I shake my head.
Not a chance in hell. I want to spend all day with this woman in my arms. Plain and simple.
“Good,” she says and pulls out shorts and an oversized sweater.
Chapter Thirty Six
Elsa
Too bad the weekend has to end.
The thought drops into my head the second I step through the revolving doors of Northstar Hospitality, like the building itself signifies the end.
The weekend was a haze of skin and sheets and soft laughter, moans and lazy caresses. Naked mornings that blurred into naked afternoons, easy-to-remove clothes we only wore when we had to accept a delivery.
The couch. The bed. The shower. The tub. Hell, the floor, the kitchen island, and even on the dining table once. Kissing until my mouth went numb, fucking until my legs shook, cuddling until I forgot what it felt like not to have Antonio’s skin against mine.
Perfect.
And now I’m in a lobby that smells like polish and professionalism, and I’m back in my work armor, and my body is still humming because it did not get the memo.
I scan my badge, pass security, and I don’t look back even though I can feel him out there somewhere—watching until I’m safely inside, until I’m past the last checkpoint, until the doors and cameras and guards have done their job.
Then he’s gone. Like he always is.
Antonio will meet me upstairs in my office.
I still don’t know how he does it, and I’m not going to ask. I don’t want to hear the mechanics. I don’t want to turn it into something logical, something that can be dismantled.
What I want is the flutter in my chest when I picture him already there—waiting for me in my space as if he belongs in it.
He loves me.
The thought is still unreal enough that it makes my throat tighten. It makes me giddy.
Antonio Conti loves me, and I love him, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do about my career, or this acquisition, or the fact that the man I slept with all weekend is wrapped around the biggest deal of my life.
I’m just walking out of the elevators when David steps into my path.
His expression is too composed, which is exactly how I know something is wrong.
“Elsa,” he says, brisk, voice pitched low. “We need to meet. Now. Aboutthe acquisition.”
My stomach drops.
My eyes flick toward the hallway that leads to my office.
To him.
I force my face into calm. I force my voice into neutral. “Right now?”
“Right now,” he confirms. No explanation. Just urgency wrapped in corporate urgency.
I nod once, like my heart isn’t sprinting. “Okay. Give me a second. I just need to drop a couple of things off.”
David hesitates, like he wants to argue, then relents with a tight nod. “Two minutes.”
“Two,” I echo, and step around him.
