Never Enough

Excerpt

“Welcome back. I hope you all had a wonderful break over the holidays. As you all know, we’ve had a shit show of a launch for our campaign for Strawberry Gin. We’re still trying to understand why no one turned up at the launch. But, we need to fix it immediately. I’ve assured our client that we will take care of the new launch to save our faces and avoid refunding our fees. They’ve agreed as they don’t want to find another PR firm at this stage. Thankfully our excellent reputation has helped.”

Everyone brought their laptops to life and logged in, Ellery included. She had her presentation ready to link into the comms system as she guessed she’d probably go first, followed by finance. Marketing plans had to get agreed before the other departments.

“We’ll get to the pitches soon. First, I want to introduce you to Aiden Price. I don’t think any of you have met him before as he’s worked from home for a few years. He owns AP Public Relations and takes care of all things IT. He’s the brains, and I’m the beauty in our partnership,” Gerald said, nodding to someone at the back of the room. Ellery’s head snapped to the back of the room, and her eyes widened.

A ripple of laughter went around the room except for Ellery. Everyone’s heads turned to where she was looking. Ellery took a short slurp of her drink and started choking. Penny rubbed her back and handed her a tissue to mob her eyes from the tears forming from losing her breath for so long.

“Are you okay, Ellery?” Gerald asked, coming to her side to make sure.

“Yes,” she answered, but it sounded more like a squeak.

Aiden walked around the table behind Ellery. She could feel the electric vibe he was carrying as he passed her chair. Powerful and full of expectations. She’d remembered he was tall, but it was still a shock to see him again stalking down the room. Aiden wore a jet black suit, a white shirt, and a dark red tie. He did that action of smoothing his tie after he’d unbuttoned his jacket and before he sat down next to Gerald.

“Hello, everyone,” Aiden said, looking around the room and eyeing Ellery for a few more seconds than the others in the room. “My name is Aiden Price, and I’ve made a new year resolution to come into the office more frequently. I had such a good time meeting so many of you at the Christmas party,” he said and paused.

“Fuck,” Ellery mumbled into her straw, toying with the end with her tongue.

Aiden smirked for half a second, aiming his sparkling eyes her way.

“I thought it was high time I saw you all at work. What better time than when we’re in a crisis? My first project will be to fix the problem of ten thousand bottles of Strawberry Gin sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped to customers.”

All the directors closed the lids of their laptops, perfectly synchronised as they stared at the handsome man with a serious expression look around the table.

When no one spoke, Aiden continued. “I’ll have a one to one with all of you throughout the day, and we’ll meet tomorrow morning again once I’ve reviewed all your pitches. I’ll start with marketing,” Aiden said, looking straight at Ellery.

She sat still. The only movement seemingly in slow motion was her lips surrounding the top of the straw and sucking so hard her cheeks hollowed. She saw the flare of his nostrils. Daring not to look around the table, she had no idea if anyone else had.

Her colleagues wasted no time exiting the room with sympathetic glances her way.

“Good luck, Ellery. He’s a pussy cat,” Penny whispered.

Ellery knew him to be a beast in bed, and a gentleman the following morning. But at work? She couldn’t even guess what he would be like.

She scrambled her brain to recover a slice of intelligence ready for Aiden’s questions about the campaign. Ellery hoped like hell he didn’t bring up having sex at the Christmas party.

Gerald murmured something to Aiden on the other side of the room and then left, closing the door behind him. The conference room only had one set of windows, and they looked out across the courtyard below. No one could see into the room unless they were flying. The floor AP PR occupied was ten floors up.

Ellery’s attention returned to Aiden, who stalked down the room on the other side of the large conference room table and flicked the cover over the peephole. He looked to the door lock and then back to Ellery, seemingly furious.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked in a raised voice.

“I don’t know what you mean?” Ellery answered, taking another long draw on her latte.

Perplexed at his first question and that he had covered any viewing into the room, she shifted in her seat. The problem became audible when she had no liquid left in the cup and made the slurping sound a child makes when they want to be annoying.

“You know exactly what I mean. Arriving to work in red-soled heels, wrapping those plump lips around that fucking straw and sucking. Repeatedly.”

Dumbfounded, Ellery looked down at her shoes and wondered how he would see through the solid wooden table to her feet.

Interpreting her confusion, Aiden stood, hands fisted at his sides. “I saw you walk in, swaying your hips as your laughter rang out across the office.”

“I had no idea what I was doing. I’m just being me,” Ellery said, sounding a little defensive.

