5200 words from Declan you’ve probably never read

Hi everyone!

Last year, I was invited to create a very special iBooks-only edition of Shopping for a Billionaire 1, with exclusive content. So many readers have, over the years, asked for DECLAN’S point of view regarding how he and Shannon met.

So I wrote it.

You may have missed it when it was on iBooks, but now you can read it!

Without further ado, to tide you over before Shopping for a Billionaire’s Baby comes out, here you go:

BONUS SCENE from Shopping for a Billionaire 1

This takes place at the beginning of Chapter Four in Shopping for a Billionaire 1, just as Shannon escapes from the bagel store after covering Declan in toilet juice. Here’s a, er… taste.

Declan

Who the hell did I just meet?

And how the hell can I meet her again?

She sprints out of the store like her gorgeous, curvy, grab-able ass is on fire, climbs into a condemned car, a rusted hulk of metal… something that looks like it belongs on an impound lot, which is great.

Opportunity comes when you least expect it.

There is no way that car is going to start. Impossible.

Perfect. Here’s my in.

Not that I need one.

I’ll offer her a ride, pick her brain, and get her to confess the truth: she’s a mystery shopper.

A damn fine one, I’ll add. Not once did she break her cover, even with her hand in a toilet and my hands all over her body.

A fine body.

She tries the engine. Nothing. Her frown is adorable, captivating, her nose wrinkling with a delicate, determined movement. Her hair hangs around her face in a halo, like a curtain that should be hovering over me, tickling my nose while she rides me, naked and luscious, that sweet skin all mine to touch, rising up above me like a cathedral tower.

Divine, as it stretches from earthly man to heavenly body.

I take a sip of my coffee and take one, two, three steps out of the shadows of the building, ready to initiate.

But no — to my surprise, the engine turns over, spoiling my plans. For a machine that looks like it belongs on a junk metal barge, the fact that it functions at all is a testimony to the mechanic.

Something rattles as she backs up slowly and peels out of the parking lot. No blinker as she turns right and drives away, headed west.

Away from Boston.

Blood rushes through me as I watch until her car’s long gone, but the memory of her curves lingers against my hands, her breasts pressed against me as I moved her off the toilet, filling me with a mix of emotions.

I’m aroused.

By…Toilet Girl.

Now I’m aroused and troubled.

Those eyes. Honey brown with a ring around them, fringed by long lashes and an eager curiosity I haven’t seen in any other woman. Ever. No pretense in those eyes, no affect in her voice, no makeup, no artifice.

That woman gave me a look that was one hundred percent real. Authentic.

And she was trying to get away from me.

Not asking me for something.

My chauffeur, Gerald, greets me at the discreetly-parked limo around the corner with a new suit jacket. How he knew I was just sprayed with toilet water is anyone’s guess, but that’s why we hired him.

To observe, protect, and provide me with non-germ-covered clothing and a Lysol’d body shield if needed.

“Sir?” he asks, face impassive. “To Anterdec headquarters?”

“Yes.”

“The check on the property was good?” He opens the back door and I glide in, distracted by the close-up vision of her eyes, her smirk, that sweet wit.

“Good, yes.” I frown and mutter, “Shannon Jackvony? Jacksony? What was her name again?” Memorizing names is my assistant’s job. Not mine.

I might not remember her last name, but that face. That body. That…everything.

“Sir?” Gerald’s voice goes up, the arc of his voice implying I’m asking him to do something.

I laugh instead, surprising us both, the sound resonating from me. It’s a radiating feeling, one I can’t quite pinpoint.

Because I haven’t felt it in years. More than ten, to be specific.

“I just met the most extraordinary woman, Gerald.”

“At the…bagel store?” Gerald has a way with tone. His words are in the form of a question, but his voice drops to chilled gravel.

“She’s a mystery shopper.”

“She identified herself to you? Isn’t that against policy?” He begins navigating the roads with ease, taking us in the opposite direction of Toilet Girl. A part of me sighs, wondering why I’m talking about a woman who dripped filthy water all over me and who dresses like half the homeless people who dot the streets of Boston. This isn’t me.

“No, she didn’t identify herself. In fact, she was willing to humiliate herself in order to protect her job.”

