don’t care what you had . . . What’s your name . . .?” he trailed off and looked down at my name tag. “Emma. Emma, is there anywhere clean in this entire building?”

  “I assure you that all of our rooms are very clean.”

  “Not from what I just saw.”

  “That was a very unfortunate incident,” I said as I scurried to upgrade him. With such limited availability, there wasn’t much I could do. “I sincerely apologize. I should have noticed the room number.”

  His glare narrowed even more. “Yes, you should have.”

  He was breaking my cool and my smile, but I forced it to remain intact as I quickly booked him into a slightly better room—it was one of the few left. Inside, I wanted to slap him for being such an ass, then shove the maid responsible at him and let him light into her.

  “I’ve upgraded you to one of our executive suites with a water view,” I said as I coded new keys.

  “Are you going to personally be responsible for the cleanliness of this room?”

  I slipped the keys across the desk. “I can assure you, Mr. Grayson, it is a beautifully kept room.”

  “We will see about that,” he sneered before storming off again.

  Gavin

  Boston was never where I ever saw myself living. I spent my formative years in Ohio, wanting to get out of suburbia. All my life I was taught that you go to the job, and you didn’t expect the job to come to you.

  That was how I ended up in Chicago, then New York, and finally, to the Cates Corporation headquarters in Boston. For twelve years I’d worked myself to the bone climbing the corporate ladder.

  In thirty-five years I followed careful and strategically laid plans. Until Boston. Until her.

  For over a week I’d adjusted to a new office, new assistant, and new city. In that time, my nights were spent at the Cameo Hotel. I should have spent my evenings looking for a new home. I even had a realtor, but one thing besides acclimation stopped me—Emma.

  From the first moment I saw her, there was an attraction I couldn’t comprehend. Feelings I didn’t want consumed me for a woman I didn’t even know.

  Nearly every night when I walked in, there she was. Unassuming. Beautiful. Fucking alluring.

  She was a conflict of interest and a distraction I didn’t need.

  As I walked across the marble floor of the Cameo Hotel, my body searched for her while my eyes tried to ignore the call. I flicked my gaze up and sure enough, she was watching me cross the lobby, lips slightly parted.

  Fuck, her lips. Indeed, fuck her lips.

  My cock twitched, begging for the image my thoughts had conjured.

  I blew out a breath when I stepped onto the elevator and away from those eyes.

  When I’d moved to Boston from New York, it was for a clean start as much as it was the first step of my promotion. I knew no one outside of the people I worked with, and that suited me just fine.

  But fuck if I didn’t want to know her.

  She made me want to fight with her, just to watch the anger flare in her eyes while the smile never left her face. Professional to a fault. A fault I wanted to crack, to break open, to see inside.

  It was a feeling I hated. Work was my life. It demanded all of my time and energy, leaving nothing for personal relationships.

  As soon as I was through the door of my room, I shed my suit piece by piece, a very noticeable tent in my trousers.

  “You don’t fucking dictate my actions,” I grumbled down to the bulge pulsing beneath the fabric.

  It was a lie. The desire I had for her was what led me to call her for the most innocuous things. Simply to see her, to have her close.

  To breathe her in was an aphrodisiac.

  I despised that she made me feel that way, because it left me wary of her. My ex-wife had used her sexuality to get to me, used my desire to get a ring, and used my money to finance her lovers. The bite of that betrayal had never left, and had never healed.

  It angered me to want Emma. Angered me that every night I pumped my cock to thoughts of her.

  In a petty move, I took that emotion out on her. It was an attempt to push her away, which was thwarted by my inability to keep her there.

  While my first room had been a disaster, the room she moved me to was actually very nice. There were a few small wear-and-tear things that came with age and use, but they had done a good job of maintaining the space.

  I’d have to let Richard Hayes, the president of Cameo International, know how nice his hotel was. Even if I complained every day.

  After a week, the housekeeping staff had upped their game, making it harder every day to find fault with something, some reason to bring her up.

  “You don’t need to see her,” I said to myself, but as I stared at the coffee pot on the wet bar, at the assortment of drinks and sweeteners, at the single packet of sugar, a new plan formed.

  Before I could stop mysel
f I was at the phone, dialing down to reception.

  “Good evening, Mr. Grayson.” Her voice hit my ears, and a shudder rolled through me. The formality that she addressed me with always set off my fantasies.

