Page 40 of Nothing to This (Nothing to… #8)

Two weeks didn’t sound like a lot until one was living it and separated from something valuable. Life was topsy-turvy. No longer was she an inconsequential creative consultant in the marketing department. Somehow she’d graduated to the CEO’s desk on the top floor.

The trip that was meant to take only two weeks had spilled into a third.

JD promised her and the kids he’d be back by Friday.

On Tuesday, time dragged. The whole spell without him had actually.

Could she get through another three days without him?

Although finding her rhythm in her new professional role, she didn’t feel like a natural.

When it came to work anything, JD had been on the end of the phone whenever she needed him. Even in her uncertain moments, he’d shown nothing but confidence in her and wouldn’t even think of giving her a reprieve.

As long as she believed in herself, she could do anything. His words. It sounded like some baloney he’d feed the kids, but she accepted it and followed the adage of faking it, not that she really thought she’d ever “make it”.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” she said to the ten men seated around her conference table. “Those factors simply will not affect our timeline.”

At the end of that sentence, a familiar figure sauntered into the doorway, his hands sunk in his pockets as he propped himself against the frame.

Fuck, her stomach flipped. Her skin shimmered and her heart sped up.

JD. God, relief! No, calm, keep cool. What was he doing there three days early? Who cared? He was a welcome surprise.

Their eyes met and she smiled but had to quickly forget his arrival when one of her guests spoke. “But Miss Hampton, we—”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Duo will not expedite their order. If this creates a problem for your company, we’ll be more than happy to take our business elsewhere. We would not want to inconvenience you in any way, we value your corporate friendship.”

Twisting in his chair, her guest appealed to the man in the doorway fixated on her. “Mr. Dawes, please, can you—”

“Miss Hampton is doing just fine,” JD drawled, a smirk touching his lips. “Please, carry on.”

“Actually, we’re done,” she said, picking up the documents from the table and gathering them into their binder. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen. Mieux will show you out.”

The men took a second to catch on that they were being flung out. Eventually they blustered and rose, forcing JD to step inside out of their way of the exit. Ignoring their appeals, his focus remained on her.

He waited until they were all gone before speaking. “We wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” JD quoted. “We value your corporate friendship. What a nice way to say go fuck yourself, but we might use you again in future.”

Getting up to round the table, she hugged the binder to her chest. “They’ll call.”

He pushed away from the wall. “How do you know?”

“They always do,” she said. “And we’ll get a discount.”

“What makes you so sure?” he asked, coming to a stop in front of her.

No way he didn’t know the answer to his own question, what was the harm in humoring him?

“He wants to bolster this quarter’s numbers to appease investors.

Without our order, he won’t do that. Investors will be edgy, and Pullen has a hair trigger.

He’ll solicit our order next quarter, I’ll hesitate, question his ability to deliver, and he’ll panic.

” Straightening JD’s tie over his buttons, she laid her fingers on the fabric for a brief second.

“He can’t disappoint his investors two quarters in a row and his relationship with your affiliates has shored up support from his investors in the past. If it seems he no longer has the ear of the boss, you, investors will threaten to bolt.

I’ll hint at a discount, he’ll sell it to investors by citing your friendship.

And we get a boost in our quarterlies, which will coincide with Duo’s major relaunch thus, it will help us attract new clients. ”

“And you figured all this out…”

“Around the same time I saw how tight he was clutching his briefcase… Don’t underestimate the importance of body language,” she quoted.

His smile betrayed his own recognition.

“Our daughter just keeps on giving, doesn’t she?”

“Have you seen them?”

He shook his head. “I thought I’d surprise them, pick them up, take them home… but I wanted to check in with you first.”

She grinned and pulled the binder higher. “Check I hadn’t wrecked your company?”

He trailed a fingertip down her jaw. “Did you hear me ask about the company?” he murmured. “All I’ve thought about is you. You and the kids. I had to see your face, to look at you.”

“I thought you weren’t coming back until Friday.”

“Sorry to see me?”

“Not even a little,” she said, curling her fingers around the back of his neck to try drawing him down.

