Page 7 of The Temptation (Executive Suite Secrets #4)

SIMON MILLER

Good luck.

That was the message I woke up to on my phone from Liam.

I couldn’t imagine what he was wishing me luck on. I hadn’t told him about the kiss that had happened at Declan’s birthday party because I didn’t have a plan yet for how I was going to follow up on it. Pierce was an expert at dodging me, and I’d gotten busy recently with the symphony.

Of course, I wasn’t just going to let it go.

Pierce had kissed me back. He’d devoured my mouth and held me as if he’d wanted to merge our bodies into one.

That wasn’t the kiss of someone who was completely indifferent.

However, breaking through all his protective walls was proving to be relatively impossible when he was stone-cold sober.

Before I could reply to Liam’s message asking for more information, I received a different message. An invitation, in fact.

From Pierce.

For drinks.

Well, well, well. Isn’t this interesting?

Considering the timing of Liam’s message, I had to wonder if my new friend had something to do with this. If so, I owed him so fucking big.

I didn’t hesitate to accept Pierce’s invitation to meet, but I was firm on the idea that I would not meet him at a bar. He already possessed the easy excuse that the kiss we’d shared was an alcohol-fueled impulse that would have never happened under normal circumstances.

Bullshit.

I knew it. He knew it. But currently I had zero proof.

So, to not further compound our mistakes, I demanded that we meet at the same quaint coffee house where I’d chatted with Liam not long ago.

It was after four when he strolled in looking like a goddamn snack.

He was wearing a pair of slacks and a black turtleneck, showing off his impossibly broad chest and shoulders.

Of course, every single person stopped what they were doing to gawk at him—not that he appeared to notice.

He just stood near the entrance, his eyes scanning the coffee shop until he finally spotted me.

And maybe I sat up a little straighter, smiling smugly on the inside as that hot man walked directly to me.

Yes, be jealous. Let me feed on your jealousy.

I’d waited a lifetime for this man, and I wanted the entire world to be envious of every second I stole with him.

When he reached my table, his scowl was firmly in place as if it were all my fault that he had to speak to me. He’d been the one to make this “date.”

“Go get a drink,” I ordered with a small wave of my hand. “I’ll wait.”

Pierce grunted and turned toward the counter, leaving me hoping he’d return without the grimace.

I watched from my table as the two female baristas fought over who got to take his order and who got to make it.

I smirked. They were barking up the wrong tree.

Pierce Sutton was gay, with a capital G-A-Y.

My dilemma was getting the chance to stake my claim.

He returned a few minutes later with a complicated latte and a somewhat mellower expression, because who didn’t feel a little better about themselves after someone flirted with them?

“We should talk,” Pierce declared the moment he sat down.

“Of course.” I lounged back in my chair and grinned brightly up at him. “However, I won’t listen to comments like how the kiss shouldn’t have happened or that the kiss was one-sided or even that you didn’t enjoy it.”

Pierce’s lips parted, but no sound came out. A delicious blush stained the highest points of his cheeks. God, he was hot. It was wrong how attractive this man was, and he only got sexier when I left him speechless.

His mouth snapped shut, and he cleared his throat. “I didn’t ask you here to discuss what happened at Declan’s birthday party, but I see that we need to before we can move on.”

This time, it was my turn to be rendered speechless. He had something else he wanted to talk to me about? Pierce had my full attention now.

“Fine. You kissed me. We were both intoxicated and not thinking. Regardless of how it might have felt, it is an act we cannot repeat,” Pierce continued.

“Wow. Can you sound more like a boring lawyer?”

“Yes, I can.”

My lips twitched against my best effort to hold on to my glower. Asshole . He was not allowed to make me smile. At least, not for real.

“Not only do I plan for us to repeat it, but you’re also going to enjoy it. You’re going to instigate it and crave more.”

“Simon.” My name was a warning, and I knew from years of practice how far I could push him.

“Anyway, you wanted something,” I prompted, showing that I was willing to move on from our unresolved kiss discussion.

“Yes.” Pierce dropped his dark eyes from my face to glare at his cooling latte in the oversized blue mug between his hands. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. As if it were an afterthought, he lifted his mug and took a deep drink.

