Irresistibly Yours

by Lauren Layne

  “How are you, sweetie? Anything new happening?”

  “Since yesterday?” Penelope asked, taking a sip from her water bottle. “Not really.”

  Her mom made a soft scolding noise. “How often do I have to tell you that life happens in moments, honey. Anything could have happened since we last spoke!”

  “Sure, but you have to admit, the chances of my meeting the love of my life or getting pregnant since we last talked yesterday afternoon are slim.”

  “Only because you moved to New York,” her mom said. “Had you stayed in Chicago, I’m confident your father and I might have found a nice boy for you.”

  Penelope rolled her eyes. “Yes, because that’s every thirtysomething woman’s dream. To be set up by her parents.”

  “Fine, fine. I’ll admit that we don’t have much in terms of the under-sixty connections. But, oh! I didn’t tell you who I ran into last night!”

  “Who?” Penelope asked, even though her mother was going to tell her with or without her participation in the conversation.

  “Evan!”

  Penelope froze with the water bottle halfway to her lips.

  “You know…Evan Barton? Barter?” her mother said.

  “Barstow,” Penelope said casually—as though mention of his name didn’t have her feeling slightly sweaty. “Where’d you see him?”

  “Oh, your father dragged me to Wrigley Field last night. I was bored out of my mind, as always, but then, lo and behold, guess who was sitting right in front of us! I can’t believe he recognized me. We only met him that one time you brought him to our Memorial Day BBQ….”

  Penelope squeezed her eyes shut, wishing there was a way to change the subject without her mother catching on to the fact that Penelope’s chest hurt a little at the mention of Evan. At the memory of how she had so foolishly thought there was something between them…

  “Anyway, he asked about you.”

  “Did he,” she murmured.

  Of course Evan would ask about her. He was nothing if not polite. Fake and manipulative, but polite.

  “Said he might be coming out to New York soon for work. Said he was going to look you up.”

  Penelope blew out a breath. She knew that tone—her mother was matchmaking.

  “He has a girlfriend, Mom.”

  “Not last night he didn’t,” his mother said smugly. “He was at the game with a short, portly fellow.”

  Penelope would bet serious money that the short, portly fellow was Caleb Mulroney, one of the guys who’d interviewed Penelope for the job Evan had swiped out from under her nose.

  Although, surprisingly, that memory didn’t sting as sharply as it usually did. She’d wanted that job with Sportiva, certainly. Had she gotten it, she was sure she’d be loving it. She’d be going to Cubs games with the friendly, likable Caleb.

  But maybe it had worked out for the better. She was loving New York. Loving Oxford. Loving the friends she was making, thanks to Cole bringing her into his group of friends.

  And then there was Cole himself…

  But Penelope wasn’t ready to talk about Cole. Not to her prying mother or her mischievous sister. If anyone was capable of taking a simple kiss and turning it into wedding planning, it was her family.

  Instead she changed the subject to another of her mother’s favorites: Facebook.

  By the end of the phone call, she had her mother’s promise that she wouldn’t post any naked pictures of Penelope in which she was over the age of eight.

  Hanging up with her mother, Penelope forced her attention back to golf stats.

  Despite her lukewarm feelings on the thought, she supposed its rise in popularity was refreshing.

  There was something very human about a sport that anyone could pick up, at any age. Baseball fans were limited to amateur softball leagues, basketball fans to picking up a random game after work at the gym. Football? Definitely not a layman’s sport.

  But golf was a level playing field. Kids. Women. Retirees. Anyone could play.

  And thanks to guys like Adam Bailey, it was now every bit as cool as it was approachable.

  Penelope still thought the man was a slimebucket, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t slightly giddy about getting to meet him at the photo shoot next week. For some reason, when she’d decided to pursue the Oxford job, the potential perk of getting to meet professional athletes in person hadn’t occurred to her.

  It was just one of the many perks about the job she hadn’t seen coming. The other unexpected perk?

  She enjoyed working with a partner.

  Working with Cole was…

  Well, it was right. She didn’t know how else to put it.

  It was early in their partnership, true, but other than the occasional squabble, they seemed to see eye to eye on most everything.

  He challenged her when she got too attached to a pet project, and he was always open to her challenging him. Which she did. Often.

  Penelope’s stomach did one of those grinding, growling things, and a glance at the clock showed her why.

  It was nearly one-thirty. Way past lunchtime.

  She pushed her chair back and stood, trying to muster enthusiasm for the turkey sandwich that awaited her, when Cole came strolling in the door.

  “Looking for this?” he asked, holding up a brown paper lunch sack.

  “Oh! Yeah, I was, actually,” she said, smiling in thanks as he set the bag in front of her on the desk.

  He tapped the front of the bag where she’d written her name, first and last, in black marker.

  “Really?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “This is so third grade.”

  “Well, how else am I going to know it’s mine?”

  “Maybe because nobody else literally brown-bags their lunch?”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling a little foolish.

  “Don’t fret,” he said. “It’s cute.”

  Before she could register what that meant, he dropped something else on her desk. A white Styrofoam box.