This wasn’t going the way she expected. Ellery thought he would get straight down to business rather than quiz her on her choice of shoes. So what did it matter she wore high heels with red soles? Gazing at the furious man on the other side of the room, she admired the way his suit fitted him. The cut of his jacket fitted his shoulders perfectly. Someone made that suit just for him. She was sure of it. His hair was different too. Had he had it cut?

Aiden huffed and looked around the room, anywhere but her face, for a few seconds, then his gaze was square on her eyes. “And that’s half the problem. You don’t know how unbelievably sexy you are when you laugh.”

“What’s the other half of the problem?” she blurted out.

Ellery needed to know what she was dealing with here. Rip the plaster off for all her faults, and then she could process. It’s how she dealt with everything in her life. So far, it had helped her.

“I don’t know what I did to make you dislike me so much.”

Stunned by his statement, she wondered if she’d sent him a message without knowing his number and told him something. No one knew she’d spent the night with Aiden Price. She hadn’t told the girls at home and absolutely no one at the office.

Putting her empty cup on the table, Ellery put her hands on her lap and stared back at him, trying to decipher his thoughts.

“You did nothing. I don’t dislike you. Why would you think that?” Ellery asked calmly as she could.

“Then why didn’t you come back? Don’t you like orgasms?”

Ellery didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. His humorous question made her smile, but the hurt in his eyes made her want to cry.

“I didn’t think you meant it,” she whispered.

“What?” Aiden roared the word.

Ellery knew no one would come running. They’d soundproofed the conference room for confidential conversations and meetings.

She scrambled for an excuse. “I thought you were being polite, ending the one-night stand on a positive, you know?” Ellery shrugged as she spoke, unsure of Aiden as the minutes ticked by.

“I don’t know whether to kiss you or get straight to fucking you. Probably both.”

Looking at him, in his tailor-made suit, stunning good looks, Ellery still wondered if she was being played. So she went for humour.

“Do we need to get the HR Director back in here?” Ellery asked, pointing to the door and then tapping her forefinger on her lips to hide the smile forming.

“I own the company,” he replied, folding his arms across his chest.

He was biting back a smirk. Ellery could only assume that his shoulders dropped in acknowledgement that she didn’t hate him. Because Aiden wasn’t saying much about why he was so frustrated with her.

“That doesn’t make you exempt from threatening to fuck one of your employees.”

“That’s true, I’m sorry, but it’s how I’m feeling at the moment. Will you please come over here?” Aiden asked.

Ellery raised an eyebrow but still pushed away from the table and stood. She flattened her palms on her pencil skirt, then pinched the material at the sides and pulled it into place.

“Jesus Christ, stop doing that,” Aiden said with gritted teeth.

Ellery walked around the table to where Aiden had been standing.

“Why did you want me to come over?” Ellery asked.

Aiden shook his head. “Right now? Or the following night after we had the best sex of our lives. And don’t try to deny that.”

“I meant right now. But I want to know why you wanted me to knock on your door again.”

Ellery didn’t get a verbal answer.

Instead, Aiden reached out his arm, rested his hand on her waist and pulled her towards his hard body. She stumbled against him but didn’t resist. Once she was steady, he wrapped her into a hug and dropped his head so his face was in her hair.

“You smell wonderful. I don’t know what scent that is, but I want to buy it and spray it on my pillows.”

After a few beats, Ellery wrapped her arms around his waist under his jacket and pressed her ear to his chest. His heartbeat was hammering as he squeezed her tighter.

“Aiden, if someone walks in, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do. You may own the company, but I have to work here, and I can do without the gossiping in my face and behind my back.”

He pulled away and looked down at her face. “What gossiping would they say?”

Ellery paused. While she knew how he’d react, Ellery knew she never wanted to lie to the man.

“What’s a girl like me doing with a guy like you.”

Ellery spoke to his chest, hoping he didn’t hear. But he did. His arms tightened around her back for a second, then he leaned back, bringing his hands to her face.

“For crying out loud, Ellery. I don’t care what they think, and neither should you.”

Giving him a slow shoulder shrug and a grimace, she said, “it’s an inherent trait.”

“Snap out of it,” he bellowed.

Ellery stepped out of his embrace and took another step back. All humour was gone from her voice. “Not that easy. I’ve had decades of training.”

Aiden took a step nearer, softening his voice. “Let me coach you?”

“Shouldn’t we tackle the Strawberry Gin problem first?”

Ellery needed to get out of this conversation and move to safer ground.

Her job.

But Aiden wasn’t moving on until he had sorted out where they stood.

“Have dinner with me tonight. Come to my place, straight from work. Don’t even think about changing your shoes. I’ll cook.”