All Grown Up - Vi Keeland Page 0,4
damn thing was a work of art. Full and curvy—currently wrapped in tight red fabric that molded to her body—a perfect upside-down heart. When Logan’s head craned to the right and nearly touched his shoulder, I knew he was mentally flipping that heart right-side up.
Esmée reached the door and looked back over her shoulder with a flirtatious smile. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Donovan? Mr. Beck?”
“We’re good. Thanks, Esmée.”
Of course, Logan being Logan, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
“Do I have to work here to hear you say Mr. Beck with that accent every morning?”
Esmée was a recent transplant from Paris to New York. Her heavy French accent escalated her sexiness from an easy ten to an overflowing eleven-plus. I should have known better than to ask her to bring us coffee with Logan anywhere in the vicinity.
“Ignore my friend. He doesn’t get out in public much. Would you mind shutting the door behind you?”
When the door closed, I wadded up a paper from my desk and whizzed it at him. “Stop ogling my staff, douchebag. You’re going to get me sued for workplace harassment.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t made a play for that.”
“I don’t dip my pen in the company ink.”
“Since when? Last time I stopped by your office, you were banging that redhead from accounting with the sexy-as-shit shoes. And if I’m not mistaken, her cousin, too—at the same time, you lucky fuck.”
“That was a long time ago. I’ve matured since then.”
Logan tipped his chair back and smirked. “I forgot. That’s right. The receptionist—Ms. Mature. What was her name again? Misty? Marsha? Magdalene?”
“Maggie. And don’t remind me. That cost me a small fortune.”
“I would have paid a small fortune for what that woman gave you.”
“Except you don’t have a small fortune, asswipe.”
A few years ago I was going through a rough patch and not thinking with the right head. My receptionist videoed herself while giving me a blow job under my desk. I had no idea the whole thing was a setup. She’d positioned cameras from two different angles and told me to act like a pissed-off boss giving his secretary a job to do. I’d never been into role play before, but it turned out to be pretty damn hot.
Until she showed me a copy of the video and threatened to sue me for sexual harassment in the workplace. My attorney made me settle before it went to court. That was a business lesson in growing up they hadn’t taught me in college.
“So what’s our plan for next week?” Logan asked.
“My place at six. The C train is a block north on Eighty-first.”
Every year my college buddies got together for a weekend pub-crawl. We started early and hit a different bar within walking distance of each stop on a train line. One hour per bar. Ten stops on the train, ten different bars. Most years, guys started dropping by the fifth stop. But Logan and I always made it to the end. I paced myself, alternating waters between my drinks. Logan, well, he didn’t do the conservative approach. But the fucker could put away more drinks than anyone I’d ever met.
“What do you say we go warm up? Hit O’Malley’s?”
I looked at the time on my phone. “It’s ten thirty in the morning.”
Logan shrugged. “So?”
“I have actual work to do. In fact, you need to get the hell out of here. I have a meeting in ten minutes.”
“I still can’t believe you get to call sitting in this place and having that Persian kitten fetch you coffee, work.”
“A person from Paris is Parisian, not Persian, dumbass. And not everything is as simple as it looks.”
He shrugged and stood. “Whatever. Drinks tonight?”
“Can’t. Picking up Bella.”
“Annabella. How is your little sister?”
“Not so little anymore. Spent a semester abroad in Madrid. She’s flying home tonight. I told her I’d pick her up at the airport.”
“She’s in college already?”
“Going to start her second year. Nineteen.”
“Damn. She was always a cute little thing. Bet she’s a hot number now that she’s legal.”
“Don’t even think about it, asshole.”
Logan chuckled and held out his hand for a shake. We clasped. “Next week, then, pretty boy?”
The intercom buzzed, and Esmée’s voice came through. “Ford, you have Mrs. Peabody on the line.”
Logan’s forehead wrinkled. “Peabody? You still talk to that nutjob?”
“She’s not a nutjob… She’s just eccentric.”
“Eccentric is just the polite way of saying nutjob.” Logan shook his head. “I worry about you sometimes. I think you might be as nuts