“Sounds dedicated.”

“Or crazy,” I mutter. She’s likely both.

And more.

“You were both on the same mission, then. Evaluating the store.” Being paired with her, even in Gerald’s words, fills me with a steely sense, a goodness coursing through me.

We were both on the same mission.

We.

Bzzzzz.

Text message. I check it, finding three. One from my executive assistant, Grace:

Consolidated Evalu-shop meeting today at four. Confirmed.

I roll my eyes and type back, There is no reason the VP of marketing needs to be there.

That’s me.

Your father insists, she types back. My father, James McCormick, is the CEO and founder of Anterdec.

Tell him I’m busy. Some random marketing coordinator can take care of this instead, I reply.

He wants you and Andrew there, Grace explains. Andrew is my brother. VP of Operations now, although Dad’s always changing his position. We’re both vying for CEO when Dad retires. Damn it. If Andrew goes and I don’t, it gives Dad more ammo to favor Andrew.

Fine, I type back through gritted teeth, as if Grace can see my anger. But schedule something else — anything else — fifteen minutes after, so I have an excuse to leave.

Done.

Next text message, from my brother: Workout after this stupid customer service meeting? Something about mystery shopping.

Adrenaline surges through me. Mystery shopper meeting? How did he know? I start to type back: Are you spying on me? but before I hit send, I realize he’s talking about Consolidated Evalu-shop. They’re trying to hook us as a client. A four million contract.

Andrew’s not talking about Toilet Girl.

I backspace and reply with: Sure. But none of that spinning shit you’re into.

He answers with a frown.

Third text message, from Jessica Coffin, an old girlfriend of Andrew’s: No call? It’s been two days, Declan. I miss you.

I can feel the pout through the glass screen.

Giving her my personal line was a huge mistake. We don’t date. Never did, unless you count the time she crashed a party at Harvard when I was an undergrad and sat in my lap, trying to get me to kiss her.

While she was dating my brother.

Jessica’s trying to rope me into helping with some art charity event at Smith College in a few months, drawing out the process, using it as an excuse to contact me whenever possible. She’s a user. A shrew. Social media celebrity – whatever that means. A million Twitter followers, a few hundred thousand on Instagram, small local endorsement packages, and an ego bigger than Facebook’s server farms.

Fake hair, fake face, fake tits, fake everything. Probably fakes her orgasms, too.

Not that I’d know.

The polar opposite of Shannon. I think.

Orgasms and Shannon in the same run of thoughts makes my blood race.

“Now I’m calling Toilet Girl by her first name in my mind,” I mutter as I close the text app.

And thinking about her orgasming.

Which makes me hard.

Which is ridiculous. Women don’t have this effect on me. Ever.

I have it on them.

I stare out my window, stores whizzing past as we make our way to the Pike so Gerald can get me to work, where I’ve been summoned by my overbearing father to attend a boring meeting that ranks dead last on my list of priorities.

In the grand scheme of life, how important can this meeting be?

* * *

“This is a ridiculous waste of time,” I tell Andrew, who taps his fingers on the table, his gesture a wordless agreement. We’re in the main Anterdec conference room, two doors down from my office, a room that reeks of my father. Dad would travel back in time and live at Delmonico’s steak house in New York if he could. Any room he can have decorated by his special person (a decorator I suspect is a secret vampire born in 1870) has thick Teddy Roosevelt leather chairs, fat oak furniture and Persian rugs. A Fortune 500 corporate HQ shouldn’t look like something from a nineteen-aughts mystery novel, but that’s my dad.

Andrew shrugs. “It’s Dad. So what? Ten minutes and we’ll know whether to green light the contract expansion. All I care about is my date tonight.”

I look out the window. “Tonight being the operative word.” Andrew doesn’t go outside unless he has to, unless there’s snow on the ground. Long story.

“At least I’m dating.”

“I date.”

“Jessica Coffin doesn’t count.”

“Good, because I’m not dating her.”

“She seems to think you are.”

“Wrong.”

“Tell her that.”

“No problem. I’ve said ‘no’ to her under more difficult circumstances.” We share an inscrutable look. Andrew won’t show any emotion. Being hit on by your younger brother’s girlfriend in front of him was awkward.

