He grins, sliding down to kiss my lips. “Wonderful morning,” he corrects. “Go back to sleep.”
“Not if you won’t be here when I wake up.”
He chuckles. “I can’t promise that I will, but we can have dinner tonight. At my place. I’ll even cook if you want.”
I grin. “I want.”
I watch him get up and walk naked into the adjoining bathroom. By the time he comes out a few minutes later, I’m already drifting off, but I feel the soft kiss he places on my cheek before he leaves.
BY the time I finally wake up, take a quick shower, and go to the kitchen for my wake-up cup of coffee, Laurie is already fully dressed, sipping from a large coffee mug.
“Good morning,” I mumble, going to pour myself a cup.
“You can walk!” she smirks teasingly. “I’m surprised.”
I meet her eyes and blush. “Shut up.”
“I won’t.” She gives me a dirty wink. “I couldn’t sleep. I heard everything.”
“No, you didn’t. The walls aren’t that thin. Anyway, now you know what I have to put up with whenever Brett spends the night.”
She nods and a small frown covers her face. I notice the frown and cluck sympathetically. “Don’t worry about him. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re a tyrant, but he loves you too much.”
She sighs. “I hope so.” She picks up her purse. “I’m leaving now. See you later.”
AT the office, I work on some of my articles, attend a few meetings, and even listen to Chelsea complain that she suspects her next door neighbor at her expensive Park Avenue apartment of being a bodyguard hired by her father.
“He’s insanely hot though,” she tells me. “Maybe I’ll just seduce him to piss off my dad.”
“Your dad will just hire someone else.”
“He probably will.” She groans. “He’s so hung-up on the idea that someone is going to kidnap me or something. Seriously! That went out of fashion with Patty Hearst!”
Back in my office, my phone rings, and I’m pleased, almost giddy to find that it’s Landon.
“What’re you doing?” he asks.
“Earning my income. You?”
“Resenting the fact that I can’t come over there and whisk you away.”
“We’ll see each other tonight,” I remind him.
He sighs. “No, we won’t. I have to go to Europe. In fact, I’m at the airport now. There’s a little crisis concerning a property I’m planning to purchase.”
“You’re going away?” I frown, dismayed at the fact that I won’t see him tonight, and maybe for a while after. “For how long?”
“A few days. Maybe a week.”
I sigh. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
There’s a pause at his end. “Will you miss me?”
I miss him already. “I’ll miss a lot of things about you.”
He chuckles. “Like what?”
“You know what.”