“Sure we do. I asked you this morning, and you didn’t say no.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“But you don’t mean it.”
“Yes, I do.” At least she wanted to. And once he left she’d be relieved. “We have a working relationship, Nick. That’s all.”
Nick studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment, his expression, for once, inscrutable. When he pulled the door open, she thought he’d finally gotten the message. But he didn’t walk out. Instead, he crowded her back behind the door, blocking her in with his body.
She should have felt threatened. She was scared to death, but not of being hurt by him. At least not physically. “You really need to go home.”
“I will.” Instead of backing off, though, he leaned forward.
Emmy leaned away. “You can’t just show up at my house and—”
“I’m spontaneous,” he whispered, his lips a breath away from hers. “It’s part of my appeal.”
Of all the things that appealed to her about Nick Porter, spontaneity was pretty much last on the list. She liked things budgeted, itemized, organized and timed down to the last second. Nick Porter was an undisciplined, disorganized wild card. Nick Porter blew her schedules right out of the water, and threatened to drown her self-control. She had the insane urge to fist her hands in his shirt and drag him against her, lips and all.
She planted both hands on his chest and locked her elbows instead. Her palms began to tingle, and the tingle spread all the way to the crown of her head and the ends of her toes, lingering at all the obvious places in between. And it didn’t stop at a tingle. There was heat, too. Emmy pushed him away before the heat and tingle could gang up on her self-control and make her do something that she’d regret.
Nick stared at her for a second, looking as shell-shocked as she felt. “I’m going to kiss you, Emmy,” he said, adding, “not tonight,” when she stepped up the pressure against his chest. “I’m going to kiss you when you least expect it. And you won’t push me away.” Then he walked out the door. He bounced off the doorjamb first, but eventually he made it outside and wobbled off toward the street.
Emmy didn’t find her voice until he was long gone and she heard someone shouting at her.
“Emmy? Are you there? Emmy?”
She stared at the phone in her hand, wondering how it had gotten there and when she’d dialed. “Lindy?”
“Emmy. What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“No. Why did you give Nick Porter my address?”
“So that’s why I hear panic in your voice. I thought that would be your reaction to him.”
“Then why—”
“Because you can use his kind of panic.”
And that was why Emmy heard smugness in Lindy’s voice. “He tried to kiss me.”
“Tried?”
“I almost let him.”
“Why didn’t you, Emmy? I think this guy is the guy for you. Your soul mate.”
“You don’t believe in soul mates.”
“For me. I think they’re fine for everyone else. And even if Nick Porter isn’t your soul mate, it’s about time you had some fun. You deserve it after Roger.”
“Fun is highly overrated. You have fun all the time, Lindy, and frankly you don’t seem completely satisfied with your life.”
“Oooh, the claws are out.” Lindy laughed, but there was a note of strain beneath the amusement.
“I’m sorry,” Emmy said. “That was mean.”
“It was also true, but we’re not talking about me. You’re afraid of Nick Porter, and you have good reason to be.”
“What good reason?”
“You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself.”
“Thanks, Lindy. Someday I’ll return the favor.”
She broke the connection, but she wasn’t really angry with Lindy. Because Lindy was right. Nick Porter scared Emmy. A lot. And it wasn’t as much of a mystery as she claimed. She liked the way he looked at her and the way he smiled at her, as if she were special. She’d never been special to anyone but Lindy—not to a man, anyway. Definitely not to Roger. Roger had left her each morning with a dry peck on the lips and a list of tasks he expected her to perform. Pick up the dry cleaning, reschedule his dental appointment, and wouldn’t it be nice to have meat loaf for dinner.
When Nick smiled at her, she could tell she was the only item on his list, and he didn’t want anything from her. Okay, he wanted something. The problem was she wanted it too. But she couldn’t have it. Getting involved with Nick would be a mistake for too many reasons to itemize.
She popped the yoga video out of the VCR and put in the most frenetic aerobics tape she could find. As tense as she was, it would take the Dalai Lama himself to meditate her into a state where she had any hope of sleep. Since she doubted he’d come down from his mountain to help her work off a case of hormonal overload, a couple of hours of exhausting exercise might do the trick. Or it might not. Maybe the only thing that could help her work off this much tension was the man who’d caused it.
Nick Porter, however, was the one remedy she didn’t dare try.
Chapter Four
Most of the week passed in a blur. Emmy spent it hunched over her clipboard, nose to the grindstone, observing Nick’s employees and ignoring their commentary. Nick spent it behaving himself. Their paths crossed every now and again, but he made himself scarce to the point that when Friday afternoon arrived, and her weekly progress report was due, she had to go in search of him.
For the first time in her life, Emmy saw the advantage in procrastination. There really wasn’t any progress to report, she told herself, unless she counted the rise in the hostility level. She’d worn jeans and an oxford shirt, hoping she’d fit in better. The only way she’d attract more attention was if she’d decided to show up naked.
She’d ditched her clipboard in favor of her briefcase, laying it open on the high table where the shipping clerk signed in raw material and checked out finished goods. She ought to at least pretend to be busy, she decided, maybe take notes or something. So she retrieved a pen and pad of paper from her case and meandered aimlessly, stopping to lean one hip against a pallet of boxes, watching the activity and letting her mind wander. The employees were bustling around, pausing every now and again to shoot her fulminating glares. They didn’t bother her. What bothered her was Nick, and not in the way she’d expected.
The last four days had been all about business. The few times she and Nick had interacted, he hadn’t mentioned the night at her house. Neither had she. He wasn’t making passes, he wasn’t trying to kiss her, or touch her hair or anything. He even listened politely to what she had to say about the company, although he didn’t do anything to implement change, and his employees had only become more sullen and resistant. But at least he was listening.
Emmy was the one whose mind kept wandering.
“Emmy.”
She jumped, spinning around, one hand plastered over her suddenly pounding heart. Nick was standing a bit behind and to one side of her, just out of her peripheral vision before she’d turned around. The sight of him didn’t do a lot to calm her down, the upheaval just affected different parts of her. “How long have you been there?” she asked when she could manage to string words together and make them sound normal.
He shrugged, smile polite, eyes distant. “Couple of minutes.”
No