Chapter 30
STEPHANIE
“What do you mean, ‘it just won’t do’?” I asked, maybe a little too defensively. Jeremiah stared down at me with an unreadable expression. Or at least, if I were to read it, I would say he looked half-amused, half-frustrated, but all determined.
He rocked back on his heels as he shrugged, the picture of calm and collected. Like there was no way he was losing this argument. “I mean exactly what I said. It won’t do for you to walk out of here every night, down the block to the subway station where Jannie could be waiting anywhere. It’s not safe. If I could walk you to your car, I could make sure your doors were locked, and you’d be well away from here before you stopped again.”
“Yeah, well.” Newsflash buddy: You aren’t winning this argument. “I took this job because I don’t have money, and you can’t have a car if you don’t have money.”
“I thought you took this job because of me,” he lamented playfully. The subject matter of our conversation was serious, but we were quickly reverting to being how we were with each other before this morning and Wednesday’s fiasco. “And you just said you have a car, but it’s in the shop in Queens.”
“Perhaps I should’ve been clearer.” I slid my eyes to his and tried not to roll them at the near indignant expression on his handsome features. “My car is broken. I couldn’t afford to get it fixed, and honestly, since she’s older than I am, I figured it was time to let her go. For the time being, my feet and public transportation have to do. You going to walk me to the subway?”
“That would defeat the purpose.” He smirked, the lilt of his lips telling me I probably wasn’t going to like the next words out of his mouth much. “New plan. I’ll be driving you home at the end of each day until you can afford a vehicle.”
My eyebrows jumped to my hairline. “You guys pay well, but you don’t pay that well. I have a ton of other stuff I have to pay before I can even start saving for a new car. How long are you going to be content playing Driving Ms. Daisy?”
“Driving Ms. Donavan, to be more accurate,” he corrected smoothly, fighting the upward trajectory of those stupid lips I couldn’t stop thinking about. “I won’t tire of it. It’s just a ride home, think of it as sharing a cab.”
“A super luxurious cab, I bet,” I mumbled, but Jeremiah heard me.
He shrugged, but his eyes were lit with unshed laughter. “I won’t apologize for liking the finer things in life. My cars are nice, so what? Besides, think of the environment. We’d be doing our bit for conservation by taking one car instead of two.”
I blinked. “Conserving the environment? Really? That’s the argument you’re making?”
“No, the argument I’m making is that I’ll be able to see you safely home until you can afford a new car. If we reduce our carbon footprint while we’re at it, that’s a good thing too.”
“You realize your father started this company as an oil magnate, right?” I said.
He shrugged again, but some of his nonchalant playfulness fled from his eyes. “I do, but I’m not him. We’re getting off topic anyway. I’m giving you a ride until you get a car.”
“I give you a week before you get over your philanthropic mood.” I took his cue in steering the conversation away from his father. It clearly hit a nerve with him today. “Two weeks tops.”
“Well, if you do good work, I’ll make sure you can afford a car sooner rather than later. It won’t be two weeks, but I’m sure I’ll last longer than that.”
“Confident in your lasting power?” I teased, blushing when I realized there was definitely more than one way to interpret those words.
Jeremiah’s eyes widened for barely a moment, but he didn’t skip a beat before answering. “I’m always confident in my lasting power. I have zero reason not to be.”
Our gazes caught. Held. We were headed down a slippery slope here, but I couldn’t resist getting in one last comment before I pulled back. “We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”
“We will.” A flash of heat passed through his eyes. “I’m sure you’ll be very satisfied with my ability to last.”
Damn it. The rich bastard had game, I had to give him that. “What if I’m not satisfied?”
“You will be, I guarantee it.” It looked like he wanted it to be a mic drop moment, but he couldn’t very well walk away when I hadn’t agreed to drive home with him yet. He stretched out his arm to release his gigantic watch from his shirt sleeve and slid his eyes from mine to check the time. “I have a meeting starting in ten. I’ll be in meetings most of the day. Wait for me here when you’re done, we’ll walk to my car together.”
I sighed. The playfulness and the flirty tension were fun, but now that he was back in business mode I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want handouts from anyone, but his generosity was curious. “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal. Only because your offer comes with a satisfaction guarantee.”
“Good,” he said, turning to walk to the door. He paused when he reached it and looked at me over his shoulder. “You should know that satisfaction always comes guaranteed with me.”
Without another word, he slipped from my office and closed the door behind him. I stared at the spot he’d been occupying a second ago, wondering if it was my imagination that he’d put just a tiny amount of emphasis on the word “comes.”
Imagination,I told myself. Definitely imagination. When we were in his office on Wednesday, before the Jannie thing and after our disagreement, in those stolen moments when his body was pressed to mine and his lips devoured me, I knew he wanted me too.
It didn’t matter though. We had one slip. I was his employee. Maybe we could even become friends eventually. What we would never be was more than that. Despite our flirtation, his satisfaction guarantee was limited to providing safe transport to and from work because of the threat posed by a woman who, even if he hadn’t said it in so many words, was either obsessed with him, in love with him, or both.
There would be no satisfaction coming from him in any other way. I knew it. Jeremiah knew it. Now if only someone would go ahead and tell my body because it definitely hadn’t gotten the memo.