Page 2 of One Night on the Naughty List

“Sounded like a date to me,” Kara murmured, sipping her coffee. “We all heard him invite you.”

“It’s not.” Bain didn’t date girls like me. And I was a girl to him. How could I not be? He was thirty-eight to my twenty-five. Not old enough to be my dad or anything, but a far cry from the guys I dated. Because I only ever dated boys. Bain Thatcher was a man. In the three years I worked for him I’d never seen him out of control or unsure of himself.

Except maybe after Natasha left him. He took the divorce hard, probably because he lost both his wife and his business partner. Bain was the brains behind the business, but Natasha created all the recipes. I knew from a lifetime of dieting that health food usually tasted like cardboard covered in cheap chocolate. Bain Nutrition was different. The food was actually edible. As much as I disliked Natasha, I had to admit she was a gifted chef.

She was also blind if she thought she could do better than Bain. How any woman could walk away from such a man was beyond my comprehension. On my first year work anniversary, he brought me flowers. “Just my little way of saying thanks for all you do for the company.”

I may or may not have pressed one of the blooms between the pages of Pride and Prejudice, and I may or may not have treated myself to a little hand-gone-south action later that night. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my fault I worked for a real-life Mister Darcy.

But he wasn’t aloof like Mister Darcy. The stereotype of the arrogant, stuck-up CEO did not apply to Bain Thatcher. On the contrary, he was generous and cool and touchingly thoughtful. On days before a new product launch, he bought everyone a catered lunch and served champagne. Once when the receptionist complained about her back aching, he ordered new chairs for the entire office and hired a masseuse to give the whole staff neck and shoulder massages.

My mother thought I made it all up. “No man is that perfect, Samantha.”

But he was that perfect, which meant he wasn’t going to be on the market forever. Natasha was a fool, but other women were not. Someone skinny and beautiful was going to snatch him up, and I was going to have to watch from afar while another woman got six-foot-three inches of Bain Thatcher all to herself.

So when he appeared in my office with his smiling blue eyes and wave of dark hair, my advertising instincts kicked in. Bain was a limited time offer. I’d fantasized about the man for three years. Now I had the chance to spend the day with him before he inevitably hooked up with the next Mrs. Bain Thatcher. It was easy to murmur “yes, of course I’ll go” while he grinned at me from my office doorway, a lock of dark hair spilling over his forehead.

The panic had set in later, when I got home and realized I agreed to spend three hours in a car with him, followed by a night at his family’s house.

God, I was in way over my head.

“Are you okay?” Alexis peered at me. “You look green.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, it is almost Christmas,” Kara said. “If you blush like you did when Bain was in here yesterday, you’ll match the color scheme.”

I put my hands on my cheeks. “Did I blush?”

“Like a virgin.”

Jesus.

Alexis waved a hand, setting off her bell again. “Don’t worry about it. I blush when Bain talks to me, too, and I’ve been married for five years.”

Kara snorted. “I’ve been married fifteen years, and I sometimes forget my own name when he stops by my office.”

They weren’t exaggerating. Bain was that hot. And it was criminally unfair, because he was also kind. And chivalrous. And smart and funny.

Seriously, Natasha was an idiot.

“So,” Kara said, “what are you wearing for your big date?”

“It’s not a date. It’s a—”

“Marketing meeting.” She rolled her eyes. “We know, we know.”

I nudged my foot against the bag under my desk, reassuring myself it was still there. “I brought a change of clothes and something a little more formal. Nothing fancy.” I managed to make my voice casual, nothing in my tone giving away the fact that I spent the previous evening tearing through my closet, my anxiety climbing as I tried on outfit after outfit, rejecting everything. Bain never said it outright, but little hints I picked up here and there over the years let me know he came from wealth. My jeans and T-shirts weren’t going to cut it.

I ended up at the mall, where I flagged down the first saleswoman I saw and blurted, “I need an outfit for the North Pole!”

It took a little clarification, but I managed to explain what I was looking for. And when I described Bain, her gaze grew shrewd as she murmured, “I have just the thing. Not many women have the body for it, but you can pull it off.”

I had no idea what she meant by that, but I had no choice but to trust her. As a rule, I avoided my reflection when I tried on clothes—a habit I developed in middle school, when kids first started calling me “Samantha Fat” instead of “Samantha Pratt.” Those days were firmly in my rear view mirror, but real mirrors still made my heart pound and my chest grow tight.

The distant bang of a door slamming, followed by the sound of general commotion near the front of the office, jerked me back to the present. Kara and Alexis turned as Bain strode down the hall, a cardboard carrier nestled with tall white cups in one hand.

“Hey, ladies.” He stopped outside my door, looking perfect in jeans and a wool sweater over a plaid shirt. “I hope you’re thirsty.”

---