was rebelling against viewing her as anything other than a loyal employee. But she wasn’t a silly woman. She was a realist, on her way to a new life and only detained in her old one because she didn’t want to leave any loose ends. It would be horrible if Josh called her for assistance a few weeks after she was gone, on a day when she was homesick, because she might be lonely enough to return. Then she would be right back where she started. She needed to teach him her job, so she could move to Florida knowing they would have no more contact. She wanted to go and not look back.
The next morning, Josh peered over his bowl of cereal at Olivia as she entered the kitchen. Though he had tried to cover his mistake, he wondered if she realized he had considered kissing her the night before. That in and of itself would have made facing her hard enough. But much to his consternation he had dreamed about her while asleep.
The dream, more than the near miss with kissing, was what really made this first encounter difficult, because in his dream Olivia was dressed in something filmy and sexy, close enough to touch, but always eluding him. That was the good part of the dream. The bad part, the part that woke him with shock and a feeling of bewilderment, was that she also told him that she was leaving him because he didn’t love her. Which was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.
Actually it was wishful thinking. Every time they talked last night, first at her apartment, then at his house over pizza, he discovered there was more to like about her beyond her good looks, which were sufficient reason to grovel at her feet in most male circles. He could understand himself wishing she were interested in him. Any normal man would want this woman yearning for his affection. But given that she was leaving, it was fairly obvious that she wasn’t longing for his love, so the second half of the dream was pure fantasy.
“Hi, Josh.”
Glancing up, Josh swallowed hard. Olivia stood in the kitchen doorway with her voluminous hair pulled into a ponytail and her body encased in cute jeans and a fitted top, both of which were perfectly innocent. But when he looked at her, he imagined her dressed in the red filmy thing from his dream. In his mind’s eye, he saw the swell of her breast caressed by what appeared to be see-through chiffon. He saw the curve of her hip shift against the lightweight material. He saw the long length of her legs.
He would have been mortally embarrassed, except Olivia didn’t know about the dream and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her. Particularly since her chipper greeting proved she wasn’t holding that “almost kiss” against him.
“Hi.”
“You got any Frosted Flakes?” she asked, ambling into the room like they were best friends who always had sleepovers. As if she wasn’t troubled or titillated by the fact that they’d spent the night under the same roof.
“Turntable below the microwave. Bowls are in the cupboard by the sink.”
“Thanks.” She walked into the room, her ponytail swishing around her.
Josh rubbed his hands across his face as if he was attempting to awaken himself, but, really, he was stifling a groan. It was pretty damned hard to miss the fact that this woman was gorgeous. He blamed her conservative work wardrobe for his not seeing any of this before, but even that excuse only went so far. She never hid her hair, those eyes or that soft-looking skin. He had to have had his head in a cloud. God only knew what else he missed about her in the past four years. But that didn’t worry him as much as the fact that he couldn’t seem to be in the same room with her without having thoughts that were definitely inappropriate. Some even bordered on downright lusty.
“What time are we going in to the office?” she asked, bringing a bowl to the kitchen table.
Josh leaped out of his seat. “As soon as I shower,” he said, and chuckled a little nervously. “That’s why I just jumped up like that…I need to go shower.”
“Good.” She poured Frosted Flakes into the bowl. “You go shower and I’ll eat while I catch the morning news.”
“Good.” He began backing out of the kitchen. “Let me know if anything interesting happened while we were sleeping.”
For some reason or another that comment struck her as funny and she started to laugh. Josh took advantage of her preoccupation with giggling to get out of the kitchen, but also to remind himself that that was the kind of relationship they had. Buddies. Friendly coworkers. Gumbas.
Otherwise she would have noticed and reacted to the fact that he was only wearing a robe. Sure, it was a long, commonplace—all right, ugly—robe, but it was only one layer of material. She could have at least tried to peek around in an attempt to see if he wore other clothes beneath it. Instead, she acted as if she wouldn’t care if he were stark naked, sitting beside her.
He frowned. Now that he thought about it, that really rubbed him the wrong way. He might be older than she was but he wasn’t unattractive. Ignoring him shouldn’t be so easy. In fact, since she made it look like such a cakewalk, Josh had to wonder if she wasn’t somehow faking. Maybe the real deal was that she was attracted to him, but pretending not to be since he had never seemed to be attracted to her?
He knew that was reaching, but the truth was it felt out of balance to be this captivated by her when she didn’t even notice his handsomeness, his innate goodness or his sexuality. Women were always telling him he was handsome, or kind, or sexy.
Surely something about him appealed to her.
He considered the situation in the shower, while pulling on his jeans and sliding into dock shoes, and he decided he needed a test of some kind. He couldn’t come right out and ask if she was interested, but he could most certainly hint and see where that led them.
As he locked the house and, with Olivia, walked through the connecting garage, no good opportunity presented itself, and no obvious test popped into his mind. So in the car he asked, “Did you sleep well?” if only because he ultimately concluded that was at least a way to open the door of communication. If she said she hadn’t slept well and gave him a flirty little smile, he would know he wasn’t crazy.
But she didn’t even look at him when she said, “Hmm-hmm.”
“No restlessness?” he prodded, telling himself not to be discouraged because his first question was vague. This one would get much better results.
“No.”
Hmmm…
“No bad dreams?”
For this she did at least look at him. “Bad dreams?”
“Odd dreams, strange dreams,” he said, hoping she would finally get the drift so he didn’t have to buy a blackboard and spell it out for her. “Dreams you didn’t expect to have?”
“Josh, I’ve lived by myself for almost five years. I learned not to be afraid of the dark a long time ago.”
Okay, that was clear. She hadn’t been restless. She had slept well. She didn’t have any “dreams.” Maybe the person who needed the blackboard lesson was he. The woman wasn’t interested.
He pulled his car into his reserved parking space at the Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods building. She didn’t wait for him to come around and open her door, further confirming that she didn’t see him as a gentleman friend from whom she expected courtesy, but as a former boss and an acquaintance.
All right. No big deal, he could handle this.
Though