  “There is only one sugar packet, Emma. I need two more.”

  There was a small pause, and it made me smile, knowing she was probably cursing me out.

  “Right away, Mr. Grayson.”

  The anger in her voice only fueled my own. I wanted to take her down a peg, take her down to her knees.

  I was so hard that the slightest touch had my head falling back. How would she react if I opened the door stroking my dick?

  That idea was a little sobering, calming me down enough to position my length so it wasn’t obvious.

  Control and planning were my strong suits, but she continued to wreck them, while I continued to let her. It was a dangerous game, but with every bite I took, every hit of her, she beat me down.

  While I won every battle, she was slowly winning the war, and I couldn’t stand for that.

  The soft rap of her knuckles on the door pulled me from my thoughts of her to the actual physical version.

  My nostrils flared as I opened the door and glared down at her. Her breath hitched, making my hand twitch at my side. The lust running through my veins struggled to take over. All I wanted was to drag her in, bend her over the couch, and fuck all of my frustration out on her.

  “Your sugar.” She held out her hand, palm up. Five little brown packets sat against the creamy white of her skin.

  I snatched them up, forcing myself to ignore the fire from the brief contact with her skin. “I said two, Emma. Can’t you count?”

  “Anticipation, sir.”

  “What?” I asked. My attempt not to groan out at her words were masked by the growl of my singular question.

  “If you need two more, it means you’ll need three for a second cup.”

  Was she truly anticipating my needs, or making it so I didn’t call her for sugar the following day?

  “Nice to see you know basic addition. Did you need a calculator?”

  A smile drew up on her face, forced but with a glimmer of hatred. “Is there anything else I can help you with tonight, Mr. Grayson?”

  Yes, get on your fucking knees and choke on my dick until I come down your throat.

  Eloquence went out the window in her presence. All I wanted to do was devour every inch of her.

  “You’re dismissed.”

  That fire flared again in her eyes, accentuated by a brief widening. “Have a good night.”

  I said nothing more, gave her no return gesture, simply slammed the door in her face. Anything else would have led to a case of sexual harassment, and I would not allow myself to fall that far.

  “Really, Gavin?” I said as I propped myself against the door.

  Guilt and anger flooded in. I was an asshole by nature, but I still didn’t take pleasure in being one to her, even in my state. Still, Emma took everything I threw at her in stride. She never backed down or cowered at my intimidation.

  A strong woman was exactly what I wanted, but not what I needed with everything that was going on. There was no time for niceties, for my affections to grow. The only thing I had time for was sex, but Emma evoked more than the desire for her pussy.

  A quick fuck wasn’t what I wanted, but what I did want from her was still a mystery. I couldn’t seem to leave her alone, which made one thing for certain—she’d be back. I’d find another reason to have her in my space the next day, and the day after, and every day following until I’d had enough.

  The sugar packets fell from my hand into the trash.

  I drank my coffee black.

  Mr. Grayson quickly became infamous around the hotel. The first night made him so angry that every single day there was a new issue with his room. He nitpicked everything, and it was always when I was on duty. The concierge desk emptied at five, leaving the reception desk to answer his calls, meaning I was always the one who had to deal with him.

  Lucky me.

  Normally, I was pretty invisible to guests, but Mr. Grayson was dialed in to me. My experiences with him were the first time I’d wanted to punch someone. In all my twenty-five years, I had never met anyone as infuriating as Gavin Grayson.

  “The tourism guide has been defaced. Bring up a new one with no scribbles,” he said on day two.

  I blinked and looked down at the phone before replying. “I’ll be right up, sir.”

  On day four, he called to tell me, “I have no washcloths.”

  My smile was plastered on, but I knew it was no longer in my voice. “I’ll have housekeeping bring you some right away.”

  It only took a few days until I was no longer delegating the responsibility of delivering whatever was missing or needed replacing, but rather I was the one knocking on his door with whatever he requested.

  “There is only one sugar packet, Emma. I need two more,” he complained on day seven.

  I ground my teeth. “Right away, Mr. Grayson.” More sugar wasn’t going to make him the least bit sweeter.

  Every time I saw him, I was gobsmacked by his good looks, even when he was glaring at me. I hated the way it made my heart speed up. Even more, I hated the butterflies that fluttered in anticipation each time I was about to see him.

