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For fuck’s sake, Cameron, stop looking at her. She’s being professional. You’re being inappropriate.
He cleared his throat and took another step back. “The conference room is fine. You don’t need to kill yourself for this job. The front office didn’t need to be finished so quickly.”
She wilted a little, but then her smile brightened until it was damn near blinding. “I like the work.” Trish charged forward, and he had to scramble back to avoid making contact with her again. She glanced at him as if he was being ridiculous. “And, no, the conference room is not fine. You can’t expect clients to take your presentations seriously when there are spiderwebs in the corners and all the chair cushions are moth-eaten. I’ll take care of it.”
That was what he was afraid of.
“Trish.”
She stopped in her tracks, and her smile dimmed to something closer to a genuine expression. “I was hoping we didn’t have to do this, but obviously you’ve been chewing on it all weekend.” Trish sighed and turned to face him fully. “Look, I’m sorry. I was out of line when I kissed you. I could give half a dozen reasons why it happened, but the truth is that it was inappropriate and I put you in a bad spot. So I’m sorry. Let’s pretend it never happened?”
Cameron wanted to know what those half a dozen reasons were, but he couldn’t ask. Not when she was so determined to put them back into their respective boxes of employee and employer. There was one thing he couldn’t let stand. “If you remember, I kissed you back.”
Her blue eyes flared with heat, quickly banked. “I remember.” Just like that, she was chipper Trish again, so sweet she made his teeth ache. “Don’t let me keep you from your work. I was hoping we could sit down later today and go over your current clients and their needs, but other than that I can get the conference room whipped into shape pretty quickly.”
“I have some time this afternoon.” Which would hopefully give him the opportunity to put a little distance between whatever the hell was going on between them.
“Perfect. If anything pops up between then and now, I’ll let you know.”
He shifted, realized he was backing away from her like someone trying to avoid being mauled by a wild animal and forced himself to turn away. “Do that.” He could have sworn she laughed a little as he strode away from her, but a quick glance over his shoulder showed her sunny expression firmly in place.
Must have been my imagination.
Trish walked to her desk on shaking legs. She’d had a plan. It was a very good plan. The best plan, considering her insane impulse to kiss Cameron a few short days ago. She’d come into the office and pretend like nothing had changed, like she was a professional who’d made a mistake, like she hadn’t used that brief kiss with him to bring herself to orgasm no less than seven times over the weekend.
It wasn’t her fault. She’d wanted to get the front office set up for Monday, but everywhere she looked, she saw evidence of Cameron. That was the spot he’d caught her when she’d fallen off the ladder. Over there in the corner was where she’d spent a solid sixty seconds staring at the line of his back muscles pressing against his shirt every time he’d reached over his head to paint. Right here was where they’d stood shoulder to shoulder as she’d told him her vision for the room.
A man shouldn’t be able to imprint himself on her inside of two hours with only a handful of words exchanged, and Trish had managed to convince herself that it was all in her head.
Until she’d collided with him in the hallway. They’d been so close, his big hands clasping her elbows in a way that should most definitely not be erotic, his chest rising and falling in the most tempting way possible.
She’d almost kissed him again.
Trish dropped into her chair and bumped her head against her desk a couple times. Sadly, the contact did nothing to clear the desire from her brain—or her body. I want my boss. I want to kiss him and do the horizontal tango and a few things that are illegal in half a dozen states.
What a mess.
A footstep had her opening her eyes, and she turned her head to press her cheek to her desk. Cameron stood in the middle of the hallway, his body tense and expression unreadable.
Because of course.
She couldn’t just have that brilliant little scene where she played it cool and professional and totally unaffected. No, he’d had to come back out here and see her for the mess she really was. Too late to salvage this. Might as well ride with it. “Can I help you with something?” She kept her tone even despite the fact she had her head on her desk and was obviously in the middle of a lust-driven breakdown.
