by Scott, Kadie
“If you say so.” Even her absentminded mother would notice some details.
Gina pulled up a blade of grass and started to shred it. “Maybe I can convince them I’m more like you. A lot of my work has to do with numbers. I have to make sure everything will fit and move properly in the space, and give the dimensions to the carpenters to ensure it’s built right.” She leaned back on her hands. “I like numbers.”
“I like what I can do with numbers.” He blinked, as if shocked at himself for bringing it up.
“Balancing ledgers really turns you on, huh?”
“Numbers can be sexy. All those curves.” His gaze traveled down her body, deliberately, she was pretty sure. Then the heat in those blue eyes disappeared as he leaned back on his hands. “Except ones, fours, and sevens. They suck.”
“Funny…” Cute, she wanted to say, but no way was she admitting such a thing out loud. “But I’m not buying it. You obviously need more fun in your life.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Now you sound like my mother. My kind of fun just isn’t your kind of fun.”
She got the feeling he wasn’t talking about numbers any more. Time to put a halt to…whatever this was. Flirting with the guy holding T-Bone over her head was not an option. Gina held up both hands. “I wasn’t judging. Mostly. To each his own, and all that. I just hope I can find something to talk about with all your finance people.”
His lips twitched. Scooping up T-Bone, Max dropped back down beside her, closer than they’d been before…close enough the heat of his skin penetrated through his thin shirt and her elf costume. “You’ve had plenty to say to me.”
“That’s different.” She tried to ignore her body’s reaction to his nearness. That earthy-orange scent from his room wrapped around her. The guy had to have women standing in line. Besides, despite the banter, he’d made it clear this deal was business-only.
“Different how?” he asked.
“I don’t like you.” Only the words didn’t come out firm, more mushy around the middle, maybe because they felt wrong.
“No?” His eyes crinkled in a smile, and this time it reached his eyes, lighting up the blue depths in a way she found disturbingly mesmerizing. His focus remained solely on her, in a center-of-the-universe kind of way that had heat zooming to her erogenous zones.
She couldn’t look away, and he didn’t.
Suddenly, he leaned in and placed his lips over hers. The kiss was short and sweet and breath-stealing—and over way too quick. Tremors of shock ricocheted through her as he pulled back.
His charm seemed to desert him. He cleared his throat and…blushed?
Her heart tumbled around inside her. Oh, no. The guy was not the most adorable thing since puppies. Yeah, he could be charming and even sort of sweet, but she needed to remember he was also rigid about cleanliness, and schedules, and dating, apparently, and he knew he had a certain effect on women.
I’m losing my grip on reality. It wouldn’t be the first time, but even with her impulsive nature, Gina didn’t tend to fall all over good-looking guys. In fact, she’d never been in love, never had a steady boyfriend. After her mother’s example, she tended to be cautious in matters of the heart.
She would not be one of those women who fell under Max’s practiced spell.
Max glanced at his watch and gave a start. “I’m late. We should be getting back.”
“Sure.” Gina could use a bit of distance.
They gathered up their things, tossing their empty cups in a trashcan, and walked back toward the apartment. When they reached the building—pausing around the corner from the entrance—Gina shuffled T-Bone into the duffel bag–looking dog carrier she’d bought that morning.
“What’s that?” Max asked.
“This is top secret doggie spy stuff,” she said.
He eyed the contraption and glanced over his shoulder. “Clever. Tell you what…give me a thirty-second head start. Okay?”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.” He walked around the corner without a backward glance.
More than a tad curious, Gina impatiently counted to thirty. Unfortunately, the time gave her brain an opportunity to recall that kiss. She still felt off-kilter, and it had been barely a touch. What would it be like if he really kissed her?
Time up, she rounded the corner to the building and had to force her legs to keep moving.
Max stood there, chatting up Charlie, the doorman.
Fury rose up her neck in a wall of heat. OMG, is he ratting me out?! I agreed to his dumb plan and he kissed me. What the hell?
