to rise and fall, calling his attention to the cleavage peeking out of the pink lace of her dress. She looked soft and feminine, yet she was also smart and sensitive. Which was why she attracted him, tempted him, when in the past two years no other woman had penetrated the pain that had held him hostage. Grace treated him like a person. Not like her rich boss. Not like a good catch. Not even like a guy so far out of her social standing that she should be nervous to spend so much one-on-one time. But just like a man.
“Thanks.” She raised her gaze to his again. This time when Danny experienced the sense of intimacy, he almost couldn’t argue himself out of it because he finally understood it. She felt it, too. He could see it in her eyes. And he didn’t want to walk away from it. He needed her.
But then he saw the check in her hands and he remembered she was an employee. An affair between them had consequences. Especially when it ended. Office gossip would make him look foolish, but it could ruin her. Undoubtedly it would cost her her job. He might be willing to take a risk because his future wasn’t at stake, but he couldn’t make the decision for her.
CHAPTER TWO
DANNY cleared his throat. “You’re welcome. I very much appreciated your help this weekend.” He stepped away and walked toward the office door. “I’m going downstairs to have a drink before I turn in. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Grace watched Danny go, completely confused by what was happening between them. For a few seconds, she could have sworn he was going to kiss her and the whole heck of it was she would have let him.
Let him? She was so attracted to him she darned near kissed him first, and that puzzled her. She should have reminded herself that he was her boss and so wealthy they were barely on the same planet. Forget about being in the same social circle. But thoughts of their different worlds hadn’t even entered her head, and, thinking about them now, Grace couldn’t muster a reason they mattered.
Laughing softly, she combed her fingers through her hair. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t deny the spark between her and Danny. When Orlando left that afternoon, Grace had been disappointed that their weekend together had come to an end. But Danny had asked her to stay one more night, and she couldn’t resist the urge to dress up and hope that he would notice her the way she’d been noticing him. He’d nearly ruined everything by offering her a promotion she didn’t deserve, but he showed her that he trusted her opinion by taking her advice about Bobby Zapf.
The real turning point came when he mentioned his son. He hadn’t wanted to talk about him, but once Danny slipped him into the conversation he hadn’t pretended he hadn’t. She had seen the sadness in his eyes and knew there was a story there. But she also recognized that this wasn’t the time to ask questions. She’d heard the rumor that Danny had gone through an ugly divorce but no report had mentioned a child from his failed marriage. Nasty divorces frequently resulted in child custody battles and his ex-wife could very well make him fight to see his son, which was undoubtedly why he didn’t want to talk about him.
But tonight wasn’t the night for probing into a past that probably only reminded him of unhappy times. Tonight, she had to figure out if he felt for her what she was beginning to feel for him. The last thing she wanted was to be one of those employees who got a crush on her boss and then pined for him for the rest of her career.
And she wouldn’t get any answers standing in his third floor office when he was downstairs!
She ran down the steps and found him in the great room, behind the bar, pouring Scotch into a glass.
He glanced up when she walked over. Though he seemed surprised she hadn’t gone to her room as he’d more or less ordered her to, he said, “Drink?”
Wanting to be sharp and alert so she didn’t misinterpret anything he said or did, Grace smiled and said, “No. Thanks.”
She slid onto one of the three red leather bar stools that matched the red leather sofas that sat parallel to each other in front of the wall of windows that provided a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean. A black, red and tan Oriental rug between the sofas protected the sand-colored hardwood floors. White-bowled lights connected to thin chrome poles suspended from the vaulted ceiling, illuminating the huge room.
Danny took a swallow of his Scotch, then set the glass on the bar. “Can’t sleep?”
She shrugged. “Still too keyed up from the weekend I guess.”
“What would you normally do on a Sunday night?”
She thought for a second, then laughed. “Probably play rummy with my mother. She’s a cardaholic. Loves any game. But she’s especially wicked with rummy.”
“Can’t beat her?”
“Every once in a while I get lucky. But when it comes to pure skill the woman is evilly blessed.”
Danny laughed. “My mother likes cards, too.”
Grace’s eyes lit. “Really? How good is she?”
“Exceptional.”
“We should get them together.”
Danny took a long breath, then said, “We should.”
And Grace suddenly saw it. The thing that had tickled her brain all weekend but had never really surfaced. In spite of her impoverished roots and his obviously privileged upbringing, she and Danny had a lot in common. Not childhood memories, but adult things like goals and commitments. He ran his family’s business. She was determined to help her parents out of poverty because she loved them. Even the way they viewed Orlando proved they had approximately the same beliefs about life and people.
If Danny hadn’t asked for her help this weekend, eventually they would have been alone together long enough to see that they clicked. They matched. She knew he realized it, too, if only because he’d nearly slipped into personal conversation with her four times at dinner, but he had stopped himself. Probably because she was an employee.
It was both of their loss if they weren’t mature enough to handle an office relationship. But she thought they were. Her difficult childhood and his difficult divorce had strengthened each of them. They weren’t flip. They were cautious. Smart. If any two people could have an office relationship without it affecting their work, she and Danny were the two. And she wasn’t going to miss out on something good because, as her boss, Danny wouldn’t be the first to make a move.
She raised her eyes until she caught his gaze. “You know what? Though you’re trying to fight it, I think you like me. Would it help if I told you I really like you, too?”
For several seconds, Danny didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He’d never met a woman so honest, so he wasn’t surprised that she spoke her mind. Even better, she hadn’t played coy and tried to pretend she didn’t see what was going on. She saw it, and she wanted to like him as much as he wanted to like her.
And that was the key. The final answer. She wanted to like him as much as he wanted to like her and he suddenly couldn’t understand why he was fighting it.
“It helps enormously.” He bent across the bar and kissed her, partly to make sure they were on the same page with their intentions, and partly to see if their chemistry was as strong as the emotions that seemed to ricochet between them.
It
