Page 48 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

It was merely a reasonable and pragmatic thing to do under the circumstances.

Facing him with a smile that was probably too big, she said, “If you think they will work. I would certainly appreciate it.”

With a nod and a smile that seemed equally forced and overly friendly—as well as an odd mismatch to the heated darkening in his eyes—he gestured in a new direction than they were walking down the hall.

Miri refused to read anything into the look.

You don’t have to worry about there being anything more than what’s on the surface between the two of you, she assured herself.

They were grown-ups who knew the difference between a heated moment and full-blown attraction.

Today, they weren’t anywhere near crossing any lines.

The room was bright and there was literal and appropriate distance between them—social and professional.

They weren’t sitting together in front of a fire drinking wine again.

It was different now.

What had happened was behind them and they could put it out of their minds.

All they had to worry about was when this storm was going to end.

The conviction became harder to hold on to, though, when he led her up some wooden stairs and into an attic where he handed her a forest-green hooded sweatshirt with gold lettering that he had unearthed from the third box he opened.

“From high school spirit week, senior year,” he said, his mind clearly in a different place than her own with regard to the sweatshirt. “I swear my mom kept everything,” he murmured.

Miri didn’t point out that it looked like he had kept everything that his mother had.

Instead, she took the hoodie gingerly, running her fingers along the golden letters sewn onto the breast, proudly declaring the wearer attended California Polytechnic State University.

Only one other time had another man offered her his hoodie, though in fairness, she wasn’t sure it was accurate to call her ex-fiancé a man.

He’d barely been nineteen when they’d broken up.

Back then, she had worn his sweatshirt proudly around town, around the house—around everywhere.

It had quickly become one of her most cherished garments.

Kneading Benjamin’s sweatshirt between her fingers, she recalled the texture and familiar thickness of a university pullover, but it wasn’t her ex-fiancé’s image that came to mind.

Instead, it was Benjamin’s, from the night before.

Dragging her mind once again away from the past, Miri responded. “She must have been proud.”

Continuing to search through boxes in the climate-controlled attic storage space he had taken her to, he nodded without looking up from what he was doing.

“They were both very proud. Perhaps too proud, ultimately.”

The last bit sounded like an afterthought, and yet it carried a heaviness that made it seem ominous to her.

“Their pride was a lot of pressure?” she guessed, unable to stop the part of her that always wanted to take care of everything.

This time, he paused with the boxes, looking up at her as if truly startled out of the task at hand for the first time in their conversation. With a brief shake of his head, he said quietly, “No. Their pride was a wonderful mantle. Unfortunately, it had terrible consequences. They died when the yacht they’d chartered to celebrate my graduation capsized.”

Squeezing the sweatshirt to her chest, Miri grimaced. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

His expression shuttered at her words, and he shrugged. “Bad luck. But it never would have happened if they’d been a little less proud.”

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