Chapter 58: Dirty Text

Naomi laughed again, the sound carrying through the car as some of the fear finally left her body.

All she had done was mention Dorian. She had simply said she would tell her husband. She drove another block before her smile slowly disappeared.

She frowned at the road. "I will tell my husband?" Her nose wrinkled. "Who says that?"

Suddenly, the entire thing sounded different in her head. She sat straighter behind the wheel.

"Sound like a fucking dependent woman. What the fuck?!"

The pride she had felt a few seconds earlier immediately turned on her. Her mother had built her entire life around love for a man.

Diana was still living inside a marriage where Richard could humiliate her and she would remain there trying to smooth his temper over.

Naomi had always promised herself she would be different. Yet there she was, driving away with her chest puffed out because she had successfully pulled the my husband card.

Worse, she had liked it. That was the part bothering her. She hadn’t only said it because it was useful.

there had been something strangely satisfying about calling Dorian her husband and knowing Richard understood.

Naomi tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. "Nope." She was absolutely not romanticizing this.

It was a practical arrangement. A signed contract. Half a million dollars when it ended. He was her husband on paper.

So why was she making it feel like some kind of big deal? She glanced around the Range Rover.

The car itself should have been enough of a reminder.

Temporary.

The chef’s office? Also inside Dorian’s townhouse. When the six months ended, she wouldn’t be walking away with the third-floor office tucked inside her handbag.

She would pack her things and return to her own life. The Range Rover would stay. The office would stay.

Everything with him was temporary. Oh my God.

The sex too. That part was considerably harder to accept as temporary. Her body, traitorous thing that it was, immediately remembered the previous night.

How completely insane she had apparently become while he was inside her. Naomi groaned.

"Jesus."

Putting the sex into the contract was a good idea. If they treated it as something physical, then it stayed physical.

Dorian seemed exactly like the kind of man a woman could accidentally fall for. She could enjoy him without needing to understand him completely.

*****

Dorian had just stepped out of the District Attorney’s office that morning when his phone beeped in his hand. He glanced down automatically.

Naomi.

Or, more accurately, Naomi Vegas. Dorian frowned at the contact name as he walked down the corridor toward the elevators.

He really needed to change that. It had made sense when Adrian first gave him her number and Dorian had needed some way to distinguish the strange woman from Las Vegas who had apparently become his fourth wife from every other Naomi.

Three weeks into living together, though, Naomi Vegas felt outdated. Maybe Chef Bennett. His thumb hovered over the screen.

That sounded ridiculously impersonal. Especially considering he had spent Saturday night considerably more acquainted with Chef Bennett than any respectable chef-client relationship required.

Maybe simply Naomi. Dorian stared at the name for another second. Why the hell was he putting this much thought into a contact entry?

His phone wasn’t a wedding registry. He opened the message instead. Then stopped walking.

I know exactly what I’m going to do to you on Saturday.

Dorian raised a brow. A slow smile threatened at the corner of his mouth before he caught it. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had already started looking forward to Saturday.

Their ridiculous new arrangement had existed for barely forty eight hours and Naomi was already making plans.

Dorian typed a response.

Hmmm?

Yes, he knew. He was aware. He sucked at messages. His entire family complained about it. His friends complained about it.

Ginny had once sent him a three-paragraph message about some family problem and he had replied with a thumbs-up emoji, only to discover later that apparently a thumbs-up was not an acceptable emotional response to family conflict.

How was he supposed to know that? An emoji conveyed acknowledgment.

Adrian had also informed him on more than one occasion that replying K to detailed work messages made him look hostile.

He wasn’t in college anymore. He didn’t have the time or the desire to stand around constructing charming paragraphs every time someone sent him a message. He was a busy man.

Besides, what exactly was he supposed to reply to Naomi?

Please provide details regarding your proposed sexual activities for Saturday at your earliest convenience?

He was a criminal lawyer, not a horny customer-service representative.

The elevator arrived. He stepped inside, still holding the phone. His thumb tapped once against the edge of the case. The elevator descended.

Still nothing.

He checked the screen. She had sent the message first. Surely she wasn’t now occupied enough to disappear.

The doors opened into the lobby and he walked out, slipping past attorneys, clerks and various other people heading in and out of the building.

His phone remained in his hand. He nearly typed another message, then stopped himself. He would not double-text. He crossed the lobby and headed outside, where his Mercedes waited farther down the street.

Dorian started toward the black S 63, checking the screen once more as he walked. This time he wasn’t even pretending.

Naomi had gotten into his head. That woman had somehow managed to turn Saturday into an event before Monday morning was properly underway.

His phone gave another vibration and he looked down immediately.

Adrian.

Something about a client file. He opened it anyway. Then, because he was reading while walking, he nearly walked straight into someone.

Dorian stopped abruptly. The first thing that hit him was the scent.

Jesus Christ.

The cologne was expensive, unmistakably so, but there was so much of it that Dorian felt as if he had walked headfirst into an entire luxury fragrance counter.

Rich oud, spice and something smoky crowded the air around the man. Dorian looked up. Callum stepped back, irritation immediately flashing across his face.

"Would you watch where you are going?"