Mostly because I won.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not happy I won. I didn’t come on to Jessica back then – she threw herself at me in a bid to work her way up the Harvard social ladder.

But when you’re competitive like the McCormicks – we patented the DNA for competition – it matters.

Even if it’s distasteful, it matters.

“Who are we meeting again? Consolidated Evalu-shop?” Andrew asks, distracted by his phone. We’re on the twenty-second floor of the building, two offices away from mine. Everyone in the executive suite has a tremendous view of the ocean, the financial district rolling out to sea.

For our father, real estate is like a penis. The bigger, the better, and only three things matter:

Location, location, location.

“Yeah. Mystery shopping higher-ups. The owner and his two main managers.”

“What do they do?”

I check the agenda Grace sent me, my back slowly straightening as I stare at my phone, spine tingling. “Mystery shopping,” I say in a voice half full of awe, half choked. I’ll be damned. A vision of Shannon Whatsername consumes me, brown waves framing that sweet smile, bright, keen eyes piercing me. A man could spend too much time lost in watching her, wondering what she’s thinking, gazing at her as she breathes.

As she just is.

Andrew pretends to gag. “Great. Who cares?”

I glare at him, then realize he’s not talking about Shannon. He can’t. I haven’t said a word about her and don’t plan to. I have crossed an internal line and am offending myself by acting like a besotted schoolboy over a woman who dresses like she attends game shows for fun and pretends to have fetish sex with a fast food counter worker.

Bewilderment, or some emotion close to it, threatens to take over, a feeling so unfamiliar that I can barely name it. What the hell is happening to me?

“I guess Dad cares,” I tell him, trying to distract myself.

“Dad?”

“Dad.”

Like all great demons, speaking his name three times summons him. Dad walks into the room wearing a charcoal suit, grey tie, and with hair slicked back in that Gordon Gekko style so many 1980s-era CEOs still adopt. Worse: when their sons – my age – do it, too. That hairstyle died in 1991.

“We need this mystery shop contract to sail through.” Dad shoves a thick manila folder at Andrew, who slides it to me. “All the details look fine.”

“They should,” Andrew informs him. “My department combed over it, sent it to Declan’s directors, and it’s all rubber-stamped. Why do we need this meeting at all?”

Dad sighs, shaking his head slowly, one side of his mouth curling up as he gives Andrew a half-glare, half-tender look. “You undervalue in-person negotiations.”

“It’s not a negotiation, Dad,” I correct him. “Money’s figured out. This is a pointless gathering.”

“But the people aren’t. You learn more about the contract from in-person meetings than you do by reading the actual deal.”

A mixture of male and female voices in the hall catches my ear as Andrew leans in and whispers, “My Friday night date has a twin sister – you want in?”

All I can think about is Shannon.

And then suddenly, I conjure her. My mind has literally produced her, standing before me in the flesh.

I knew I was powerful, but damn.

In slow motion, I stand up, facing the door to find her there with a woman her age, jet black hair shining off the lights, a portly older gentleman with a friendly smile slightly behind them.

Shannon is wearing a rich copper-toned shirt, a navy skirt, and heels that make her jut forward just enough to show off the delicate curve of her breasts, then a nipped waist, followed by hips that don’t quit. She’s like watching an hourglass in motion. A 3D delight, flowing toward me, turning a bland world into a rich tapestry of color and sensual explosion.

Lust surges through me. The word lust doesn’t fully describe the all-consuming sense that when she looks at me, I’m a different person. Shannon’s eyes lock with mine, her face filled with a surprised embarrassment, but at the same time there’s a calculation in those eyes.

She is trying to understand.

Coincidence, they say, is fate in disguise. I’ve always dismissed that as a silly notion. Fate is what happens when you work hard. Fate is just another word people use to hide the deep underbelly of effort that comes long before.

But right now, staring into Fate’s eyes, I’m pretty sure I’ve been wrong all along.

And I don’t do wrong.

I smile, every muscle in my face activated by the vision of her before me, the mystery of this person I just met hours before. Potential hovers between us, eager and waiting. Her cheeks are flushed just enough, her lips closing, tongue peeking out and top teeth biting down on that full lower lip.

