Matt had to blink to be sure he wasn’t just conjuring her up as he left the mens’ room.
She lifted her face toward him and gave him a bright smile. “I’m a few minutes early.”
“Early?”
“For our meeting.” She lifted her briefcase an inch. “You’re going to love these ideas.”
He deserved this. He deserved to squirm in front of her. He should have explained things to her, not let her run off making all sorts of wrong assumptions. And then he didn’t call her—unless you count a lousy voice mail message with a mumbled excuse about delays in the product launch. Hell, yeah. He deserved to suffer.
Only, he wasn’t suffering. Because looking at those innocent eyes, standing in the enclosed hallway close enough to almost drop a kiss on her caramel-colored hair was not suffering. In fact, it was a lot closer to heaven than hell.
Indicating the executive suites with one hand, he said, “My office is this way, Paige.”
Even though he wanted to touch her so badly he literally ached, he fought the urge to place a hand on her back as they walked together. He wouldn’t touch her. He would not lay a single finger on her body.
Eleanor looked up from her desk and her jaw slackened.
“Hold my calls, please,” he instructed her, not taking the time to respond to the surprised look on his assistant’s face.
Paige seemed to know exactly where to go, entering his office ahead of him.
“Have a seat.” He pulled out one of the guest chairs in front of his desk, somehow not wanting her to sit on the sofa where Tessa Carpenter had just licked her chops over him. Paige wasn’t a slink-on-the-leather kind of girl. She was a sit-in-the-straight-back-chair kind of girl.
Wasn’t she?
As she sat, the hem of her peachy sweater dress rose just enough to make him question that thought. The silky thigh the move revealed collided with the image of Paige sliding out of her clothes the previous day. His whole lower half threatened to jump up and betray his thoughts. Good God, was he incapable of having a conversation with this woman without getting aroused?
He closed the door and tapped the wall switch that automatically lowered the sound system.
“Don’t turn off Frank on my account,” she said. “I’ve been humming ‘Under My Skin’ for two days.”
His reaction to that was definitely above the waist. “You have?”
She turned in the chair to face him. “Just thinking about the VoiceBox launch party makes me hum some great songs.”
Well, that explained it. She hadn’t received the fax or his message. And even after the way they left things on Sunday afternoon, she showed up for a meeting, all professional and ready to work.
Sitting across from her in the other chair, he took a deep breath. There’d be no hasty, feeble explanations of a product delay now. He had to tell her the truth.
“Paige—”
Before he could speak, she began to spread papers on his desk. “Here’s the room layout I worked out.”
“Paige, wait.”
“No,” she shook her head and held up one finger. “You wait. Wait until you see the idea I had for the centerpieces.”
He opened his mouth to stop her again, but his gaze fell on the picture of a gray felt hat—Sinatra’s trademark—tipped over the corner of a laptop screen. He couldn’t help smiling. “Now would you look at that?”
“Oh, that’s just something I worked up off the Internet,” she assured him. “There’ll be a laptop on each table with a different theme that instantly brings to mind the musician. Lips for Mick Jagger, oversize glasses for Elton John.”
Unable to resist, he lifted another page and scanned it.
“You did a lot of work yesterday,” he said slowly. “I’m impressed.”
She didn’t respond for a moment as the flush deepened in her cheeks. “I didn’t want to just sit around and think.”
About what a jerk he was, no doubt. “Paige.” He put his hand over hers, loving the slender, smooth feel of it. There went the vow not to touch her. “I canceled the contract and this meeting.”
“I know.”
She knew? He just stared at her.
“I got your fax and your message. But I really wanted you to see these ideas, so I decided to bend the rules and muscle my way into your office.” She gave him a saucy grin. “Pretty good muscling, huh?”
He couldn’t fight his own smile as he studied her. “Yeah. Damn good. Muscled your way right past Eleanor, and that’s no easy feat.”
“Eleanor was a breeze. Now, Tessa, in the bathroom. She was a little more protective of you.”
He laughed out loud at that. “She works for me.”
“Yes, in Marketing. I know.”
“She was here to be briefed—”
“On the product announcement and event. I know.”
Still smiling, he leaned back in his chair and let out a little puff of air in defeat. “Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I don’t know why you got so weird on me yesterday afternoon.”
His throat closed up. Not at what she said, but at the brave, straightforward way she said it. He owed this lady an explanation and, more than that, he admired her for seeking it out.
Searching her face, he tried to form the right words. Your tears freaked me out? He’d sound like a basket case. You’re too refined and intelligent for me to seduce? What, he only slept with coarse, classless girls? You want emotion and I want sex?
Bingo.
He looked down for one second, then back into those ever-changing eyes. Forget the color, he could just get lost in the shape and size and patience he saw as she waited for his explanation.
“When you cried, Paige, I realized that a…a physical relationship was more meaningful to you than it…than it usually is to me.” Geez. He sounded like a cad. “I mean, I generally don’t get emotionally involved with the women I…” No better.
He stood suddenly, moving behind his chair to grip the backrest, aware that her gaze never left him. “I…I just sensed that casual sex and you…don’t mix well.”
She didn’t say a word.
He waited a beat, then added, “I respect you.”
“Well, that’s a shame.”
A shame? “Pardon me?”
“Because
