“No?” The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor.
“No!”
“Just watch me.” Ryder hauled Joanna out of the elevator, with Charlotte stumbling along with them.
Four
“Let me go!” Joanna tried to wrench herself free. His grip was inexorable, and she did not succeed.
“The roads are bad, and I’m not going to allow you to drive, Joanna.” Ryder was adamant.
“You’re not going to allow me?” Joanna repeated, momentarily diverted.
He sounded so very authoritarian. She tried to remember the last time someone hadn’t allowed her to do something and guessed it must’ve been back in her teens, when her parents were still alive.
Ever since the accident Julia, her sole surviving relative, had offered only encouragement. “You can do it, Joanna.” “If that’s what you want to do, go for it, Joanna.” Occasionally there was big-sisterly advice like “Watch out for cousin Chad. Chad the Cad is heartbreak waiting to happen,” and “Taking a daily vitamin is an excellent idea.” Brother-in-law, Michael, supplied useful reminders about her car. “Remember to get the oil, the antifreeze, the air in the tires checked,” along with his own Chad Fortune warnings.
But the phrase not allowed had disappeared from her vocabulary. Simply hearing it was a novelty. “You sound absolutely parental,” Joanna blurted out.
Ryder glowered, his nostrils actually flared. Joanna stared at him, fascinated. She’d always thought flaring nostrils were a literary device, but Ryder made it happen in the flesh.
Ryder clenched his jaw till it ached. Parental? How on earth had she reached that conclusion? Possibly the last thing he felt toward Joanna Chandler right now was fatherly.
“You are as spacey as ever, Joanna,” he said. “And you’ve been drinking. There is no way I’m letting you get behind the wheel of a car tonight.”
“I only had one drink. You make it seem like I’ve been boozing it up all night!”
“I kind of was,” Charlotte interjected. “Are you mad at me, Ry?”
“Yes,” Ryder said grimly. “Neither you nor Joanna should’ve been at Surf City tonight or any other night. Haven’t you ever heard of the drug that slime-balls slip into women’s drinks? Well, Surf City is the type of place where that sort of thing happens. Probably on a regular basis.”
“No way,” argued Charlotte. “Surf City is a fun place. Y’know, you’ve really changed since you came back to Minneapolis, Ryder. You’ve totally lost your sense of adventure. These days you make Daddy seem zany.”
Staid James Fortune was the antithesis of zany, but just in case Ryder had missed his sister’s less-than-subtle accusation, she verbally bludgeoned him with it. “So that makes you like a—a Puritan or something! Strict and uptight and absolutely no fun at all!”
“If I’m a Puritan, then you’re a sybaritic socialite, Charlotte.” Ryder was frowning as he hurried Joanna and Charlotte through the chilly parking garage. He finally halted beside his big black Range Rover. “Get into the car, both of you.”
“Is he this impossible and bossy at work?” A sulky Charlotte asked Joanna. “’Cause if he is, I’d quit if I were you. I don’t have a choice, I can’t resign as his sister.”
“I usually make it a point to stay out of sibling cross fire,” Joanna said drily. “But since you asked, as a boss, your brother is—” she paused to glance up at Ryder, the beginnings of a smile curving her lips “—okay.”
He arched his brows. “Thanks for the ringing endorsement, Joanna.”
“Anytime, boss.”
She was aware that they were flirting in a covert way. It was confusing, yet oddly exhilarating, the way their interactions tonight seemed to bounce from one extreme to another. Hot, then cold. Now a thaw was definitely in the works. She could literally feel him warming toward her, a tentative smile responding to hers.
“I guess I might’ve overreacted when I saw Chad look at you,” Ryder admitted, a little sheepishly. “I apologize.”
And watching that dog eye Joanna like a hungry wolf brought out a possessive, protective streak he’d been unaware of. Until now.
“I understand.” Joanna turned to Charlotte. “My sister, Julia, mentioned that Kelly Sinclair was involved with Chad. Julia was worried about her. She said Kelly is too sweet and trusting, and Chad is a heartbreak waiting to happen. Michael says he’s toxic.”
