Page 12 of The Re-Proposal

That hair—curly, black and falling way beyond her shoulders.

Those eyes—doe-brown, pure, and wide enough for a grown man to drown in.

That mouth—plump and lush, her lips ripe for the plunder. She never was one for lipstick, and I sure appreciated her cherry-flavored preferences.

Does she still like cherry lip-gloss?

I’d pay a million bucks to have the answer. Hell, I’d pay ten times that to taste it myself.

I almost did. The way she closed her eyes, eyelashes fluttering over brown cheeks, when I moved in to press the button for the elevator made me think she wasn’t altogether against it.

Then she opened her eyes, pinned me with a frigid stare and I felt the full breadth of her disgust.

Her anger is expected.

Our complicated past is a giant, sticky web between us.

Still, I was happy to see her.

No, ‘happy’ isn’t the right word.

She was a ghost haunting my memories. A longing I never spoke out loud but always felt echoing in my chest. Seeing her in person, being close enough to touch her, it didn’t just make me happy. It… filled some part of me. Some desperate need. Like water to a man who’d been roaming the desert for days.

“We’re here.” A giant brute with a scar down his eye gestures for me to walk out of the elevator.

Doberman is the head of my security. It’s not his real name. Not that I care to know his real name. When my older brother Clay foisted a protection team on me, he told me Doberman was trustworthy and thorough. That’s all the information I need.

I step into a hallway that’s busier than a nightclub on the weekends. My expression tightens with annoyance when I see my new employees staring at me. Eager eyes. Loud chatter. Wasting time.

“It’s him.”

“He’s here.”

“He’s beautiful.”

That last statement is from a brunette with a nose ring. I slant her a scathing look for being so daring. The only woman I want calling me ‘beautiful’ is currently driving away, probably raining curses down on me and three generations of my children.

Which is counterproductive, since those children will be hers.

Thinking of Clarissa limping home makes my scowl even darker. The brunette receives the sharp end of my fury and immediately drops her flirty smile, ducking her head in shame.

I don’t register it. My mind is moving at a thousand miles an hour. How did Clarissa get hurt? Did it have anything to do with why I caught her rubbing her foot outside the elevator?

Damn. I should have insisted on taking her home. If I hadn’t been so awe-struck by her, I would have thought of a better solution than letting her walk away.

I freeze in the middle of the hallway, getting more and more annoyed by my carelessness.

Doberman and his team come to a stand-still too.

The whispers that were flying back and forth stop as if everyone can sense I’m about to lose it.

With a deep breath, I put my emotions back in check.

Meeting Clarissa today threw me for a loop. Her hatred was a living thing. Breathing. Alive. As present as the chemistry we never lost. As sensual as the curves that filled out her body and sent arrows of lust straight to my pants.

Hate and desire are divided by a thin line and I saw both in her eyes when she looked at me. My response was much more one-sided. All heat. All desire. Every second that ticked by gave me another reason to crave her skin, her touch, her kisses. Little things. Like the slope of her shoulder. The moles on her neck. The flare of her hips in that sensible pencil skirt.

A slow, persistent fire burns under my skin.

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