Breaking All Her Rules (2 page)

“This is your professional offering?” she asked, arching a brow.

“Ouch. I didn’t know you were an art critic.”

“Maybe I missed my calling.”

“Maybe. Though, I think most critics have a little bit of a meaner look about them.”

“I don’t look mean?” she asked, forcing her eyebrows together, feeling her forehead crinkle. She was risking fine lines for this guy, what the eff was wrong with her?

He held out his hand and planted his thumb between her brows, smoothing out her forehead. “Not so mean.”

She should be annoyed that he’d touched her. He didn’t know her. What right did he have to touch her?

“I...”

His gaze dropped to her mouth and all the words got completely sucked out of her head. Every word she knew in English and Mandarin. And the little bit of high school Spanish she remembered, too.

All with his eyes. Those were some very powerful eyes.

And he started leaning in. Oh...no. What was she going to do? This man that she didn’t even know was about to press his mouth to hers, and she wanted him to. Oh...oh...shoot.

The cab pulled up to the curb and stopped.

“My stop,” she said, jerking back from him, her hand searching for the door handle. She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty. “Just...keep the change. I...yeah.” She started to get out.

“Wait,” he said.

She turned, his absolutely perfect face stopping her in her tracks for a moment. “What?”

“Your phone.”

She reached in and grabbed the phone off the seat. “Thanks. See you...well, I won’t see you.”

She closed the door and headed toward her office building, her hands shaking. Her whole body shaking. She’d just been saved by a timely stop.

Saved from making a huge mistake.

She curled her hands around her phone, the picture of the fox pressed up against it. Yes, it would have been a mistake.

And she didn’t have time to linger on it. She had work to do.

Chapter Two

Grace whipped her phone out as soon as she hit the elevator. She swiped the slider and the phone opened, without asking for a code.

Weird.

The email icon at the bottom showed two hundred unread messages. Just the sight made her insides recoil in horror. “What the...”

She scrolled through the icons and saw...an app containing sex facts, and one containing information about beer.

What. The. Hell.

Then she opened the mail client. Mostly, it was junk. A couple of read messages with the subject line
Urgent
from someone named Marsha Colbert.

This was not her phone. It was Zack Camden’s phone. “Argh!” she said to the elevator, her frustration echoing back at her as it came to a stop. The doors slid open and she pasted a smile on and slipped the phone back in her bag.

“Hi, Grace.”

Carol, her boss’s PA, greeted her brightly. “Hi, Carol,” Grace answered, doing her best to keep smiling.

Always appear unruffled. Always.

That was her motto. She never, ever wanted to appear like she was drowning, even if she was paddling like hell beneath the water to keep her head from going under.

You didn’t get anywhere in life by complaining. You didn’t get anywhere cutting corners. If you worked harder, better than everyone else, that would win in the end. It always did. She lived by that, always. And she would live it now.

“Doug was looking for you,” Carol said.

Grace forced her smile wider. “Wonderful, I just have a client...”

“He said it was urgent,” Carol said, looking apologetic.

Oh, frick. Carol was only apologetic if Doug was breathing fire.

Double argh.

She walked down the hall and toward her boss’s office, a feeling of impending doom crowding her heart, shoving up against her breastbone. Suddenly, she would give a hell of a lot to be back down in that cab with Zack Camden. And not just so she could check her email.

They sometimes called the walk to Doug’s office The Green Mile. And for good reason. And it wasn’t because the shiny tile was green.

She lifted her hand and knocked. “Come in,” she heard him say through the heavy oak.

She pushed the door open and smiled, even wider than she had coming in. “Hi, Doug.”

“Grace, have a seat.”

Shoot. A seat. He wanted her to sit? Oh, she was screwed. She obeyed, sitting in the chair in front of his desk. It didn’t escape her notice that there was a box of tissues within her reach. Not his reach—hers.

For emotional breakdowns after he screamed at people, she imagined. Or worse, if he didn’t scream at all, but set about condescending to them until they melted into watery shame.

Luckily, she had tear ducts of steel.

She took a deep breath.
Ice bitch, take me away.

She would not care. She
would
not
care.

“Look, Grace...” Doug leaned back in his chair, his tie riding up. His tie was too short. He looked like he got dressed in the dark. You’d think that one of the more high-powered businessmen in the city would know how to properly dress. But no. Obviously, not. “I had a call from a client just a little bit ago.”

She gritted her teeth. “Right.”

“He complained about your conduct.”

