Six Month Rule (Kingston Ale House) (11 page)

Holly tucked him in, sliding the towel free and pulling the sheet up over his waist. Then she sneaked into the kitchen for a couple more spoonfuls of ice cream before collecting Will’s clothes from the bathroom. She glanced at her showerhead, so sure she needed some sort of physical intimacy tonight, but something in her had shifted, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

On the way back to her room, she turned off all the lights and double locked her front door, a sense of safety ebbing through her. Standing over Will in her bed, she watched him for several long moments, the rhythm of his breaths calming the frenetic energy that was there less than an hour ago when she found him at her door.

She climbed in next to him, her forehead against his, both of them naked under the sheet. And though she wanted him—always wanted him, it seemed—for tonight this would be enough. She’d slept with Will three times already, but he never stayed the night, always claiming he had calls to make or emails to send to his English business associates, the time change necessitating the late-night work.

She brushed his damp hair off his forehead and kissed it, breathing in the soothing scent of the eucalyptus and spearmint mixed with what could only be described as essentially Will.

“Do you ever sleep?” she whispered, only now starting to grasp the toll the frequent intercontinental travel must be taking on him. Will said nothing, and she kissed him softly on the mouth. “Looks like tonight you will.”

Both their heads rested on one pillow, and she closed her eyes, heart thumping in her chest, and let the cadence of his breaths lull her to sleep.

When she woke the next morning, Will was gone, a note lying where his head once was.

Ran back to the hotel to shower and make a few calls. But I’d love to take you to breakfast. I’ll be by in a taxi at ten.

Holly let out a breath. She didn’t know what they’d say to each other this morning after what happened—and didn’t happen—last night, but one thing was for sure. She hadn’t expected Will to be gone or for her to feel what she felt right now once she realized he was.

Relief.

Whatever happened last night, Will was avoiding it, too. They wouldn’t have to talk about feelings and where this was going and whether or not she’d miss him when he was gone. If they didn’t discuss all that—
stuff
—then it wouldn’t become real.

Maybe they weren’t as opposite as she thought.

August

Chapter Fourteen

Will was sure Holly had been awake when he’d left this morning, but she never let on, just played her part in this dance they did, never sure who was leading.

He tilted his head back and let the shower spray pelt him in the face. This had become the routine. Ever since he’d pulled that bastard move, showing up at Holly’s on the Fourth and falling asleep in her bed, this was how the morning after went: slip out of bed before she woke, head back to the hotel to shower, show up to Trousseau separately, and go about their days as if they hadn’t slept naked and tangled together the night before. Holly never asked him to laze away the morning, and he never considered it.

He couldn’t explain why he could sleep through the night in Holly’s bed but not in his own…or why he needed to come back here for a reboot before getting on with his day instead of waking with a beautiful woman in his arms and seeing where those early bits of sunlight took them. Without discussion, they’d fallen into a routine of what worked for them—for their
arrangement
.

Will stepped out onto the cool ceramic tile of the hotel’s bathroom floor. He couldn’t see his unshaven self in the fogged mirror and was happy, for the moment, not to have any reminders of home, which was where he’d be heading this evening.

A buzz sounded from his phone on the counter, and he had to wipe the condensation off his screen before seeing whom the text was from.
Hot out today. Pick you up six shots on ice for the fittings this morning?

Will smiled at how well Holly knew what he liked, and it was immediate for him to respond with
Ta. I’d like that.

But his finger hovered above the word “send.” This wasn’t part of the routine. It had been a month since he came back on the Fourth, and in all of those weeks, they’d avoided this kind of familiarity. Shite, it was just a text, but the fact he was overanalyzing an offer for a coffee was enough to tell him that continued avoidance was the safer route.

He erased the response and typed a new one instead.
Already had a coffee at the hotel. Ta. See you at nine.

The first part was a lie, but Will hit send anyway.

…

Andrea was heading past the elevator when Will arrived, so she showed him straight back to the fitting room.

“Holly’s the best I’ve got, you know,” she said as they weaved through the cubicles on the side of the office opposite his.

Will nodded. He had no reason to argue that.

“She’s young and focused, a few years younger than I was when I started Trousseau, and I know she’s going to make a great partner
if
she doesn’t lose that focus.”

They stood outside the fitting room now, but Andrea wasn’t opening the door. Will realized she wasn’t making idle chitchat. She was warning him.

“Is there something you’d like to say to me, Andrea?”

She crossed her arms and narrowed her gaze at him.

