Page 13 of Defying the Duke
“How lucky for you that you aren’t held to a quota.”
“Ah, there you’re wrong. I have one area in which I hold myself to a strict quota.”
When he didn’t explain, she glanced askance at him. “I know you plan to tell me. I promise to be duly shocked. What is it?”
“The number of pretty women I kiss in a day.”
Her eyebrow lifted, but she withheld any other reaction.
“Truth be told, I came here with the explicit intent of kissing you.”
Miss Westfall turned away and began to dig through the bottom drawer on her other side. “How disappointed you must feel to have failed in your execution of that job.”
Jack leaned back and gnawed his lower lip. He’d ruined their lighthearted banter. The last thing he wanted was to make Miss Westfall unhappy. He stood and walked to the window, where he opened the curtains. The brick wall was unchanged.
“You miss the view from my office. I’m sure if you ask nicely, your partners will let you move your office to this side of the building.”
“Perhaps I should bring my work down here.”
She wrinkled her nose. “While it’s your decision where you work, I think being two floors apart from the other owners would be a nuisance. Especially for your secretary. He’d spend half the day running up and down the stairwell.”
She had a point, not that he’d consider moving into this office. She probably found him to be a nuisance, also, by his mere presence.
Coming down here was a stupid idea. A decent man would allow her to work without distraction, and he liked to think he still had some decency in him. As much as he wanted to spend time with her, as badly as he wanted that second kiss, this was neither the time nor the place.
The next evening, Dinah sat by a lamp opposite Chrissy, relaxing with a book before bed. Grandmama was already asleep, but the young women usually stayed up an hour or two more.
Chrissy read the daily paper silently unless something was too interesting not to share. Usually, it involved members of Polite Society, who they knew by name only. Tonight was different. “Here’s something about one of your bosses. You didn’t tell me he was engaged.”
“I can’t imagine any of those three getting married. Which one?” Dinah asked, looking up from her book.
“The Duke and Duchess of Greenborough announced a highly anticipated event, the marriage of their daughter, Lady Joyce Willmington, to the Duke of Abingdon.”
“What?” Dinah screeched. “That can’t be true.”
Was it true? Could he be engaged and flirting with her so outrageously?
“Why not?” Chrissy asked. “They all marry sometime.”
“But…but…he kissed me.”
“What?” Chrissy shrieked even louder than Dinah had. “You never said so. When did he kiss you? Where? Wait, this isn’t another of your dreams, is it?”
“Shh, you’ll wake Grandmama. No, it wasn’t a dream. It was magnificent.” Suddenly, Dinah was eager to share her secret. She just needed to ensure she kept their suspicion of Father out of the story. She placed her lace bookmark in the book and set it aside.
“Abingdon has been working in my office and is a magnificent flirt. I say the most wicked things to him, and he laughs. One day, I thought he was going to kiss me.”
“What happened? How did you know? Did he ask to kiss you?”
“Well, at first, he didn’t kiss me. Oh, he was wicked! He described exactly what he would do if he were to kiss me, and then he didn’t kiss me. I wanted him to so badly, and he walked away.”
Chrissy gasped. “Why would he do that? How frustrating. I will never understand men.”
“A few days later, he did kiss me. I was still upset with him and wanted him to feel my frustration, so I compared him to Bottom.”
“The donkey in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Dinah, he’s a duke and your employer.”
Dinah sighed. “I know. But it had the exact effect I was after. His kiss was everything he promised.”