Page 3 of Lahaina Noon

He leaned into her ear, his breath warm on her skin, and whispered, “Besides, I don’t want to share you with anyone else.” He winkedand lightly caressed her ponytail before strolling off to the conference room.

Bridget stood there, staring at his perfect behind in his navy blue slacks and tried to remember where she was.

“Okay, was it just me, or did you and Mr. Hotness have anintimateconversation?” her best friend Jorrie hissed in her ear.

“Jorrie!” Bridget gasped and grabbed her friend by the shoulders, dragged her into the office before shutting the door. She was fortunate to have Jorrie in her life and even more blessed to be working in the same office. Jorrie’s curly blonde hair bounced and jiggled on her shoulders as she stumbled into the room and plopped into the guest chair.

Jorrie watched her friend with her warm brown eyes and started to smile. “Someone has the hots for Mr. Hotness!” she laughed in a sing-song voice. “I saw you two talking; it looked like he was saying something that had you worked up. I could feel the heat from your blush all the way down the hall! What did you…”

She studied her friend’s face. “Oh no, you didn’t say one of your dorky puns, did you?” she gasped in mock horror. “Please tell me you didn’t! Girl! How many times?” She draped her hand over her eyes leaning back in exasperation. Today, her perfectly manicured nails were a bright purple with gold glitter that Bridget wished she could pull off.

Bridget dropped her head in her hands. “I don’t know!” she wailed. “Why am I like this? I keep shocking myself, and he heard me complaining about it, and I said, I said.”

“Bridge! Please tell me you didn’t say something about your ‘electricpersonality’?”

Bridget kept her head down; Jorrie knew her too well. “I did,” she confessed, mortified.

Jorrie shook her head, “Well, what did he say?”

She squinted at her, “Actually, he laughed and then asked me to lunch after our meeting.”

“What?” squealed Jorrie.

“Shh!” Bridget said fiercely. “Don’t get the busybodies nosing into our business. You know, even the slightest hint of something juicy, and they start poking their heads over their cubicles like meerkats! I’m surprised they aren’t already lurking outside.” She peered out the window by her door.

Jorrie leaned in, lowering her voice, “Start from the beginning, what did he say, what did you say? Bridge, I need all the tea right now, ma’am. You’ve only been drooling after that man for the last six months.”

Bridget leaned back in her chair and shared most of the conversation with Jorrie, leaving out the incidents with the shadows. She didn’t need anyone knowing she wasthatcrazy.

Chapter 3

Bridget nervously wiped herpalms on her skirt. She’d somehow managed to finish up her presentation in time and needed to go to the conference room to set up. Buthewas in there, so of course, she was dawdling and finding reasons not to leave the safety of her office. She didn’t have a clue how she was going to get through this presentation with him in the room, knowing he would be looking at her, listening to her. “Reason 8,335 why I can’t have nice things,” she mumbled, “I don’t know how to adult.”

“Talking to ourselves again, are we?” she heard an oily hiss.

It was what she imagined Cinderella’s evil stepsisters would sound like. No mistaking that voice. It was her arch nemesis, the bane of her existence, and the person who was about to make or break her year. Her Director, Melissa Payne.

No joke, that was really her name. She really lived up to it, too, making sure to take every opportunity to make people’s lives miserable. Everyone who worked with her wondered how she’d ever made it into management in the first place, considering how disagreeable she was.

Realizing she was waiting for an answer, Bridget smiled at her boss. “Just running through my list of everything for the presentation, making sure I’m prepared. You know me, super organized!”

She received a stony stare for an answer before Payne in the Butt walked off without another word, heading towards the conference room.

Bridget sighed.Great. One more reason to not want to go in there, although it would surely be held against her for not already being set up.No-win situation here! At least Jack will be—

“EEEKK!” she screamed as she was picked up from behind and swung around. “Put me down, you crazy fiend!” she shrieked as Jack burst out laughing. She heard giggling from her team and hoped Payne didn’t hear it; she would come to destroy the cheerful mood.

“Saw Major Payne come in here and thought you’d need a confidence boost before facing the beast,” her brother-in-law said.

She chuckled. “Don’t let her hear you call her that; neither of us will ever hear the end of it.”

Jack was one of her favorite people on the planet. He was responsible for her being part of the project. More importantly, since the death of his brother, her husband, eight years earlier, he had been the one to pull her from the abyss and get her on her feet again.

“My beautiful Bridget, love of my life and reason for my existence, why won’t you just give in and run away with me?” His baby blue eyes widened dramatically, and he raked a neatly manicured hand through his immaculate golden hair without disturbing a single strand. Jerk, no one should be allowed to be that put together. Not a wrinkle on his shirt or his face.

She sighed lovingly and patted his cheek, “I would, Jack, but Darren, you remember your fiancé, right? He might not agree with that.”

Jack laughed again, a genuine honest-to-goodness twinkle in his eyes. “I hear tell you had a run-in with Hotness earlier,” he said in a singsong voice.

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