just a joke,” she said quickly. “They don’t mean anything by it.”
“It’s all in fun, Mr. Greco,” Sherry chimed in, snatching the calendar from him with a nervous smile and beginning to back from the room. “I’m sorry if you’re offended. I’ll take your picture out. I’ll tear it up.” She demonstrated, ripping it out of the calendar and tearing it right before his eyes. “I’ll burn it. No one will ever see it again. I swear.” With a wide-eyed look at Chareen, she turned and disappeared through the doorway, along with her two co-conspirators. Giggling could be heard in the halls, then silence.
Chareen cleared her throat and tried to look innocent. Holding out her hand, she looked up at him and smiled brightly. “Well, Mr. Greco. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Chareen Wolf. I guess we’ll be working together for a few weeks.”
Or…maybe not. He hesitated before taking her hand. There was no hint of amusement in his gaze, and she wondered for just a moment if he was going to hold what he’d heard her say against her. Should she apologize? Or pretend to have forgotten all about it?
But he finally did accept her handshake, though his side of it was rather perfunctory. “You are the expert in old Spanish land grants, aren’t you?” he said crisply, his eyes cool as they assessed her. “I was told I was going to need you if I wanted to get the acquisitions accomplished in a timely manner.”
“Guilty as charged,” she admitted, refusing to let him see any nervousness on her part. “I’m a paralegal. I know something about early-nineteenth-century Spanish legal language. And I specialize in researching old deeds.”
He nodded. “Just what I’m going to need.” He gestured toward the doorway. “Why don’t we stop in at the coffee shop and work up our strategy for this project over a cup of coffee?”
She hesitated. She’d had other plans for the rest of her lunch hour. But she supposed they could wait. For the time being, he was the boss. “Fine,” she said, turning toward the doorway.
They didn’t speak again as they strode side by side down the hallway. Chareen stared straight ahead, but her mind was racing. She wasn’t sure she could do this. Michael Greco was nothing like what she’d expected.
The last acquisitions specialist she’d worked with had been a huge, balding man with a laugh that shook the rafters of the building. They had worked really well together, and when she’d told Leonard Trask, the Legal Services manager who was almost like a second father to her, that she would be willing to take that sort of assignment again, she had expected to be paired with another older, nonthreatening sort of man. But Sherry had been right about one thing. Michael Greco belonged in a hunk calendar.
That in itself wasn’t going to be easy to deal with. It had been a long, long time since she’d had a man in her life, and she was determined it would be a much longer time before anything like that happened again. She had two little boys at home who were the result of her last experiment in romance. Her life was set. She was a single mom, and she had no intention of being anything else for the time being. Working closely with a man who had this sort of masculine appeal was not going to be a piece of cake.
But there was more. There was something about him that bothered her to the core of her soul and made her wish she could think of a way to get out of this assignment. She’d noticed it from the first, when she’d seen the picture Sherry had made from the photo she’d borrowed from Human Resources. He reminded her of someone—Danny McGuire, the father of those two little boys. It was just a fluke, of course, just a chance resemblance. But it was enough to make her wish she was anywhere but here. She only hoped they could get on with the business at hand and get it over with. The sooner the better.
She chose a latte, while Michael Greco poured himself a large cup of some very black blend, and they made their way to a table near the window, overlooking the rolling green lawn that led down to a small, reed-fringed duck pond. He made a move as though thinking of pulling her chair out for her, but she hurriedly pulled it out for herself, then felt a bit foolish for having done so.
But what the heck? She’d been doing things that made her look foolish from the very beginning with this man. She wasn’t sure why that bothered her so much, but it did. And that was unusual, because she was known around here for being a little sassy, a little brash, and a whole lot sure of herself. It wasn’t true, of course. But she had managed to develop the reputation. It was a good shield against her real feelings.
She glanced at him sideways as he began to talk, going over the fundamentals of the White Stones project. Did he really look a lot like Danny, or was she imagining things? He did have the same sort of thick brown hair, cut very much like Danny used to wear it. And his hazel eyes were just as knowing. But his nose was straighter. His had more of a Roman look, whereas Danny’s had looked as though it had been molded by a street fight or two. And his mouth was different. Danny’s had always been twisted in a mocking grin. Michael Greco had only smiled once that she knew of, when they had first come face-to-face. Ever since, she’d been getting the feeling that he didn’t want to be with her any more than she wanted to be with him. She moved restlessly in her seat, wondering why this meeting was so uncomfortable for them both. Maybe, for some people, it was dislike at first sight.
She wished, suddenly, that she was with her children. Three-year-old twins, they were at a stage where they were alternately adorable and infuriating, and she hated missing even a minute of their development. This had been a particularly topsy-turvy week, because she’d had to move her little family out of their home, as the landlord was doing some long-overdue repairs and painting. For the time being, they were living in quarters made available to TriTerraCorp employees, and the boys were having a little trouble getting used to it. Half of her mind was going over ideas of things she could do to make it up to her children, while the other half was listening to her new temporary boss.
“Don’t you agree?” he asked her suddenly.
Startled, she looked up and met his steely gaze. She had no idea what he’d asked her to agree to. He’d made her feel foolish again, and he’d done it on purpose. Her chin rose. “I never contradict the boss,” she said crisply, giving him a look of pure challenge.
His nod seemed to acknowledge that she’d gotten out of that one pretty well. Just as she settled back, pleased with herself, someone opened a door to the terrace and a sudden breeze swept through the room, scattering cups and papers. A napkin rose from the center of their table and Chareen reached to catch it. Michael reached for it at the same time, and somehow their hands met, fingers tangling. Electricity sizzled through her system and her gaze met his. The heat was sizzling through him, too. She could see the evidence in his eyes.
They both drew back as though they’d been burned and he quickly began talking again, going over the land that had been earmarked for the White Stones purchase, the various long-range uses of the property, the potential for the master-planned resort that was in the works. But her pulse was racing. She stared down at her latte and wondered if she was going crazy.
Michael went on, going over the fine points of the project and detailing the problems they were having with the Coastal Commission, which oversaw environmental concerns, but she was already familiar with most of what he was telling her, and her mind was wandering again. She knew from experience that this work would take a few months, at least.
Months, working side by side with this man. How often would their hands touch? How often would his gaze catch hers and kindle that shivery feeling? She didn’t want to think about it.
But there was no way she could get out of this, short of quitting her job. She was the only one who had the background to research the old Spanish land grants. He couldn’t
