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“Okay.” He slipped off the table and grabbed his keys. “Get your stuff. Let’s go.”

Once she had her purse and they’d thrown out the food containers, he set the alarm behind them.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

“I can’t leave my car here.” She paused halfway to her cherry-red compact. “Joanie and Clive will wonder what happened.”

“We’ll tell them your car wouldn’t start and that I drove you home.” Another lie, but he’d do it for her if he had to.

She sighed as she looked from her car to his.

“Lil, what are you afraid of?”

“I…I’ve had a work relationship before. A few years ago, when I worked at Lewis & Becker. It…didn’t end well.”

That was news to him. He knew she’d left L&B to start working here, but he had assumed it was more that Joanie poached her, not that she’d had an issue with a coworker.

“Long story short, he had a hand in my resignation.”

He frowned.

“I don’t want this to end badly. For either of us.”

“Lil.” He went to her and palmed her neck before kissing the top of her head. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him. He liked her holding on to him. He wished she’d do it a little more often. “You can trust me.”

“I know,” she murmured against his chest. “I don’t want to have to explain what we’re doing to anyone. This is ours. Like the mansion was ours. No one would believe what we’d experienced there. And I don’t want to try and convince them.”

Damn. He understood that. Here he’d thought she was ashamed of him. Still… “Fine. But this is a short-term plan. I won’t continue lying to our friends, and anyway, I think Clive is suspicious.”

Worry dented her brow.

“I’ll give you until this weekend. Show up as my date to the RSD dinner. No more hiding.”

“I don’t know…”

“I’m not going to put on a show at the dinner. Or make up reasons why I didn’t bring a date. I want you on my arm. I want to introduce you as the woman I’m with. The woman who’s with me.”

“Are you still nervous about the speech?”

“Nervous about hundreds of pairs of eyes on me while I bumble my way through a speech that is supposed to fill twenty minutes? Not at all, why?”

That was how much time he’d spent with his head between her thighs the other night, which proved that time was well and truly relative. It had felt like seconds, and had been over way too soon. But this morning when he’d practiced his speech in the mirror, it’d felt more like Frodo’s agonizing trek to Mordor. His throat had closed off at six minutes, and he’d been sweating and shaky.

Not cool. And definitely not attractive.

“Why don’t we practice tonight? I can help you.”

Sweat beaded on his brow at the mere mention of practicing. He swiped his forehead. “I have other plans with you tonight.”

“Then we’ll practice after we work out.”

“Work out?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Yep.” She unlocked her car. “I’m counting sex as exercise. Sexercise.”

“Sexercise it is.” Hell, she could call it whatever she wanted as long as she was doing it with him.

He swiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he touched his throat and tried to breathe through what felt like a partially closed airway. “Is it hot in here?”