Catching her eye, Max subtly tipped his head toward the door, which he held open with his foot.
Feeling all kinds of foolish—the guy was helping her sneak in—she slipped past Charlie, who was still chatting away, and into the lobby. Luckily, the guard at the front desk was occupied with another tenant, so she made it to the elevator without a hitch.
The last thing she saw as the elevator doors closed was Max winking at her from where he still stood, letting Charlie talk his ear off.
Chapter Five
Gina bent down and gave her best elf smile to the little girl standing in line, clinging to her mother’s skirt. “Are you ready to meet Santa?”
The toddler shook her head, blond curls bouncing, hazel eyes wide and nervous.
Gina knelt to address her at eye level. “Do you want to know a secret?”
The child blinked warily but nodded.
“I was afraid of Santa the first time I met him, too.” Gina widened her eyes for dramatic effect.
“But you’re an elf. Don’t you live with Santa?” she was told with child-like logic.
Gina nodded gravely. “There are lots of elves at the North Pole. There has to be, or we’d never finish the presents on time. I was about your age when I finally met him. And you know what?”
“What?” The girl was interested enough to let go of her mother’s skirt now.
Gina leaned in and glanced around, like she was checking to make sure no one was listening. Then, in a loud whisper, revealed her secret. “His belly really does shake like a bowl full of jelly.”
The little girl giggled. “Can I feel it?”
Gina grinned as she rocked back up to her feet. “You sure can.” She held out a hand, and the child went along happily.
“Thank you,” her mother mouthed over her head.
Gina winked then lifted the kiddo onto Santa’s lap. She’d worked with the guy before, and knew he wouldn’t mind when asked if he could shake his belly. His belly happened to do a terrific jelly impersonation, so Gina hadn’t been lying.
After escorting girl and mother away, providing a candy cane of course, Gina high-fived Lola, a college-aged girl dressed in a matching elf costume there to take over, and scooted away for her break. Happy holiday tunes piped over the loudspeakers throughout the store, and the place was getting more crowded with sweater-clad shoppers every minute. Smiling and waving at children as she passed by, Gina made her way to the employee break room at the back.
She rolled her shoulders to loosen up the tight muscles in her back, then tossed her pointy green hat onto the generic gray plastic table, then plopped onto the matching plastic chair, propping her aching feet up on the seat of the chair beside her. Being an elf was murder on the feet. Those curly-toed slippers did nothing for arch support.
After checking to make sure she was alone first, Gina fished her cell phone out of her bra—the only place she could stash it during work hours, since all the rest of her stuff was in a locker and she still wanted easy access. She checked the time and did some dubious mental math. It should be before 10 p.m. in Paris. Hopefully Sabrina was still up.
The line rang, and she listened with growing impatience. “Come on, Bri, I need girl talk,” she muttered.
Despite the whole blackmail situation, Gina couldn’t shake this giddy sensation that’d been haunting her non-stop since the park. Fluttering had taken up permanent residence in her tummy. W
hen had she reverted to being a pre-teen girl?
The real question was, why was she getting all twisted up over this guy?
Something about him—how he didn’t want to hurt his mother’s feelings despite his own frustrations, how he’d played with T-Bone—didn’t match up with his words. But she should keep in mind that this was a man who was so desperate to avoid relationships he had to blackmail her and lie to his family to avoid getting tangled up in one.
Which left her with only the deal they had going. In other words, nowhere.
Finally, a familiar voice picked up at the other end. “Sorry…Sorry, Gina,” Sabrina said breathless.
“Been running a marathon?” Gina teased.
“Just to get to the phone,” came the dry reply. “I was in the shower.”
“I bet you say that to all your callers. Unless in the shower is a euphemism for a man in your bed.”
Her friend snorted. “Hardly.”
