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“Can I come in?”
She hesitated. Hugo couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or annoyance with him. But he hated this feeling of not being in the know. He always investigated everyone in his employ thoroughly. But as a subcontractor, Erin wasn’t really in his employ—
Still, he needed to know.
He raised his hands imploringly. “I feel like we didn’t sufficiently discuss my project.”
She walked to the little boy—Noah—and put her hands on his shoulders to shift him away from the door. “Sure. Come in. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes. That would be great.”
* * *
Hugo Harrington stepped inside Erin’s apartment, shrugging out of his cashmere overcoat. Their dealings had always been so crisp and professional, she hadn’t for even a minute thought he wouldn’t accept her refusal of his latest project.
But here he was. In her little condo. Her gorgeous, sexy as sin, biggest client, who always looked better in a suit than anyone had a right to, was in her apartment.
Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark chestnut hair that gleamed in the light from her overly bright kitchen, and brooding gray eyes, he’d been the object of her fantasies for the two and a half years they’d worked together. She’d never said a word, never made a move, always kept things strictly professional between them because she wasn’t ready for another man in her life, but it didn’t hurt to look.
And, oh, he was fun to look at.
She stopped the shimmer of attraction that lit her nerve endings. Nothing would come of her being attracted to him. Because that was how she wanted it.
As she popped a one-cup pod into her coffee maker
, her short, auburn-haired mom called up the hall that led to the bedrooms. “Erin? If you’re home for the day, I’m going out to get in my walk.”
Seeing Hugo, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh, hello.”
“That’s Hugo Harrington, Mom. Mr. Harrington, that’s my mom, Marge Winters.”
He faced her mom with his always proper smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She almost rolled her eyes. She might be super attracted to him, but she’d seen the way he’d looked at her apartment, the disdain that became confusion as he took in her out-of-date furniture and the cramped quarters. The attraction hadn’t ever been mutual, but now that he’d seen how she lived she wasn’t even sure he’d keep her as a friend.
Though come to think of it, they weren’t really friends either. Her other clients invited her to parties and dinners to discuss their projects. Hugo Harrington only did business in his office.
Which might be for the best considering how attractive she found him.
“Can Noah go on your walk, too?”
“Sure,” her mom said, overly cheerful, because she knew Hugo Harrington didn’t merely pay for their apartment; he was the biggest contributor to the money she’d been saving to expand her business, employ more people and hopefully make enough to buy a condo in Manhattan, closer to her work, something with sufficient space that all three of them could be comfortable.
In the thirty seconds it took to brew Hugo Harrington’s coffee, Erin’s mom slid Noah into a coat and pulled a knit cap over his red curls. Erin bent down, placed a smacking kiss on her son’s cheek and watched them leave the apartment.
Then she faced Hugo Harrington. He might be gorgeous and the object of her fantasies, but as a businessman he was single-minded. She’d told him no. He would try to talk her out of it.
Walking into her living room area of the open–floor plan space, she handed him his cup of coffee and motioned for him to sit. “I’m not sure what part of my decision you felt left room for discussion. But there is no room.”
He looked around at her meager home. “I offered you three times your rate.”
And assumed she should have been eager for it.
“There’s more to a life than money.” That’s why her expansion was basically a dream right now. Noah was the only part of her deceased husband she still had. He was her world. Not her career and certainly not money.
Hugo Harrington blinked as if the concept of there being more to life than money was completely foreign to him.
She stifled a sigh. “December is Christmas, discussions about Santa, buying gifts, teaching my son to be generous and kind...” She lowered herself to the sofa across from the armchair he’d chosen. “I can usually work around your schedule and still have time for my son...but not if I’m in London.”
