My Secret Lover Is Actually My Boss novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: Ours

I stopped in front of him in the aisle.

Up close he looked like he hadn't slept since Chicago.

He was holding his breath. I could tell, because I knew what he looked like when he let it out.

"Hi," he said.

"Not here," I said.

I took his hand.

Three hundred people watched me take it.

I walked him out through the side door of the hall and didn't let go.

The show floor was a roar after the quiet.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket before we reached the escalator. Then his.

Neither of us looked.

My hotel was two blocks from the Javits Center.

The lobby was full of people with show badges, and three of them turned when we came through the door.

The elevator was packed.

I pushed open the door to the stairs instead.

Concrete, a steel rail, a fire door that banged behind us.

I went up four flights before I stopped on a landing and turned around.

He stopped two steps below me.

For once I was taller.

"You didn't ask me," I said. "About the Tuesday part."

"No."

"Or card sixteen."

"No. I'm sorry. I should have."

"I'm not mad about card sixteen."

He let his breath out then.

I sat down on the step so we were level.

He stayed standing, with one hand on the rail.

"Okay," I said. "Here's what you've paid. I've been counting."

He waited.

"Most of it was in front of other people," I said. "I was there for every part."

I held up a finger for each.

"And today you did it again, next to a photo of you with your face in my neck."

"It's a very flattering photo of my hair."

"Leon."

"Sorry. Go on."

"That's what you've paid," I said. "It's a lot. It's not the same as what you owe."

"Tell me what I owe."

I'd had the list since Thursday night at the long table.

I'd written it on the back of a packing slip while he slept on his legal pad.

"No more rooms with just me," I said. "If you decide something that touches me, or them, you say it out loud first, in front of the people it touches."

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