Her mind shot back to the lunch meeting she’d had an hour ago. Yeah, there was no question he was the one who’d filed the complaint.

“What about my conduct?” Grace asked. “Specifically.”

“He said you’re quite rude and abrupt. Very cold.”

Bastard. Bastard jerk-face bastard.
She would never say any of that out loud, but it was the truth. Of course she was cold, she hadn’t agreed to let him bang her.

“I...apologize that it was perceived that way....”

Doug held his hand up. “It’s not perception when it’s a client, Grace. It’s fact. If a client is alienated, all that matters is their truth.”

Grace felt her eyes go wide completely of their own accord. She worked to keep the rest of her face frozen, her hands clasped firmly in her lap. “Of course,” she said, her lips barely moving.

“And since you were late meeting the client who was in your office...”

Because of the other client. And the taxi debacle.

Grace bit the inside of her cheek.

“I have moved her to another consultant. Consider this a warning. I like you, Grace.” Grace snorted internally. As if liking had anything to do with anything in this office. She hated Doug. If her keeping the job was about liking him, she’d have lit his desk on fire and said adios sometime back when he’d had her play the elf at the company Christmas party for Secret Santa because she was “so cute and petite.”

He continued. “I’d hate to let you go. You’re a sweet girl.”

She was going to blow a blood vessel in her eye. But she wouldn’t say anything. She couldn’t. The inaction all but reached in and paralyzed her, freezing her. Because if she opened her mouth she could lose this job, this great job she’d worked so hard at. It could be a mistake. A failure. And she couldn’t afford either.

“Thank you, Doug,” she said, her words coming out quiet, measured. If only because she was choking on her rage. She stood. “I guess I better go organize a new client. Since I probably have two less—” she forced out the most tortured laugh in the history of mankind “—than I did before I walked in here.”

“Great job, Grace. Use this to get motivated.”

“Ha! Yes. Yeah.” She gave him a thumbs-up, since raising her preferred fingers in his direction would likely be grounds for termination. “Go Team Grace! Population me. I’m gonna...my office.” She pointed broadly and went back out into the hallway.

What good was perfection doing her now? Getting reamed by her boss for daring to stand up to some self-important doorknob was not...it was not the way things were supposed to go. She’d worked too hard. Had done her best to please everyone and...and...ugh.

Her heart was thundering hard, and she reached into her purse, fumbling for her phone, to check her email. Except then she pulled it out and there were two hundred unread messages and none of them were hers.

She needed a paper bag to breathe into, stat.

No, more than that, she needed her office. And her damn phone.

She opened the door and shut it, then threw ice bitch out the window and did a full-flail scurry to her desk, jiggling her mouse at high speed to wake her computer up before typing her log-in as quickly as possible.

She clicked into her mail client and read the two—only two—emails she’d gotten since she’d last checked, fired off two speedy replies and then breathed a sigh of relief when it was back at zero.

And now, she needed to get her phone back.

She typed in the web address she used with her tracking app and clicked on Grace’s iPhone. The little circle went around for a while before loading a map. And there it was. She zoomed in, and frowned.

It looked like her phone was at the Mandarin Oriental. Which was several shades fancier than she’d given the man in the Stetson credit for.

But whatever, if her phone was there, she was going to be there, too. She had no more appointments, thanks to Doug.

So she was on a mission to retrieve her phone.

Chapter Three

Zack stepped out of the shower and ran a towel over his chest, then down lower, before wrapping it around his hips and walking out into the living area of the hotel room.

He thought it was a little bit stupid that the studio was putting him up in a place like this, considering he was trying to raise money for a charity. But if everything went well, the proceeds would go above and beyond his hotel-room bill.

“The bar tab is another story,” he said out loud.

No. He didn’t drink like that anymore. Rock bottom had been a few years back.

Still, he eyed the minibar with no small amount of interest. Then his thoughts shot back to his shared cab ride.

Grace Song.

Hell, he hadn’t flirted like that in more than a decade. It had been...well, it had been great. She’d been so damn pretty. So uptight. And he’d wanted to uncoil all that glossy black hair and see just how long it was. How it would feel sifting through his fingers.

That was a Grade-A fantasy considering he’d been too burned out to have one in the past six years. Mainly he’d just let porn supply the visual while his right hand took it from there.

Which was kind of empty and hollow, really. But hey, he had to get off sometimes, and he genuinely lacked the energy to do it another way.

