Gregg. No man had really ever noticed her before, and she despaired that one ever would again.
Except Brand.
He’d always noticed her. But in that aggravating, chuck-you-on-the-chin, you’re-cute-and-funny-like-a-chimpanzee-who-can-ride-a-tricycle kind of way.
And Brand Sheridan? She had always noticed him, too, and not in the chimpanzee-on-a-trike kind of way.
He had always been hot. Not just good-looking, because really, good looks, while rare and certainly enticing, were not a measure of character. It wasn’t even the fact that he had carried himself with such confidence, that he had radiated the mysterious male essence that stole breath as surely as bees stole nectar.
No, Brand had had a way of looking at people, and engaging with people that made them feel as if he could show them the secret to being intensely alive. There was something about him that had been bold and breathtaking.
In high school he had gone for the fast girls, Sophie remembered, a little more sadly than she would have liked. There had been a constant parade of them on the backseat of his motorcycle. Girls who were sophisticated and flirty, who knew how to wear makeup and how to dress in ways that men went gaga for.
She remembered she had tried to tell him once he was way too smart for that. That he should find a girl he could talk to.
What she had meant was a girl who was worthy of him. Such as herself.
If she recalled, he had thrown back his head and laughed at her advice, chucked her on the chin, said Why do I need another girl to talk to, when I have you?
Naturally, naive little fool that she had been, that off-the-cuff remark had sent her into infatuation overdrive.
He still thought she was that girl! And she was not doing one thing to set him straight!
It was stopping now. Sophie was not going to give him the satisfaction of being right! Even if he was!
Sophie pulled her hand away from her thigh and folded both her hands primly on the counter in front of her. She realized the gesture was a little too old for her.
It was time for a new Sophie to emerge, a woman who was not intimidated by the likes of him—or who could at least pull off the pretense that she wasn’t!
She leaned forward and purred, “Beloved, as happy as I am to see you, I must go back to work. I’m swamped. Simply swamped.”
Out of all the endearments she could have picked, she kicked herself for choosing that one! Hopelessly dated. And fraught with emotion. Beloved.
To lean toward him and mean it. To let it be the last word on her lips at night and the first in the morning, to let it form in her mind when her eyes rested on him, even from a distance…
“Go away,” she snapped at him, when he didn’t seem to be getting it.
Another gasp from Bitsy. It was like working with her grandmother. Sophie turned and gave her a glare that she hoped would send her scuttling, but Bitsy stood her ground.
Feeling her hand was being forced, she leaned even closer, and tried to take the sting out of the “Go away.”
“I’ll make it up to you later.” She blinked at him in her best version of the type of girl who had graced the back of his motorcycle.
A smile tickled those handsome lips. Unfortunately she couldn’t tell if she’d managed to amuse him or intrigue him just the tiniest bit.
“I can help you with your work,” he suggested, “and then we can go for lunch. Or we can go some place where you can make it up to me, whichever you prefer.”
Done playing, Sophie picked up the sweet peas, opened the gate that separated the inner office from the outer one and let him through. She pointed down the hall and then marched behind him.
“That one,” she said tersely.
He went into her open office, and she slid in behind him and then shut the door. With a snap.
She leaned against it trying to marshal herself.
There was no room for them both in her office, he had turned around to face her and was now leaning his rear up against her desk, arms folded over the solidness of his chest, eyes dancing with mischief and merriment.
At her expense.
His largeness made the room seem small and cramped. His vibrancy made the space—and her whole life—feel dull and dreary.
Her office was never going to feel the same now. Something of his larger-than-life presence was going to linger here and ruin it.
“What are you doing?” Sophie demanded.
He lifted a big shoulder, smiled. “Getting things started.”
“We were supposed to start with a bike ride. To Maynard’s. For ice cream. Tomorrow.”
Every word sounded clipped, a woman in distress, a woman who had had a plan, and that plan included somehow needing a whole day to prepare to be with him.
“Ah, Sophie,” he suggested, “lighten up. Be spontaneous.”
“I don’t like being spontaneous!” Wait! Remember the new Sophie!
“I seem to remember that,” he said sympathetically, “Never too late to learn.”
“I don’t want to learn!” Which was a lie. The new Sophie thought spontaneity could begin with throwing herself at him and tasting his lips again.
That would wipe the smug look off his face!
“That’s sad,” he said.
“I am not sad! I will not have you see me as pathetic!” The urge to kiss him grew, just to prove something.
But it could backfire. It could prove she was even more pathetic than she thought.
“I don’t see you as pathetic, Sophie, just…er…a little too rigid.”
Rigid? This was turning into a nightmare. The world’s most glorious man saw her as uptight and rigid? The new Sophie had to do something!
“Let’s have some fun with this,” he coaxed.
What could she say to that? She didn’t like having fun? Now she felt driven to prove to him that she was not uptight and rigid!
That she could be flexible and fun.
And of course she could be.
Taking a deep breath, Sophie launched herself over the distance that separated them in a fashion that allowed no chickening out. She caught the widening of his eyes, his quick lean backward, but the desk prevented escape. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.
She took his lips with hers.
There,