“Yes, Mr. Evans. There’s
much
I want to say, but for now I’ll be brief. I know what it’s like to have to prove yourself. I had to prove I was more than someone who’d walked off a runway and into an office. And I’ve been making Holly prove herself since day one because I know she’s a natural, but I need my clients to believe it, too. I want to expand Trousseau’s business overseas, and I need potential clients to trust me
and
my staff. That’s why I haven’t handed her the partnership yet, and that’s why her first international venture has to go off without a hitch. Without distraction. Without
you
playing any part in ruining what could be a career-making event for her.” She let out a long breath but never broke her stare. “I want it to be clear that Ms. Chan is a very valued client, but if there is a conflict of interest between any of the parties involved, I hope you’ll remember what this job means to Holly.” Andrea nodded toward the closed door. “Am I clear?”

Will kept his tone even but felt remnants of a younger, more reckless self itching to break free and put Andrea in her place for assuming he was a threat. This job wasn’t important to just Holly. His future rode on it as well. It had taken him six weeks to relax into the idea of what he and Holly were doing, to be okay with having something to look forward to each day instead of just sleepwalking his way through to the Fridays he flew back to London. Hell, he was just starting to think he might even deserve the time he spent with Holly.

He let all of this swirl in his mind, a tornado of outrage and indignation, until he remembered one very important detail. “I do appreciate your concern, Ms. Ross, but would like to remind you that Trousseau is under the employ of my client, and I assure you there have been no complaints from her thus far. She thinks Holly’s ideas are brilliant—as do I. We all have the same goal here.”

“I hope you do,” she said.

He opened the door, prepared to leave it at that, but Andrea put a hand on his forearm.

“Be careful, Will.” Her voice was gentle but still held that air of warning. “Your client may employ my company, but I still run it. If whatever is going on between you and Holly—and don’t think for a second I don’t see the way you look at her when you think no one is looking—compromises this show in any way, I’ll pull her off it. I want Holly to succeed, but Trousseau comes first.”

His jaw clenched.

“Are we done, then?” he asked, and Andrea offered him one slow nod.

“I do believe we are,” she said, brows raised, and then she walked away.

Will Evans had just been dismissed.

He pushed through the door to the fitting room and found Holly in a floral halter dress surrounded by half-naked models while a couple of Trousseau’s seamstresses measured, cut, pinned, and draped Tallulah Chan’s pieces over the women who would wear next year’s spring line on the runway.

Holly beamed as she buzzed about the room, snapping photos for her plan book, and for a few moments he let himself get caught up in the frenzy…and in the pull of her orbit.

She made her way back to his side of the room and stopped in front of him, her radiant grin fading as her brows pulled together.

“What?”

She glanced at his right hand, the one that held a to-go cup from the fifth-floor café.

Oh. Right.

“I thought you’d already had a coffee at the hotel.”

Holly parroted his accent, something he usually found charming and even a little sexy—especially when she was straddling him naked. But this was different. She was…hurt. And he’d done that. He’d hurt her.

Will ran down the morning’s tally. He’d sneaked out on Holly after another amazing and surprisingly restful night. He’d lied to her, gotten skewered by Andrea, and then been caught in his lie.

And it was only nine o’clock. Brilliant.

Holly blinked, and her grin returned.

“Not my business,” she said. “You’re entitled to all the caffeine you need.”

But he knew Holly’s smiles now, and this one wasn’t real. Her disappointment, that was genuine, but she was trying to hide that now.

She flitted off to the next model to take photos of Tallulah’s freshly tailored piece.

It had all seemed so simple when he’d agreed to her proposal. Regardless of how much he knew he could fall for her, he also knew he shouldn’t. It was impractical in every way.

The white lie shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did. It was the emotional reaction from Holly that he wasn’t expecting, and from the looks of it, neither was she. A deep ache settled in his chest. Because, shite, he cared that it mattered, and he had no idea what to do with that.

Whatever game they were playing, the rules had just changed.

…

Will double-checked his calendar app to make sure he’d made all his phone calls and crossed any necessary appointments off his list. He knew he hadn’t missed anything, but his conversation with Andrea had eaten away at him the entire day.

He pulled his weekend bag out from next to the sofa and tossed it onto the conference table. So it had come to this—everything necessary in his life fitting into a bag that could be stowed in an airplane’s overhead bin.

He dropped down onto the soft cushion, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back. After a few moments of quiet, he’d regroup and head to the airport a bit early, have a drink in the airline’s VIP lounge.

“Knock, knock.”

His office door was open, so Holly spoke the words as she hovered in the frame of the entryway.

“Since when do you knock?” he asked, attempting a teasing smile, but it didn’t feel natural today.

