Page 14 of Back for More

Once I’m done with my little speech, I watch as she seemingly flips a switch. Her body relaxes, and she sits back against the chair, re-crosses her fucking gorgeous toned legs again, and lets her arms casually drop, like Sharon Stone in thatBasic Instinctinterrogation scene. I can’t see up her skirt from this angle, but I’m willing to bet all my money that she’s not wearing any underwear. Just to mess with me. Or maybe that’s just my brain messing with me. It’s definitely how things will go when I replay this at home later.

But I can’t think about that now.

She smirks. “I’m assuming you yourself are not familiar with the ins and outs of phones and email accounts since you also have never called or emailed me, even to let me know how my cat was doing.”

“I read between the lines of the pithy scribbled note you left me.”

The smirk disappears, her lower lip quivers, and the rims of her eyes turn pink all of a sudden. She looks down to the side and shakes her head. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“No, it’s not a good idea. It’s a terrible idea. But it’s just a job. It’s not forever. It’s not who you are. Right?”

She looks up at me again, still looking so vulnerable that it takes everything I have to keep from grabbing her and holding her tight. “I really need for this to work, Wes,” she says, voice trembling.

It’s not an act. I know why she wants this to work. She needs the money. It’s the most cynical way to read the situation, but that’s what I’m going with. Jasper didn’t give me the rundown about her trust fund, but it was easy to figure things out. She never would have agreed to work for him if it didn’t have some kind of big payoff at the end of a year.

“I know you do,” I say. “We’ll make it work. You’ll get what you want when this is all over with.Trustme.”

Those warm brown eyes of hers threaten to spill furious tears. “Will that be all for today then, Mr. Carver?”

“That will be all, Miss Barnes.”

She reaches for her bag and stands up. We’re eye-to-eye when she’s in those heels and I’m sitting on the edge of the desk. She stays perfectly still, her leg grazing my bent knee. She is way too close for comfort, but we’ve never quite been comfortable with each other exactly, no matter where we stand. All of a sudden, we aren’t the VP and the assistant. We aren’t the gardener’s son and the daughter of the richest man in town. We’re a man and a woman who can’t stop staring at each other’s lips. One hand to the back of her neck, and I could erase everything but the years and the heat between us.

But I won’t.

Because it would ruin everything too.

“You better go home and rest up,” I say through gritted teeth. “You must have been driving all day.”

“You better believe it,” she says. “In about half an hour, I’ll be in a hot bath, resting up and getting ready to come back here to work for you tomorrow.”

She walks out without looking back, leaving me with that image and her scent and the familiar gorgeous ache that I’ve only ever felt for her.