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“Could you finish extracting your coat from my hair, please? Or at least take off your coat?”
“I would, Mandy, but I’ve been working out. My bulging muscles don’t quite fit inside the sleeves anymore, and it takes three people to remove it from my shoulders and biceps.” Some of that was true.
“You’re ridiculous.” She looked away and the electric current between us cut out.
“Serious girls always say that to me, but they still want to kiss me.”
I watched her throat. Yep, it tightened, and she licked her lips. I had her.
When, her hands snaked up into her hair and she tugged out an elastic band, freeing herself, her blonde hair splayed out in a tousled, mussed-by-a-man tumble. It was gorgeous. If only I’d achieved that effect by different means.
Yet another page came over the SolutionX PA system calling for Amanda to come to the seventh floor. She was definitely a key player around there.
“I’m calling the super.” She went for the elevator’s phone.
“It’s out of order.” Yet another reason the Blanik Building was being sold and SolutionX was moving offices, allowing every regular employee a week off. “I’ll call with my phone.”
Another text came in from Parley.
In the next five minutes, I’m buying you and your Serious Girlfriend each a ticket to Queenstown. Give me her name to complete the transaction. Either that, or you, my groomsman, are wearing the Viking horns.
“Queenstown?” All derision left Amanda’s text-eavesdropping face. “As in, Queenstown, New Zealand?” Her eyes widened, her irises the color of the Lethbridge Leprechauns’ hockey uniforms.
“Sure. How would you know that?” Then it hit me. Ah, yes. A thousand dominoes toppled into a perfect picture in my brain. Her obsession’s movies had been filmed right near where Parley had his startup business’s southern hemisphere headquarters. I rubbed my palms together. Heh-heh-heh.
“Who are you taking with you?” She was in earnest, her eyes glistening and eager.
“Not sure.” Seriously, though, I’d broken up with five different women already this calendar year. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. It was that none of them held my attention. I was looking for something none of them had. Unfortunately, that left few women in my contact list who didn’t hate me right now. “Why, do you have someone in mind? Someone whose office is going through a week-long closure due to moving to a new building? Someone who loves New Zealand?”
Everything about Amanda sparkled. “I just might.” Then the shimmer in her eyes faded. “Never mind.” She frowned. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Oh, but it might be.”
“Even though I desperately need a vacation, the Amzaz project is coming up. The assignments could be offered during the break, and I want to be on hand.”
“Amzaz, huh?” We execs were making team assignments for upcoming ad clients in our next executive meeting. “Amzaz.” I drummed my fingers on the wall above her head as more dominoes fell into place. “Is Amzaz your favorite product? Do you eat their candy, or something? It’s for kids.”
“I ate it as a kid. Everyone in Reedsville did.” Her defenses lowered, as did her voice. “Come on.” Her lower lip formed a pretty pout. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’ve been working so hard for.”
No pretense required. Like everyone else at SolutionX, I regarded Amanda Starkey as the gorgeous blonde version of the quiet, hardworking muscle of the formatting and layout team. Like the human heart, no one saw it, but it did all the work.
“Perhaps I could put a word in for you,” I said archly. Georgia Grimes, the CEO, adored me. In fact, almost everyone adored me—except Amanda. The woman gave me frostbite, she iced me so fast every time I attempted to chat her up. “Which team on the Amzaz project?”
She narrowed her eyes, as if to figure out whether I was taunting her. “Creative team, of course.”
Ah, a design spot. Surprise, surprise. “Already have ideas in mind? For Amzaz?”
A little cute spluttering ensued. “No, but I could totally have them ready for the pitch meeting. Would you really help me get that spot?”
I couldn’t go around promising things. I wasn’t exactly a seasoned exec. “Let’s back up and talk about my problem instead. I need someone to go with me to New Zealand.”
“Okay.” She dragged out the vowel.
“You want to go to New Zealand.” I leaned a little closer.
“Who wouldn’t? It’s springtime there. And the landscapes!” She sizzled back to life. A bloom came to her cheek and lips.
“Landscapes where hole-dwelling friends live? They’re not real, you know.”
