Page 52 of My Vampire Plus-One

The last thing I needed was to forget that.

•••••••

The day dragged on.

It was already six in the evening, and I was woefully behind on everything I’d hoped to accomplish that day. After my third failed attempt at reading a single balance sheet, my eyes drifted of their own accord to my window. It was another dark and dreary March evening, with light rain striking the windowpane. There wasn’t much to see from way up on the thirty-second floor, so I found myself following each raindrop as it slowly made its way down the glass.

Was Reggie out in this nasty weather? What was his life like when he wasn’t with me?

God.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this distracted.

I needed to get more sleep.

“Amelia?”

I glanced up at my assistant Ellen’s voice. She was standing in the open doorway to my office. “What’s up?”

She looked behind her, over her shoulder. “Were you expecting anyone tonight?”

I frowned. “No. Why?”

“There’s a gentleman heading straight this way.” She turned to face me. “I don’t recognize him.”

“What?” We rarely got visitors after business hours. “Is he a client? A delivery person?”

“I don’t know,” Ellen said. And then, with a sly smile and sotto voce, she added, “He isveryhandsome.”

Before I could even form a response to that, Reggie appeared beside her.

I was struck mute by what I saw.

Gone was the slightly off-kilter look I’d come to associate with him. There was no sign of the too-large black fedora and trench coat from our first meeting, or of the Dungeons & Dragons manual he’d read upside down at Gossamer’s. And Old Fuzzy was nowhere in sight.

He stood in the doorway to my office wearing a charcoal-gray suit that would have been perfectly appropriate in the client meetings we held in the conference room. Normally, I was physiologically incapable of finding anyone wearing a suit in my building attractive, ever. But seeingReggiein a suit…

It was a crime, honestly, that he ever wore anything else. Even though Ellen was standingright there, I suddenly wanted nothing more than to run my fingertips along his collar. Pull him into a kiss like the one we’d shared the night before by the knot of his red silk tie.

“Amelia,” he said brightly, stepping inside my office without waiting for an invitation. “So good to see you again.”

Ellen’s gaze jumped quickly between him and me, eyes wide as saucers. “You know this person?”

I nodded, feeling the telltale signs of a blush creeping up the back of my neck. “Yeah, I know him.”

“I don’t need to call security, then?”

Reggie jumped a little at her question. Whether it was because of the slightly threatening nature of it, or because he’d forgotten Ellen was there, I couldn’t tell.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Amelia and I are—”

“Friends!” I cut in, because I’d had no idea how he’d planned to finish that sentence. “We’re friends.”

Reggie beamed at me. Ellen took in the expression on his face and then gave me a knowing look.

Oh, god.

“Okayyyyy,” Ellen said, drawing out the word in a singsong I’d never heard her use before. “I guess I’ll be on my way.”