opened his door and got out. The air was cold but didn’t cool the heat flowing through him. He wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything in the office except that his wide cherrywood desk was big enough to support the weight of one slender blonde.
Lila met him on the sidewalk and brushed past him. He stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.
“What’s the hurry?”
“I don’t want anyone to see us coming in together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. At least five people saw me pick you up this morning. And even more saw us pull into the parking lot.”
“True. But I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression.”
“Are you really that concerned with what others think?”
She nodded.
“Don’t be. They aren’t worth your time.”
“You only say that because it’s always the woman who comes out sounding like she’s easy.”
“Trust me, Lila, the last thing you are is easy.”
“I know that, but other women…”
“If anyone says anything to you, tell me and I’ll silence them.”
She smiled. “Like Hannibal?”
“No. Like Dirty Harry.”
“Death?”
“Intimidation.”
“You’re not as scary as you think you are.”
“Neither are you.”
“I’m not trying to scare you,” she said and walked quickly inside the building.
But you are, he thought. Because a part of him was afraid she’d mean more to him than any of the brief affairs he’d had since Amelia’s death two years ago, and that wasn’t in the cards.
Two
The buzz around the office was that Colette, Inc. had a new board member who was planning on making some changes at the top. Lila returned from a quick clerical meeting led by Suzy, the Administrative Assistant in Human Resources, not feeling as upbeat about her job as she had a day ago.
She stowed her purse and tried to concentrate on her work, but the presentation she was creating couldn’t hold her attention.
Dammit!
“Can you come into my office and take a memo?” Nick asked. Anger seethed around him in a cloud. He looked dark and menacing, not like the man who’d been keeping her at arm’s length all day.
Lila saved the file she’d been working on and nodded. She tried not to glance at him as he hovered near her desk. The spicy scent of his cologne surrounded her and she breathed deeply to inhale his scent into her bones.
Bracing his big hands on her desk, he leaned over. His deep-blue eyes usually held boundless energy, but today anger simmered in their depths. She felt it radiating off him in waves. Concerned, she started to rub his hand, to offer him the most basic of human comfort, but then pulled back.
She watched as his eyes left hers to stare at her small hand now only a few inches from his right one on the desk. He’d spent the entire afternoon with the board of directors and, if his body language was correct, then the rumor that Colette was the object of a hostile takeover was true.
Colette, Inc. had proven a safe place for her to build her career and save the money she needed to buy her dream house. The rumored takeover reminded her how much she hated change.
When she’d packed up and moved to Youngsville it was with the intention of staying here forever. First, Nick had started acting like she was the most scrumptious woman he’d seen in years, and now her job was threatened.
It wasn’t so much her role in Colette she worried about losing. It was her apartment. The homey place at Amber Court had given her the grounding she needed to find her own feet, to shape her own image away from her mother. And suddenly that looked as if it might be taken away.
“What’s up?”
“I’d rather not discuss it out here.”
Her stomach clenched, and she felt much the same as she had on that day in high school when the guy she’d been waiting for three years to be asked out by had told her that he’d only done so because she was considered easy.
“I’ll be right in.”
Nick straightened and then deliberately brushed his fingertip over the back of her knuckles. Her breath caught as electric tingles pulsed through her body. She’d spent so many hours at her desk wondering if she’d just imagined his attraction to her, but now she knew it wasn’t a fantasy.
For a tense moment they stared at each other. Lila’s breasts felt full and her lips were suddenly dry. She licked them. Nick tracked the movement and started to lean closer to her.
Down the hall an office door closed loudly. Nick stood and walked into his office without another word.
“Oh, my God!” Lila said. She had to transfer out of this office before she completely lost all of her common sense. She fingered the brooch Rose had given her before she left for work. It was beautiful, and Lila had found herself taking it off to look at it several times today. In fact, it seemed to glow a little more brightly whenever she touched it. Rose had said it had always brought her luck. Lila had the feeling she needed more help than this brooch could bring her.
She signed out of the local area network, or the LAN, and removed her laptop from its docking station. Nick’s office overlooked Lake Michigan. Tonight, the view was dark and menacing. Being a Florida girl she didn’t care for all the cold weather, but the changing leaves had been beautiful. After a year and a half here, she still hadn’t acclimated herself to the Indiana weather.
Lila set her laptop on the corner of Nick’s desk. He was hunched over his own computer, probably checking e-mail, she thought. Tension radiated from him, and she wanted to touch him, to massage those broad shoulders until he leaned back in his big executive chair and smiled at her.
Of course, he never really smiled at her. Sometimes when they’d completed a really tough project, he’d give her one of his half-smiles, and she’d feel a deep longing inside to make him really happy. But she never did. Sleeping with the boss was the one thing she’d never do. Except this morning things between them had changed. Her dreams were slowly becoming reality. The actions she’d always longed to take were now presenting themselves to her.
“Ready, Lila?”
She swallowed and blocked her train of thought. “Almost.”
She powered on her computer. “Should we close the blinds?”
“Why, afraid someone might see us alone together in here?” There was a biting edge to his words.
“Not afraid exactly.” She’d never been afraid of any man since most of