Despite the moment of subdued surprise on his face, he didn’t fight her. Except they never got the chance to see where the moment might have gone because Greg and Jim walked in.

“Hello, Rylee!” Jim declared.

Letting go of JD, she backed up, hiding her smirk better than he hid his irritation. “Nice to see you, gents,” she said, going over to offer each a kiss on the cheek. “How was your trip?”

“Had its ups and downs,” Greg said, rocking back on his heels. “Boss got a little testy at times.”

“Would you gentlemen like to join us for dinner tonight?” she asked. “I still have an hour or two here, but I can rustle something up, if you want to come over—”

“No,” JD said, becoming the center of attention. “You’re uninvited.”

Talk about rude. Even the glare he wore was unnecessary.

“JD,” she said. “Wow, what happened to your manners? There’s plenty of space at our table and the kids like entertaining.”

“Daddy has plans for tonight,” JD said, taking her shoulders.

She drew her eyes to his. “You’re not getting laid, JD.”

Greg laughed and Jim sort of choked.

The man at her back just gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I have plans for my family tonight and you two are not a part of them.”

“I think Rylee just nixed your plans,” Greg said.

Leaving JD’s grasp, she opened the binder to sort through the papers as she passed the men to leave the conference room.

At the desk that used to be hers, a little brunette wearing big glasses bounced to her feet.

“Can you copy these and send them?” she asked, handing off a couple of sheets to Mieux who nodded and righted her glasses while looking behind her.

She glanced back to the trio coming toward them.

“Oh, that’s Greg, JD, and Jim. They lurk and have the fancy job titles, so you know, we pretend like they’re in charge and important. ”

Carrying on into the office, she zipped her binder and tossed it to the desk before bending over to pull off one heel and then the other.

“Got a round up for us?” Greg asked.

“I kept JD in the loop every day,” she said, sitting in the chair and logging into her laptop. “I tell you, I won’t be sorry to hand you back the reins, Overlord.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but you won’t be,” JD said, pushing aside something in her in-tray to look at what was beneath. His brows rose and he picked it up. “What’s this?” He leafed through it. “Apartment details?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, boosting up to take it from him.

He just smiled and slipped his hands in his pockets. “For me or you?”

“It’s something stupid, a misunderstanding,” she said, looking through the pictures in the document.

“The apartment upstairs from us is on the market. I called because I wanted to be nosey, and you know, we don’t need eight bedrooms, but it wouldn’t be an insane idea to have more space.

You need a proper office, and I don’t want the kids to have computers in their rooms, so a den might be a good idea, and…

” When she peeked up at him, he was grinning. “What?”

He feigned confusion, like he was trying to figure something out. “That sounds… wait, does that sound like maybe I am going to get laid?”

Slapping down the schedule, she glared at him. “Not any time you’re wearing that smirk,” she said. “You don’t think we need more space?”

“Depends how many more kids we’re going to have. Wouldn’t a house make more sense?”

“Too far outside the city. If you’re going to be a father to my children, I want you to be a present one… and I like apartment living… and what did you mean about not taking back the reins? I want you to have the reins.”

“I have an architect coming tomorrow,” he said.

“A friend in California inspired me. I was thinking, maybe glass bricks or something, we can split this office down the middle. There’s plenty of space in here.

We cut a wedge behind the assistant’s desk and we can have two doors…

though we’ll need one between the offices too, for sex in the afternoons. ”

Folding her forearms on the desk, she leaned across them. “Going to schedule that, are you?”

Greg cleared his throat. “We’re just going to…”

He pointed over his shoulder before he and Jim slipped out.

JD came around the desk and propped himself against it just beside her. “Can you be home in an hour?”

“I have some calls to make,” she said. “Emails to deal with.”

“If I do the emails, can you be home in an hour?”

She nodded. “Sure, if you need me to be, why?”

“I’ve got something cooking,” he said, touching her face. “The surprise I never got to give the kids on their birthday, I’ve got someone setting it up now.”

“Go to them, JD. They will burst when they see you. They’ve missed you so much.”

“Are they the only ones?”

She smiled and wasn’t surprised to see him enjoying her reaction. “Your sister has been on my case since you left. You haven’t lost an inch of ground, I’ll tell you that.”

