by Lisa Wells
Had Bill left it after a sleepover? The thought settled about as well as thoughts of his conversation with Father during Grandmother’s mandatory dinner. He’d been replaying his dad’s snide comments as a way to keep his mind off of thoughts of Aggie’s hands holding his underwear. As a diversion technique, it wasn’t working.
He’d give anything to know what she’d done with his boxers when she went out of camera view. The only thing he’d heard during that moment were the words, “Oh yeah, I bet there’s spillage.”
Max stretched his legs out, and his foot hit something. He glanced under the table and found her Crocs. She’d kicked them off and pushed them out of her way. Nothing like the sexy ones she’d worn to work this morning. Why had she changed footwear?
His gaze drifted to Aggie. A habit it appeared to excel at doing. Her hair hadn’t come down from its matronly bun, but enough wisps had escaped to cause his fingers to itch with a desire to let it all loose. Especially with that damn man’s shirt.
“I need the rose-petal-pink marker.” She turned toward him with a soft smile on her lips. As if very content with spending time brainstorming with him instead of out on a date.
He grabbed the only pink marker he had and held it out toward her. Unfortunately, she leaned forward to take it from the table at the same time. Their timing misfired, and his hand accidentally brushed her full breasts.
His brain short-circuited like a sound system caught in a sudden downpour of heavy rain. The room’s oxygen vaporized. He jerked and dropped the marker. He opened his mouth to apologize, but a fog of hot lust settled over his body. Wave after wave after drowning wave.
Words, the ones that made sense, escaped him. Which words were the ones that went into an apology? Not sex, kiss, naked, what-the-hell. Breathe idiot.
“Sorry,” he finally said.
Her laughter filtered through his murky brain. “Now, we’re even.” She sounded carefree and nonchalant.
He managed a breath. “We’re what?”
“You’ve touched my boob, and I’ve fondled your boxers.”
Fondled. Hell. “You’re killing me, Johansson.”
Their gazes locked. Hers danced with humor.
His did whatever in the hell they did while he imagined her stroking his boxers with her hands or tongue while they were on his body. Or pooled at his ankles. Or—
“I’ve been told that a time or twenty million.”
He shook his head. No wonder she didn’t sound choked with embarrassment. Flirting was her second language. Having a guy accidentally touch a breast didn’t inflame her with emotions. He should say something equally disarming. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything.
“Which means the ball’s back in your court.” A slight smirk accompanied her words.
A smirk implying she was most definitely purposefully messing with him.
Did she really want him to imagine her helping him place his balls back in his boxers…after she’d had her way with them? Get a fucking grip, Treadwell. She was probably only implying she thought of him as stuffy.
He dragged his gaze to his watch. He may not be as stuffy as she imagined, but he was a man of integrity. No matter how fuckable she was, mixing business with pleasure was never a good idea. He searched his brain for a mood deflater and landed on a call he should have already made. “Could you get Glenda on the phone?” His low, tortured voice gave him away, but at least it didn’t crack like a horny teenager’s.
“Now?”
“Unless you have a prior appointment, now would work.” He forced himself to use his boss voice. His dick-fuckery voice.
She walked stiffly to his desk and yanked his Rolodex up. “What’s her last name?”
“Whose?” Did she want him to kiss her? Was she mad because he hadn’t? Was that why the temperature in the room had dropped below freezing? But that couldn’t be. On more than one occasion she’d told him he wasn’t her type. Question was…was she his type? Did he have a type?
“Glenda’s,” she said.
“Oh.” He did have a type. It wasn’t Aggie. When the time came to take a wife, he needed a sensible, predictable woman in his life. “Banks. Glenda Banks.”
Nothing about Aggie used those two descriptors. Hell, tonight was a prime example of her not being predictable. Instead of coming back to work in a mood because he’d been an ass, she’d sailed in smiling. No sign of being embarrassed she’d been caught going through his underwear drawer. No sign of anger he’d been a jerk to her in front of Richard Harris.
While they had worked, she’d matched him idea for idea. And they weren’t weak ideas. They were damn good. And not once had she complained about how she’d spent her day.
“Do you want me to call her,” she said, sounding over-the-top annoyed, “or just give you the number?”
“I asked you to complete my to-do list because she needed today off,” he blurted.
Aggie’s brows furrowed. “Not because you wanted…never mind. Back to Glenda. Did you say Banks?”
Did Aggie think the list was some type of punishment? “She’s my maid. Her husband had surgery today. Which is why I needed you to do the tasks she normally does so when she comes back, she’ll see they were done, and she won’t fret.”
Her disdainful expression dug at his conscience. “You have your maid buy your toilet paper? You know that’s what Amazon is for…right?”
Suddenly, he needed Aggie to understand he wasn’t like his father. He didn’t judge based on income. “Since I pay her by the hour, last year, I made up extra things for her to do after her husband was laid off due to an injury. I would gladly have just paid her more for what she already did for me, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to take charity. Which left me scrounging for things to add to her list of duties. Which includes buying all of my household needs.”