And still, she watches me, not breaking the gaze.

If every emotion pounding through me right now is just a taste of what’s coming next, then I need to show her who is boss here. Make it clear I’m not losing it on the inside just hours after meeting her in a men’s room.

Whatever I say next charts our destiny.

And if I am a master at anything, it’s the subtle art of timing.

My smile widens, my pulse galloping through me as I open my mouth and greet her with the most sophisticated come-on line my distracted mind can come up with.

“Toilet Girl!”

There are so many ways the next few seconds could unfold as Shannon stands there, mouth moving like a guppy out of water. She could pretend she has no idea what I’m talking about. I see the idea pass through her mind, lips pursing, eyes narrowing.

She could scream at me and run away. The view would be magnificent, long legs brushing against each other, ass a fine sculpture in motion.

I don’t expect her to laugh.

That’s exactly what she does, hand outstretched and a mirth-filled grin making her eyes turn into caramel-warm triangles, the confidence coming out of nowhere.

No. Not quite.

Her confidence comes from us. This. Whatever brews in the space between us.

My hand almost touches hers as the woman standing next to her, all onyx hair and big round eyes, looks at her with an arched eyebrow and says to Shannon, “That’s Hot Guy?”

Hot Guy? 

Once they give you a nickname, you can start ordering breakfast because it’s a sure thing. Oh, yeah.

I tuck my chin for a moment to smother a grin, then look at her.

Gotcha!

Because my little brother is incapable of not being the center of attention for thirty seconds, he steps between us, introducing himself to Shannon’s co-worker.

“Hello. I’m Andrew McCormick, and you are…?”

“Amanda Warrick,” she says with a clipped, professional cadence. The lingering handshake is mutual, though.

He seems to drop her hand with great reluctance, then turns to Shannon, who is still watching me as if she can’t decide whether to sleep with me or throw my smartphone in a toilet.

Or both.

“My brother calls you Toilet Girl, but I’m going to assume that’s a stage name?”

Amanda snickers.

Dad clears his throat, giving me a glare I don’t care about, and says to Shannon, “You look a bit…flushed.” One corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes tell a different story. He doesn’t know what the joke is, but he wants to be in on it.

The room descends into chaotic laughter.

“Shannon Jacoby,” she says, clearly overriding her discomfort and giving Dad a firm handshake. Unlike most women in business, she doesn’t overdo it, attempting a death grip  – but she doesn’t back down, either.

“I take it you two have met?” Andrew says to me. He cuts his eyes over to Shannon as if to ask a million questions, though I know the main one on his mind.

Probably the only one.

Did you two have sex?

I give him a small head shake.

His eyes turn predatory, taking in Shannon with a look that fortunately migrates over to Amanda. His gaze lingers before catching my eye, then darting to Shannon and back to me.

I give him another head shake, this one including a scowl, the combination the universal nonverbal cue for You try to sleep with her and I’ll turn your balls into cufflinks.

Shannon and Dad are still locked in a handshake when I look at their hands and say, “Careful, Dad—you don’t want to know where that hand’s been.”

She freezes, anger rippling through her face in a sudden torrent, like a spring shower that appears out of nowhere, changing the scent in the air, making every hair on your body stand up in those seconds before the downpour begins.

Releasing Dad, she takes a step toward me and says, “May I speak with you for a moment?” through gritted teeth. Her request isn’t a question. It’s an order.

I don’t take orders, but I’ll make an exception this one time.

For her.

I step into her space and touch the base of her spine, a gentleman’s guidance meant to usher her a few feet away to a more private spot for conversation.

That’s what should happen.

Instead, time stops.

My entire life has been a lie. I didn’t know it until this moment, my fingertips grazing the top of her hip, my palm flattening against her back, drawn to the warmth of flesh and bone. I thought myself to be complete, living a life full of attention and purpose, VP of one of the biggest companies in a major East Coast city, poised to become CEO.

I thought of myself as someone in command of his emotions, ruled by rational thought and logic, someone who moved through life with a sense of authority and mastery, driven by efficiency and power.

I considered myself king of whatever reality I created, untouched by others’ vibrations, never distracted by the irrational emotional antics of children masquerading as adults.

I was wrong.

Doubly wrong.