Though tonight, he could easily imagine which image he might...

He cleared his throat. Slightly creepy. That was slightly creepy. But if no one knew...

He pressed his hand against the front of his towel, against his hardening member. Who the hell cared if it was creepy?

His phone rang, the sharp sound making him jump as pulled his hand away from his dick like a guilty thirteen-year-old.

He walked over the phone and swore. If it was Marsha again he was going to growl at her. Because he’d left his phone sitting in the other room on the bed for a reason. He didn’t want to deal with people until he absolutely had to.

He didn’t want to go “take in a show” or have sushi, or get a manicure or whatever the hell else Marsha might think he needed to do to fully enjoy his time in New York. He would deal with that crap when he had to. Tonight, all he wanted to do was stay in his room, order dinner in and jack off. It didn’t seem like a major ask.

He picked up the handset.

“Hello,” he said, growling already.

“Yes, Mr. Camden. There’s a visitor here for you. Grace Song. She’d like permission to come up.”

It was as if all of his penis’s hopes and dreams had come true.

Down, boy, she’s not here for that.

Well, why the hell else would she be here? Unless she was looking for
Fox in the City Part Deux
after she’d discovered his identity.

Maybe she’d used Google to find him. Though, he had no idea why she would. He was some random guy she’d shared a cab with, who’d done a rather terrible sketch on a card for her.

“Yeah,” Zack said. “Send her up.” He paused.

He looked down at where his hand still gripped the towel. Well, that would have to be taken care of.

He dropped it and left a pool of snow-white terry cloth on the floor before going back into his bedroom and opening up his suitcase.

He ought to get his suit out. If it was wrinkled Marsha would probably have his ass on a platter. Apparently “hobo chic” as she had once called it, was not a thing.

He tugged out a pair of jeans and shrugged them on, pulling them up and stuffing all relevant parts down in there carefully before doing the zipper with even more care. He did not need a zipper incident.

That would be the ultimate irony. He finally got his penis to sit up and pay attention. If he immediately mortally wounded it with a zipper he would just have to tell life to go screw itself.

He heard a light knock on the door and he went out into the living area. He walked to the door and opened it. It really was her. All five-foot-nothing of her. Dark hair still pulled back in that little bun pinned primly at the nape of her neck. Her cheeks a pale pink, a streak of blush paint over porcelain skin. Her almond-shaped eyes were deep brown, nearly black, framed with lush dark lashes.

She was perfection. And he hadn’t even gotten to her figure, which, though petite, packed the kind of punch that...well, that had made him lust again.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.

She looked him over, from his face down to his bare chest, to his jeans, which were barely hanging onto his hips, and the color in her cheeks deepened.

“Your phone,” she said, holding a delicate hand out.

“What?”

“This is your phone,” she said.

“Come in.” She looked to the left, then the right. “What, are you afraid entering my hotel room is felony or something?”

“I don’t know you,” she said.

“We shared a cab.”

“An act I don’t even commit with the closest of acquaintances. I guess I don’t have to worry about you kidnapping me and making a pair of underwear out of my hair.”

“That is completely disgusting. Also, something Pato might do.”

“Pato?”

“He’s a...modern artist.”

She raised her brows. “Okay.”

“Coming in?”

“Sure,” she said, stepping grandly over the threshold. “Now where is my phone?”

“It’s on my bed. I haven’t touched it since I got out of the cab. I’m not in the mood to deal with...well, anything. And I can order fried chicken and pornography from the comfort of my own bed so...”

“Charming.”

“I’m not trying to be,” he said. Except he sort of wished he could be. So that he could...seduce her, maybe. But he was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to seduce a woman.

Like schmoozing at gallery openings, maybe?

Well, that he could do. For very short periods of time. Because Marsha had threatened to get a shock collar for him if he didn’t learn to mind his manners.

“Clearly. Phone?”

“On my bed.” He started walking back toward the bedroom, then stopped. “How did you know where I was staying?”

“I tracked my phone.”

“Damn, you can do that with these?”

“It’s an app. It’s really simple. I can...show you or...or not. I have to...I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Why is that?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Because my boss the...jerk...relieved me of the only client I had left in the day after tearing me a new one because of a client complaining about me. Never mind said client was only complaining because I did not flutter my lashes at him when he made it clear he wanted to get into my pencil skirt.”

“What?”

