Page 150 of The Price of Scandal

“Gah.”

“As for your time, I’m not willing to settle for anything less than all the days of your life.” I slid my hand up under the hem of her shirt, coasting my palm over her warm, flat stomach and higher until my fingers brushed the edge of her bra.

“Is there anything else you want?” she asked breathlessly.

“I want to feed Steve.”

“Only residents feed Steve,” she whispered with the ghost of a smile playing on her swollen lips.

“That doesn’t sound like a problem to me. Wouldn’t Cristoff enjoy cooking for two?”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her eyes hopeful.

“Positive.”

Contorting herself, she bowed back and snatched the second contract off the table and slapped it to my chest. “Then sign this.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked. She’d built it. She’d continue to build it, and we both knew Emily Stanton didn’t do anything half-assed.

“I want you to have fifty percent of AHA. That includes the building and the equipment, which isn’t really anything right now. But there are future patents. And before you accept, you should know that I have plans for—”

I cut her off and pressed the contract to her breasts, signing with a flourish of the pen. It needed to be signed now before I heard whatever brilliant plan she had for her new path in life. She needed to know that I trusted her implicitly. That I loved her without a fortune or a company.

She was too quiet.

I met her gaze.

“And now we’re partners,” I said quietly.

She nodded and bit her lower lip. “Fifty-fifty.”

“You and me.”

She nodded again.

“How are your intestines holding up?”

She shook her head and laughed ruefully. “Nothing gets past you.”

“Nothing.”

“Surprisingly well for a woman about to lose her billion-dollar company and the last fifteen years of her every waking minute.”

“Eh. Win some, lose some.”

She threw her head back and laughed. The motion had her sliding down my thighs to settle against me.

“You should do that every day for the rest of your life,” I told her, stroking my hands up her waist under her shoulder.

“What? Laugh? Or this?” She rolled her hips against my groin.

I gritted my teeth as my dick throbbed.

“Take your fucking pants off now, Emily, and let’s make a real commitment.”

“Oh, because signing over fifty percent of our companies wasn’t enough?” she teased.

But I was yanking her shirt over her head and pressing my face to her breasts. “Show me how much you want to be with me,” I demanded.