Apparently, I do, in fact, do wrong.

But only with her.

We both freeze. I cannot move, my hand the only piece of the world keeping me in place, a live wire drawing and conducting the energy required to keep me alive. Unplug me from Shannon and I’ll collapse, disconnected from meaning, left untethered and aimless, floating in a sea of triviality.

After you’ve seen what could be, even for just a few seconds, going back to anything less is unbearable.

I lean down, struggling to control my breath, to evacuate the shakiness in it. I breathe hard against her ear, pause, then blow lightly on the sweet strands that tickle her ear as I confess, “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

Unlike mine, her breath tremors, vibrating with a vulnerability that makes my chest ache. She feels it, too. How could she not?

The relief of knowing she feels it roots me in place, making it harder to let go.

“Toilet water has that effect on men. They ought to bottle it and sell it at the perfume counter of Neiman Marcus,” she cracks, the sarcasm a tool, a deflector, a defense.

I say nothing, standing my ground. My words are not a game play. I literally can’t move, can’t speak, can’t stop touching her.

Won’t stop touching her.

“What were you really doing in that bathroom?” I finally ask, the hand on her back moving in slow circles. She leans in, toward the touch, releasing a scent of vanilla and lemon soap, of something tangy and sugary that I want to taste now. I look at her lips. “You clearly weren’t a student on her way to class.”

I resist the urge to smell her hair.

“PlentyofFish.com wasn’t doing it for me, so…”

“You’re on the market?” I ask, keeping my voice light. “No boyfriend? What about Mark J.?  All that sex in the cooler, next to the salad bins.”

She tenses, sacrum curving, taking my hand with it as my thumb grazes the cleft of her ass. “You called me Toilet Girl at a business meeting.”

“And I’m Hot Guy?”

Her eyes close and tighten, wincing, nose wrinkling in such an adorable expression I have to curl my free hand into a fist to avoid pulling her into my arms for a kiss.

“How about Hot Guy and Toilet Girl get a cup of coffee after this meeting and see what happens?” I ask, struggling to control my voice. No one else exists. I can hear them in the background, Dad and Andrew shooting daggers at me as they huddle, Amanda and the older guy with her trying to make small talk.

“You’re asking me out at a client pitch meeting?” Shannon asks, in a tone that makes it clear guys don’t hit on her in office settings. Maybe guys like Mark J.

Not like me.

“Would it help if I confess you’re my first?” I whisper, leaning in, unable to hold back from smelling her hair after all.

“You’re a virgin?” Shannon says loudly, just as my father clears his throat. He rolls his tongue in his mouth and gives me a weathered look, a finely aged glance I know all too well.

He’s disgusted with me.

Which is his baseline.

Andrew’s crooked grin makes it clear he’s just loving my humiliation. Family culture: why support each other when you can undermine and be top dog for a while?

Before I can respond to Shannon’s joke, we’re rudely interrupted.

“If we could get back to business,” Dad says, motioning all of us to sit at the large oak table, his big hands splayed against the old grain of the polished wood. He sits at the head of the table, imperious and nonchalant, as if he’s simultaneously in charge and doesn’t give a shit.

Shannon sits down, facing the window. I sit across from her.

My view is better.

The older guy on their team – George? Jerry? I didn’t catch his name – drones on about customer service evaluations and marketing metrics. I cut covert looks at Dad and Andrew. Waste of time. We know we’re giving them the contract, so it’s torture to let this guy bloviate when I could be spending these precious minutes getting to know Shannon.

With my tongue.

A mental list of the last three women I’ve dated filters through my mind as Shannon gives George here her full attention. Not one image of those women is in full color. All are grayed out, muted and dull, while Shannon is in front of me in bold color, live and lush.

I grab my phone and pretend to text, but go to Facebook instead and type “Shannon Jacoby.” More names than I’d expect pop up, but I find her immediately.

Relationship status: single.

Amanda stands up, makes eye contact with everyone, and begins the presentation, her movements carefully calibrated, her presentation skills flawless. I don’t bother to watch. They got the contract. This is a dog and pony show Dad is making them go through.

I have more important people to watch.