Bending down, he traced his lips over hers. “I want to gain ground with you, Ry… I want it all.” Tipping his head to the side, he focused on the apartment listing on her desk. “I’ll buy you a building if it makes a difference.”

“I don’t care about the money, I never cared about the money,” she said, rolling her chair closer to fold her hands on his thigh. “We do need to talk, but the kids… I want them to be your priority.”

“I’m going to pick them up and take them home now,” he said. “I want Mommy home soon.”

“She will be. Brenna and Lotta are taking the twins camping this weekend. Maybe you could spend tomorrow with them? They’re leaving on Thursday and won’t be back until Sunday.”

With a fingertip on her jaw, he stroked her, considering something for a few seconds. “You thought I was coming home on Friday… they’d have been away… we’d have been alone.”

She laughed. “It wasn’t orchestrated for the benefit of your cock. They got the opportunity through a youth group Lotta volunteers with. I wasn’t sure about it, about letting them go, but I told the security guys to hire some more people and bill you.”

“No argument here.”

“I know,” she murmured and rose from the chair to lean in against him. “That’s because you’re a good father.”

“Turning you on again?”

She nodded slowly, her focus on his lips.

JD grabbed her so fast and tight that she gasped. Her heart rate rose when he gathered her skirt into his fists, slow, his gaze mesmerizing her.

With her skirt at her hips, ass exposed, lines between them warped and faded. “This is sexual harassment.”

He snatched her against the desk, boosting her onto it to move between her thighs. “I’m not on the clock,” he said. “We’re not colleagues, we’re parents.”

“You’re distracting me.”

The heat of need and intensity of arousal tempted her to further part her legs when he ran his fingertips up the back of her thighs.

“You’ve been distracting me since the goddamn minute I got here,” he said, leaning over her, raising her knees to his hips. “Ask me again, Siren. Ask me now.”

Sliding a hand up the middle of his chest, she licked her lips. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Not here. This weekend will be ours, JD… if you want it.”

“Oh, I want it,” he said. “They’re leaving Thursday night?”

“Afternoon.”

“I’m coming into the office tomorrow; we’ll get through this week’s work. Thursday morning will be quality time with the twins… We’re both taking Friday off.”

Curling her fingers around his tie, she pulled him further down as she reclined, holding herself at a forty-five-degree angle, crunching her abs.

“You think you’re getting something from me that we’ll need a whole day together? Alone?”

“I think I want to find out.”

The phone beside them rang just before his mouth met hers.

Without changing position, she grabbed the handset. “Rylee Hampton.”

“Just checking in, Rylee,” Marie said. Daycare had her direct line. “What time will they be picked up today?”

Given she sometimes had more or less work on any given day, the kids’ pick up time varied. Sometimes their aunt or grandmother were the ones there to get them.

“Their father’s coming to surprise them now,” she said, smiling at JD. “Can you help them put on their shoes? Don’t tell them who’s coming.”

“They’ll be thrilled,” Marie said. “We’ll get them ready.”

“Thank you,” she said and hung up. “They’re waiting for you.”

“And we’ll be waiting for you,” he said and dipped forward to steal her mouth.

Oh, he knew how to draw her in. His kiss was too much to resist. Sinking into the seduction, a whimper slipped from her mouth to his. Giving more of herself, her legs rose higher. They should never have started, how would she avoid giving in now she’d had a taste?

She didn’t hear the office door open, just the gasp from that direction. “Miss Hampton, I’m sorry.”

JD stopped kissing her and straightened up, helping her sit.

Perched on the edge of the desk, she twisted to look over her shoulder. “It’s ok, Mieux,” she said, patting JD’s chest and sliding off the desk to sit in the chair again. “JD is the father of my children.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” Mieux said, tentative in coming across to put files on her desk.

“We’re not,” JD said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Yet.”

She pulled herself in at the desk and picked up the file to see the list of calls inside. “Oh, now he wants to get married.”

“Only because I want to get you pregnant,” JD said and bobbed his brows to the blushing Mieux as he sauntered toward the door. “Hurry home, honey, we’ll be waiting for you.”