Page 52 of Mr. Hotshot CEO

I don’t blame her.

“Ah.” Po Po nods sagely. “You prefer to do this in private. I get the hint.” She clutches my mother’s arm. “Come on. You, too, Vince. We’re leaving. Though, maybe...maybe I’ll take one more lemon square first.”

I grab a lemon square for my grandmother, grateful she’s going to drag my mother and brother out of here. I was afraid they’d be here for hours, interrogating Courtney.

“Fine, fine,” Vince grumbles. “I’ll stop pissing you off and get on with my exciting life.”

“I’m sure you will,” I say.

Still, it takes another ten minutes to get my family into the elevator. When they’re finally gone, I walk over to Courtney and wrap my arms around her. She doesn’t embrace me back, but she doesn’t step away from me, either.

We stand like this for a few minutes. She stares out the south-facing window that she admired so much the first time she saw it, but today, her eyes look vacant.

“You okay?” I ask, pulling her closer. “I’m sorry about my family. They mean well, but they can be a bit much. I was half-afraid my grandmother would go to my bedroom and look through my closet to see if you’d moved your stuff in.”

“Your family clearly loves you very much,” she says. “Where was your father?”

“At the office, helping out in my absence.” I hesitate, not sure if I should ask the question I want to ask. I try to keep it light. “What are your parents like? Would they be thrilled if you brought someone home?”

“They’d be thrilled if I broughtyouhome. My mom would brag about it to all her friends.” She laughs a little. “My parents don’t tease me anymore. I know it probably seems bothersome to you, but I miss it. It’s like they don’t know how to act around me. Not since...”

I know she’s talking about whatever happened in undergrad. I want her to tell me, but I also know she’s not going to, not now. That’s okay.

I pull her to the couch and into my lap. We kiss lazily for a few minutes.

When we come up for air, she’s smiling, and nothing could make me happier.

Chapter 14

Courtney

It was Vince’s mentionof marriage. I wasn’t prepared for that, and I was suddenly filled with longing. To have a husband and in-laws like the Fongs. Not because of their wealth, but because they genuinely seem like good people, and they were excited to meet me. I also enjoyed seeing them tease Julian.

It was a longing for something I can never have.

But in the twenty-four hours since then, I’ve mostly managed to push that out of my mind, and last night, there was some pretty hot and heavy kissing before bed. I was lying underneath Julian on the couch, and he was kissing meeverywhere. I didn’t want him to remove any of my clothes, and he seemed to understand that without me telling him. But his cock was hard and heavy between us and, God, it was tempting.