Scrolling through Shannon’s Facebook profile, I find statuses devoted to social events, pictures of some cute little boys, and memes. So many memes. The kids make me pause for a second, looking up at her, then back down. Sons? Could she have kids already?

Not an automatic deal breaker.

More pictures. A woman who looks more like the kids holding them. A cat. Another picture of the cat, this time wearing a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish!” hat. It looks like someone put green lipstick on the cat. I didn’t know cats even had lips.

The cat looks homicidal.

I don’t blame you, buddy.

And then I flinch, almost dropping my phone, because there’s a blonde woman staring back at me with Shannon’s eyes, except they’re blue and older.

Crazy eyes.

You can learn more than you’d expect by studying a person’s eyes. Dilated pupils, how the skin folds around the outer edges, whether the eyes dart and in which direction during conversation – you name it. Entire sub-sectors of business guides are devoted to eyes.

This woman looks like Charles Manson’s daughter.

That better not be Shannon’s mother. Those eyes?

Deal breaker.

I scroll with more urgency as Amanda recites some statistic about correlations between clean bathrooms and product returns as I slowly become aware of Shannon’s interest in me. It’s subtle. I’ll give her that. Being watched isn’t new to me. Women do it all the time.

But for entirely different reasons.

The last woman I dated a few weeks ago, Ayla, was a supermodel gunning to become the next Giselle Bündchen. She didn’t want to date me. She thought she did.

What she wanted was the status of dating me. The access to people in my circle.

By catching my attention and being invited as my date to an autism fundraiser organized by a famous former football player’s foundation, she met current professional football players. Can’t marry the next Tom Brady without rubbing elbows with him.

Among other body parts.

And my body is a social ladder more than enough women want to climb.

That’s how dating works in my world. We’re all users. No one’s viewed as fully human. We’re not quite numbers. More like profiles, but in a different sense than a dating profile. As one of the heirs to the Anterdec throne, I’m analyzed for my looks, my money, and my ability to gain access to the highest levels of Boston society events.

Define “society.”

Jessica Coffin – Andrew’s high school ex – treats Boston society social climbing like a Mount Everest expedition. She’s the flag planter, the queen of the hill.

Beacon Hill, that is.

Back in my days at Milton Academy, then Harvard, the dating lens I acquired was like a callus on a guitar player’s fingers. In order to develop mastery you have to give in to the pain. Accept it. Comes with the territory of reality.

And my reality is this: women are attracted to me for what I can do for them. All I can do is take what I can to meet my own needs and move on. It’s a mutually exploitative exchange. My good nights involve getting as much out of a lovely woman as she gets out of me, then going home to do business with movers and shakers in countries nine time zones away.

I’m watching Amanda but cut my eyes over to Shannon, who is staring at me. I stare back. I don’t have a choice.

She’s giving me so much with those eyes.

Too much.

This is no equal exchange.

“Shannon,” Amanda says politely, her hand gesturing toward her colleague, the universal conference room baton-passing ritual during presentations.

I see Shannon’s chest rise and fall, but only in the periphery. Her eyes are worlds. The only world I want to live in right now.

“Shannon!” Amanda says again, hissing out of the side of her mouth.

Nothing.

Amanda moves sharply, the lower half of her body lurching.

“OW!” Shannon blurts out, eyes breaking from mine, brow turning down in a glare at Amanda.

“It’s your turn, Closer,” she whispers. Shannon looks around the table. James, Andrew, and her boss – Grant? – look at her expectantly. I turn away, completely overwhelmed.

What the hell am I doing? Biting my tongue to stop from laughing, I do an internal inventory, forcing distance between my emotions and my reality. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night. It’s possible Jessica’s constant texting is getting to me. My last workout was two days ago. I have a big New Zealand deal to close in the next few months.

My game is on, though.

Blinking hard, I look back at her while she uses the same deck, giving all the reasons why Anterdec should use her company’s services. Imagine she’s just another businesswoman giving a pitch, I tell myself.

Naked.

On red silk sheets, wearing garters and heels.

I shake my head slightly, slipping my phone into my breast pocket. Can’t say I’m not rattled by the places my mind takes me when I look at her, but this is about as unprofessional as it gets.

I square my shoulders, ignore the growing tightness in my pants, and give her my full attention.

