AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh, who was I kidding? Both would be equally awful.I needed to get out of there, immediately.
I ducked behind the table so I could lean closer to my boss. “Lea, I’m really sorry, but I need to find a restroom. I’m not feeling so great.”
“But, Rowe—” she began.
Joey sent a quick glance in my direction and must have seen that I was planning a retreat. He danced around the table without missing a beat, jammed his sombrero on Austin’s head, then grabbed Austin’s hands and pulled the man into an impromptu burrito jig.
I didn’t wait for Lea to finish speaking. I ran out of the conference room and headed left down the hall past conference rooms and offices, all of which seemed to be occupied. It wasn’t until I got to a bank of elevators that I realized I had no idea where I was going. When the elevator dinged and the doors began to slide open, I skidded around the corner and found myself in a little reception area with a single sofa, an office phone, and a giant potted tree in the corner by a curtained window. Without pausing to think, I squeezed into the space between the tree and the curtain and took a deep, shuddering breath.
Who knew burrito delivery could be so hazardous to your health?
I pressed a hand to my stomach, turned my face to the wall, and told myself to calm down. I was fine. I wasn’t injured. Even my mustache was intact. All I had to do was stash my sombrero, and then I could escape—
“Another impressive move,” a deep, sexy, way-too-familiar voice said from behind me. “But Rowe, sweetheart, we’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and locked down my muscles as every single cell in my body tried to jump backward into Bash’s arms. “I’m imagining this,” I told myself sternly. “When I turn around, I will be all alone. Or, possibly, the tree is speaking to me.”
“You’d rather talk to a tree than to me?” Bash asked softly.
I inhaled sharply and nearly whimpered when the fresh, expensive scent of his cologne assaulted me. I didn’t know shit about science, but I knew it had to be impossible for that smell to have imprinted on me in just a couple of days or for it to be so instantly arousing. I was glad the pantalones de charros I wore were constructed of thick enough fabric to hide my rapidly growing interest.
“Rowe, can we please talk? Look, if you don’t wanna talk about us, that’s fine. But I have questions for you about Project Daisy Chain.”
Thatgot me to turn around. “Daisy Chain?” I repeated in surprise, scanning his face, searching for a hint that this was a trick.
His eyes roamed over me at the same time, from the bits of curl escaping my sombrero, down the exposed skin of my neck. Every place his eyes landed felt like a physical touch. And when his gaze finally landed on my mustache, his lips twitched up in that amused-against-his-will smile that would nevernotmake me want to fall to my knees.
“Hi,” I breathed. I sounded besotted.
“Hey,” he replied, the lip twitch becoming a full-on smile. He darted a glance out to the corridor, where the burrito song was growing louder and louder, as if his employees had started roaming the halls in a lunchtime conga line. “Come with me so we can speak privately.” He held out a hand. “Trust me?”
This was an absolutely terrible idea, but there really was no decision to be made. If Sebastian Dayne held out a hand for me, I was going to take it.
He threaded our fingers together and pulled me toward the elevator, taking a second to check that the hallway was clear first. The elevator was already occupied, but the passengers’ conversation quickly cut off when they realized they’d been joined by someone from the board of directors… and a man in a fake mustache.
Bash swiped his key card and hit the button for the top floor, then leaned against the wall, facing me. His eyes met mine, sending a hot flush racing across my skin that made my clothes itch.
The woman beside me darted a look up at my sombrero—which was taking up a significant amount of space—before quickly glancing away.
“I brought burritos,” I explained.
I carried a watermelon.
Belatedly, I realized this didn’t really explain my presence since there were no burritos on my person. The woman snorted softly. The man next to her hid his laugh behind a cough.
Bash’s lips quirked like I’d been talking to him. “Thank fuck you did. You’re a hard man to get hold of.”
Was I? Since I was forcibly restraining myself from jumping into his arms, I didn’t think that was accurate.
I glanced at the woman and swallowed hard. “Yes, theyaregood burritos,” I said with a strangled laugh. “It was very kind of you to offer a tour of your office, Mr. Dayne.”
Bash shook his head, still wearing that little smile, still lounging against the wall with casual elegance. His eyes caught the light in the elevator, and I thought for a minute I might turn into a sombrero-topped puddle right there at his feet. It would serve me right for being harebrained enough to go with him when I should have buzzed right out the front door and burned off my need with a long-ass walk back to Queens.
The silence in the elevator was electrically charged and excruciating. I couldn’t imagine what the people stuck with us were thinking.
“If you ever wanna see the inside of the Burrito Mobile,” I went on, “just let me know, and I’d be happy to repay the favor.” My nervous babbling was reaching entirely new heights.
Thankfully, the elevator doors opened before I could say anything more, and the other passengers hurried off. Unfortunately, it turned out to be our stop, too.
