his now-radiant beauty before getting started.
“I don’t know if Jack spoke with you about our current bid to retain the Swanson Shoes account?”
Colton smiled and lifted the manila folder from the center of his desk. “We discussed it briefly. He gave me this file to review.”
“Oh.” Drat. She’d wanted to be the one to introduce him to the situation. To dazzle him with her insight.
Colton flipped open the file and began to read.
Maddie shifted forward to rest her elbows on the desktop and propped her chin in her hands to watch. He was magnificent. His heavily lashed blue eyes darted across the typed notes. As he turned the page he reached a long-fingered hand to his mouth. When he absently stroked his lower lip with his fingertip, Maddie sighed.
Colton looked up as if surprised she was still there. “Don’t let me keep you,” he said. “I’ve got it from here.”
Her heart sank. “Are you sure?”
He nodded and stood. “This report seems pretty thorough. I’ll call you if I have any questions.”
She couldn’t very well stay after he’d so obviously dismissed her. She stood. “If you’re sure…”
He smiled. “I think I can handle it.” He walked around the desk and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for this morning’s tour, Mandy. I really appreciated it.”
She didn’t correct him. She couldn’t. She could hardly breathe. Not when he was smiling as though she was the most important person in the world.
Dazed, she moved toward the door. Before exiting, she paused to say, “I’ll come by your office about noon to show you where everybody goes for lunch.”
He’d already reseated himself and was studying the report. He didn’t look up. “Fine.”
Maddie floated to her office and closed the door to day-dream in privacy. There was no way she could concentrate on the Swanson Shoes account when she had a lunch date with the most beautiful man in the world.
At 11:45 a.m. Maddie grabbed her purse from the bottom drawer of her file cabinet and headed to the ladies’ room for a little prelunch primping. Her conscience nagged her about quitting work so early, but she silenced it with the knowledge that she hadn’t accomplished anything all morning anyway. Who could concentrate on clients when the man of her dreams occupied the office three doors down?
She had the elegant gold-and-ivory powder room to herself. She stopped in front of the first sink under the lighted wall-long mirror and got started. From the large black leather tote bag that did double duty as her purse she pulled out a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. After a thorough scrubbing she gargled a mouthful of the mouth-wash she carried for emergencies.
As she rinsed the residue down the drain she studied her reflection. For a change, her long curly hair hadn’t escaped the two dozen pins and half bottle of hair spray that secured it to her head. It didn’t look great, but it was neat, so she opted to leave it alone.
She wasn’t a big makeup enthusiast so all that was left was to reapply her lipstick. She carefully filled in her upper and lower lip with the tube of rosy-pink gloss she found wedged in the bottom corner of her bag. She smacked her lips together and stepped back from the mirror to get the full effect.
Hmm. No point in kidding herself. Miss America she wasn’t. Unlike her five-foot-three-inch blond sister, who’d had the good sense to take after their beautiful petite mother, Maddie was the spitting image of her dad.
Her smile faded. Though he’d been gone five years now, the still-sharp pain of losing him brought tears to her eyes.
Her dad had been a great big teddy bear—the classic gentle giant. He had stood an impressive six and a half feet tall and weighed in at 290 pounds. Though his size had certainly attracted attention, it was his kind heart and easy-going nature that had endeared him to everyone.
Maddie liked to think she’d inherited his character traits—his incurable optimism and ability to see beyond the surface to the beauty beneath—but she fervently wished that she’d physically favored her mom.
Inner beauty was a fine thing, but it was external beauty that snared the men. It was great to have people say she was the nicest person they knew, but she’d cheerfully forgo the compliment just once for an honest-to-goodness date.
Maddie returned her gaze to her reflection and purposely stretched her mouth into a wide smile. She had a date now—in a manner of speaking. Colton Hartley, advertising executive extraordinaire, was hers for the next hour.
They didn’t have much time. She needed to strategize to make the most of every minute. She’d take him down to the cafeteria on the lobby level. They’d sit at one of the small square tables that lined the far wall of the room. Preferably one tucked behind a potted plant.
She closed her eyes to complete the fairy tale. Without the distractions of fellow employees, they’d talk about themselves and the incredible good fortune that had brought them together. Colton’s beautiful blue eyes would look into hers and he would see her as no one had seen her since her father had been alive. As a rare treasure worthy of love.
Maddie’s heart hammered against her ribs as she reached up to knock on Colton’s door.
“Come in.”
Maddie took two steps into the room that now smelled faintly of his cologne. “Ready to eat?”
He looked up from the notes he was making in the Swanson file. He smiled, his perfect teeth blindingly white against his tan. “You bet.”
He was even better looking than she remembered. She stifled a sigh. “Great. Let’s go.”
It took nearly ten minutes to make the five-second walk to the elevator. It couldn’t be coincidence that every female employee, and a few males, just happened to pop out of their offices at the exact moment she and Colton passed. Though she couldn’t avoid stopping and chatting half a dozen times, she refused to lose sight of her objective. Colton was hers and hers alone for the next hour.
She could have wept with relief when the elevator doors whispered shut on just the two of them.
“Cue Communications is such a friendly place,” Colton said as Maddie pushed the down button.
The man had a gift for understatement. Co-workers mobbed him like groupies around a rock star. “So I’ve noticed.”
He inclined his head to her and smiled. “I appreciate you going to the trouble of showing me around, though I’m sure I could have found the cafeteria on my own.”
“No way.”
Colton’s eyes widened a fraction at the steel in her voice.
She tried for the lowered-chin, look-up-through-the-eyelashes approach. “What I mean is, there’s no way I’d desert you on your first day. I’ve got Cue’s friendly reputation to live up to.”
His face relaxed into a heart-stopping smile. “That’s real nice.”
The elevator doors opened onto the lobby,