“Finally, something we can all agree on,” Ryder said heartily. “All right, let’s go, little sister.” He took Charlotte’s elbow and steered her into the back seat.
Which left the front for Joanna. She slid into the wide bucket seat, trying to pretend she wasn’t nervous.
But she was. She was very nervous indeed as she contemplated the attraction simmering between her and Ryder. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about those earlier intimate moments between them, when a very different Ryder had emerged. She wanted to spend more time with that man, who was so unlike his impatient, order-barking alter ego. She wanted to explore the enthralling feelings he evoked.
Bad idea, Joanna, she cautioned herself. No matter if Ryder had more sides than the Three Faces of Eve, the bottom line was that she worked for the man. As his idiot assistant. It would be truly idiotic to forget her status—and that critical evaluation of his.
A streak of anger galvanized her. “How am I supposed to get to work tomorrow if my car is here?” she demanded crossly as Ryder took his place behind the wheel. “And don’t even suggest that I take the bus!”
“I wouldn’t dream of suggesting the bus. We’ll swing by here tomorrow morning and pick up your car.” Ryder’s tone brooked no argument.
And then he calmly, audaciously covered her knee with his big hand.
“Ryder, you—can’t.” Joanna tried to quash the rush of edgy excitement surging through her. To take control of the situation.
“No?” His voice was seductive. “I can’t do this?” His fingers began a gentle massage as he slipped his hand just underneath the skirt of her dress to caress her inner thigh. “You don’t want me to?”
Pleasure shimmered through her, spreading deeper, hotter. Keeping control began to lose its appeal. When she made no protest, no reply at all, his hand moved higher.
A wave of heat sent her reeling. The intention and possession of his touch was unmistakable. “We’ll swing by here tomorrow morning and pick up your car,” he’d said. The implication was clear. They would be together tomorrow morning because they were going to spend the night together. Tonight.
Unless she said no. Suddenly, Joanna was right back in the sensual morass that had enveloped her before Charlotte’s precipitous arrival. She lifted her eyes to Ryder’s face and found him watching her intensely. There was raw desire and hunger in his gaze that evoked a deeply feminine response within her.
He drove the Range Rover out of the parking garage into the blustery March wind. A few blocks farther down the road, a traffic light turned red and Ryder braked the car to a stop.
“Come home with me, Joanna,” he murmured.
She turned her head to look at him, her lips parting as she drew a short shuddering breath. He leaned in and touched his mouth to hers, gently at first, then more passionately as her mouth opened to him. Her tongue touched his, retreated, then surrendered to the bold strokes of his tongue as he pursued hers.
“Excuse me, I haven’t felt like this much of a third wheel since—since never!” Charlotte whined petulantly from the back seat. “This is absolutely the worst. And why doesn’t the damn light turn green? Is it broken or something?”
Ryder muttered an incoherent response as he lifted his mouth from Joanna’s. But he couldn’t make himself move away from her, couldn’t bring himself to break the contact between them, despite his sister’s very vocal presence. He kissed Joanna’s neck, savoring the soft feel of her skin, the alluring scent of her perfume.
Joanna shivered as his lips trailed a path to the sensitive spot below her ear. And then her eyes happened
to connect with Charlotte’s in the rearview mirror.
Ryder’s sister was staring at them, watching with unconcealed curiosity. Joanna blushed.
“Ryder,” she whispered huskily. “Look.”
Reluctantly he lifted his lips, following her gaze to the rearview mirror.
Charlotte gave a little wave. “Oh, yeah, I’m still here.”
Ryder groaned. Joanna bashfully hid her face in the comforting warmth of his shoulder, her body trembling from the provocative little interlude.
“For a couple not having a romance, I’d say you do a pretty good imitation of it,” Charlotte observed. “Do me a favor, run this stupid light and take me home so you two can just get on with it, okay?”
“I never run traffic lights,” Ryder said loftily. “But I’ll be delighted to comply with the rest of your command, Char.”
