Executive Perks by Angela Claire

swear, felt the car still swerving, and then they were at a dead stop, horns blaring all around them.
    “Christ, I’m sorry about that, Virginia.” He leaned over her, gently tugging her hand away to lightly probe her head. “Let me feel. That’s going to hurt,” he observed.
    “It does already.”
    His long fingers moved to her chin, lifting her face up toward him, again with a surprising gentleness. “Let me see your pupils. No, don’t close your eyes or look away. I need to see if they’re dilated.”
    Apparently satisfied that they weren’t, he released her chin, at the last second running the tips of his fingers along her cheek. She shivered, interpreting it as comfort, however he meant it. With horror, she realized she was on the verge of tears. Her head was pounding and she had never been very brave about pain. Forget about that “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” crap. Pain—not that in her pampered existence she’d ever had that much of it—always made her just want her mama, who was long dead. Ridiculous for a grown woman. She felt inexplicably alone. And scared for some reason. Maybe car crashes did that to a person. She’d never been in one.
    She looked at Winston tentatively, her hand going back up to the bump on her head, her lower lip quivering.
    “Poor baby,” he murmured, looking down at her.
    It was just the right thing to say. Not because it was sympathetic, which it undoubtedly was. If someone else—one of her sisters, for example—had been the one to offer those words at this moment, the sympathy of it would’ve made her burst out in tears. But with this corporate raider, it brought her back to herself. Or to her hard-as-nails CEO self anyway.
    Yes, just the right thing to say, though probably not for the reason he thought.
    She dropped her hand and sat up straight, ignoring the flash of pain that shot through her temple.
    “I’m fine,” she said briskly.
    He looked at her tentatively and then nodded. “Okay. You should still get yourself checked out by a doctor.”
    Even the soundproof limousine couldn’t keep out the uproar of the crowd surrounding the car. She wondered what damage the accident had done other than to her own too-soft head.
    Winston must have been thinking the same thing, as he surveyed the scene of onlookers outside the window.
    “Listen, about what we were…ah,” he sounded uncharacteristically hesitant, “discussing before all this.”
    At least the throbbing in her head muted her embarrassment a little. So there was that. Besides, he wasn’t even looking at her, still gazing at the turmoil outside the window.
    “I was just pissed off. I wasn’t thinking with my head. Not my big one anyway.”
    “It happened very fast,” she muttered, knowing it was a lame excuse.
    “I aim to please,” he said with a wry little glance her way.
    When she would’ve taken offense again—assuming she could through the ache in her head—he held up a hand to ward it off. “No, I know what you mean. It was, ah, pretty explosive. It took me off-guard too. And when we didn’t, ah, you didn’t want to, ah—”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “Well, again, I was just pissed. But if there’s one thing I abide by, it’s that no means no. In sex, not business,” he hastened to add. “It’s no, right?”
    “No,” she repeated, to be clear.
    He nodded and leaned over her to open the door on her side.
    “You’ve had enough trouble from me for one night, Virginia. There’s no reason why you should be caught up in this. I’m sure the police have been called and this’ll take some time. You can just slip out and catch a cab. I’ll deal with this.”
    She slammed her door shut again.
    “I can’t do that. That would be leaving the scene of an accident. That’s illegal.”
    He smiled, shaking his head. “Don’t you break any rules, sweetheart?”
    “Not if I can help it. And don’t call me sweetheart.”
    “Okay. What should I call you?