Sabrina was a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde who received more attention from men than she cared for most of the time. Given that she was smarter than most of the men who approached her, and fanatically independent, she could be a bit intimidating. In addition, Sabrina was also damn picky. Which made her hitting on Max a rare move. Was there more to it?
“Are you busy?” Gina asked.
A long pause greeted the question. “Something’s different,” Sabrina pronounced.
“What do you mean?”
“You never call me in the middle of the day, which it is there right now. Besides, you usually launch right into whatever’s going on in your life.”
Damn. That meant she’d let herself become more affected than even she realized. Bad, bad, bad. “You know me too well,” she grumbled.
Sabrina’s gasp came across loud and clear down the line. “There is something. I was only guessing. Spill.”
“I met a guy—”
“That’s great!”
“Well…” Gina hedged.
“That’s…not great?” Sabrina now sounded as confused as Gina’s muddled brain had been since meeting Max.
“It’s complicated when it shouldn’t be.” Max’s rules were simple enough. Her own should be, too.
“Explain.”
After years as friends, their conversations had evolved to a shorthand, rapid-fire exchange. Gina felt better already just settling in to tell Sabrina. “I met Max Carter.”
A long pause greeted that statement. “My neighbor?”
Gina hesitated. “Yeah.”
“He asked you out?” She couldn’t tell from her tone what Sabrina thought about that.
Suddenly, Gina didn’t want to go into the sordid details of exactly how things started with Max—about the dog, or the blackmail, or the fake girlfriend thing. Sabrina would probably fly home and attempt to knock some sense into her head, or worse, threaten Max at gunpoint or something else along those lines.
“Not exactly. We had coffee in the park, and…he kissed me.”
Sabrina gasped. “He kissed you?”
Was it really so out of the realm of possibility? Gina snorted. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
Sabrina was quiet a second. “Okay. So he kissed you, and…?” came the leading question.
Gina glanced around, making sure she was still alone. “And nothing. Except I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.” Or the man.
“Tongue?”
“No. It was…” Wonderful? Sweet? Unexpected? Damned perplexing? “Nice.” She held in a chuckle as Max’s denouncement of that term popped into her head. He’d probably be horrified to hear her describe his kiss as nice.
“You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”
“No. I just met the guy, Bri. I’m not a complete idiot.”
“He’s hot, so I wouldn’t blame you.” She could hear the shrug in Sabrina’s voice.
That giddiness—bubbly fluttering—started back up, along with a healthy dose of frustration. This was so wrong. “He’s hot. And smart. And sweet in a backward kind of way. And funny, though sarcastic.”
“Huh. Your Achilles’ heal. I had no idea he was such a terrific catch. What’s the problem?”
“He’s also controlling, and cocky, and arrogant, and—”
“Could make you come with a single glance from those dangerous blue eyes?”
Gina paused, something in her friend’s tone alerting her. “I know you were interested and he blew you off. But if you’re into him, I’m out.”
Sabrina’s laugh rang true. “Heck no. His blowing me off was a tad mortifying, given I never approach guys. It’s just that I’ve met a few like him in my time.”
“Like him?”
“The ‘never gets serious with a woman, just wants to keep it casual’ kind of guy. I’m not sure he’d be good for you. But if you want him, Max is all yours. I have other fish to fry.”
“A guy?” No way.
“My job.”
Now that made more sense. “Rough time in Paris?”
“Not rough, exactly. Complex. I’ve got it handled. Back to you, though… Max Carter pushes all your ‘yes’ buttons?”
Plus a few ‘what the fuck’ buttons, but that would require telling Sabrina the full story.
“You could say that.” She’d had to push her own yes buttons after that kiss to relieve some of the tension. “But we’re complete opposites, and, like you said, he doesn’t do relationships.”
Gina was crystal clear nothing was supposed to happen beyond their agreement for her to act as his fake girlfriend. Logically, she knew that. Logically, she should put the kibosh on this stupid fluttery business, get through the holiday, and walk away.