  She looked up in question, but he merely lifted his eyebrows.

  Opening it, she breathed a sigh of delight when she saw the onion rings. “You brought me leftovers.”

  “Nope,” he said, plopping in her chair and putting his shoes up on the desk as he made himself comfortable. “Ordered them special, with instructions not to cook them until we were paying our bill so they’d still be hot.”

  Penelope paused in chewing the greasy, oniony goodness and looked at him in surprise, but he was busy typing something on his phone and didn’t notice her curious glance.

  She chewed thoughtfully as she studied him, wondering, not for the first time, if there were depths to Cole Sharpe that he kept carefully hidden from the world.

  Sure, it was common knowledge that he was nice. Friendly. Charming.

  But did people see beneath that to the kindness?

  “Quit looking at me like that, Tiny,” he said, not glancing up from his phone.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I just threw myself in front of a truck to save a toddler. They’re onion rings, not flowers.”

  “I don’t like flowers.”

  He glanced up at that. “What do you mean, you don’t like flowers?”

  She shrugged and dunked another onion ring into the spicy mayo that came in a little side container. “I mean, I like flowers. But I don’t like to receive them.”

  Not that she’d been on the receiving end of a lot of flowers.

  “What do you have against a bunch of nice roses?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful,” she said, polishing off the onion ring and looking in dismay at her now completely greasy fingers.

  Cole shifted his weight and reached into his pocket, pulling out a bunch of napkins.

  It was her turn to lift her eyebrows, and he just shrugged. “Figured you’d need them. But back to the flowers thing—how can you both think they’re beautiful and not like them?”

  �
��I don’t like that they’re cut,” she explained, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “I like flowers in their natural habitat. They belong in nature, not hacked up and sentenced to die in a vase somewhere.”

  “Huh,” he said, looking at her. His feet came down off her desk, landing softly on the carpet of her office as he leaned forward. “Well, then, tell me, Tiny, how do you expect a guy to woo you if you don’t get all gushy over overpriced long-stem roses?”

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t?”

  “I don’t expect to be wooed,” she said, picking up another onion ring, getting her fingers greasy all over again. “Don’t want it, really.”

  “Every woman wants to be wooed.”

  “Nope.”

  He leaned back and tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair as he watched her eat. She supposed she should feel embarrassed about the speed with which she was finishing off the deep-fried goodness, but…nope.

  “You know what I think?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what you think, but I do know that I don’t want to hear it,” she replied.

  He told her anyway. “I think that despite all your I’m just a simple girl next door charm, you’ve got walls.”

  “Oh boy,” she said, dunking another ring in the sauce. “This should be good.”

  He leaned forward again, smiling evilly. “I think that you pretend you don’t want to be wooed, because no one’s made the effort, and deep down, you’re terrified that nobody ever will.”

  Penelope ignored the truth of his words and rolled her eyes. “This is good stuff, Cole. Do you accept credit cards, or should I write you a check?”

  He ignored her dismissal. “I’ll drop it if you answer one question for me.”

  “Fine,” she said with sigh.

  His eyes locked on hers. “When was the last time you got flowers?”

  “Two weeks ago,” she said, happy to have a ready answer.

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Who were they from?”

  She licked her thumb. “A friend.”

  “And the occasion?” he asked.

  She hesitated, wishing she could tell him they were of the romantic variety. But she was a terrible liar. “They were congratulatory for the new job.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he said. “And which friend were they from?”

  “You said one question,” she said primly. “This is turning into an inquisition.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll rephrase my original question,” he said, as though this were a fair compromise. “When was the last time you got flowers from a man?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Her voice was defensive, and he knew it. “Aha, so these last flowers were not from a man.”

  “My sister, Janie, sent them,” she admitted somewhat reluctantly. “But her husband’s name was on the card too. And he’s a man.”

  Cole shook his head and looked disappointed. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?” she asked, even as she told herself not to play into his little game of goading.

  “You’re so prickly that men are too scared to try.”

  “Prickly!” Penelope said, outraged. “I am not prickly.”

  “Not personality-wise,” he said, his voice reassuring, as though talking to a skittish horse. “But romance-wise…you’re prickly.”

  Penelope crossed her arms on the desk and leaned toward him. “Is this because I told you not to kiss me again?”

  He crossed his own arms, mimicking her posture. “Definitely not. You’ll be relieved to know I’ve found my way to women who actually want to kiss me.”

  Penelope tried to ignore a stab of jealousy. Of course he’d found women more willing. That had been her entire point in putting up these boundaries between them.

  The reason she had insisted things not become romantic.

  For Cole Sharpe, Penelope would have been one out of a million other women in his life.

  For Penelope, Cole might have been one in a million. The only one. It’s how she rolled, throwing herself all the way over the ledge without looking.

  No way was she setting herself up for that kind of pain again.

  “Are you going somewhere with this?” she asked wearily.

  “I am,” he said with a wide smile. “I’ve decided to make you my pet project.”

  She groaned. “No way. Pass.”

  “Come on. A woman who hates flowers? That’s just wrong.”

  “Plenty of women don’t get off on flowers,” she said testily.

