With an opportunity of a lifetime to make her entrepreneurial dreams come true, Thea finds it getting increasingly harder to hide her attraction to her boss, Aiden Steele - not knowing that the man under all the cold layers has a secret worth millio...
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Don't fucking fall, Thea.
"You look... pretty," Aiden said as I walked up to him in the hotel lobby. He'd just looked up from his phone when I had exited the elevators. His stare on me was warming me more than the stiff material of the dress was, and that was saying a lot.
"Thank you." I blushed, even though I knew damn well I looked pretty. Aiden just didn't dole out compliments easily. "You clean up well too."
Aiden's charcoal suit was a vision out of a dream as if I needed more reasons to look at him and remind myself why all of this was a bad fucking idea.
Thea fucking fell.
Everything with Aiden was a bad idea. I wondered if I should just try finding a random French guy till he could fuck Aiden out of my system, but where was the time to go looking?
"I try." He grinned, and I could swear my heart started beating the wrong way. Dora the Dreamer's visions came to mind, of soft kisses under gauzy white sheets in the fogged-up dreamscape, and I snapped myself out of it quickly.
"Where's Monica?"
"She's come down with a stomach bug it seems. She'll be resting in her room." Aiden shrugged. "Shall we go? We'll be late for our reservation."
I took Aiden's arm when he offered, ignoring the warmth coursing through me and all the butterflies dancing under my skin. I tried to convince myself that I was just nervous about the fancy establishment we were visiting, but... maybe that was not it.
How hard would it be to admit it?
However stupid it was, a problem could only be resolved when one admits they have a problem in the first place. And my stubborn ass had spent hours looking in the mirror and reminding myself that I was not allowed to fall for this man. The reasons were several, starting with the fact that he didn't like me that way. I didn't bother learning more of them, really. Why start a venture you know would end in a failure? Stupid business decision. Asinine, if I were to use the dumb word I'd picked from Aiden's late-night cursing vocabulary. The sleepier he got, the worse his cursing got, to the point where I had to look up every third word.
Marseilles at night was arguably prettier than New York City, becoming a perfect blend of modernity and the old-world charm that I was slowly falling in love with. God, how would I go back to the States after this?
All my hesitations intensified as we entered the restaurant, and I couldn't feel more out of place if I tried. This was the place where women discussed scandals and clutched their pearls. Where men made million-dollar deals over scallops and eggs. And here was Thea, a new millionaire with $38,243 in her bank account. Having shares of Karlene Holdings on paper didn't mean I had all that money in the bank. Not until I decided to sell it to someone.
The maître d took us through the brightly lit hallways to the back, confusing me, but Aiden was following her like it was routine, so maybe for one night I could stop thinking too much and just go with the flow. We were led to a narrow staircase, which I took a while to climb with these terribly tall heels, entering a whole new world upstairs. The whole place had a vintage aesthetic to it, with rich reds and golds all over. The sparkling embellishments and the dark undertones made me feel like I was in the pages of a novel, a princess sneaking off to see her lover in the stables perhaps. How romantic.