“Of course she didn’t want your charity.” Aggie set down the marker and turned around. “For the record, I didn’t mind doing the tasks, either. It’s not like I think I’m too good for menial assignments. Except for the toilet paper. That I minded.”
“It was childish of me to throw that into the mix.” He raked a hand through his hair. He’d added that item in because…because he was jealous of the effortless camaraderie she’d had with Richard after only knowing him a few minutes. “I apologize for that, and for not telling you what a wonderful job you did with the offices. And for yelling at you about the rocks.”
She sighed. “If we’re having an apology-fest, then I’m sorry I didn’t incorporate them into my design. I should have known they were important because they were the only personal touch you had in here.” She padded back to the conference table, handed him Glenda’s number on a sticky note, and settled her sweet ass on the corner closest to him. “I—”
“I should have been clearer. You didn’t know how important they were to me.” That didn’t mean he wasn’t still reeling from them being gone. “I went to the place who picked them up and they said a woman had already purchased them earlier this morning.” He’d asked for the woman’s number, but they said she’d paid cash.
A smile tugged Aggie’s lip.
He raised a brow.
“It was me. I’m the woman. I tracked them down and bought them.”
One of his protective walls crashed. He stood, knocking over his chair. Not a wall meant to keep him from lusting, but one far more important. One meant to keep him from feeling real emotion toward a woman. “You did what?”
She glanced at her fingernails. “They’re arranged in a memory box. One you can bring back to the office, and we can hang on the wall, or one you can display in your condo.”
“Thank you.” He grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet. Their eyes met in a naked-soul moment. No walls, no preconceived notions, no emotional barriers. Just two people allowing themselves momentary vulnerability. T
he feeling was both frightening and invigorating.
He ripped his gaze from hers and locked onto her mouth. He waited for her to kill the moment by saying something Aggie-like. Instead, her tongue darted out and slid enticingly along her bottom lip.
Desire rushed him. What in the hell was his next move? Stalling, he laid his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t his father.
Pulling on strength he didn’t want to possess, he let go of her hands and took a step back. “I’m sorry I forced you to cancel your date.” Best decision he’d made all day, other than it had destroyed one of his relationship-barrier walls. Hell, he wished he’d included no dating in the damn contract she made him draw up.
Her response came slowly. She tucked in her shirt. He resisted an urge to offer to help. His hands really wanted to slide beneath the thin band of her skirt. Then she pushed the stray strands of hair out of her face. Her gorgeous head of hair was one of her many assets. Thick. Straight. Sort of like him at the moment.
She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and said, “You gave fair warning the hours for this job would be cockamamie.”
He laughed. A girl using an old-fashioned word like cockamamie was not having problems with gutter thoughts. The laughter released his tension. “I didn’t know anyone under the age of eighty still used that word.” She wasn’t sensible or predictable, but she was such a unique mixture of intriguing characteristics. Characteristics he found himself liking. A lot. Like funny. Outgoing. Interesting. A bit cockamamie with a touch of dazzle.
Aggie grinned, showing off a beautiful smile and also appearing to relax. “It’s one of Meemaw’s favorites.”
That explained it. Meemaw had to be the most colorful character he’d ever met. Obviously, some of that charm rubbed off on Aggie. “Where in the South did your grandmother grow up?”
Aggie returned to her seat at the conference table and picked a red Starburst out of the candy dish. Although the added distance between them was smart, he found himself regretting her decision. “What makes you think she did?” she asked.
“Her thick Southern accent?”
“Meemaw’s never been out of Kansas City. But she spent four years working for a sweet woman who’d moved here from Kentucky. A woman who helped Meemaw learn the ways of high society.” Aggie carefully opened the candy’s wrapper one corner at a time. “Meemaw liked the way proper English sounded rolling off her boss’s tongue in a Southern lilt, so she adopted the lady’s accent and colorful sayings as her own.”
“And you?”
“And me what?” She popped the candy into her mouth. A movement that had him once again thinking of things he shouldn’t be thinking.
“Sometimes you sound as Southern as sweet tea.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “And other times as soft and smooth as Missouri Spirits Vodka. What’s your story?”
She finished chewing and swallowed. “I don’t have a story. Meemaw says I’m a magic sponge. I soak in the best of everything and leave behind the worst.”
He nodded. The description fit her like a custom-made glove. “Is that why I feel so drained? You’ve soaked in all of the best of me?”
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have much, so it didn’t take long.”
A chuckle got away from him. “It’s a good thing I’m not your type.”
She nodded. “May I ask you a favor?” Her usual confident tone had been replaced by one of vulnerability.
He braced himself. “Ask. Can’t promise I’ll say yes.”
“I think we should complain about each other to our grandmothers. Help them realize on their own we’re not romantically compatible, so they’ll stop trying to fix us up. I feel like the longer it goes on, the harder it’s going to be on Meemaw when a romance between us doesn’t materialize.”
Damn it. The woman was brilliant. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Probably because working late with her had his brain scrambled into an undercooked omelet. But still… “Just to be sure we’re on the same page, why aren’t we romantically compatible?”