Holly entered the room and pulled the door shut behind her. Will sat up straight and watched as she locked it, as she’d done several times before, then sauntered over to him.

“Holly, wait.” But she was already on his lap, knees hooked over his as the skirt of her dress pooled over them. She draped her arms around his neck and kissed him—soft and sweet, but something else lay beneath the surface. He kissed her back, realizing that despite Andrea’s words, he needed this—reassurance from Holly that what they were doing was still okay.

He pulled her hands gently from his neck and laid them against his chest.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “It’s serious, humorless Will. I thought he was on holiday. When’s fun Billy coming back?”

She said
holiday
with her improving English accent, and Will couldn’t help but smile.

He sighed. “Holly, Andrea knows. About us.”

She shrugged. “Andrea’s not here. You know she leaves early on Fridays.”

He did know this. It was the only reason he hadn’t rushed to throw his door back open when Holly entered. They were always careful not to let what they were doing as a couple make a mockery of what they were doing as business associates, but apparently they hadn’t been careful enough.

He tucked her fringe behind her ear, finding it hard to breathe as she leaned into his palm.

“Holly,” he said, his voice firm this time, and she dropped her hands from his chest.

“Okay. You’re freaking me out a little. Is this about the coffee earlier? Because it’s totally cool. I get that you—that
we
—need our space in the morning, and maybe I overreacted a teensy bit.”

“No, it’s not that. Really,” he said. “But she said—” He paused. If he continued that sentence—
But she said if she thinks you’re becoming distracted, she’ll take you off this show
—Holly would choose the show one hundred times over. And while he didn’t want to jeopardize her career, he also wasn’t ready to say good-bye to whatever they had started. Maybe it would end before their six months were up, but he needed time to gear up to that, not let it happen spontaneously. Because one thing was for sure. This would end. It had to. Outside the show he and Holly were planning together, their lives ran in two parallel lines. These six months were their only intersection.

So he let self-preservation kick in, believing he could protect her from losing this job while still getting what he wanted, what he knew she wanted, too.

“She said she doesn’t want me to distract you,” he told Holly, assuaging his guilt by at least offering half the truth. “
I
don’t want to distract you. This job is important to you, and I don’t want to be responsible for anything getting in the way of that.”

Holly rolled her eyes.

“Do you know anyone more focused on her career than me?” she asked, and he shook his head. “I’ve never once let
this
…” She kissed the line of his jaw, and he groaned. This only propelled her to do more, traveling toward his ear and then down the length of his neck, all the while brushing her lips across the short, soon-to-be shaved beard. “…distract me,” she added as her lips navigated their way to the other side of his face.

She was right. Holly never ceased to dazzle him with how good she was at what she did. She could wow investors with proposals, come up with a brilliant theme to tie the show into the hotel’s New Year’s Eve festivities, and direct the tailors and seamstresses into making Tallulah Chan’s pieces look exquisite on the models they’d hired for the show, never once faltering in her confidence that she could do any of it.

“No,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You haven’t. But if that starts to happen before our six months are up, then we stop. All right?”

She straightened and met his gaze, her eyes now devoid of the playfulness that sparkled in them moments ago.

“All right,” she told him. No argument. Instead she turned to face him, her legs straddling him under her dress. “I just stopped in to give you a proper good-bye before you leave for London,” she added, a small smile lighting up her features, one she had to know he was powerless against.

Will kissed her with abandon and ignored that word, “good-bye.” He pushed up her skirt and slid his fingers beneath her knickers, his thumb pressing against her clit. Neither spoke another word as she unbuttoned the jeans he’d already changed into for his trip and helped him wriggle free, taking his boxers with them. She pulled a condom from a pocket hidden in the full skirt of her dress, tore it open, and slid it down his length. Then she guided his hands as they removed the knickers.

Dress still on, the floral pattern covering them like a blanket, she lowered herself onto him, burying his erection to the hilt. Will breathed in sharply, a small growl vibrating over his vocal cords, and Holly let a soft moan slip from her parted lips. They’d made love in the office before, knew the unspoken rule to keep things—well—unspoken. But something about today felt different to him. Even though the show was four-plus months away, this afternoon was the first they’d spoken of what their future held, which was nothing beyond the new year.

Holly rose on her knees and descended upon him again and again in slow, measured movements, enough that Will pushed any thoughts of the future back to where they couldn’t interrupt the present. Because, good God, what this woman did to him.

He untied the halter from behind her neck, and as she writhed on top of him, the bodice of her dress fell. He laid his hands back on her hips, moving with her and simply admiring the view.