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I snort my disbelief. “What ruse? You’re my driver, not my boyfriend,” I say haughtily.
“Wrong answer, doll.”
He kisses me. Bryce’s soft, warm lips are so pleasurably distracting, my tongue automatically seeks more warmth, jutting out for a hungry lick. God, he tastes good. Bryce pulls me to his body and tilts my torso slightly, all while supporting my back. My knees buckle. I’m boneless.
Then it’s over. Bryce straightens up and engulfs my hand in his, already mid-stride. He’s facing the cameras, not smiling but not avoiding them either.
My features are as relaxed and neutral as I can make them, but it takes immense concentration not to wince at the memory of his soft but firmly closed lips. Embarrassment makes me shudder. Did I really try to stick my tongue into his mouth? What the hell is wrong with me?
This was nothing but a photo op to Bryce. Tell that to my body. My stray-tongued, faulty-kneed, boneless mess of a body.
Bryce wraps an arm around my waist, playing the doting boyfriend to perfection. My eyes flick up to find his cleanly shaved jaw locked. It’s the only tell in an otherwise unaffected facade. His is the face of a man supporting his girlfriend in a posh party. But that ticking jaw reveals he doesn’t want to be here at all.
That makes both of us.
“Hello, Anastasia,” Gwyn Cowles says while reaching to touch my shoulder in a casual brush, like when people check for dust on furniture.
“Hi, Gwyn. Hello, Donovan.” I greet the long-term board member and the chief financial officer of Petrov Shipping.
They barely hear me because like most people within ten feet of us, they are looking at the hulk in a tux beside me.
“Allow me to introduce Bryce. He’s my, um…” The word boyfriend simply cannot come out of my mouth.
“Boyfriend,” Bryce says smoothly while extending his hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Oh, what a lovely surprise,” Donovan says in his lazy drawl. Not to be mistaken for laziness at all. The man is in charge of quality control and facilities management of our East Coast operations.
“It certainly is a surprise,” Gwyn says with a raised brow. I want to tell her to keep her tongue from rolling out. Easier said than done, as I so recently demonstrated.
I like Gwyn. She’s the only woman in the board of directors. Although she’s not always supportive of my initiative toward a more eco-friendly future, her advocacy for women in the sciences is admirable. Important strides have been made in women’s access to STEM fields, but access is not always equity.
After more formal introductions, I lean toward Gwyn. “Will you be there for the presentation at the slipway next week, Gwyn? Your office hadn’t confirmed.”
The slipway is a broad term for the location of ship maintenance and construction. I need to get the board of directors to sign off on the next phase. Hopefully, showing them the testing facilities and explaining our assembly areas will give them the final nudge on approval.
“Let’s circle back to that another time, Ana. Enjoy yourself tonight. You’re a big reason this campaign is starting off so well.”
Is there a more cursed expression than circle back to it? What are we, vultures?
“Thank you, Gwyn,” Bryce says. “That’s exactly what I told Ana on the way here. We should celebrate her contribution instead of taking for granted how wonderful she is.” He kisses my temple.
I can’t decide if he’s being sweet or condescending.
Donovan stops a waiter serving champagne flutes. “What should we cheer to, then?”
“To Ana,” Bryce says, dropping his hand to my waist and squeezing slightly so I’m pressed closer.
I stick my elbow into his side, because he’s being obnoxiously cheesy. Not that he’ll feel it through that armor of muscle. I chug my drink with more urgency than decorum.
The conversation has moved on to other things, thank goodness. Bryce entertains the inquiries about our relationship, saying we kept it quiet because it was long distance. He’s really good at bullshitting, it turns out.
My eyes stray to the rest of the banquet hall that has now filled to near capacity. I find Martin Veeland across the room. His is the only face I look forward to seeing during these functions.
Martin is the head engineer in our Virginia location and took me under his wing when I relocated from Moscow. The materials and technology I need is here, in the United States. From the start, Martin supported my vision for a more responsible approach to shipbuilding.
He’s my strongest advocate and closest friend in a company that values my last name but relentlessly asks women to prove themselves over and over again. In some ways, being a Petrov has gone against me. Through the years, I’ve had to show that my placement isn’t entirely the result of nepotism. I’m considered incompetent till proven otherwise.
Since heading R&D, I’ve offered Martin higher positions in the executive floors. To have him in more conference rooms with me would be a blessing. But he loves the shipyard too much to move up. That’s part of what I adore about him. He’s committed to the science and steers clear of the politics.
