STEP BY STEP (17 page)

“Ruthie,” I said as I
approached her desk. “I’m just going to slip in and see Preston.”

“Oh,” she said, standing up
as if to stop me. “He’s not here, Ms. Baker.”

“He’s not?” I asked, one
eyebrow
raised
. “He’s always here. Where is he?”

“A meeting?” she said. I
could tell she was lying. She was a horrible liar. “Off site.”

“Did he say where?” I asked
casually. “Just curious.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she
answered. “He did not.”

I headed back to my office,
texting him once more. It was so bizarre that he’d go radio silent on
me and that he
’d have sweet old Ruthie lying to me for him.
My heart began to sink at the thought of us never bouncing back from this. What
I thought of as a small hiccup, Preston must have seen as a nuclear bomb.

The second I sat my purse
down on my
desk,
I heard a commotion out in the hall.
Shouting. Yelling. Raised voices. That never happened there. I peeked my head
out only to find Sapphire, Carter, and Preston going at it.

Through all the chaos, I
heard words throw around like blackmail and extortion and career suicide.

“What is going on?” I ran out
into the hall and interrupted them.

“Mirabelle, we’re getting out
of here,” Preston grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me down the hall past my
office where I grabbed my purse. I spun around to catch one last glimpse of
Carter and Sapphire, who looked concerned, like their entire little plan had
backfired right in their faces.

“Are you going to tell me
what’s going on?” I asked him as we ran outside and he hailed a cab.

A yellow taxi pulled up and Preston
opened the door. The second we were situated
inside,
he cupped my face in his hands and pressed his lips against mine.

“God, I’ve missed that,” he
said.

“Preston, what on God’s green
earth is happening?” I asked, still flabbergasted.

“I got ‘
em
,”
he said proudly. “They’d been trying to set me up for a while. They were even
going to use you as a pawn.”

“What?”

“Oh, they had big plans,” he
said, his eyes excited. “They were going to use you to pin me with sexual
harassment and they were going to blackmail me into folding my company and
giving them my client list.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I called them out on it in
front of everyone there today in a meeting,” he said. “You walked in as they’d
taken me out to the hall. Every one who works for them now knows how shady they
are and how they’re going to be taken down for their illegal practices. They’re
all going to get the hell out of there, and he’s going to be left with nothing
but one, giant lawsuit courtesy of my
laywer
and a
mountain of legal bills.”

“Damn.”

“They were threatening to
destroy your career as well,” he said. “You were innocent in all this. I
couldn’t stand back and let them do anything to you.”

“Wow,” I said, still in shock.

“I’m sorry I had to go radio
silent on you,” he said, his hand gripping mine. “I’ve been working with my
attorney all week. It was so hard not to tell you what was going on.”

“So…this wasn’t about the
baby?” I asked.

He paused. “I was upset about
that for about a day. And then I realized you’re a good person, and you really
did do it because you loved him. And you were right – it’s not fair for
me to compare you to my mother.”

I smiled sweetly.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he
said, kissing my hand.

“You
gonna
tell me where to go or what?” the cabbie asked,
interrupting us. “Meter’s been running since you two popped in here.”

Preston directed him to his
apartment.

“So we’re not going to the
office?” I asked, surprised.

Preston stayed
quiet
the rest of the car drive and then led me up to his
apartment as soon as we arrived.

He slammed me up against the
wall in a fit of passion the moment we stepped inside.

“I love you, Mirabelle,” he
said. “I’d do anything for you.”

I kissed him back. “Where’s
this coming from? Did you take me back here just to tell me that?”

“Please work for me?” he
begged as his fingers unbuttoned my shirt, working down one button at a time.
He was begging me to work for him, but he was taking my body. He knew damn well
he didn’t have to beg for that.

His hands unzipped the back
of my pencil skirt and tugged it down over my curvaceous hips and thighs until
I was standing before him in my bra and panties.

His mouth pressed into the
flesh of my neck as his fingers drew a line down the front of my chest and
stopping just outside my panties. I didn’t want him to stop and the
anticipation was killing me.

I reached down and unbuckled
his pants, tugging them down.

“Work for me, Mirabelle,” he
whispered. “I’ll protect your career. I’ll protect your heart.”

I knew he meant what he said.
I knew he’d do anything for me, and he’d do anything to have me working for
him, with him, day in and day out.

“I want to see you everyday,”
he said between soft kisses that peppered my skin. “I want to take you to the
top with me.”

“I want full autonomy,” I
panted. “I get to call my own shots. My opinions have weight too.”

“You want to be my partner,”
he said. “Okay, fine.”

His hands slipped my panties
down, and he hoisted me over to the nearby marble counter of his kitchen,
spreading my legs apart. The hot wetness of his tongue began swirling circles
around my feminine folds, hungrily, needy, wanting more.

I released a breathy sigh as
I
laid
back on the cool marble and relaxed while Preston
pleasured me.

“Make me partner, baby,” I
sighed as he went to town. “Make me partner and I’m all yours.”

“Maybe someday when we’re
married,” he said between licks and swirls. “When we’re married you’ll
definitely be my partner.”

My heart skipped a beat at
the mention of the m-word. We’d only been together a short while, but I knew he
was falling for me fast and hard.
And I him.
I was
blown away by the fact that he was even thinking that far ahead.