His hand continued to rest on Joanna’s thigh, but he didn’t try to kiss her again. There was no chance, because every traffic signal blazed bright green, and they had to keep moving.
“You have to remember to always stop and think before you act, Joanna.” That much-repeated therapeutic advice kept echoing in her head. Taking Charlotte home and depositing her in her apartment had provided plenty of time to think.
Which was fortunate, of course, but it would’ve been so much easier to simply act on impulse, Joanna mused wistfully.
Should she go home with Ryder and spend the night making love with him?
She wanted to, but Joanna knew better than most that you could not always do what you want. Her mind began to drift. Or get what you want. Julia said that happiness wasn’t having what you wanted, but wanting what you have.
Joanna found herself pondering this. Julia was very wise.
“You’re so quiet, Joanna,” Ryder said at last. Without Charlotte in the car, absolute silence reigned. “What are you thinking about?” He smiled a sexy smile. “It must be pretty intense because you’ve managed to sit still for nearly five full minutes.”
“A record for me,” Joanna conceded. “And if I tell you what I was thinking you’ll be—”
“Excited?” Ryder prompted. “Even more turned on than I already am?”
“Try irritated,” she interjected flatly. “You’ll be exasperated.”
“Never, sweetie.” He was flying on a testosterone-adrenaline-fueled high. “Not with you.”
“Not even if I admit that I wasn’t sitting here spinning erotic fantasies about you? That my mind was off on one of those irrelevant tangents that drive you crazy? Though I prefer to call them mental detours.”
“Joanna.” Ryder groaned. “Everything about you drives me crazy. I—”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Painfully aware! “Which is why we shouldn’t, uh, act on these urges tonight. Or…or any other night.”
Her mind might work circuitously, but she knew she’d made the right decision. When a man admitted upfront that a woman got on his nerves, he was definitely talking one-night stand. And Joanna didn’t do one-night stands. Never.
She didn’t sleep with her boss, either.
“Life is complex enough without adding impossible complications,” she murmured. Somebody—Dear Abby? Oprah? Dr. Laura? she couldn’t remember who—had said that once, and it stuck in her head. And proved to be an uncanny take on this particular situation.
“Going to bed with someone who drives you crazy out of it, practically guarantees disaster,” she added solemnly. Dear Abby, Oprah and Dr. Laura would surely all agree on that.
“Joanna, I…hope you know that I meant that in the most complimentary way. You have to know that!”
Ryder could tell she didn’t, though. Her withdrawal was tangible; she’d inched as far away from him as the seat belt would allow.
Tension, sharp and unrelieved, coursed through him. His impassioned declaration hadn’t come out quite right, but did she have to misinterpret him so completely?
“Joanna, I didn’t mean to imply—honey, let me start over. I want to—”
“Take me straight home, Ryder. I’ll ask one of my roommates to drive me to the parking garage tomorrow morning to pick up my car.”
“Baby, let me change your mind.” Ryder pulled the Range Rover over to the curb, idling the engine as he tried to take her into his arms. He realized it was the act of a desperate man. Hell, he even sounded desperate!
Joanna shrank farther against the door. She knew if she let Ryder touch her again, she’d end up in bed with him. Her body was hell-bent on betraying her good sense tonight.
That couldn’t be allowed to happen. Joanna silently listed the reasons why. Ryder was everything she was not: well-educated and rich, a member of the most prominent family in the state. Such inequalities might not matter in a fairy tale—she thought of her small nieces’ collection of storybooks and videos, where such impossible couples abounded—and dismissed them as kid stuff. Joanna Chandler was firmly grounded in reality.
But Ryder wanted her, he was caressing her…
Trembling, she caught his wrists with her hands to fend him off. “Don’t, Ryder.”
Ryder stared at her, startled by the distress in her voice. She looked small and anxious. He immediately backed off.
“You don’t have to look at me like I’m some sort of…of rabid gorilla,” he rasped. Though, admittedly, he rather felt like one. By the expression on her face, he must’ve been acting like one, too.