Chapter Thirteen
About to reply to Max’s question on why she thought their hearts would always be a mismatched pair, Aggie’s stomach grumbled. She glanced at her watch. Eight thirty p.m. It had been a long Monday. “I tell you what,” she said. “Buy us dinner, and I’ll explain to you why we’re not compatible—romantically speaking. As a work couple, we’re a dream team. That is, when you don’t get in the way of yourself.”
Tonight had been invigorating. They’d bounced ideas off each other like a smooth-ass spin-out between two people who’d danced together all their lives. While he took his role as the lead man quite seriously, he gallantly took her likes and pleasure into consideration with each smooth move he executed.
Moments ago, when she thought he would kiss her, she’d had a startling revelation—she wanted it to transpire. And not just the kiss. She wanted everything that comes after a kiss.
And she had no idea when that happened. Just this morning, she didn’t like him very much. And when she reminded herself he was a trust-fund baby, she still didn’t. Yet…
“Deal,” he said.
She shook away the unnerving realization and focused on Max. Just because he could dance didn’t mean they were romantically compatible. They weren’t. He was pompous. She was fun. She wasn’t saying sex wouldn’t be grand between them, because, well…it would. But beyond that, the touchy-feely stuff had nothing to do with sex. And that’s what she meant when she said they weren’t romantically compatible.
Thirty minutes later, they sat across from each other at a small mom and pop pizza joint, Pie in the Sky. Max filled the beer mugs and pushed one toward her. “Enough stalling, Johansson. Tell me your take on why we’re not romantically compatible.”
“What’s your Enneagram number?” She picked up a slice of Hawaiian pizza and took a bite. They’d ordered a large. Half her preference. Half his.
“My what?” He took a bite of his all-meat pizza.
She swallowed. “Have you never taken an Enneagram test?” Wasn’t taking that quiz like the first thing every middle-school girl made every middle-school boy do the minute they started talking?
“What is it?”
She laid her slice on her plate. “It’s a personality test. A really cool personality test. When you take it, you’ll get a number that is your primary personality style and a wing number that also describes you. For example, I’m a seven with a loyalist wing.”
He nodded like he understood, but his squished brows didn’t agree. “What is a seven? And what’s a loyalist wing?” He picked up the red-pepper shaker and sprinkled it heavily on his half. Then he glanced at her to see if she wanted some on hers. She nodded. The hotter the better.
“A seven is called an Enthusiast. In general, a person labeled a seven is spontaneous, versatile, acquisitive, and scattered. The loyalist wing means I’m loyal and tend to speak my mind.” She paused and let the words sink in. When he grimaced, she continued. “Tell me, have you ever once imagined your dream woman and thought she would have any one of those traits, let alone all of them?”
He studied her as if she were a science project gone wrong. A theory gone wrong. A hypothesis not proven. “You don’t come across as acquisitive.”
Lots of men she’d met over the years didn’t know what the word meant. The fact he did impressed her. “When you grow up poor, you tend to covet materialistic things. If you ever study Ruby Payne’s book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, you’ll understand what I mean.” She took a small bite of her pizza.
“The poor don’t have a monopoly on that trait.” He picked up his beer and raised it to his lips. “I grew up rich, and I still want things.”
“It’s different. Don’t forget, I’m also scattered.”
“I’ve not seen any signs of you being scattered. You’ve comple
ted all of the tasks I’ve asked you to do without me reminding you.”
A group of teenagers came through the door, laughing and carrying on with one another. She waited until they’d been shown to their seats before she responded. “We’re still in our honeymoon stage. Trust me, when I’m rattled, I become quite scattered. That’s one of the reasons I forgot to bring Aggie’s Assets to my interview with you.”
“I thought it was because you didn’t want me to see your work history.”
She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I will neither deny nor confirm your theory. Anyway, the fact I’m scattered is a huge red flag as to why we are not romantically compatible.”
“So you’ve told me why you’re not right for me. Why do you feel I’m not right for you?”
He sounded cocky. Like he couldn’t believe any woman wouldn’t see him as catch of the year. The fact she kind of agreed irritated her. “I’m willing to guess you’re a one with a protector wing. A one is a Reformer.”
He shrugged. “What does a Reformer do?”
She pulled out her phone and pulled up the website for the Enneagram site. The action gave her a minute to get a grip on the weird hopes trying to filter through to her consciousness. “A Reformer has the three Ps. They’re principled, purposeful, and perfectionists.” Dear God, that described him to a T.
He reached for another slice of pizza. “And you see those as bad traits?”
“Not bad. Just not suited to who I am. For example, along with the three Ps, Reformers are also known for their self-control. You have that by the buttload.”
“And you know this how?”
“Your self-control is what kept you from kissing me tonight, even though you wanted to.” She took a bite of her pizza and waited for his response.
He refilled his beer without breaking eye contact with her. “I’m your boss. Just because I want to do something doesn’t mean I get to do it.” His words whispered up her spine leaving behind a delicious tingle.
