Page 24 of The Boss

“No, I also wanted to say I’m attracted to you. And I’m guessing you’re trying to push me away because the feeling’s mutual and we work together and can’t get involved. I’m also guessing we’d have a lot of fun together given half a chance.”

He sat bolt upright as if she’d prodded him with her fork and she quickly continued before she lost her nerve. “I also think you’re an adventurous guy. You’d have to be to have spent most of your life travelling the world, and you know something? Adventurous guys take risks. They take chances on things even though on face value they probably shouldn’t. And that’s what I’m asking you to do. Take a chance on me.”

On us, is what she was really saying, and by the astute gleam in his eyes, he knew it too.

“You don’t mince words, do you?”

She shrugged, thankful he was honest enough not to deny it. “What’s the point? I’ve always been upfront, I say it how it is.”

He ran a hand over his face before fixing her with that steady grey-eyed gaze that did delicious, tummy-tumbling things to her insides. When he wasn’t busy firing her, that is.

“I could give you the brush off but that wouldn’t be fair, considering you’re right.”

If her tummy had tumbled with a single look from him, it leaped and punched the air at his admission.

“So you’re attracted to me?”

His rueful smile spoke volumes. “I think it was that kiss that did it.”

“And don’t forget the shoes.” She leaned forward and whispered behind her hand, “You seem to have a thing for those.”

His spontaneous laughter warmed her better than the fabulous lattes she always ordered here.

“So now that all this attraction business is out in the open, what are we going to do about it? And does this mean I’m not fired?”

His laughter petered out and he rubbed the back of his neck as if she’d given him an ache. Yep, that was her, a real pain in the neck when she wanted something, just like her dad had always said.

With her father, all she’d ever wanted was a little affection, some sign that he loved her, that he hadn’t shut down completely after her mom died. Pity what Beth wanted she rarely got back then. Hopefully things would be different with Aidan now.

“You’re right. Part of my rationale for firing you was because I didn’t want to acknowledge this crazy attraction between us.”

She batted her eyelashes at him, sending him a coy smile designed to tease. “And what’s so crazy about it? I’m pretty cute, you know.”

His genuine, easy-going smile transformed his face to drop dead gorgeous in a second. “Yeah, I know. That’s half the problem. I can’t seem to forget exactly howcuteyou are.”

“And what’s the other half of the problem?”

His eyes darkened to stormy pewter as he leaned forward and murmured, “How much I want you.”

She sighed, desperate to close the short distance between them and kiss him, to leap across the table and straddle his lap, to wrap her arms around him until he had no choice but to admit how fantastic it would be to give in to the heat searing between them.

“But we can’t always have what we want,” he said, breaking the spell by leaning back and folding his arms as if trying to ward her off. Like that would work.

She wriggled back in her chair and laid her hands palm-up in front of him, like she had nothing to hide.

“You know what I want?” Apart from him, but now wasn’t the time to a articulate that, and she lowered her voice to math his serious tone. “I want another chance at my job. I promise I’ll do better.”

She held up a hand and pushed down a finger as she outlined her first point. “No more late starts.”

His steely stare didn’t encourage her.

She pushed down the next finger. “No more lunch-time shopping trips.”

His eyes narrowed as she belatedly realized he probably didn’t know about those.

The third finger went down. “No more slip-shod tours. I’ll stay late, study hard, traipse from one end of the museum to the other to get familiar with the place, and I’ll read every encyclopaedia-thick manual you throw my way. Twice.”

His right eyebrow twitched, the scar beneath it doing a little dance.

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