Page 79 of Dirty Boss

It all happened naturally, and it had been just as natural to see Alba and Charlotte together. Alba had a core of integrity that Charlotte could sense; I was sure of it. She’d come from a vapid, rich, horrible family, but she’d grown from it and was now the amazing woman I knew.

I never wanted to let her go. I wanted a thousand days like today. I’d let my company burn to the ground, just for the kind of quiet happiness that I’d experienced by watching Alba and my daughter playing and laughing and chatting.

Except…would I? Or would I spend long evenings in the office, fighting for a company that no longer seemed to hold my interest?

I shook my head. Of course I would. I was a businessman, an entrepreneur. I didn’t just abandon projects when they got difficult. I didn’t flit from idea to idea, dragging my family down every step of the way.

Maybe I could have it all. The business. The partner. The family. Maybe things weren’t destined to crumble the way I’d grown up thinking they would.

TWENTY-EIGHT

ALBA

A loud noisemade me jump from my spot, nestled in the corner of my couch. I whipped my head around, looking for the source of the noise as my heart pounded.

Then I saw a little lit-up screen beside the front door. Someone had rung my buzzer. The studio’s intercom screen had never worked, and as I walked up to glance in this one, I realized this was the first time that someone had come to my apartment to see me.

It was Thursday afternoon, and I hadn’t seen Vaughn in three days. Even though we talked every day, it wasn’t the same as being in his arms. I knew I should enjoy the time away from him and use it to settle my feelings down a little, but I couldn’t help it. I missed him.

I studied the buttons next to my front door, and I pressed the one that looked like a phone receiver. “Hello?”

“Delivery,” the guy on the grainy screen said.

“Who from?”

“How am I supposed to know? You Alba Enders?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ve got a box for you.”

“I’ll buzz you up.” It took me a second to find the button to unlock the front door, but I did, and then I watched the delivery man open the door, a long box coming into view as he shifted to step inside. I unlocked my front door and waited until I heard the elevator door slide open, then pulled my door open and stood in the opening.

“Sign here,” he said, thrusting a palm-sized device at me.

“What is it?”

The delivery man looked at me like I was the unfortunate owner of half a brain. “I don’t know,” he said, then thrust the box at me. It was huge and flat and had a big velvet bow holding it closed. There were little droplets of water on the velvet; it was snowing outside.

I opened my mouth to say something, but he was already rushing down the hall and ducking into the elevator. Sighing, I shuffled inside and let the door fall closed behind me. Frowning at the box, I turned it around, but there was no card on the outside. Just a simple white box with a black velvet bow.

Who had sent this? It looked like an item from my old life. Luxury for the sake of luxury. But from who? My parents?James? Why? None of them knew where I lived, so how could they?

I walked over to the couch and shoved off the blanket I’d wrapped around myself.

My pulse rattled. If this was a present from my old life, I could expect to open it and find a nest of snakes. Vaughn wouldn’t send me anything…would he?

I knew the logical answer wasn’t that my parents had discovered my address and decided to send me a mound of dog shit wrapped in a pretty black bow. I knew that most likely, this was from Vaughn. But believing that Vaughn had thought about me and had taken the time to send me a surprise present…thatwould mean believing that this thing between us was real.Realreal.

That was terrifying. And wonderful. But mostly terrifying.

I huffed. It was a box. How bad could it be? The velvet bow fell apart with a gentle tug. I pushed the damp fabric aside, brushing off a few dots of water from the thick cardboard, then pulled off the top. Nestled in protective paper was a waterfall of lilac-colored fabric.

My heart began to thump—and it wasn’t from nerves.

Someone had sent me a dress.

I touched the neckline, feeling the beading that had to be hand stitched. The dress fell to a deep V front and back, held up with thin straps at the shoulder. The bodice was almost completely beaded with thousands of twinkling sequins and stones, which dotted the dress through the hips and down to the bottom hem. Pulling the dress out of the box, I held it up and felt the satisfying weight of the fabric, admiring the way it swirled and danced against my legs.