He grinned, clasping his hands and resting his chin there. “It’s where I get my best ideas.”
“Well, I have what I think is a great idea.” She strolled toward him. “And I wanted to put it past you.”
“Uh, yeah.” He dropped his hands to the slew of documents askew on his desk. “Well, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can we talk about it tonight when I get home?”
Oh no. By the time he got home, Ava would have lost her nerve and shredded the brochure.
“It will only take a minute.” She laid the folder on his desk, planted her hands, and leaned forward. Just as she’d expected, his gaze lowered to the cleavage exposed in the V of her blouse. “I’ll give you the elevator pitch and leave you with the information.”
She took a breath to deliver the spiel and caught the scent of perfume. A warm, sultry scent lingering in the air. And it wasn’t the whiff of powder his secretary wore.
That niggling unease deepened into an uncomfortable gnaw.
Just nerves.
She straightened and slowly rounded his desk. “You know how we’d planned on Bali for the honeymoon?”
“S-sure.”
The hiccup in his voice made her study him harder. He was definitely distracted. That perfume was definitely holding strong. And at eight p.m., with the office empty, Ava couldn’t imagine…
Her gaze jumped to the way he was tucked tightly beneath his desk. She glanced at his computer screen—catching him watching porn would have been the lesser of two evils. But his screen was covered with architectural drawings.
A dark rivulet of suspicion opened in her chest. A familiar inkling she recognized from the past, but one that had never been founded. An insecurity that had prompted her to go out on a limb and research this honeymoon spot.
She eased her ass to the desktop. His eyes grew round. Sweat glistened on his brow. And Ava had the sinking feeling she was about to become a pathetic cliché.
“Look,” he said, “I’m supposed to be on an overseas conference call, like, two minutes ago. I really can’t talk about this—”
“With who?” she asked.
“Ah, um, Helmut.”
Her brows shot up. “About Duke Tower?”
“Yes. About Duke Tower.” He gestured to his landline. “Please go, Ava. I need to get on the phone.”
Anger and sickness roiled in the pit of her stomach. “Really.” She crossed her arms and stared down at him. “You’re going to get on the phone with Helmut at two a.m. on a Saturday.”
“No.” His brow wrinkled in confusion and frustration. “Wait, what?”
“It’s eight p.m. Friday night in New York,” she explained. “Which makes it two a.m. Saturday morning in Amsterdam.”
“Whatever.” The bite in his voice added the fuel of hurt to her anger. “Just let me get my work done. We can talk at home.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She was cemented in place, her heart as heavy as concrete. The sting of encroaching tears tingled across the bridge of her nose, and Ava scraped her lower lip through her teeth.
“That would be hard to do if you didn’t live at my apartment anymore,” she said. “Wouldn’t it?”
Matthew dropped his hands to his desktop with a thud and turned a scowl on her. “You’re
not making any sense again. I swear this wedding bullshit has your head up your ass.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one with your head up your ass.”
She pressed the toe of one high heel to his seat and shoved, rolling his chair away from the desk. Her gaze fell to his lap, where she found exactly what she feared: his dress pants bunched around his thighs and his erection standing straight up. “And, evidently, your cock is also in someone else’s mouth.”
“Jesus Christ,” Matthew bit out. He stood, turning his back on her and jerking his pants up while he stuffed himself back behind his zipper. “You have no right to come in here…”