“I don’t hate men. I just don’t—”
“Trust them. Yeah, you’ve made that clear.”
“I have never met a man worth trusting.” Her eyes rounded, as if she hadn’t meant to disclose that information. There was a story there, Jace knew. Come hell or high water, he was going to find out what that story was.
But for now, all he said was “You’ve met him now.”
“That remains to be seen.” She huffed out a breath. “You should know I hate this. I accepted the stipulations because being out of work would cause more problems than dealing with you. But I’m not going to date you. I’m not going to sleep with you. I’m not interested in anything but a professional relationship with you. You need to be clear on that going in.”
Her voice held steel, but her eyes were still too shiny for Jace’s comfort. So he didn’t point out that she sounded as if she were trying to convince herself and not him. “Any other rules before we start earning our salaries?”
She slicked her palms down the front of her jeans. “You understand that I’m serious?”
“No dating. No sex. Yep, I understand.” Opening his top desk drawer, he pulled out two legal pads. With a nod toward a chair, he said, “Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about.”
“And here we go,” she murmured and sat down. “I really hate this.”
“Working with me is really that bad?” He shoved one of the pads and a pencil across the desk.
“Well, see…that’s the thing. I’m not working with you. You’re in charge. Kurt was quite adamant on that front.”
Ah. That was what was bugging her. The frustration bubbling through him eased. “I don’t care what Kurt said. We’re partners…okay? I’m not going to order you around or ask you to answer my phone or get me coffee. As far as I’m concerned, we’re equals.”
“Hmm.” Her right eyebrow arched. “Except you get to review anything I write, and if you decide something should be changed, I have to change it. Doesn’t sound so equal to me.”
Overseeing Melanie’s work hadn’t been Jace’s idea, so he had no problem saying “How about this? We’ll just pretend I’m supervising your damn column. Just stay away from the man-hating verbiage so Kurt doesn’t decide to fire us both.”
Genuine astonishment flickered over her face. Good. It was about time he surprised her. “Serious? You’d risk your job to put us on an even playing field?”
Hell, he’d quit his job if that was what it took. “I’m asking you to trust me. This way, I have to trust you, too.” Jace held out a hand. “So what do you say? Partners?”
She hesitated for a millisecond, but then nodded and reached over to shake his hand. “Okay, Jace. Partners. But no flirting. No sexual innuendo. All business.”
“Right.” He captured her hand in his, and they shook. Her hand, soft and warm, fit perfectly into his. A shot of electricity, awareness, sizzled along his skin, sped his pulse and frazzled his brain. He dropped his grip and picked up his pencil before he said something stupid. Hell, touching her made him want to spout off poetry. If he did, she’d probably clock him straight across the jaw.
In an effort to regain his equilibrium, he angled his head to the side and gave her a megawatt grin. “But, just to get this straight, you think my smile is sexy?”
The corners of her lips wiggled in the makings of a smile. She reined it in, gave him a long look and shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”
And that, he figured, was the best he was going to get from her. For now, anyway.
Melanie glanced at the notes she’d jotted for the past thirty minutes and tried to dredge up even a glimmer of excitement. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen. Not only because of the topic of the article, but because of the man she had to deal with. Being around Jace made her jumpy, made her obsess about stupid things like how her hair looked.
She didn’t want to think about her hair. She didn’t want to worry if she had coffee breath or if he noticed that she could stand to lose a few pounds. But mostly, she didn’t want to fantasize about what it would be like to sleep with him.
Yeah, he’d surprised her with his willingness to put her at ease, and maybe she felt a tiny bit more comfortable with this ridiculous arrangement than she had when she’d stormed into his office. But she didn’t trust him. Nor, if she was being honest, did she trust herself.
The only solution was to change the scope of the Valentine’s Day article so they wouldn’t have to spend countless hours together. But first she had to get him to agree.
“You know, we don’t have a lot of time to put this article together.” She tapped the eraser end of the pencil against the legal pad. “We might want to consider alternatives. Perhaps go a different route than you’ve suggested.”
Leaning forward, he set his elbows on his desk and his chin in his hands. “You don’t like what we’ve discussed?”
“It isn’t that so much as—” She broke off and gave him the brightest smile she could muster. “We have what—six weeks until Valentine’s Day? So, five weeks of work. That means interviews, compiling notes, writing the piece and keeping up with our normal responsibilities. If anything goes wrong, we don’t have much padding to recover.”
He matched her grin with one of his own. Likely just as false. Because he knew as well as she did that five weeks gave them plenty of time. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine, but I’m curious. What do you have in mind?”
“Why can’t we expose Valentine’s Day for what it is instead of perpetuating the myth?”
“The myth being…?”
“The monetization of love and romance, naturally. The pervasive need to spend money on meaningless gifts just because the date happens to be February fourteenth.”
“Interesting concept. And,” he said with a flirtatious wink, “as appealing as the idea of exposing anything with you is, I’m not sure—”
“Seriously, Jace? You can’t stop yourself, can you?”
He looked at her blankly, his expression broadcasting that he had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m confused. I can’t stop myself from…?”
“What part of ‘no sexual innuendo’ do you not understand?” Okay, getting upset wasn’t going to solve this particular problem. Reasoning, however, might. “Think about what you just said. Is it really so difficult to have a straight-up business conversation with me?”
Comprehension replaced confusion. “Whoa, Mel. It was just a joke.”
“Fine. It was a joke. But if you were sitting here with Kurt, and he said what I said, would you have expressed that you’d find exposing anything with him appealing? Would you have joked that way with him?” She shook her head. “I highly doubt it.”
“Okay. Wow.” His jaw tensed. “No, I wouldn’t have.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. You say we’re partners, so that’s what I want. Pretend I’m Kurt if you have to. Call me Kurt if it will help.”
“I can’t pretend you’re a man. But you’re one-hundred percent right and I apologize for giving in to the impulse to tease you.” He raked his hands through his hair in frustration. “I’m sorry. The last thing I meant to do was upset you.”
He sounded so forlorn and, Melanie had to admit, genuinely sorry. A good amount of her annoyance fled. Deciding to let him off the hook—for the good of the article and their partnership, of course—she nodded. “I appreciate the apology. But