“The client I was meeting with, right before I got in the cab. He made a pass at me, I politely rebuffed him. He called my boss because I am, apparently, cold and unfriendly. My boss doesn’t care about my side of things. He only cares that I pissed off a client and I am now being punished for not offering a side of sex with my financial advice.”

“He can’t do that,” Zack said. “Your boss.”

“Sure he can, because it’s the client’s word against mine. Because all he has to know is that I dissatisfied a client and the what and why don’t matter.”

“Did you tell him that the guy was being a douche?”

She bit her lip. “Not as such.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means no.”

“Well, why the hell not?”

“Because!” she said. “It’s hard to be a woman in this business. And people treat you like...like you’re there for them, and if you dare complain you’re humorless and mean. And if you call them on their crap you’re shrill. And if you say someone hit on you and it creeped you out they say you’re imagining things, and making mountains out of molehills and I’ve watched, for the past eight years, people being driven out of the more high-profile offices, because it gets to be too much. So I just figured if I worked harder, if I did the right things, I would be rewarded for it, but now I’m in trouble because some guy...I just...it’s not supposed to be like this.”

“No. It’s not,” he said. And all this made him feel like an ass because he’d been about to...thinking about her. And she’d been objectified enough today.

Naturally, he couldn’t just have a simple fantasy. No. That would have been too damn kind of life. Life just didn’t do kind for him.

Kind of a funny thought, up in a suite that overlooked Central Park, but hey, there were more important things in life than a room with a view.

He’d rather go back to living poor, on a ranch in Pine Ridge Falls, with the people he loved most, than be here alone. But that was another lifetime. Another man. He wasn’t even going to think about it.

“Then why is it?” she asked.

“Hell if I know. Life never seems to be the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “All you can do is enjoy the little things. Which is why I was thinking porn and chicken.”

“I have no little things I enjoy,” she said. “I enjoy nothing. And I think I hate everything.” She was breathing hard, her eyes wide.

“Everything?”

“I don’t even have a life. I don’t even think I have any friends left. I work at this job, and I go back to my apartment and order takeout and I watch DVR’d TV shows. I don’t date I don’t...I don’t...” Her eyes clashed with his, a hard sock of heat hitting his gut.

“What else?” he asked.

She looked away. “If I don’t date I think it’s pretty obvious what else I’m not doing.”

Oh, yes, he was well familiar with that problem. He hadn’t gotten laid in so long he was afraid his long uprooted virginity was starting to grow back. If such a thing was possible. He hadn’t seen sex since his twenties, and sitting where he was at thirty-five that seemed damn sad.

He’d had a lot more than getting some on his mind, though, but now...now it seemed like maybe he needed to do something about it. Maybe it was time to let another person touch him. Not a handshake or anything, but hands on naked skin. On skin that was normally covered by clothes.

He hadn’t been tempted to connect in so long. He’d been avoiding it. He’d been too raw. But everything had scarred over now. Had come out tougher than he’d started. It would never heal, but he wasn’t vulnerable anymore. He doubted he possessed the ability to be hurt at this point, to feel loss.

He’d maxed out that garbage a while ago.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. Affected. “Obvious.”

“I guess maybe not because some people just...I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. You officially know more of my baggage than my best friend, who I haven’t talked to in four months because I’m an unhappy, terrible workaholic, and she’s just as bad.”

“Well, you’re in my hotel room, I’m half-dressed.... It seems logical really.”

“My phone?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah.” That was why she was here. Her phone. The one on his bed. He’d completely forgotten. It hadn’t seemed to matter.

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes wide. “I kind of forgot. About my phone. Which I never do, because I’m addicted to using my phone. How sad is that? I am addicted to my phone. To keeping plugged into my office when I’m not there. Sometimes I get so caught up in work email during dinner that I forget to pay attention to the show on my DVR. So I record shows, because I’m too busy to watch them when they come on, then I put them on and I ignore them! I am a mess.”

“You really are.”

“I need to relax.”

“I agree.”

“Do you know what I need?” she asked, her small breasts rising and falling with the sharp pitch of her breathing.

“What?” he asked, his stomach tightening.

“I just need to relax.”

“I agree.”

“I need...” Her eyes had dropped back down to his chest. “I need to...make a decision instead of just flying under the radar. I think I need to cut loose.” Her eyes met his again. “Got any ideas?”

“I do. But I’m a stranger and I’m pretty sure none of the ideas I have are appropriate for strangers.”

“We shared a cab,” she said, a desperate light in her dark gaze now.

“Well, then, I guess that changes things. Kiss me.”