Our Little Secret by Rachael Stewart (free ebook novel txt) 📕

words didn’t even sound right coming from her, but Kelli’s upbeat personality was easy to follow.

He laughed, and Desta froze. She knew that chuckle, which started in the depths of his gut and eventually burst out so anyone hearing it would fall into laughter as well. He had a very infectious personality. Maybe he was Kelli’s match?

It didn’t matter who he was here to meet: he couldn’t see her here.

Desta started to move, heading for the door. She didn’t bother to pinpoint his location in the room now. He had to be close if she could hear him laughing. Kelli would get a text from her when she got in the car, but now she had to get out of here. No way could she be seen by Maurice Gold. Her boss’s son, her coworker and the guy she routinely beat in poker when she visited his parents’ house. How totally weird would that be? Having Maurice—the consummate practical joker—find out she’d resorted to an app like Dear Lover to have a social life would definitely create awkwardness at work.

Her exit path had been clear at first, but there was suddenly a slew of people in her way, one of which was a server Desta collided with in her attempt to sidestep the crowd. She dropped her empty glass seconds before everything around her shifted into slow motion. The server’s wide-eyed shock morphed into dread as his arm shook from the impact and the tray full of champagne flutes wobbled. Mortification lodged in Desta’s chest as she watched the golden liquid sloshing over the rim of those glasses. And as if that weren’t enough to prove she’d made a mistake coming here, there was Maurice’s concerned face as he reached for the tray and easily plucked it from the server’s hand.

Slow motion switched to real time, and Maurice’s brow furrowed. “Hey, Des. What’re you doing here?”

For the first time in the five years he’d known her, Desta didn’t have a quick response. In fact, from the way she was blinking repeatedly, with her lips drawn in that straight line, which usually meant she was annoyed about something, he’d say she was either as shocked to see him as he was her or she was pissed that he was here at all.

“I’ll take that,” the server snapped before repossessing the tray Maurice had rescued.

“Sure, no problem. Glad to be of assistance.” The guy’s frown was about as much of a thank-you as he figured he was going to get. Maurice wasn’t sorry to see him go.

He was, however, still trying to figure out why Desta—the marketing director at his family’s fashion house and the most composed woman he knew—was here at a weekend meetup that, despite its advertising, was sure to be full of frolicking and fetishizing.

“You look really great in that dress.” Actually, she looked phenomenal in the short, off-the-shoulder design that could’ve been made to fit her curves specifically.

“Thanks. You look nice, too.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, holding her purse in front of her body with both hands. “And I could ask what you’re doing here as well.”

She could, and that would be just like Des—always ready with questions at any meeting or runway show and expecting quick answers. For a moment Maurice wondered how he should respond. Should he just come out and say he was there to meet the woman who’d had him jerking off in his bed too many nights to count in the past few months? Or should he come up with some other entertaining story about why he was at this ski resort, in this room, wearing the same badge...she was wearing.

“Are you registered with Dear Lover?” The surprised chuckle that followed the question barely had a chance to bubble free when he reached out and lifted her badge from where it was clipped to the top pleat of her dress.

Dear Lover 1288. He knew those numbers very well.

When he dragged his gaze back up to her face, she was directing her eyes to where his badge was boldly clipped to the lapel of his smoke-gray sports coat.

“No.” The one word came in a whisper as she finally looked up at him. “This is a joke, right? You’re playing one of your goofy practical jokes on me, and I swear to you, Maurice Silas Gold, my revenge is gonna be epic!”

She spoke the last through clenched teeth, and a part of him wanted to tell her she was right. He could easily throw his head back and laugh like he was watching a Kevin Hart stand-up, and she’d believe he’d constructed this elaborate hoax as one of the annual pranks he pulled on her and his siblings. That would’ve gotten him out of the very uncomfortable spot he was experiencing at this moment.

A variety of emotions went through him, and uncomfortable was the least of them. First and foremost, there was the physical reaction—lust, pure and simple—as he recalled all the messages they’d exchanged and how aroused he’d become reading them. Connecting each word from those emails to the sexy-as-hell woman he was staring at now was a little jarring and a lot exciting. But he couldn’t have been lusting after Des like this for the past few months. Her calm and controlled personality wasn’t his usual type, not to mention the whole coworker situation. In fact, she was more than just a coworker, thanks to his parents always inviting her to their family events because she had no family of her own in New York. Eventually, he’d come to see her as another sister.

Well, that certainly was no longer the case. The woman who’d been at Thanksgiving dinner with his family last night now collided with the woman who’d given him an in-depth explanation of why she loved the doggy-style position during sex. No way was he ever going to look at Des the same now. “Maybe we should go someplace private to talk about this.”

She