Page 48 of Unbuttoning Her Brooding Boss

‘Wheredoyou shop? One-off expensive boutiques?’ She frowned. ‘No, op shops. Then I use my sewing machine. Half the time on the blog I’m in a black top, while Tara shows off some make-up tip. The rest of the time I’m showing off some second-hand restyled find. It’s part of the fun.’

Vintage, hip, cool. Quirky, personalised, stylish. Popular.

All those words his marketing manager had thrown at him when presenting Steffi’s blog as an option. All of them were accurate. Yet all of them were incomplete.

‘You can’t tell me the mint-green number is a second-hand store find?’ It fitted her far too well.

‘Well, no...’ She laughed. ‘That was made from an old pattern.’

‘Made by you?’

She nodded.

More talents. He shouldn’t be surprised, because today she was making a pair of pyjamas look couture just by the way she walked. The woman had innate style and the world stopped to look.

The world tuned in especially to look and listen.

And to laugh with her.

He’d thought Steffi Leigh was all superficial fluff and all fake, but Stephanie had been genuinely pleased to talk to that girl, and in doing so she’d made her day. She’d really cared about her—had been authentic. Genuine.

ShewasSteffi Leigh, and yet she was so much more.

‘You’re more of a mystery than I anticipated,’ he murmured.

‘No, I’m not.’ She shot him an awkward look. ‘What you see is what you get—Steffi Leigh.’

‘But you don’t lookallSteffi Leigh today.’ At her arched eyebrows he explained. ‘No make-up.’

‘You’re not about to go on about how I don’t need it, are you?’ She eyed him warily. ‘Because let me tell you make-up has its place and its purpose.’

‘I think you look beautiful both with make-up and with-out.’

‘Good answer.’ She rewarded him with a softly blown sarcastic kiss.

She was the same—perky, upbeat, full of energy and enthusiasm. And so sexy that desire burned in his gut.

‘Where are we going now?’ She turned and stared straight ahead, in a very unsubtle attempt to change the topic.

‘Food.’ Though, starving as he was, his body was seeking another kind of sustenance.

Down, boy.He could go more than an hour without jumping her bones again, couldn’t he? Maybe...?

Twenty minutes later he watched in silent amusement as she stared at the building and its discreet signage.

‘This is averyfine restaurant. French,’ she noted.

‘It is.’

‘I cannot go in there in pyjamas.’

‘Of course you can. You’re Steffi Leigh—you can do anything.’

She turned and looked at him. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘Yeah. I do.’

He was rewarded with a smile in her eyes that was so heartfelt it made him melt. Hell, he was going soft. But when he saw emotion in her eyes like that he was spellbound.

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