Page 6 of An Enchanted Spring

“Down, girls,” Emma replied with a slight smile. Her expression became frosty as she turned back to Heidi. “Looks like you’ll have to fight for him.”

Heidi gracefully crossed her endless legs and sat back slightly, giving Emma a perfect view straight into perfect cleavage. She gave Emma a Cheshire Cat smile and almost purred when she replied, “Oh, Emma. I don’t fight for men. They fight for me. I’m sure you can relate…oh. That’s right. You’ve never had anyone fight for you. In fact, if memory serves, you don’t have anyone anymore.” She snickered.

Emma felt the blow exactly where Heidi wanted it to land, but she struggled not to let it show.

Intern One’s eyes were enormous, and she slunk back down to her desk, but Intern Two seemed not to realize the viper’s den into which she was staring. Heidi glanced up at her and raised an imperial, elegantly threaded brow. “Get me a grande cafe mocha, no sugar, no whipped cream, extra dry, with half skim, half 2 percent milk. Extra hot.Now, Thing Two.”

The girl scrambled off her chair amid loud crashes and a few gasps as she rushed to do Heidi’s bidding. Heidi gave a last look to Emma before turning around, effectively dismissing her.

Emma bit her tongue, her ears steaming, and continued on. No matter how many times she told herself she was abetter person than Heidi, it really didn’t matter. When you sleep with the boss, you get the best contracts. And Emma refused to sleep with her boss.

At least she doesn’t have a corner office, Emma consoled herself. Heidi’s cube was just as small as her own.

Gayle, Mr. Price’s sixty-something personal assistant, gave her a wink as Emma approached the office. “The fates are smiling on you today,” she whispered as she pressed a button. Mr. Price’s door unlocked, and Gayle waved her in. “If you do nothing else, enjoy that eye candy. We’re all jealous you get to spend time with him in close quarters!”

Emma’s mouth dropped open. Where had all the professionalism of the world gone? First the interns, now Gayle? Well, on second thought…the interns were first-year college women. Emma expected that kind of behavior from them, given their personalities. But Gayle? She was a grandmother, for heaven’s sake! Emma gave her a bemused look, then took a deep breath. Letting it out slowly, Emma breezed into Mr. Price’s office as though she met with high-profile clients on a daily basis.

“Ms. Perkins?” The lovely accent changed her name topair-kins, his deep voice resounding in her chest. She saw him sitting at the same table she spent her morning at, the view of Central Park in the distance behind him.

And her mind went completely, utterly blank.

Aidan MacWilliam stood with an easy grace, and her eyes went wide.

The man was her darkest fantasy, all dressed up in a tailored Armani suit and tie. Searing green eyes, framed by unfairly dark lashes, stared back at her, and a slight smile played at the corners of his lips. His jaw and cheeks looked to be carved from granite—hard, smooth, perfect. His nose had a slight crook in it, as though it had been broken before. His shoulders were enormous; she dimly wondered if he playedfootball. She simply stared up at him, her mouth dry, before realizing he was holding out his hand.

She dumbly grasped it, her eyes refusing to blink as if they didn’t want to miss out on a second of the raw masculine beauty before her.

“Hello,” she managed. “I’m Emmaline Perkins. From Price Publicity.”

She mentally slapped herself. Of course she was from Price Publicity! They were standing in Mr. Price’s office, for crying out loud. Emma felt the heat creep up her neck; she wouldn’t blame him if he walked out, told Gayle he’d changed his mind due to her utter lack of intelligence and sweaty hands.

Instead, he smiled at her, his white teeth flashing as her knees went weak. “Aidan MacWilliam. Pleasure, Ms. Perkins.” He raised her hand to his lips and, very chastely, kissed her knuckles.

She swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure if it was the way he said her name, the way he kissed her hand, or the intoxicating combination of both.

Apparently taking pity on her scattered wits, he waved her over to the table and waited for her to sit before folding himself into what had moments before appeared to be a normal-sized office chair. Now it resembled something closer to a child’s toy. He leaned back, crossed an ankle over a knee, and nodded to the large white binder sitting on the table in front of her.

Emma glanced at it, then back at Mr. MacWilliam. It almost hurt to look at him. Gayle’s advice popped into her head—eye candy overload.

“I’d like to get to know you a bit, see if we can work together,” he said.

Emma’s brows knit. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from this meeting, but an interview was not it.

He stood and offered her a bottle of water from the smallcooler against the wall. She shook her head, and he helped himself to one. His lips wrapped around the opening of the bottle. When he ran his tongue over his bottom lip, Emma mentally shook herself out of her daze and bit the inside of her own lip, hard.

Stop!she chastised herself.He is a client. And you are committed to being single for…she paused in her thinking, then mentally shrugged. You’re committed to being single for a while. Sure, he’s sexy, but he’d be a rebound.

That was all this was—a healthy reaction to another male. A wave of relief washed over her. She could corral her rampaging hormones; all she needed to remember was that he was a client, nothing more.

“Have you ever seen a léine?” he asked, returning to his seat.

Emma blinked, thrown by the question. “As in an Irish kilt?”Whatever happened to questions like, “Tell me about a time you excelled”?

He grinned. “I’ll forgive you that because you’re an American. For reference, the Irish don’t wear kilts; those would be the Scots.”

She placed her elbows on the table and folded her hands together, her hackles rising. If there was one thing she was not, it was uneducated in Irish history. “I’m aware that the Irish do not wear kilts, Mr. MacWilliam. However, there is no word in the English language that would properly convey what a léine is, which is why I drew a comparison to something similarly worn by a well-known people.”

His smile grew. “Duly noted. Language barriers are difficult. It would be easier if the world spoke in Gaelic.”

---