Tess moving around in the other room. She had nice eyes, he thought, along with a generous smile with occasional flashes of dimples in the corners. She never wore much makeup, but he’d noted some time ago—just in passing—that her skin was creamy and flawless without it. He supposed she would be considered girl-next-door attractive rather than strikingly beautiful—but then again, there was nothing he’d have changed about her appearance. On more than one occasion, especially during the past year or so, he’d found himself admiring her attributes in a manner that had made him immediately redirect his thoughts, chiding himself that it was inappropriate to even notice those things.
A muffled thud and a disgruntled mutter drifted in from the lobby. Curious, he stood and walked around his desk to stand in the open doorway. “What are you doing?”
Tess was on the floor beneath the big artificial tree, propped on one arm as she stretched to reach something he couldn’t see. “I knocked off an ornament when I was trying to straighten a branch. Oh, here it is.”
Holding a sparkling gold orb in her hand, she swiveled so that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor looking thoughtfully up at the tree. After a moment, she leaned forward and hooked the ornament to a branch, then leaned back on her hands to gaze upward. Tiny white lights glittered among the thick green branches, their reflection gleaming in the dark red highlights in her hair.
“How does that look?” she asked.
“Looks good,” he murmured slowly, his eyes on her. “Really good.”
She pushed herself to her feet and brushed absently at her slacks. “Do you think a candle in a snowflake-shaped holder on the reception desk would be too much?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What?”
When she realized he was staring at her, she cocked her head to eye him with a frown. “Scott? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Just...absorbed with a dilemma.”
“You’ll figure it out,” she said encouragingly. “You always do.”
Her steadfast confidence in him had bolstered him through some of his most challenging periods during the past six years. Her absolute dedication to the company had been instrumental in its success. She understood why it was so important to him in a way that perhaps no one else did, because it seemed almost equally valuable to her. In some ways, he thought she knew him better than anyone outside his immediate family. Even some of his longtime friends were unable to read him as well as Tess. She was more than an employee, more than a professional associate. Not exactly a personal friend—but whose fault was that? His or hers? Both?
Tess had often teased him about being “blessed with strokes of inspiration,” in her words. Solutions to thorny problems tended to occur to him in sudden, compelling flashes, and he had learned to respect his own instincts. They had let him down only on very rare occasions.
He had just been staggered by another one of those brilliant moments of insight. In a near-blinding flash of awareness, he’d realized suddenly that the woman he’d mentally described as his perfect mate had just been sitting under the Christmas tree.
Tess wasn’t particularly concerned about Scott’s sudden distraction. This was an expression she knew very well, the way he always looked when he’d been struck with a possibly brilliant solution to a troublesome dilemma. She would wait patiently for him to share what he was thinking—or not. Sometimes he had to mull over details for days before he enlightened anyone else about his latest inspired idea.
Glancing around the reception area, she decided she’d finished decorating. The offices looked festive and welcoming but not over the top. “I’m calling it done,” she said, more to herself than Scott, who probably wasn’t listening anyway. “Any more would be too much.”
He gave a little start in response to her voice—honestly, had he forgotten she was even there?—then cleared his throat. “Um, Tess?”
Picking up an empty ornament box to stow away in a supply closet, she responded absently, “Yes?”
When he didn’t immediately reply, she glanced around to find him studying her with a frown. The way he was staring took her aback. Did she have something on her face? Glitter in her hair? She thought he might look just this way at finding a stranger in his reception room.
“Scott?”
He blinked, then glanced quickly around them. “Not here,” he muttered, apparently to himself, then addressed her again. “Have you eaten?”
“I was going to stop for takeout on my way home.”
“Want to share a pizza at Giulia’s? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
It wasn’t unusual for them to share a meal after working late, and the nearby casual Italian place was one of their customary destinations. Because she had no other plans for the evening, she nodded. “Sure. I’ll just grab a notebook.”
“You won’t need to take notes. We’re just going to talk.”
That was odd, too. They’d worked through shared meals but never just talked.
He was still acting peculiarly when they were seated in a back booth in the restaurant.
Sipping her soda while waiting for their pizza, Tess studied Scott over the rim of the glass. He was visibly preoccupied, but she knew occasionally it was possible to sidetrack him from his musings, at least briefly. She gave it a try. “Tell me a funny story about your nieces,” she suggested, leaning back in her seat. “I could use a good laugh this evening.”
He blinked a couple of times before focusing on her from across the table. Candlelight gleamed in his dark blue eyes. His hair, the color of strong, rich coffee and a bit mussed from the winter evening breeze, was brushed back casually from a shallow widow’s peak. A few strands of premature silver glittered in the dark depths. There was no denying that her boss was a fine-looking man, trim and tanned with a firm, square jaw, nicely chiseled features and a smile that could melt glaciers when he turned on the charm.
Sometimes she still thought of the first time she’d met him. She’d been struck almost dumb by her first sight of the great-looking, intensely focused man sitting behind a cheap, cluttered desk in his first office. She still cringed a little when she thought of how incoherent she’d been during that awkward interview. She wasn’t sure what he’d seen in her to take a chance on hiring her, but she was so glad he had. She loved her job and took great pride in the success of the business.
Scott thought for a moment before complying with her impulsive request. “During breakfast Thanksgiving morning, Madison reached for the butter and knocked over an entire glass of cold milk directly into Eli’s lap. Eli jumped and knocked over his cereal bowl, which landed on their shih tzu. The dog went tearing through the house scattering milk and Cheerios all over the floors while the girls chased after it, smashing the cereal underfoot. Eli was laughing when he told us the story over Thanksgiving dinner, but his wife was not amused.”
Tess laughed. “That sounds like a scene from a TV sitcom.”
“Right? Eli said it’s pretty much life as expected with energetic almost-five-year-old twins.”