Except that kiss—spur of the moment and more than she’d expected—told her Max wasn’t not interested. What’s more, her heart told her she liked the man underneath…or was she getting caught in that age-old “he’ll change for me” trap?
“He started the kiss, though, right?” Sabrina read her mind.
“Yes.”
“And it was nice, right?”
Now, hearing it from Sabrina, she got what Max meant about nice. Nice didn’t begin to cover it. “The kiss was…” She gave a dreamy sigh, even as she was telling herself she didn’t do the dreamy thing. Not about men. Her mom was the dreamy one in the family. Gina might be impulsive, and she might be trying to make her dreams come true against the odds, but she didn’t get fluttery over relationships. Ever. Not until now at least. “But he won’t tell me anything about himself.”
Sabrina chuckled. “That’ll drive you nuts.”
“Exactly.”
“So you like him, but you don’t want to like him. That’s what I’m hearing.”
“Got it in a nutshell.”
“What do you need from me? Do you want girly support? Or do you want me to stop you from doing something stupid?”
Gina bit her lip. “Both?”
Sabrina’s laugh was the one where she’d be shaking her head. “How about this…would it hurt to see if you push any of his ‘yes’ buttons?”
Hurt? Only if she let herself get too involved. But she could hold back, just test the waters.
“I guess not. Though I’m not sure how I’d do that.”
“According to the girl who works the graveyard shift at the front desk, Max has a bad case of insomnia and works out in the middle of the night in the apartment gym most nights. If you’re serious about trying to get under his skin, that’s a good place to catch him alone.”
“No way.” She shook her head even though Sabrina couldn’t see. “I can just picture how that scene would play out.” And it wouldn’t be sexy, it would be embarrassing.
“Well, I’m out of ideas. Just don’t fall for the guy unless you’re sure. That’s my other tip.”
Right. Keep her heart out of it. Shouldn’t be too hard. After all, she was a rational, independent human being with a will of her own and self-control. Most of the time.
Sabrina gave a big yawn.
“You
should get some sleep,” Gina insisted. “My break is almost up anyway.”
“Okay. Lurv you. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Lurv you.” And she’d try her best not to be stupid. “Oh! I almost forgot. Can I borrow that two-piece cocktail dress?”
“The one with the cutouts?”
“Yes.”
“That’ll look fab on your curves. Sure. Got a big date?”
“No, it’s an office party, but apparently this group dresses up.” She deliberately kept to herself the details and that her date would be Max, and Sabrina let it pass.
After exchanging another round of good-byes, Gina put her phone down on the table and nibbled on her lip.
Unfortunately, talking to Sabrina hadn’t helped any.
What was it about Max that made her want to crack the protective shell surrounding him? Why was he so anti-relationship anyway? He hadn’t even glanced at a single other woman while they were at the park the other day. A player would’ve been on the lookout, but she hadn’t got that vibe, despite Sabrina’s impression. The way he talked about his parents, with frustration but deep affection, told her their relationship wasn’t the source. His reluctance seemed to stem more from his own rigid life than anything else. She wasn’t a psychologist, but…
Gina checked her phone. She still had five minutes before her break was up. Fingers flying, she Googled OCD. Even based on their limited interaction, she was fairly certain he had some form of it. Maybe she could help him with more than just the holiday. For her new role of fake girlfriend…of course.
Lord, what was she thinking? Gina put down the phone. She should use the two weeks until Max’s office party to shake off whatever this thing was. Because, no matter what, getting more involved than showing up at his two events was a bad idea.
…
Max took a sip of his ten o’clock cup of coffee. With his other hand, he scrolled though numbers on his computer screen. The mind-numbing case that, once cracked, would take down some heavy hitters in the NYC political arena, was all about the details, finding the tiny hidden discrepancies between accounts.
However, his focus was not a hundred percent right now, since the situation with a certain brown-eyed girl kept supplanting itself into his consciousness. Something about that kiss just wouldn’t leave him.
