His Naughty Lessons

** Harper **

"He's an editor." Harper tried to pretend that she didn't get the innuendo. "Of course he's good at polishing up books."

Chelsea tilted her head to the side, a signature thing she always did when she was in her gossip girl mode. "Oh yeah?" Her eyes gleamed with a sly light. "Only books though?"

"Eli is truly good at his job," May chimed in at the perfect time, seemingly oblivious to the direction that Chelsea was trying to go. "He might only be part-time, but he gets through his clients more efficiently than a lot of us full-timers. That was the main reason why I picked him to hand Harper's book over."

"Thank you, it worked out really well for me." Harper latched on to that digression immediately. She wouldn't miss such a great opportunity to both escape Chelsea's interrogation and steer the conversation toward gossips about Eli. "You two have been working together for a while?"

May took a second to do the math. "Only for about a month, I heard he's new in town. But a man like that makes an impression fast. It's hard to not notice someone who's both so capable and looks like the cover model for The Hottest Man Alive."

That assessment successfully diverted Chelsea's attention. "So this guy really is smoldering, even without filters from Harper's beautifying lens?"

"Oh, definitely." May chuckled. "Perfect body, perfect face, with that wicked type of smile teenage girls go crazy for. And surprisingly, a nice personality too. His clients all gave rave reviews." She eyed Harper. "I'm assuming another one from you is coming soon."

Harper smiled a bit sheepishly. It was oddly satisfying to hear other people talk about Eli like this, and she couldn't help but feel a bubbling sense of pride. Then she noticed Chelsea was glancing her way with a lethal dose of suspicion, and she quickly schooled her face back to casualness.

"I heard a couple of the younger editors on our team are even using him as a blueprint for the ideal main character now," May continued. "So if you start seeing too many books in the next few months that all read like they have the same Mr. Perfect in it, you'll know why."

Now, that was a compliment exceeding even Harper's expectations. Weren't romance editors supposed to be the experts of experts when it comes to judging hot men? "That's really saying something if he could manage to impress you guys out of all people," she marveled.

"Why, it surprises you? I thought you've worked with him enough to know by now." May gave her a knowing smile. "It's not just about his looks, of course. Chelsea jokes about me taking my book tropes into real life, but she didn't see how this guy puts his knowledge to good use. The way he flirts is really some skill on a whole different level — I might even call it textbook-worthy."

A sudden pause descended around the table.

"You mean he likes to hit on the girls in the office or something?" It was Chelsea who asked first. Her tone had changed now, that insinuating edge fading.

"Well, we don't exactly have an 'office'," May clarified. "It's mostly remote. And maybe 'hit on' is too strong a word … But otherwise, yeah, he makes conversations quite enticing when we're on conference calls or chats. We all try, though. It's a romance team, how can you make a living in a market like that without upping the spice level at work a bit?"

Chelsea darted a glance at Harper. Harper, on the other hand, lowered her head and pretended to study the menu in front of her, a convenient excuse to cover up her silence.

Eli liked to casually flirt with girls on a daily basis? She didn't know that about him. It shouldn't be surprising, though. He was the kind of hot guy who'd be naturally swarmed by lady friends wherever he went, and like May said, it was part of the team culture where they worked.

It shouldn't be something that bothered her, but Harper found herself distracted by the thought nonetheless. What were these girls at his part-time job like? Were they all sexy and full of character like May? What exactly did Eli say when he was around them? The words he had whispered in her ears last night echoed inside her head again, and she wondered if he ever uttered the same thing to these other women as well. She was almost certain that he had …

The thought suddenly turned sour, and Harper clutched the menu, with too much more force than necessary.

For the past couple of weeks, she had been trying not to overthink the whole "practice arrangement" between them. They had both made it quite clear that they weren't dating, which meant that however he acted around other girls was none of her business. But then … Why did she feel so troubled by the new gossip she just heard? Why were her fingers turning cold, and why was there a knot in her stomach tying itself harder and harder with every thought?

"Anyway, I'm just glad that you're in such good hands now." May flashed a merry smile and concluded without noticing Harper's change in spirit. "You're clearly doing much better in your recent chapters, so whatever plan he'd figured out for you, I'd say just stick to it and keep going. Oh, and I especially liked your latest improvement on dialogues." Her smile turned a little naughty. "I see you must've witnessed some of that textbook-level flirting speech yourself."

Harper managed a smile back, though perhaps a bit too tightly. Yeah, she certainly had … and now she had no idea what to do with it.