she’s insane?” That seemed the only reasonable explanation now.
“You’re the insane one, my friend, if you didn’t snap her up and have your way with her right there on the bar top. Hell, I wouldn’t have charged her at all.”
“The offer wasn’t for sex. It was for me to fly to Ohio and attend a wedding. She wanted me to pretend to be seeing her or something.”
“Oh.” Reid’s disappointment was obvious. “That’s not the same thing at all.”
“No. It’s not.” Gage returned to the break room and set his mug aside. He grabbed a dish towel and scrubbed at the coffee stain low on his shirt.
Reid wasn’t far behind. “What’s she doing here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Gage?” Yasmine stepped into the break room. “Andy Payne is here to see you.”
“Perfect timing.” Gage gestured at his soiled shirt. “Tell him I’ll be right out. Who’s the redhead?”
Yasmine blinked. “Andy Payne.”
“Andy Payne is the fixer, love,” Reid told her gently. “We want to know who the vixen in the cream-colored suit is.”
“Andy Payne,” Yasmine repeated with slow insistence and enough confidence that Reid and Gage exchanged glances.
“She’s Andy Payne?” Gage asked, still trying to wrap his head around the idea that the woman who approached him at the bar was the “guy” he’d hired to whip his sales team into shape.
“Surprising, right? How sexist are we?” Yasmine shrugged. “I thought Andy was going to be a dude, too.”
Reid smiled to beat all. “I believe I’ll go with you to meet this Andy Payne, Gagey. Do bring up Friday for my benefit, yeah?”
“No,” Gage growled, his head still spinning with the new information. “I’ll go alone to meet...her.”
As he exited the break room, he muttered, “Again.”
The projector was positioned, her laptop open and the PowerPoint presentation cued up.
Andy tidied the bound sales plans—one for her and one for Gage. She’d arranged herself at the head of the conference table and placed the report to her left elbow at the corner. She found it easier to coordinate a plan when they weren’t facing each other from opposing sides.
Sometimes these meetings went smoothly, with the managers or CEOs who’d hired her easing into the adjustment as they learned that Andy Payne was the female currently introducing herself. Other times, they reacted angrily and accused her of pulling a fast one on them. Mostly it was the former.
They’d hired her for her expertise, and that was what she reminded them of when she arrived. She’d only had three men ever react poorly and had only ever lost one job because of it. The sexist bastard. No matter, her contract was ironclad and nonrefundable. She’d bought a weekend spa retreat with the money that particular time and had no qualms about enjoying her paid leave.
She sat on the edge of the padded chair and turned her head in time to see a man rapidly approaching the conference room. She recognized the scruffy jaw, the slight curl to the longish hair on top of his head...and the answering recognition in his caramel-brown eyes.
She stood slowly, feeling her jaw drop to the floor as he shut the conference room door behind him and looked down his nose at her. Although she wasn’t that much shorter than him.
“You’re Andy Payne,” he said flatly.
Her mouth still agape, she managed a stunned nod. Warmth seeped from her cami, over her décolletage and up her neck. No doubt she was turning a stunning shade of pink while he watched her.
And he did watch her. Carefully. And unhappily.
As quickly as she could move, she slapped the lid closed on her laptop and yanked the cord free from the wall. “I’m—uh,” she said as she hastily stacked the reports. “I have to...um...”
She yanked her bag off the chair but the strap caught, scattering the pages in her dossier on Monarch to the floor along with several pens, her cell phone charger and a tube of lipstick.
This was going well.
She crouched to the floor to sweep the contents of the bag back into it. “You must be Gage.”
“In the flesh.” He knelt next to her and picked up one of her pens that had fallen to the floor.
“I didn’t know you were you when I approached you on Friday or I never would’ve done it,” she said as she gathered her things. A lock of hair swept over her eye and she blew a puff of air from her lips to move it.
“You don’t say.” His eyebrows flinched slightly, but some of the anger simmered away, his expression almost bemused as his eyes roamed over her face.
He was stupidly attractive. Even more so in a suit. Even with a coffee stain on his shirt that looked fresh. That attraction was all the more reason why she couldn’t stay another moment. She’d never be able to look him in the eye again after she’d... God...offered to pay him to be her date.
“I’ll refund your money for the consultation contract.” She snatched the pen from his hand and stood. He stood with her and the view of the rest of him was finer than it had appeared on Friday night. His muscular chest pressed the confines of his shirt, a dark blue tie in place and knotted just so. His slacks were navy as well, and a brown leather belt bisected his waist. His shoes matched—expensive and shiny.
“First you want to hire me, now you want to give me a refund. You offer to pay me an awful lot.”
She blanched.
“And the hell you will.” He folded his arms over his impressive chest. His unsmiling mouth pursed. “I hired you to do a job. You’re not running out on me just because you—”
“Don’t say it.” Her eyes sank closed and she palmed one burning-hot cheek. Was it possible to die of humiliation? “I know what I did and I apologize.” She reopened her eyes and turned them up to his. “Please tell me you didn’t tell anyone about it?”
“I told my friend Reid. He works here. You’ll meet him later.”
“You told someone?” Her voice was edging along hysterical and she forced herself to calm down. “You could’ve kept that to yourself.”
“Is that a joke? A gorgeous woman approaches me in a bar and I decide to stay one drink longer to get to know her and then she offers to pay me two grand for my companionship? It’s a hell of a story, Andy.”
He thought she was...gorgeous? And he’d wanted to get to know her?
It was far and wide two of the most flattering compliments she’d
