Page 57 of Guarding Grace

A smile grew on Peyton’s face during my silence. “Good. You think about that for a while. I’ll be outside.” She moved to the door.

Marci was at the door when Peyton opened it. “Paul and some others really want to call the cops. I got them to hold off and said you’d explain everything after your meeting.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Peyton checked her watch. “I have to run an errand. The file is already on your desk.”

“Okay.”

When the door closed, I was alone again, standing behind my desk, wishing I could sit in my chair and wondering how I was going to survive having all of Terry’s attention on me. It had been too easy to fall back into being snarky with him. Did we only have a spark of attraction because we grated on each other? Were we steel and flint that couldn’t coexist?

Spank me?My cheeks heated. If it weren’t for the damned cut on my ass, I’d let him do that. Peyton thought we wanted to rip each other’s clothes off. My panties almost burst into flames thinking about that.

I found the Morgenthau folder and opened it.

Work. I needed to concentrate on work, not the sexy-as-hell man who’d saved me from whatever ugliness Elliot had dragged me into.

The folder said the Morgenthau home had his and hers primary closets. Did they have separate bedrooms as well?

If I was married, I wouldn’t want to sleep away from Terry.

I slapped the folder closed. Where the hell had that thought come from?

So what if I’d kissed him? That was all, a kiss—an off-the-charts-of-hotness kiss, but still just a kiss. Besides, he’d said he’d never disliked me, but that was a long way from where my mind had just wandered.

I’d wanted to be, and had become, a successful businesswoman. That’s who I was, and no man—least of all a Neanderthal Rambo wanna-be—was going to boss me around and make me give up my dream.

Even if he was sexy as hell and had also saved me twice now. Okay, three times if I counted that Zane had only been here because of Terry. The fact that he’d called me Kitten also didn’t make up for him being an ass.

“Argh,” I screamed. The man wasn’t even here, and he was driving me crazy.

It was the adrenaline effect. That had to be it. I’d been through some pretty traumatic events. Had I attached totally inappropriate feelings to him because he’d been there for me?

Peyton burst in. “What’s wrong?”

I breathed in deeply to calm myself. “Nothing. Sorry I yelled. I’m pissed that I can’t sit down.”

“What?”

I’d never allowed my personal life to interfere with the business, so I hadn’t explained anything to my assistant, or anyone else. “This morning, I got attacked again.”

“Again?”

“And Terry saved me, but not before I got Tasered in the ass.”

She laughed. When I didn’t laugh with her, she stopped. “You’re serious?”

I shook my head at the absurdity of it. “Unfortunately, yes. And the tip of the barb thingie broke off, and Terry had to cut it out, so I can’t sit comfortably for a day or two.”

She smiled and started to laugh again. “Let me get this straight. Rambo the tyrant became your knight in shining armor, saving you last night and again this morning? Then you had to drop trou so Sir Galahad could perform field surgery on your bare ass? Wow, that’s hot. No wonder you were looking at each other like I should leave so you could get naked on the desk.”

“We were not,” I complained, unsure now how much of a lie it was or wasn’t.

“Did you ask him to kiss it and make it better?” She snickered.

“Get out of here. I would never.” I added as much emphasis to the words as I could, while also wondering why I hadn’t thought of that. “Especially not a man who thinks he can boss me around.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” She turned to go, shaking her head, then stopped before closing the door. “So, it’s okay if I ask him out?”