Page 59 of Indiscretion

Simon tugged a piece of my hair. “I’ve really missed you, Naomi.”

An alarm went off. But…ugh.I’m being stupid. I was letting Dawson’s comments about how a man and woman who are attracted to each other can’t be friends influence my thoughts. Dawson didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Simon and I talked to each other about our dating lives, for God’s sake. So I tamped down thoughts of my boss’s distorted view of the world and took the compliment the way it was meant—friendly. “Thank you. I’ve missed you, too.”

But then something shifted. Simon leaned closer, and one of his hands moved to my knee. His thumb brushed back and forth. “We always had good chemistry, didn’t we?”

The alarm in my head blared louder. Yet still, I did my best to ignore it. I had to be misreading things, right? Simon was just comfortable with me. He’d said so himself not long ago.

His eyes dropped to my lips.

Still in denial, I swiped at my mouth. Probably there was something there that had caught his attention.

But there was nothing.

Simon slipped the wine glass from my hand and set it on the coffee table, along with his. And yet I wasstillin denial, even as his mouth moved to meet mine…

Chapter 16

DAWSON

“Morning.” I nodded as I walked past Naomi’s desk.

She frowned. “What’s so good about it?”

I lifted a brow. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

Naomi ignored me and went back to typing.

Okay then. I’d worked with enough women to know how to handle one in a mood, so I took the bag in my hand—with the coconut cake pop I couldn’t resist buying at Starbucks this morning—and set it on her desk. “Got this for you.”

She narrowed her eyes and growled at me.Growled. So I hauled ass to my office and shut the door. I didn’t have time to worry about what was up Naomi’s ass after that. My morning consisted of two conference calls and putting out one fire after the next. It was after one by the time I emerged again, and I’d forgotten all about my paralegal’s mood.

Speaking of moods… My own significantly improved as I walked to the copy machine and got an eyeful of Naomi from the back, wearing a red dress. I smiled as I approached, but when she turned and gave me thedeath glare, it wilted.

“Do you need to use the machine?” she asked.

“After you. I’m not in a rush.”

She sighed. “Just give them to me. I’ll do it for you.”

“I can make my own copies.”

I had a four-page evidence list in my hand. She plucked it from my fingers. “One set?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Whish. Slam.She opened and closed the copier with enough rage that I was surprised the lid didn’t crack.

“Did I do something to upset you?” I asked.

“I’m not upset.”

“So this is you happy?”

She scowled again. “Is it a requirement of my job to smile?”

“No. But it’s a small office, and it’s kind of hard to ignore when someone looks like they want to bite me.”

She ignored my comment and finished making the copies. While I waited, I replayed our interaction from earlier. I was usually pretty good at saying or doing the wrong thing, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to do either yet, so it couldn’t have been me who’d upset her. At least not today. So I thought back further, to our last interaction on Saturday. Had we argued and I’d forgotten about it? Then it hit me.She had that date last night.

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