Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 91767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
What is happening right now?
“Hi,” I squeak.
“Nice to meet you,” he says as he shakes my hand.
“Hi,” I reply.
You already said that, you fool.
He smiles and gives me a playful wink…he knows he just fried my brain.
Help!
“Next,” the person at the reception desk calls.
I step forward and Thomas stands behind me.
“Hello, I would like to check in please?” I whisper. “The name is Elizabeth Burchmore.”
“Of course.” He goes to typing away and Thomas is standing so close behind me that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. Hasn’t he ever heard of spatial awareness?
I begin to feel faint.
“We have you in a …blah blah blah…” the reception man goes on but I can’t hear a thing over my hammering heart.
This is bad, bad, bad. Nobody on earth is going to believe I pulled this man.
He slides the key over the desk. “You are in room 402 on the fourth floor.”
“Thank you.”
“We’ll take your bags up to your room for you.”
“Thanks.”
Thomas grabs my elbow. “Let’s get a coffee.”
I glance over my shoulder at him, why is he acting so familiar? “I don’t have time for coffee.”
“Wrong answer.” He takes my hand in his and begins to pull me toward the hotel restaurant. “We are having coffee. We have a lot to discuss.”
Exactly, like why are you holding my hand?
I snatch my hand from his grip. “Fine.” I follow him to the restaurant, the decorations are beautiful and Christmas wreaths that hang from the ceiling light up above, he pulls out my chair and gestures to the waiter. “Bonjour, nous aimerions commander du café, s’il-vous-plait.”
Oh…he speaks French.
“Oui, bien sûr,” the waiter replies.
Thomas’s eyes flick to me. “What would you like?”
“A cappuccino.” I shrug. Do they even have that here?
“Un cappuccino et quelques pâtisseries,” Thomas replies to the waiter.
“C’est noté.” The waiter smiles before disappearing.
Thomas’s eyes come back to me and he sits back in his chair. “It’s lovely to meet you, Elizabeth.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
His eyes hold mine.
“I’m sorry that sounded so rude, I just…I think this is a really bad idea and I don’t know why I let Kerry talk me into it.”
He smiles as he leans onto his hand as he listens.
“I…if anyone realizes that this is a business deal I will never live it down.” I continue my babbling. “So, thank you so much for the offer and I know you must be very busy but I don’t think this is actually going to work and I….”
“Elizabeth.” He cuts me off. “Calm down and relax. It’s one weekend and nobody will ever find out.”
“They’re going to know.”
“I’m never going to tell anyone, so the only way they will ever know is if you tell them.”
My eyes search his. “Are you sure?”
“I’m a professional, trust me. We’ve got this, but we have a lot of work to get through today.”
“Work.” I frown. “What kind of work?”
He reaches down into his briefcase and pulls out a leather-bound A4 notepad and opens it up, he clicks his pen. “We’ll get through the paperwork first before we tackle the other things.”
What other things…?
“Okay.” He writes at the top of the page.
Elizabeth Burchmore
“So….” He looks up at me. “What are our goals for the weekend?”
“Goals?”
“Goals. Like what are we achieving?”
“Oh…um?” I frown. “I hadn’t really thought about goals.”
“Why not?”
“Surviving the weekend would be a bonus.”
“Okay.” He clicks his pen a few times. “Who is going to be here that makes you feel like that?”
“My ex-husband.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. What is his name?”
“Graham.”
“And how long have you been separated?”
“Divorced four years.”
“I see, and does he have someone new?”
“A wife, her name is Melody.”
He scribbles the notes.
“Do you have children together?” he asks.
“No. Neither of us ever wanted children.”
He smiles as he scribbles down notes. “Agree with you on that one.”
“Here you are.” The waiter arrives with our coffee and a huge plate of pastries.
“Merci.” Thomas smiles, the waiter disappears, and he slides my coffee across to me and serves me out a plateful of pastries.
“Oh no thank you, I don’t eat pastries,” I lie as I try to sound skinny.
“Please,” he scoffs with an eye roll. “Let’s get something completely clear here, Elizabeth. I don’t give a flying fuck if you eat pastries, in fact, if you don’t eat French pastries while you’re in Paris you are officially really fucking boring.”
I give him a lopsided smile.
“You don’t need to impress me…at all. I am on your side already,” he says as he takes a giant bite of a croissant, he closes his eyes in ecstasy. “So good.” He gestures to my plate of baked goods. “Eat.”
“Maybe just a sliver.” I take a knife and cut a tiny corner off the croissant and daintily put it into my mouth.
He smiles into his coffee as his eyes hold mine. “Just a sliver of cake is the same as just the tip of a cock. It never happens. Once you try it you’re getting the whole thing.”