  “Fair enough,” he said, standing. “You’re more the box-of-chocolates type. I can work with that. My point is, I’m going to show you that a little romance can be nice—fun. Casual.”

  No doubt it could.

  For him.

  “Actually, I’m not really much of a chocolate fan either,” she admitted, picking up an onion ring. “Not much of a sweet tooth.”

  “Well, what would make you swoon, Pope?” he asked, pausing in the doorway. “There’s got to be some shortcut to your heart.”

  Without realizing she was doing it, Penelope glanced at the onion ring in her hand. Thought about the way he’d ordered them separately rather than just throwing some leftovers in a box. Thought about the way he’d tried to time it so they were as hot and nonsoggy as possible.

  Lord help her.

  Onion rings for Penelope were what roses and chocolate truffles were to other women.

  And when she glanced up and caught Cole’s cocky departing wink, she saw that he knew it.

  He’d known it all along.

  Chapter 12

  If anyone asked, Cole would swear up and down that meeting professional athletes had become old hat.

  That he was so accustomed to meeting his sports heroes that he barely batted an eye when he got to shake hands with someone most people would only ever see on a TV screen.

  But the truth was, it never got old.

  He’d never grown out of the giddy shock of how awesome his job was.

  Today was no exception.

  Adam Bailey wasn’t Cole’s favorite athlete. Nor was golf his favorite sport. Still, the man was well on his way to becoming a legend, and the sports fanatic in Cole couldn’t help but feel a little starstruck.

  Still, at least he was holding it together.

  It was more than he could say for his co-editor.

  Cole shook his head as he watched Penelope giggle like a schoolgirl over whatever it was the golf pro was telling her.

  For all her protesting about Adam Bailey’s being a womanizing pig, or whatever, she looked pretty damn willing to be one of his women.

  Cole studied her. She was wearing her usual clothes. Dark flats, dark pants, button-down shirt.

  Cole wasn’t exactly a woman’s fashion expert, but he dated often enough to know that her attire, while perfectly respectable, wasn’t particularly stylish. His eyes narrowed slightly. But was she wearing…makeup?

  He didn’t think it was his imagination that her lips had more color than usual. Her big eyes stood out even more than they usually did. What the hell?

  Surely she hadn’t done that for Bailey. She’d spent all of yesterday reminding Cole the ways in which the golfer was the human equivalent of scabies.

  His eyes narrowed as she laughed again, even louder this time, and then hit Adam playfully on the shoulder in the most awkwardly obvious flirting move of all time.

  “Sharpe.”

  Cole finally registered someone trying to get his attention, and pulled his eyes away from Penelope to find his boss standing beside him. From the irritated look on Cassidy’s face, it wasn’t the first time his boss had said his name.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  Cassidy lifted an eyebrow and shifted his gaze toward Penelope and Adam. “Problem?”

  “Why would there be a problem?”

  “You were glaring,” Cassidy said.

  “Yeah, well. The guy’s a dick,” Cole sa
id, grabbing a water bottle from the buffet table and twisting off the cap.

  “Well, really glad he’s on our cover, then,” Cassidy said drily. “Which, as I remember, was your idea.”

  Cole took a drink of water and continued to glare at the golfer.

  Cassidy looked like he wanted to smile. “You want to talk about it?”

  “Talk about what? Adam Bailey?”

  Cassidy lifted a knowing eyebrow, and Cole shook his head. “Dude. Just because you and Jake decided to overlap your professional and personal lives doesn’t mean the rest of us have any intention of following in your footsteps.”

  “Absolutely,” Cassidy said with a quick nod. “Better that way. Plus, Jake and I aren’t dating co-workers—not technically. Just women who happen to work in the same building.”

  Cole said nothing.

  “Sharpe.”

  “Yeah?”

  Cassidy’s gaze was shrewd. “Penelope’s damn good for Oxford.”

  “Agreed,” Cole said slowly.

  “I’d hate if she decided it didn’t work out.”

  Cole didn’t play dumb. He knew what his boss was getting at. “I’m not going to mess with her.”

  Cassidy nodded. “Good.”

  “If you’re so anti me and Penelope together, why did you okay both of us coming to the same dinner party?” Cole asked, hoping Cassidy wouldn’t notice the irritated note in his tone.

  Cassidy blew out a breath. “Emma can be…persuasive. Still, she doesn’t have to deal with the two of you on a daily basis if there’s a messy fallout,” Cassidy said.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Cole said. “We’re just friends.”

  “I’ve heard that one before,” Cassidy muttered before walking away to talk to Adam Bailey’s agent.

  Cole snuck another look at Penelope, who gave a nerdy wave to the golfer as the photographer’s assistant led him away.

  She glanced over at Cole, and he was slightly mollified when her smile bloomed wider as she met his eyes.

  Penelope headed his way, and when she got closer, he realized he was spot-on about the makeup.

  “This is new,” he said, letting his eyes roam over her features.

  She sighed. “I know. Do I look like a clown?”

  Cole grimaced. There was no easy way to answer this. It was just like the old Does this make me look fat? trap.