Page 24 of Text Me A Kiss

“You’re Graham Emerson.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re the CEO of Midwest.”

“Yeah.”

“My father’s—”

“Your father, Allen Nichols, is the President of the Board of my company, yeah.”

The one man in the entire world—the entire universe, aliens that may or may not exist included—that my father would absolutely, 100%, beyond a doubt, not want me to date under any circumstance up to and including a scenario in which humanity went nearly extinct and my father, myself, and Graham were the only three people left on Earth.

At least I had my answer. How was Graham supposed to tell me?

I sat there, wondering what to say and wondering what Graham was thinking right now. “Well.” Something needed to be said, and that was all I could manage.

“We can’t keep seeing each other. Your father would kill me.”

“He wouldn’t kill you.” I smiled a little despite the gauntlet of emotions I had put myself through with this conversation. “He’d just fire you.”

A small chuckle lightened my mood, just a teensy tiny bit. “Probably true.”

I intended to make silence my mortal enemy if this wasn’t the last one between Graham and me. “About what you said.”

“Yes?” Graham said, a little too quickly and eagerly.

“I don’t want to lose what we have.”

“I don’t either.”

“Then….” I shrugged my shoulders beneath the blanket, knowing he couldn’t see it. “Let’s just not tell him yet. I mean, we’ve only met once. Whenever I visit home and get the chance, we can meet. And whenever you come here, we can meet.”

So simple, so logical, so safe—unless my father found out. But how would he?

“It doesn’t… bother you?”

“Bother me?” I asked, confused. “Hiding things from my father? I don’t like it, but I’m an adult. I can date whoever I want.” It cut me a little deeper than that to betray my father’s trust, but Graham didn’t need to know that. That was something for me to figure out alone.

“No, not that. I’m… the CEO of Midwest.”

“Okay?”

The man who spoke next didn’t sound like Graham or Logan. He sounded like L’Art_of_Illusion, the man I’d gotten to know, spent every second thinking about, and wanted to spend as much time with as possible. “Never mind, sorry. If you’re sure you’re okay with it, then—well, I guess I can call you my girlfriend.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Privately, of course.”

“Yeah, you can.”And you were right. We should have done this in person, because I want to jump into your arms—and then I want you to rip off my clothes to celebrate.My phone vibrated against my cheek, and I glanced down to see an incoming call from—

“Hey, I need to answer my dad or he might suspect something.” I lowered my voice like I was plotting to rob a bank.

We shared a laugh, and it felt so, so good. “Bye, Graham.”

“Goodbye, Kitten.”

My dad just called to asked how I was doing, how ballet was going, if I was stressed or not, and to tell me about some new, exciting-to-him aspect of business at Midwest.

I laughed where I needed to, interjected comments, and hung up after a good, thirty-minute conversation, then immediately opened the dating app and messaged L’Art_of_Illusion.

Chatting with Graham and dancing tomorrow morning would assuage the gnawing guilt in my heart. I was sure of it.