“You’re doing it again.”
So much for plans. So much for making sure she wouldn’t be my PA because just the day after our lunchtime showdown, Jody had been instructed at a routine doctor’s appointment that she needed immediate and complete bed rest. I don’t know who was more annoyed: me or Jody. But I do know who was most excited when she’d bounded into the office the following morning like an eager-to-please puppy. Almost two weeks in and it’s wearing having to constantly remind myself that the ways I’d like her to please me are not on offer.
“What?” I mutter, not bothering to hide my exasperation this time. “Doing what?” My pen clatters as I drop it to the desk, the chair creaking as I thrust myself back in it. She probably thinks I’m an arsehole because every time I look her way, it’s with a scowl. But, as the saying goes, it’s not her, it’s me.
“It looked like you were having a silent conversation with yourself. There are all kinds of thoughts flitting across your face.”
“That’s because thisismy thinking face.” My thinking I must’ve pissed someone off in a previous life to have to put up with this.
“Really? It looks more like aneeds more fiber in his dietkind of face. There are supplements you can take, you know.”
“I am not constipated. Or geriatric,” I add when it occurs to me what she might be suggesting.
“I know.” Her shoulder lifts and falls casually but our staring match continues. “No one would look at us together and wonderis he her daddy or is he her dad?”
“What?” I give my head a shake, not sure if I heard that right.
“I’m just saying, you’re in good shape for a man of your age.”
“I’m thirty-six. That hardly makes me Methuselah.”
“That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make.”
This woman drives me to distraction. Short of firing her for an inauspicious start that wasn’t her fault, what can I do? That’s not to say I hadn’t considered it as a course of action best for us both. But the prospect of the shitstorm that would follow—Jody’s potential stress, Polly’s emotional blackmail, my brothers’ interference—I’d decided having her here might be the lesser of those two evils.
“Whit?”
I realize I’m still staring, so I roll my eyes with the finesse of Primrose, my youngest sister. I can’t have her, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting. “Shut the door and come in, for God’s sake. I’m not going to bite you.”
She turns and reaches for the door handle and murmurs something that sounds like, “I wouldn’t mind.” Whether that was wishful thinking on her part or mine, I’m not sure. “We need to go over your schedule.”
“Fine.”
She crosses the space between us, coming to a stop at one of the Le Corbusierchairs placed on the opposite side of my desk, close enough for me to see the tiny pearls she wears in her ears but far enough away not to be tormented by her scent.Frangipani, sunshine, and holidays.It sounds ridiculous, but since her car confessional, I’ve tried very hard not to be within sniffing distance. The scent of her makes me want to press my nose into her skin.
“You have an interview scheduled with the FT on the fifteenth,” she says, leaning her thigh against the leather arm.Lucky arm.
“What about it?” I make a vague gesture to the chair, but she shakes her head.
“I’m good.”
“I wasn’t asking. Sit.”
“Fine,” she huffs out. But, of course, it would’ve been too much to ask for her to walkaroundthe chair. Instead, she slides over the arm, the expensive leather easing her slide with a flash of leg and a soft giggle. “Sorry,” she says, smoothing her skirt as she demurely crosses her legs.
Curious. So curious. Is she wearing her blue lace underwear? Her blouse is pale and diaphanous, high at her neck and tight at the wrists. Her skirt is knee length and navy, yet coats like a second skin. Stockings, I’m guessing, and heels, but nothing too obvious. Her foot begins to bounce, my gaze sliding from her electric blue heels to her knee. Those fucking legs. What I wouldn’t give to have them wrapped around my head.
Uncross your legs, darling.
That’s it. Press your knees nice and wide.
Slide your skirt a little higher.
Let me watch you grow wet with my words.
“Whit?” My eyes snap to hers to find them dancing with merriment.
It’s not like she needs to guess what I’m thinking because I told her—in very explicit terms—in the car. It was an error in judgment, but I didn’t think for one minute she’d end up working here. Telling her I’d always be imagining her riding my fingers was supposed to be ammunition, something to worry her, not titillate.