“Geez, please don’t tell me someone died,” I broke in.

Pierce’s wide-eyed gaze snapped back to my face. “What? No!”

“Well, you’re having a lot of difficulty spitting out your problem. I’m beginning to panic a little over here.”

Those perfect lips twisted into something like a wry grin. “No. Nobody has died, but I’m beginning to wish I had for getting myself into this mess in the first place.”

Okay, now this was becoming interesting. I shoved my nearly empty cup aside and leaned forward, resting my forearms on the table. “Now I’ve really gotta know what happened. Let’s start with the obvious. Did you murder someone?”

“Are you kidding? That’s the obvious?”

I shrugged. “It could be accidental murder.”

“Manslaughter,” he corrected.

“Whatever.”

“No, this isn’t about murder or death of any kind.”

Judging by the way Pierce was glaring at me, though, I’d have believed it if he were contemplating my murder.

“Okay, my second guess would be that you woke up married to some woman you just met during a trip to Vegas. But we both know that it’s not possible, because you’re gay .”

Yeah, maybe I’d said that last part a bit louder than necessary because I could see the two baristas out of the corner of my eye watching Pierce.

Get a clue. Move on, sweeties.

Pierce glared at me. Not amused.

“Don’t give me that look,” I snapped.

“Sorry. You’re right. The problem is my parents, and the lie I might have told them so I can remain in Cincinnati.”

Oh, shit . This was a big deal.

I immediately sat up straight and wiped the pissy expression from my face.

He couldn’t leave Cincinnati. A huge chunk of the reason I’d even moved to this city was to be closer to Pierce.

If he left now, all my plans would be useless.

It wasn’t as if I could pick up and leave the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra now because the man I was chasing decided to move.

Besides the fact that I’d signed a contract with them, I wasn’t enough of a douchebag to leave them in the lurch.

“What happened with your parents? Do they want you to leave?” I demanded.

“They’re worried about my lack of a dating life.”

“Your parents are worried you’re not getting laid enough.”

That earned me a glare, but he also seemed relaxed—as if I’d broken the ice just enough. Honestly, it was the most relaxed and sober Pierce had been around me in years, and I was taking it for the small win it was.

“My younger brother, Archer, is married and has two kids.”

I made a noise and winced. Yeah, now I got it.

There was an order for this type of thing.

The parents always expected the oldest to go off, get married, and pop out the babies.

Sometimes the younger one ran amok and did that first, but the older child usually followed soon after.

Pierce was derelict in his duties as the eldest.

That was something I wouldn’t have had to worry about as much if Sawyer had lived. He hadn’t wanted to wait for the family and kids portion of life. I had little doubt he and his brood would have preoccupied my parents for years before they’d gotten around to worrying about me.

However, following his death, things had grown easier, yet in some ways, more complicated.

It didn’t feel as if they expected much out of me so long as I stayed alive.

On the other hand, they didn’t want me to move far away or do anything unsafe.

They weren’t fans of me being gay because they saw that as “choosing to live a more dangerous lifestyle.” It went without saying that college had resulted in a large rift forming between me and my parents.

I couldn’t stop living my life just because my brother died.

Over the past few years, things really hadn’t improved much, but I tried to make some effort since I was their only son.

“My parents feel that it would be easier for me to find someone to date in Boston. Particularly since I’ve lived in Cincinnati for several years now and not gotten married.”

“What the hell! It’s not like they told you when you moved there was a time limit, right?”

Pierce’s mouth finally pulled into a half grin. “True. I’m guessing they never considered it permanent, and maybe I didn’t either. My family’s firm is out of Boston, and I think deep down, I always planned on returning to take it over.”

“You don’t want to leave, do you?”

“No. Definitely not. I never expected to love it here as much as I do. The city is great, the people are nice, and my friends are here. I’m comfortable here. And that’s the problem…”

I shook my head. It didn’t sound like an issue to me.

“I got so comfortable and happy that I forgot to think about the big picture. That this city was temporary. Now, I’m coming up against the artificial deadline and panicking that it’s all too soon. I don’t want to leave.”

“Have you tried to tell them that you don’t want to go back to Boston?”