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“Only you, Sutton, only you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sutton
“He went all caveman on you, girl. It was the hottest thing I have ever seen!”
Candice greeted me wide-eyed the next day at the office. She immediately shut my door so that Bethany the Bitch couldn’t listen in.
“It wasn’t like that,” I responded, trying to ignore the slight sting of my panties against my spanked ass. For the record, it waspreciselyas Candice described it—caveman, indeed. “We are only friends.”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Interesting to hear you say that.”
She slapped today’s paper in front of me and I choked on thin air. The headline read, “Wedding Bells at Sutton Enterprises.” In a massive full-color photo showing a tremendous amount of my pink-covered ass was Mark kissing the living shit out of me in Central Park.
I flipped it over, feeling sick to my stomach. It was not the best picture of me, but you could see some of my features. Mark, on the other hand, looked like one of those trashy covers on a romance novel, all dark and brooding as he devoured me.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
Candice raised a brow, “It says in there that Mr. Williams confirmed that there was an engagement between the two of you. Have you been holding out me?”
I planted my face into my hands. “No, this all a big mistake.”
She chuckled. “Let me guess: you tripped and fell on his lips? I have to admit, that is one of the hottest pics I have ever seen grace the front page. I picked it for that reason alone when I grabbed my coffee this morning. The other papers had pictures too obviously, but this was the best and in color.”
I groaned. “You are not helping!”
She snorted, “It didn’t look like you needed any help. A bed perhaps, but you both were doing just fine on your own.”
I peeked an eye out to see her lips twitching as she considered my obvious state of embarrassment.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Her tone was gentle this time, that of a friend.
I didn’t want to tell her. Hell, I didn’t want to tell anyone about what an idiot I had been. But somehow the entire story came spilling out of my lips.
“You jumped out of the car?” she repeated incredulously.
“We were stopped,” I defended, but deep down I agreed with her. I had acted rashly, and in doing so royally messed things up.
There was a sharp knock on my office door that had my back straightening before I called out, “Come in.”
Mark pushed the door open. “Sutton, I need to speak with you in my office.”
He whipped around and was gone before I could respond.
“Why didn’t he just call me?” I whispered to Candice.
She pointed to where my office phone sat dangling off the hook. I must have dislodged it when I threw my head into my hands.
For the first time that morning, Candice looked at me with some concern. “Are you going to be alright, Sutton?”
I nodded, “Yes, I am sure that Mark has a plan. He always has a plan.”
“That is your plan?”I screeched.
Mark was sitting behind his massive desk, and I had taken one of the chairs opposite. My legs were crossed beneath a charcoal pencil skirt and my arms were folded against the matching jacket. I knew that I would need to be dressed to kill today. I needed the confidence, and shit, I hoped it would be a distraction for Mark. This particular suit always had his nostrils flaring. But not today. He was all business today.
“For the length of your time here, I feel it would be best that we remain engaged, a business arrangement only.”