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“Oh, come on, Lara, just try to make the best of this situation. Just treat it like a one-night stand of sorts.”
“Well, it’s lasting more than one night, isn’t it?” I retort. “How is this supposed to be temporary when?—”
I stop myself.
“When what?” she prompts curiously.
“When I couldn’t say no,” I confess. “I wanted him, Leila… with all my heart.”
“Listen to me, Lara. If you want him then, hell girl, enjoy the month. Do everything you want with him, and when it’s over you’ll have had something that 99.99% of women could never even dream of having. Trust me, we only regret experiences we don’t take, not those we do.”
I listen to her words silently.
“You know I’m right… don’t you?” she asks.
I give her a slow nod. Again, I don’t know if her words are entirely accurate, but they feel good. They are the only thing that’s made me feel remotely okay this morning, so I accept and embrace them.
“Okay,” I say, my voice softening. “Okay.”
“So, you can stop feeling so bad and just let go. Enjoy yourself.”
“Yeah,” I reply.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
IVAN
It turns out it’s extremely hard to sleep when you have a raging hard-on that won’t go away because you can’t stop thinking about a woman. Which is crazy because the sky is literally falling on top of me. The fires cannot be put out and they are spreading so fast that soon they will burn to ashes everything I worked so hard and so long for, but all I can fixate on is how good it felt to be deep inside her.
I have an important breakfast meeting at the Four Seasons that I’m already running late for, but what I’m itching to do is turn back and go fuck her. I’m fucking obsessed with the smell and feel of her and it’s driving me absolutely insane.
My phone starts vibrating. Likely a reminder of more fires I won’t be able to put out today. With a sigh, I pull my phone out of my jacket pocket, but it is Lara. Instantly, my cock gets hard and my body throbs for her. I want her so badly I can barely contain myself. Out of frustration, I grab my rock-hard cock through my pants and squeeze, seeking some relief.
“Hello,” she says with annoying nonchalance.
Irritated, I resort to sounding as gruff as I possibly can. “What is it?” I bark.
I can picture her reaction. Her brows scrunching up, her lips drawing into a stern line. She looks fierce when she gets like that, but that only makes her even more sexy and fuckable. A ridiculous phenomenon that has no logical explanation.
“I’m calling to ask about the contract,” she says stiffly.
“What about it?”
“You said the new one would be revised this morning...”
“My secretary will be over with it later this morning. Anything else?” I ask, my words clipped and sharp, sending the clear message that I am irritated by her call, which isn’t the case at all. I’m irritated by how unaffected she is.
“There will be no further—” she clears her throat, and I can hear the discomfort. “There will be no further… interactions between us until it’s been issued.”
I can’t hold back my mocking laughter. If we were having this conversation face to face, I’d take her right there without the contract, just to prove how susceptible she is to me. It would completely humiliate her and make her even fiercer.
“Isn’t it a bit late to be making such a stipulation?”
The line goes dead on me. I stare at the phone in disbelief. She hung up. I don’t like it one bit, but I guess I can’t really complain since I was taunting her.
I place a call to Greta. “Are you in the office yet?”
She responds in her usual perky manner. “Good morning, Sir. I got in about half an hour ago.”