My full professional attention.

“Hotel mystery shops typically have the obstacle of — ”

Hotels. Hotel beds. Jacuzzi tubs in hotels. Cabanas on the beach in Fiji.

Naked Shannon on a bed in a cottage on the beach in Fiji, long hair in waves across those ripe, round breasts —

I startle. I’ve gone insane.

I have two choices here. I can suffer, or I can act.

It’s really not a choice.

Dad frowns, looking at me. He’s pissed. I’m sending out some kind of signal, one I need to short circuit. Nothing I’m feeling can be communicated to him. I don’t give a shit if he knows I’m attracted to Shannon.

I mean that he can’t have access to my feelings. McCormick men don’t feel.

They act.

I stand up, thighs hitting the table and jogging it slightly. “We have another meeting to get to,” I say, emotional shield engaged.

“We do?” Andrew exclaims.

I kick him under the table.

“Ow!” I shoot him a fierce look.

“We do. And as the new VP of marketing, I’m the decision maker here, right?” I challenge Dad with a look.

Meanwhile, Shannon’s standing in front of the projector screen, eyes flitting all over the room, assessing and scanning, tracking and reading the layout of the land.

Cute. She’s trying to figure out whether she’s won the contract.

I’m trying to figure out how to get alone time with her.

“Is there a reason why you won’t have me finish the presentation?” Shannon demands, voice going cold with outrage.

“Oh, you’ll finish it.” I match her tone. It makes my jaw ache, and I bite my tongue. “But I can’t now.” I pretend to look at something on my smartphone, a business-related item of such importance that I have to leave.

It’s actually a picture of Shannon on a beach, skin tanned and cheeks pink, a floppy straw hat pressed to the crown of her head by her hand as she laughs in the wind.

I want that smile. I want that woman.

I want that life.

Dad’s eyes narrow. “Of course, it’s your call.”

“But my presentation has some hard data that could really affect your decision,” Shannon argues, clearly needing to finish. Persistence is a trait I admire in people.

Especially myself.

“I’d like to reschedule your presentation,” I say, amazed my mouth manages only that. All sense of self-control fades the longer I’m around her. Andrew follows me into the hallway.

“When?” the older guy – Gary? – asks, his voice thinning out as I walk away.

“Tonight. Shannon and I will have a dinner meeting. Seven. Wear something nice,” I call back, unable to look at anyone, needing space. Just give me five minutes alone and I’ll be fine.

Give me five minutes alone with Shannon and I’ll be even finer.

Someone touches my shoulder before I can pivot and turn toward my office. The warmth shoots through me like an arrow piercing my breastbone. I turn, knowing it’s her, the unmistakeable current between us an identifier, an imprint.

A mark.

“You can’t just order me to go on a date with you!” Shannon insists, but when our eyes meet, I see it.

She feels it, too.

Certainty shoots through me, the same feeling I have with a new merger, an international contract, a new acquisition. This is more powerful, a jacked-up sense of completion that I can’t process in front of other people.

“Who said anything about a date?” I give nothing, turning my face to stone, sure that I’m leaking my heart out onto the floor for everyone to see. “It’s a business meeting. Seven tonight. Leave your address with Stacia and she’ll have a driver sent to your home.”

I walk away, knowing she’ll be there when I arrive at her house.

At seven.

Tonight.

Andrew follows behind me, shocked when I peel off, enter my office, and close the door in his face. All of Boston stretches out before me behind my desk, rich waves of buildings and roadways, of shoreline and ships, water dotting the landscape like background noise, filling in all the cracks where manmade earth can’t touch.

Deep breaths, Declan. You can breathe without her. You have for twenty-nine years. Nothing has changed.

By my third inhale, I see how wrong I am.

Coincidence.

Fate.

What the hell just happened back there?

I press my hands into the edge of my desk, facing the view, and stare out into the horizon, letting all my shields down, allowing my thoughts to run wild.

I wonder if she ever wears red garters.

🙂

Declan and Shannon have, since the first Shopping book, gotten engaged, married, had a honeymoon, bought a coffee chain, and now they’re having a baby!

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By Julia on March 19, 2018   /   Excerpts, Upcoming releases   /   13 Comments