My body started to convulse
and shiver under the pressure of his wet tongue and I leaned down to grip a
handful of his soft brown hair as I
orgasmed
into
oblivion.

Preston stood up, his hips
level with mine, and pulled a condom from a drawer in the kitchen, slipping it
over his throbbing member. He pressed himself
into me,
filling all my spaces and tingling each and every little nerve,
and
began thrusting himself in and out of me while he gripped the sides of the
counter.

“Oh, god,” I yelled out as he
filled me. “Don’t stop, don’t stop!”

It felt so good to be
connected with him physically and mentally. We were finally on the same page,
seeing eye
to eye. He wanted to protect me and provide for
me, and no man had ever loved me like he did before. Certainly not Andrew or
the various losers I’d briefly dated in college. Preston was a man.
A real man.
With real, genuine intentions.
He was no longer that jerk older brother figure I’d once lusted after,
scribbling our names together in my notebooks.

As Preston came to the brink,
his hands slipped around my hips, bracing my body as he filled the condom with
his explosion inside of me. He fell over in a heap on top of me, our bodies
sticky and melded to one another.

“Yes,” I said, heaving. “Yes,
I’ll work for you.”

Preston smiled, spent, and
helped me down from the counter.

“You want to be partners?” he
asked.

“Are you asking me to marry
you?” I replied, my head cocked.

“Maybe.”

“
Hm
,”
I said, studying his face.

“I’m ready, Mirabelle,” he
said. “I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level. I’m ready to
relinquish some of my control to you, both in and out of the boardroom. I trust
you. I don’t want my past to tarnish our future.”

“I thought you were an ad
man,” I said. “For an ad man, that was a pretty basic proposal.”

“What?” Preston laughed. “Are
you serious?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I kind of
am.”

I leaned over and kissed him.
“I should get going. I’ll see you in the office on Monday, okay?”

I slipped my clothes back as
he watched me, completely dumbfounded. Everything had happened so fast, and
there was no need. I had no problem waiting and taking things slow. I’d always
dreamed of a perfect proposal and that was far from it. Being whisked from my
evil day job, being fucked on a counter, and then having him randomly ask me
without a ring was not my idea of romance and certainly not the way I wanted to
tell my grandchildren someday.

Walking into my office Monday
morning was like a breath of fresh air. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t
dread waking up in the morning. I looked forward to going to work, to seeing Preston,
to seeing the familiar faces of Ruthie and Monica and the others. I was ready
for a clean slate and a fresh start, and I missed my big, beautiful city-view
office.

I slipped my key into the
lock and pressed the door open, swinging it widely. The
floor
to ceiling windows were
just as sparkling and breathtaking as they were
the first time I’d seen them.

I glanced over at Preston’s
door, which was shut, and headed that way. As soon as I went to open it, I
realized the door was locked. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. “Preston?”

Nothing.

I walked back to my office
where a note was sitting on the seat of my leather chair.

DEAR MIRI,

HAPPY FIRST DAY BACK AT WHAT
WILL SOMEDAY BE WOODFIELD AND BAKER. PLEASE MEET ME AT RANALLO’S ON 5
^TH
AT 11 O’CLOCK SHARP.

LOVE,

PRESTON

Ranallo’s
had recently become our new restaurant
and a frequent date night favorite.

I wonder why he wants me to
meet him there at eleven? I wondered as I pressed the smooth stationery against
my cheek.

I settled into my desk and
watched the clock all morning. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t concentrate. And
without Preston there tasking me with a new account, I didn’t know what I was
supposed to be doing.

As soon as the clock neared
11, I left the building and hailed a cab to
fifth avenue
,
where I approached a darkened, locked up
Ranallo’s
.

I lightly rapped on the door,
hoping someone was inside and would hear me. I peeked into the glass of the
front door and saw a bit of movement in the distance, and soon a woman dressed
in black and white opened the door.

“Are you Mirabelle?” she
asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come inside,” she said,
widening the door and then relocking it behind me.

“What’s going on?” I asked
her. Preston was definitely up to something.

“Follow me,” she said,
leading me to a private dining area that had been basically converted to a
wide open
space. Tables and chairs had been cleared and
pushed against the walls and candles were lit on every table. The only thing I
could see was the outline of Preston standing in the middle of the room on
bended knee with a Tiffany ring box propped open.

“Mirabelle,” he said as I
walked towards him. “You’re a sweet, traditional girl. You’re my world. You’ve
changed my world. You’ve made me a better man. I can’t go through the rest of
this life without you. I’ve lost you before. I don’t want to ever lose you
again.”

I smiled as I walked over to
him, tears rushing down my cheeks.

“Will you please become my
wife?” he asked. “Marry me, Mirabelle.”

“Yes!” I said, nodding my
head over and over.

He stood up and slipped the
enormous, sparkling rock onto my left ring finger and then leaned in to plant a
sweet kiss on my lips. “I love you, Mirabelle.”

“I love you too.”

As the silent room nearly
swallowed us, the sound of cheering and clapping began to reverberate around
us. I pulled away from him, expecting to see the restaurant employees cheering
us
on,
only I was surrounded by the people I loved
most.

“Mom! Dad!” I said. “Oh, my
gosh! Madison!
Kaia
!”

I ran over to them, hugging
them all.