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I smirked at the sound of her saying my name. “Well, times have changed. Besides, I need to see if you’re really up to the task of working here.”
Joanna laughed. “Challenge accepted. Lead the way.”
I held open the door for her, trying unsuccessfully to not let my eyes roam her body as she stepped in front of me to wait in the hallway.
“This way,” I said, taking the lead and listening to the rhythm of her heels clicking down the hall. When we reached my office, I held the door open for her once again, and then closed it behind us.
Suddenly feeling too warm, I fumbled with my necktie as I approached my desk. “You know the project your brother spoke of at the meeting?” I said.
“Yeah,” Joanna said with a nod. She brushed back a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail, and I suddenly got the overwhelming urge to touch her hair.
Pushing the thought away, I abruptly turned to my desk and started shuffling papers. “Well,” I said, stalling, “I was wondering if you could help us out with that. I mean, your brother has a lot of faith in you and all, and this could be a good starter project for you…”
My voice trailed off as she slowly crossed the room to approach my desk. The scent of her perfume drifted to my nose, making me inhale deeply as I glanced up at her again, startled to find her so close. She stared at my desk, at the papers I pretended to organize.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
You have no idea, I thought. I took a deep breath. “How about looking over the numbers for me and making sure everything is order?”
She smirked, the sight of it so sexy that my mind was flooded with a million different indecent thoughts all at once.
“Numbers, you know that’s right up my alley,” she said. “Just show me what you need.”
I swallowed and glanced down at the papers on my desk, quickly fumbling to find the one in question. As luck would have it, it was toward the top of the pile. I laid it on the desk before Joanna. “This one right here,” I said.
She leaned over to take a closer look and my mind almost exploded. I took several steps back, feigning giving her space, but truthfully, wanting to get a better look at how her shirt hung as she leaned over, displaying the smooth skin of her bosom. I pressed my lips together, careful to not make a sound.
A long moment of silence spread over the room in which I was practically afraid to breathe.
Finally, Joanna looked up. “This is going to take a while.”
Before I could stop myself, before I could think better of what I was about to say, the words spilled out my mouth and there was no hope of taking them back. “How about we have dinner so that we can go over things in more detail?”
Joanna smiled. “Sure.”
CHAPTER 5
Joanna
Although I had been with Zander for a while, I still recognized the signs of another man’s interest, or at least I hoped I did. A part of me wanted to be cautious about thinking Anderson had actually asked me on a date, especially since our outing was supposed to be business related. On the other hand, I was pretty sure there had been something more to the way he had looked at me.
I’d known Anderson for a long time, and he had never once looked at me that way before. Just recalling it gave me butterflies.
Regardless, I kept reminding myself to not get my hopes up too high.
“Hey, Joanna!”
Tobias called me from downstairs while I was in my bedroom, stressing about what to wear, not knowing whether I should dress casually, in business attire, or as if this was a real date with a man I wanted to impress. I felt silly, but there was no denying that I wanted Anderson to just look at me as more than just Tobias’s kid sister…
Still dressed in the sweatpants and t-shirt that I’d thrown on after stepping out of the shower, I headed down the hall and peered over the balcony to where Tobias s
tood. “Yeah?” I said.
“What do you want for dinner? I was going to order takeout. Is that good with you?”
My throat suddenly felt too tight to speak. I hadn’t told Tobias that I was going out with Anderson. As I peered down at him, the awkwardness suddenly felt unbearable.
Sometimes, Tobias felt entirely too much like my father than my brother, and it was hard to talk about these kind of things with him. Something told me he wouldn’t approve of my attraction to Anderson. When I was a kid, I had never dared let a soul—especially not Tobias—know about the massive crush I’d harbored on Anderson. And as Tobias looked up at me in that moment, waiting for my answer, I felt like a sixteen-year-old with a secret all over again.
