All Chapters of Tired of me, Mr. Taylor?: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Serena knew something was wrong when Theo refused to tell her where they were going.“You’ve been trying to figure out where we’re going since we left,” Theo said as the elevator climbed.“Because you haven’t told me anything. You said we were having dinner, but this doesn’t feel like dinner anymore.”“We’re almost there.”Serena glanced at the changing floor numbers. “That still doesn’t tell me where we’re going.”Theo smiled but gave her nothing else.The elevator stopped before Serena could question him again, and the doors opened onto a private penthouse washed in warm light. The first thing she saw was her mother standing beneath an enormous arrangement of white and blush roses.Then everyone shouted.“Surprise!”Serena stopped dead as the penthouse erupted around her. Tessa was already laughing, Claire lifted a champagne glass, and Marjorie looked entirely too pleased with herself. People from Ellis Atelier crowded around friends Serena hadn’t expected to see tonight, while Dani

By the time Serena brought the SN-R back into the garage, the rain had swallowed the far end of the test track.She killed the engine and pulled off her helmet as Luis approached the driver’s side. Beyond the open garage entrance, what had started as steady rain less than an hour ago had become a silver sheet, driven almost sideways by the wind.“That’s getting ugly,” Nina said from behind the telemetry station.Serena climbed out. “Good thing we’re done.”“You are,” Daniel said. “I still have two hours of data to sort through.”“That sounds like a personal problem.”Daniel gave her a look, and Serena smiled as she handed her helmet to Luis.It wasn’t until she glanced toward the glass observation room above the garage that she noticed Damian. He stood beside one of Street Nation’s senior engineers, his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled once at the wrists while the man spoke.Damian looked down at almost the same moment.Their eyes met.Neither of them smiled.Serena looked away

Whatever remained of Damian’s control disappeared.His mouth came down on hers, and Serena barely had time to breathe before his hand slid into her hair and pulled her closer. There was nothing measured about the kiss now. Months of restraint seemed to snap at once, and Serena met him with the same desperation, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him down until there was no space left between them.Her hands were already beneath his shirt.She dragged it upward impatiently. When it caught around his shoulders, Damian pulled it the rest of the way off and tossed it somewhere behind him.Serena barely gave it time to land.Her palms moved over his bare chest, his shoulders, then around his back as she pulled him against her again.She had missed his body.Not the idea of it. Not some softened memory of nights they’d spent together. This—the heat of his skin beneath her palms, the muscles tightening when she touched him, the familiar scent of him when she buried her face b

By the time Serena reached her apartment, the roads were open again and the storm had moved far enough away that patches of blue were beginning to appear between the clouds. She dropped her bag beside the sofa and stood there for a moment, exhausted in a way that had very little to do with how little she’d slept.She needed a shower, coffee and several uninterrupted hours in which nobody asked her a question she couldn’t answer.Her phone rang before she managed any of those things.Theo.Serena stared at his name for a few seconds before answering. “Hi.”“Hey. You made it home?”“About ten minutes ago.”“Roads okay?”“Messy, but fine once I got past the access road.”“Good.” There was a brief pause. “You sound tired.”“I didn’t sleep much.”That was true, even if the reason for it sat like a stone in her stomach.“I figured. I was going to bring you breakfast, but I can leave you alone if you want to sleep.”The normality of the offer made her chest tighten. Serena closed her eyes br

Two days after ending things with Theo, Serena sat at the long conference table at Street Nation headquarters with the revised campaign schedule open in front of her.Elena was halfway through the October rollout, Daniel had three pages of notes beside his tablet, and Serena had spent most of the meeting discussing everything from the next SN-R development session to a series of technical videos the marketing team wanted to film with her.Work had been good for her over the last two days. Ellis Atelier was busy, Laurent Motorsport had given her enough space to keep her distance from Theo outside what was professionally necessary, and Street Nation required enough concentration that there wasn’t much room left for thoughts she didn’t want.At least there hadn’t been until Damian walked into the room.He arrived twenty minutes into the meeting, apologized briefly for being late and took the empty chair near the end of the table. Serena acknowledged him with the same polite nod she would