reaction thus far to her presence hadn’t exactly spelled overjoyed. He’d been terse, short. Almost…annoyed. She hadn’t really expected the Hollywood reaction—him sweeping her into his arms and kissing her passionately—but something a little more enthusiastic would have done a lot for her peace of mind. The pregnancy had already knocked her off center, and to have Linc react as if she was a fly in his soup—
She didn’t need one more stress. Not now. Besides, the last place she wanted to share news like this was in a hall outside a conference room. She’d wait for a better time. One when perhaps Linc had come around to the shock of seeing her again.
Surely that was all it was, shock. Not dismay. Or disappointment.
“No,” she said finally. “I was simply taking you up on your offer of a job.”
“Job offer?”
Oh, damn. Now he did look confused. She shouldn’t have come. Definitely should have stayed in San Diego. But she kept on talking, as if saying more would fix an already messy situation. “The one you made about that children’s software program you were planning to launch?” Suddenly the space seemed too confined, too hot, and regrets piled on her shoulders heavier than bricks. “But I can see I came at a bad time.” Oh, man, now she was repeating herself. “I should just—”
“No, no.” He reached for her, but didn’t connect. “Let’s take this somewhere more…quiet,” Linc said. “Have you eaten?”
What was with people trying to feed her? Molly’s stomach still had a rebellious streak going strong, made worse by the conversation and her nerves, but she shook her head, if only to escape the clear curiosity running through the other people in the offices around them. And find a way to get out of here. “No, I haven’t.”
Linc closed the distance between them and put a hand against her back—a light touch, nothing more than a guiding glance, but it set off a firestorm of memories in her. Of being with him in that bar, of the first time he’d touched her—
How they’d danced around, touching, for a halfhour that night, hands and fingers coming close, then drifting away, each of them wanting to make contact, neither daring to be the first, and then she had reached for her drink at the same time he had, and their fingers had collided. An instant electric explosion ignited in Molly, more powerful than any she had ever felt. She’d been a goner from that moment on, captured in Linc’s spell.
That same electric explosion, albeit slightly muted by the daylight, the other people and the businesslike surroundings, reignited in Molly as Linc guided her into the elevator. They rode down in silence, two among a dozen other people, then stepped out into the lobby and out of the Curtis Systems building. Once they reached the sidewalk his hand dropped away and a whisper of disappointment ran through her.
She shook it off. She wasn’t here to start a relationship with Lincoln Curtis. Under no circumstances did she want that. She had enough on her plate to deal with right now. Besides, she hardly knew the man. She couldn’t base any rational decisions on one night—made after a few drinks and a lot of hormones.
Not to mention, judging by his reaction at her sudden appearance, he wasn’t interested in her anymore. Whatever he’d felt that night had clearly dissipated in the two months since. She’d do what she came here for—work here long enough to get to know him, for the baby’s sake. And find some way of telling him about their child. Then go back to San Diego.
Nothing more.
She wouldn’t make the mistake of entangling herself again with a man who didn’t share her visions of the future. Who would give her less than a hundred percent.
Linc raised a hand, and in an instant a sleek black town car glided to a stop before them. The driver hopped out, came around and opened the door for them. Linc gestured for Molly to enter first, then he slid in behind her, settling on the seat close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, but not close enough to touch.
“Your own driver?” she said. “I’m impressed.” Once again, the differences between the Linc she’d met that night and the real Linc became readily apparent. The man she’d seen in the bar—had any of him been real? Who was the Lincoln Curtis sitting across from her? This stiff upper-lipped, wealthy, powerful CEO, not the average Joe she thought she knew two months ago.
What had he seen in her that night? And why hadn’t he told her the whole truth about his life when they’d met? Perhaps, she thought, he’d met too many people who heard the word millionaire and immediately saw dollar signs instead of Linc.
“Don’t be impressed, really,” he said. “The car and driver are a necessity. A time-saver.”
“Because driving your own car takes so much more time?” she joked.
“Because I can work while Saul drives.” Linc gestured toward a laptop set up on a small desk on the left-hand side of the car, beside a built-in phone and a small television screen.
The Linc in the bar had seemed so relaxed, so ordinary, and yet this Linc seemed the complete opposite. It was more than the suit and the chauffeured car. He carried himself differently. As if a world of responsibility lay on his shoulders.
As the car pulled away from the curb, she glanced back at the towering building of Curtis Systems and realized perhaps it did.
Had she read him wrong that night? Or had her memory grown fuzzy over the last two months?
No, it wasn’t that. He had definitely acted differently that night. The question was why.
“I thought you had a meeting to go to,” she said. “The receptionist mentioned you were tied up all afternoon. Seriously, I don’t mind coming back at a better time.”
“I do have a meeting. I am swamped today.” He let out a long breath, one that spoke of all those responsibilities. Then he looked over at her, as if he still couldn’t believe she’d shown up on his doorstep. “But it’s not every day that I receive…an unexpected visitor.”
“That’s a unique way of phrasing—” she was going to say our relationship, but they didn’t really have one, so she settled instead on, “the situation.”
“You caught me off guard today. I hadn’t expected to see you again.”
She caught the woodsy undertones of his cologne. In an instant she had an image of him from that night—simple pin-striped button-down shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up. But more than the way he’d dressed, she remembered the way he’d kissed, a kiss that had set her on fire in a way she never had been before. He’d taken his time, his lips drifting slowly over hers, his hand cupping her jaw, as if he was—
“How did you find me?” Linc asked.
“It, ah…” Molly drew her attention back to the present, her face hot “…wasn’t that hard. There aren’t that many software companies in Vegas employing a man named Linc, at least according to Google. I didn’t know, however, that you owned Curtis Systems. I thought…” Her voice trailed off.
“Thought I was just a worker bee.” A smile crossed his lips and he opened his mouth as if he was going to say something else, but his phone rang, cutting off the sentence midstream. Linc let out a sigh, checked the caller ID, then apologized to Molly before answering the call. She heard him debating something about an architectural design for