Joanna flinched. She hadn’t meant to insult him. “It’s just that we have a good working relationship, Ryder,” she said, trying to make amends. “And a friendship. Let’s not jeopardize either by a crazy impulse brought on by a…a crazy place.”
“Is that what you think? That the antics at Surf City inspired me to make a pass at you?” Ryder was outraged. He might have been behaving somewhat primitively, but how could she misread him so thoroughly? “Of course, you’re an expert at misreading things,” he continued. His patience, never too plentiful on the best days, was totally obliterated by the combination of exhaustion and sheer sexual frustration. “On the matter of our good working relationship, for example. We—”
“You’re still mad about those plane reservations.” Joanna swallowed hard. She knew she wasn’t misreading his expression—it was that of a disgruntled boss viewing his most unsatisfactory employee. His idiot assistant.
“Among other things,” he muttered.
She was certain he was remembering everything she’d accidentally forgotten to do or had done all wrong, the various tasks she’d messed up in oh, so many ways. If she hadn’t been related, she would’ve been out of Fortune’s Design weeks ago.
“Do you want me to quit working for you?” Joanna gulped. “M-maybe we could at least salvage our friendship.” His ferocious scowl made her flinch. “Or aren’t we friends, either?”
“I’ve never felt less friendly toward anyone in my life,” Ryder snapped.
A true statement, Ryder thought, because he’d never ached with urgency and unslaked desire for a friend. He’d never looked at a friend and wanted to kiss her so long and deep and slow that neither of them would be capable of arguing, let alone thinking. Conversely, a friend would never accuse him of being influenced by an obnoxious pit like Surf City!
They didn’t speak again, except for her terse directions to her apartment building. The moment he pulled in front of it, she was out of the car.
“Should I come to work tomorrow?” she asked uncertainly, standing on the sidewalk.
“If you don’t show up, I might have to press Miss Volk into additional service and you know how well that will go over!” Ryder fairly snarled at her.
Her leap from the car had fueled his aggravation. Had she expected him to pounce on her? Well, she had no worries on that score. He was not the kind of man who forced unwanted attentions on any woman!
“Okay, I’ll be there,” Joanna agreed, though she was dispirited. Being preferred over Miss Volk was hardly a confidence booster, not when she knew Ryder’s feelings
toward the intractable receptionist.
“I appreciate your cooperation.”
Despite her gloom, Joanna laughed. She couldn’t help herself; it just slipped out. Ryder’s tone of voice reminded her of crabby old Mr. Lachlin in the rehab hospital.
She was laughing at him! Ryder was indignant. Bad enough that he’d made a complete fool of himself, she wasn’t even willing to diplomatically pretend he hadn’t. She felt comfortable—justified!—in laughing in his face!
He revved the engine and sped away from the curb, down the quiet street. Two blocks away a patrol car noticed the racing Range Rover and followed, sirens blaring and red-and-blue lights revolving.
Ryder received a hefty speeding ticket and a stern lecture about driving recklessly and failing to heed weather conditions, road conditions and common sense. He decided it was all Joanna Chandler’s fault. The woman really did drive him crazy, and he was not being complimentary.
If only she were with him, he would tell her so. He visualized the scene, giving his imagination free rein….
In the scene his admonition ended with him kissing her senseless, driving her as crazy with desire as she drove him. And then he imagined taking her to his bed and making love to her until neither of them cared about anything but the sublime pleasure they found in each other.
Five
Joanna and Ryder spent the next few weeks locked in a frozen truce.
It was worse, she decided, than all-out war. At least in a war, battle lines were drawn and anger expressed. Ryder’s icy politeness, his policy of speaking to her only when absolutely necessary made him unapproachable, and the distance between them grew.
Every day at the office she felt him watching her with a disparaging eye, certain that he was silently analyzing and criticizing everything she said and did. They continued to work late into the evenings, but their previous camaraderie was missing.
They didn’t even order their take-out dinners from the same places anymore, though Ryder did insist on paying for her meals. Joanna was on a spicy chicken burrito kick and ordered them every night, while Ryder selected a different entrée from a plethora of international cuisines, as if to counter the constancy of her choice.
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