Tempting the CEO (a Sleeping With The Enemy novella) (Entangled Brazen) Read online

  “What?” he said. “We both have kind of supersize mothers.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what that says for us.”

  “I love you.”

  He’d never said it before, and for a second I was furious that he had the gall to say it for the very first time in the middle of a dinner with his mother instead of when the two of us were alone, in bed maybe. Or at least over a romantic candlelit dinner, again alone.

  “I love you,” he repeated for good measure. “I think I loved you from the minute I saw you hand Bob his head on a plate.”

  “Like I believe that.” I managed to keep my tone level, the same as it always was in our usual teasing banter. But my pulse was racing and my face felt hot. I unknotted the Chanel scarf around my neck and tossed it on the back of my chair.

  I love you.

  Wow.

  I was using the wine list to fan myself when he captured my hand and kissed it softly.

  It was a lot to digest, and automatically I stuck to the banter. “You better not have a ring in your pocket.”

  “You’ll never know, because my mom ruined the moment.”

  I snatched my hand back. “You are so full of it.”

  Maybe I should have gone to the restroom too. I felt overwhelmed all of a sudden.

  Happy. Overwhelmed because I was happy.

  He loves me.

  He leaned forward and thrust his hand in my hair and his tongue in my mouth and kissed me, as deeply as was probably legal in public. It felt familiar and hot and wildly special with what he had just blurted out.

  We were never getting a waiter over to this table until his mom came back to chaperone.

  When he had thoroughly proved yet again how much I was putty in his hands on the sexual thing, he said, “And we can discuss this later tonight or next month or not at all. But I’m not going anywhere. I love you and I know—”

  “Do not say it!” I warned, meaning it, too. If he just presumed I loved him too and said it—although, God of course I did—I was stomping right out of here. Talk about high-handed.

  “I wasn’t going to say you love me. No way!” He leaned back. “I’m going to make you say it.”

  I grinned at him this time. And I was sure he could do it, too. But not now. I had that much pride left in me at least, didn’t I?

  “And as for my mother, it’d serve her right if I made her fly home commercial, right now, tonight.”

  “It’s not her fault. I kind of like her. I mean, that she’s so blunt about everything,” I said, making him laugh.

  “Uh-oh. I was hoping for a wedge between you two. If you start allying with each other…I don’t even want to think about it.”

  I stood up. “I’ll go get her and tell her it’s safe to come back to the table. I’ll look in the bathroom first and if she’s not there, I’ll wander around outside the restaurant till I find her.”

  “Check under the table. She’s probably hiding there,” he joked. “And be sure to tell her I’m really mad at her. I may even stick her with the check.”

  “I’d like to see you do that to my mother sometime. I don’t think a man ever has, in her whole life.”

  He took both my hands and brought them to his lips. “And you’re completely different.”

  The L-word was hovering awfully close to my lips. But I just leaned down and kissed him.

  Let him earn it.

  Maybe tonight.

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  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank all the folks at Entangled Publishing for their assistance and innovative ideas about publishing. I would also like to thank my editor, Marie Loggia-Kee for her encouragement through this process and for putting up with my obsessive emailing habits. Finally, I would like to thank my new agent, Maureen Walters of Curtis Brown, Ltd., for making that all-important call to me.

  About the Author

  Angela Claire, like most writers, grew up loving to read, which led to a degree in English literature, which in turn led to unemployment. Not having been born to wealth, Angela developed a more practical plan for eating and paying her rent—hence the dreaded and expected descent into law school and inevitable career as a lawyer. Once she paid off her pesky yet massive student loans, Angela saved for an escape from the law profession one day. Now a multi-published author, she does what she loves, but with a little less leeway on the eating and paying rent thing.

  Visit her online at www.angelaclaireromance.com

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