The Two Week Arrangement (Penthouse Affair, #1)

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The smooth curve of Presley’s back rises and falls with her soft breathing. I’m not quite sure when she fell asleep because I was too busy watching the way the moonlight reflected off her creamy skin, reveling in the pleasurable calm thrumming through me.

What’s going to happen, Dom? Are you really going to let her stay the night?

That can’t happen. I don’t want to have to explain her presence to Fran in the morning, or deal with the possibility of waking up one of the girls while sneaking Presley out. Trying to put a toddler back to sleep at this time of night isn’t my idea of postcoital fun.

Presley shifts under my sheet, her thick hair splayed across my pillows. She nuzzles into the silken material. It occurs to me that she probably can’t afford the frivolous things I take for granted, like eight-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

I don’t want to wake her, I decide. Let her sleep for a little while more.

I roll out of bed and slip on the same pair of cashmere pants from earlier. As I tighten the drawstring, I imagine Presley pulling it loose later. The way her eyes look when she . . .

Get it together, man.

I make myself comfortable in the chair adjacent to the bed. I open my laptop, the soft glow of the screen the only light, except for the moon.

Presley’s messenger bag lies beside my chair, near my feet. Her laptop is in that bag, the sign of an employee who’s willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice to get the work done.

She’s so damn dedicated, with a work ethic that rivals my own. And it looks like she has plenty of work to do. There’s a folder poking out of her bag, likely jostled loose in our eagerness to get to the fucking part of the evening.

I stare at it, wondering. I haven’t given her an assignment lately. On one edge of the folder is scrawled a name.

Genesis . . . the software company that tried to ruin me.

I reach over, pick up the folder, and open it. My stomach twists at what I see.

“What are you doing?” Presley sits up in bed, the sheets pooling around her waist, her breasts naked in the dim light of the room. Her eyes are heavy with sleep and her cheeks rosy with warmth.

Meanwhile, I feel like I just swallowed a piece of coal. “What is this?”

Presley squints at the folder as if she’s trying to remember. Recognition flits over her features, then fear. “That’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

“It’s not my folder.”

“Then why do you have it?”

She sits up straighter, her eyes alert now. “A guy gave it to me.”

“A guy.” My heart rate is thrumming fast now, and anger boils through my veins.

“Someone I met,” she says. “I’ve only seen him like, three times.”

“Are you fucking him, too?” Presley finches at my words, but the adrenaline surging through my veins is too much to ignore. “Is this what you do? Sleep with whomever you think will help with your career?” I keep my tone calm and cold, and she watches me with huge, worried eyes.

I’ve been in this position before. Usually, though, I don’t catch the lie while the bed’s still warm. But Presley is young, and obviously sloppy at the ploy. Many women have wanted to bed me for different reasons, although money is usually at the top of that list.

Corporate sabotage is new. And from Presley, of all people? Fuck.

My heart jerks painfully inside my chest. I let her into my world. Hell, I didn’t just let her in, I was the one who invited her, who insisted. She’s met my daughters. Fallen asleep in my bed.

Nausea surges up my throat. All the cyber security bullshit we dealt with last year aged me a decade and cost me millions. I can’t go through that again.

“I wasn’t going to help him.” She leans forward in the bed, grasping the sheets in front of her.

That face could be earnest and honest—or it could be a mask. Presley has surprised me more than once with her ability to adapt her personality, depending on who she’s with. Why did I think it would be different with me?

“Please, Dom. You have to believe me.”

I want to.

I really do.

I pick up my pants from the floor and retrieve my wallet. My chest tight, I pull out its entire contents—likely around twelve hundred dollars. Holding the bills between two fingers, I offer the cash to Presley, inches from her face.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

“For tonight’s fuck.” My tone is cold, completely lacking any empathy.

Confusion and then hurt flash through those crystal-blue eyes as I toss the pile of money onto the bed. “Dom—Dom.” Presley jumps to her feet, tearing her clothes over her limbs in a scramble to get dressed.

I turn toward the door so I don’t have to see the pain in her eyes. “It’s just like you’ve heard, right? The rumors about me . . . that I can’t get off unless money changes hands. There you go. Take your money.”

“Dom, please. I’m not lying. I never meant to hurt you. Dominic, please—you have to believe me!”

She’s still trying to explain herself when I open the door to the hallway.

“You have to listen to me!”

I turn and look her straight in the eye, my tone calm, almost calculatingly so. “You’ll wake up the girls.”

Presley’s eyes well with tears, and she nods—a tight, business-like nod. This conversation is over. This meeting is adjourned. She turns back into the room, quietly picks up her things, including the cash, I note, and follows me out.

We don’t make a sound, our feet silent on the hardwood floors. When we cross into the hall leading to the front door, Presley takes my hand, forcing me to look at her. Her eyes are wild with emotion, but her jaw is set.

“You have to believe me.”

“I don’t have to do anything. But I recommend that you get off my property before I call the police and have you removed.”

“Dom . . .” Her eyes are bright, alert, and locked on mine.

My heart clenches painfully again. “I’ve paid you for your time. Now go.”

The front door clicks behind Presley, and suddenly I’m alone.

Which is exactly the way it should be.