  If I disliked him so much, why was I reacting that way?

  “I can talk to him,” James said as we sat in the lobby Starbucks.

  “Really, it’s fine,” I stressed. The last thing I wanted was for James to confront him. The man was demanding, and I could deal with him on my own.

  “No, it’s not fine. His behavior is unacceptable,” James said, his forehead furrowed, and his jaw ticked. It wasn’t often he let his anger show. “For fuck’s sake, you’re not his personal assistant, at his beck and call.”

  “I can handle him.” I leaned forward to try and catch his eye. It worked, and he seemed to calm down a little bit. “He’s just nitpicky and rude. Besides, he’ll be gone soon.”

  “I still don’t like it,” he grumbled.

  “That’s fine, but it won’t even be an issue soon. We’ll look back on it one day and laugh.”

  He grimaced. “I’m not laughing now.” He blew out a breath and reached out, placing his hand on mine. “I know I have no claim over you, but that doesn’t mean I’m not protective of you.”

  The warmth from his hand was comforting and sent tingles through me. They reached my chest, but something was off. The blossoming in my chest didn’t seem as full and expansive as it normally was when James touched me.

  “I know,” I said, giving him a smile. “Come on. Your break is over, and I need to get home.”

  We got up and headed back to the reception desk. As we walked across the expansive lobby, a familiar figure came into view. Mr. Grayson was entering from the parking garage. My heart started doing double time as I watched him head straight toward the elevators. He shot a quick glance at us, but I couldn’t stop watching as he got onto an awaiting elevator. Our eyes locked, and a wave of heat flowed through me.

  “What kind of mood do you think he’s in?” James asked, pulling me away from Mr. Grayson’s intensity.

  “Not a good one. Good luck tonight.”

  He let out a groan. “I can’t stand him.”

  “Just breathe, and remember, it’s only a few more days. Then you’ll never see him again.”

  He nodded. “You’re right.”

  “I wonder who he works for,” I said. It was obvious he was high up on the totem pole, wherever it was.

  “You didn’t hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “He’s the VP of the Cates Corporation. Next in line to be CEO. I heard he was the head of the New York offices, but since he’s moving up, it was time to come back to headquarters.”

  Cates was a huge business consulting and technology company. The hotel had hosted a few of their functions over the years. Mr. Grayson seemed young to be taking ove
r such a position, but with his attitude, I wasn’t surprised.

  We stepped into the office, and I headed toward the hall the led to the break room when James reached out and pulled me so my back was against his chest. The sudden movement caught me off guard, and I froze.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You surprised me.” James hadn’t touched me like that since our last date three years ago.

  “Sorry, I just . . . Can’t we just start now, in secret? Be a couple?” His breath was hot against my neck, sending tingles through me. Once again, I noticed a reduced response to him. It was still there, the urge to pull him close and kiss him as the heat flared inside me, but it wasn’t the normal blaze.

  “No,” I said with a sigh.

  He groaned against my skin. “Why do you have to be so levelheaded when I’m dying over here?”

  He wasn’t the only one. “Because I have to finish this program, and if we start dating now, my grades will tank. I’ve worked too hard to let anything stop me.”

  He nodded and released me while stepping back. “You’re right. I would definitely distract you and try to monopolize your free time. I’m sorry.”

  I turned to him, and my chest began to ache. It was so hard turning him down. “This isn’t easy for me, either.”

  “I know. I’m just selfish.”

  “Why selfish?”

  He gave me a shy smile. “After three years, you’re still the only woman I think about. We didn’t get a fair chance back then, and I’ve been waiting so long to try again.”

  “Just hold on a few more months.”

  He nodded. “I can do that.”

  My lips turned up into a smile, and his did the same. “Have a good night.”

  “You, too,” he said with a wave.

  After getting my things from my locker, I headed toward the parking garage. It was hard having those conversations with James, because each one broke me down more and more. I wasn’t going to think about the strange lack of response I felt, chalking it up to PMS.

  At the same time, just one look from Mr. Grayson held more fire than James’s touch.

  There was nothing wrong with that. Mr. Grayson was just a hot guy. Why wouldn’t my pulse speed up when he was around? It was normal. Healthy, even. And not a hiccup in my path. No, Mr. Grayson was just a guest, nothing more.