"You did well tonight," I offered. "They liked you."
"Did I pass?" Her voice was tired now. The anger was fading into exhaustion.
"I think so." I moved to stand beside her. Close. Not touching. She would probably cut off my head if I touched her right now. "About what happened at the bar, I..."
My gaze dropped to her lips. Just for a second. Just long enough to remember how they felt against mine.
When I looked back up, she'd noticed. Her breath caught. The sound was soft but unmistakable.
We stood there, inches apart, the tension between us thick enough to touch. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted it more than I'd wanted anything in a long time.
"Hey!" Isabelle's voice shattered the moment. She burst onto the terrace. "Come on, you two. Dessert round two. Cook made her chocolate soufflé, and I'm not letting Sebastian eat it all."
Kim stepped back. The mask slid into place. "We should go," she said, her voice perfectly even.
She walked past me toward the door.
I watched her go, my lips still tingling from the kiss she'd never wanted, and wondered what the hell I was doing.
7KIM
The office was blissfully normal.
That was the one good thing about our arrangement. We'd agreed to keep it out of the workplace. Here, I was just his secretary. Nothing more. At least, that was the theory.
In practice, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
The kiss.
It sounded like something forbidden to me. Which it was. I had no business kissing my boss like that. Well, he kissed me. I just… responded.
Liar. You enjoyed it.Fine, I did. But who wouldn’t? Xavier was clearly a very experienced kisser. He did things with his tongue that I never thought were possible.
Cole had never kissed me like that. Not once in the two years we were together. Cole's kisses had been perfunctory, a means to an end, something to get through on the way to what he really wanted.
Xavier had kissed me like the kiss itself was the point.
His hands had held me properly, one at my waist, one at the back of my neck, positioning me exactly where he wanted me. I could tell from the way his fingers had played against my backthat he was skilled. Experienced. That he knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what effect it was having.
I wondered how it would feel if those hands wandered further. If they slipped beneath the fabric of my dress, traced the curve of my spine, pulled me closer until there was no space left between us?—
Heat crept up my neck.
I glanced through the glass wall at Xavier's office. He was at his desk, frowning at his laptop. Those sinful fingers gripped a very lucky pen, which tapped against his equally sinful lips. He was completely oblivious to the fact that I'd just been mentally undressing him.
This was a problem.
I forced my attention back to my computer screen. The quarterly reports needed formatting. The calendar needed updating. I had actual work to do, work that did not involve fantasizing about my boss's mouth or his hands or the way he tasted like wine and need.
Every time my mind drifted toward dangerous territory, I yanked it back. Spreadsheets. Emails. Phone calls. Safe, boring, professional tasks that had nothing to do with Xavier Dubois and his unfairly talented lips.
At five o'clock, I gathered my things.
Before I left, I stopped by Xavier's office. He looked up when I appeared in his doorway.
"Heading out?" he asked.
"Yes." I reached into my bag and pulled out the velvet box. Set it on his desk. "I wanted to return this."
