Lately, she’d been having second thoughts about what she’d experienced growing up, and what she’d been taught, both about the insensitivity of men and the pain of the holidays.
Her mother hadn’t approved of anything to do with Christmas. For the McKinleys, Christmas meant sorrow and the extremes of loss. It meant sad memories of a husband and father who had deserted his wife and five-year-old daughter on Christmas Eve to be with another family.
Kim looked at Monroe levelly. No way she was going to tell him any of that, and she shouldn’t have to dredge up the details of something that had already been hammered out a year ago when she negotiated her contract with somebody else on this floor.
“Sure, meeting later would be fine,” Monroe said. “Maybe around eight?”
“I’m usually in by seven, so yes, I can return first thing in the morning if that’s what you’d like,” Kim said.
“Actually, I meant tonight. 8:00 p.m.,” he clarified, enunciating clearly. “If it wouldn’t be too terribly inconvenient, that is, and you’re still around. We can keep it casual and meet in the bar downstairs. That’s not too much out of the way, right?”
“The bar?” Kim heard the slip in her tone.
“In the bar, yes,” he said, without losing the charming, almost boyish smile.
Damn him. It was a really nice smile.
“I’m told it’s a regular meeting place after hours for employees,” he continued. “Maybe we can snag a quiet table?”
So they could do what? Have a friendly drink before the ax fell? Before the arguments began?
Don’t think so.
“Will you be finished with your appointment by then?” Monroe pressed.
Realizing that she couldn’t lie, and since others from the agency were going to be in that same bar, and still might be hanging around at eight, she said, “Yes,” adding in another job-related double entendre, “I’ll be finished.”
With those last three words dangling between them, Chaz Monroe got to his feet and walked right up to her.
She had to wince to keep from backing up.
He came very close. Obviously, he had no intention of preserving her tiny circle of personal space.
Then he invaded it.
And hell...
Up close, he was even better.
“Your appointment isn’t a date?” he asked in a husky tone that wasn’t at all businesslike.
Kim felt breathless so close to this incredibly gorgeous guy who was her new boss, and chastised herself for being affected by him in such a physical way. Monroe was a time bomb comprised of every woman’s sexual addictions, from his shaggy hair to his loafered feet. In order to become desensitized to this kind of personal frontal attack, she’d have had to experience quite a few near misses in the past with men of Monroe’s caliber.
No such thing was in her dating history.
Her feet inched forward to close the distance to him before she could stop them. Her breasts strained at her sweater with a reaction so unacceptable, she wanted to scream. But she heard herself say, “Not tonight. No date.”
The words wrong and harassment sailed through her mind. He was close enough to touch. Why?
He was also near enough to punch, but she didn’t take a swing.
Chaz Monroe was a head taller than she was and smelled like man, in a really good way. He radiated sex appeal and an easy, unattended elegance. He didn’t wear a coat or a tie, yet what he did wear was confidence, in an unintimidating manner. His casualness was reflected in the fact that his shirt was open at the neck, revealing a triangle of bare, lightly tanned skin. That taut, masculine flesh captured her attention for what seemed like several long minutes before she glanced up....
To meet his blue eyes.
That’s when she heard music.
She shook her head, not quite believing it, but the music didn’t go away. It was Christmas music, she finally realized, coming from the lobby and signaling the nearness of closing time for most of the staff. She had to get out of there and was caught between a rock and...a hard body.
“Good. I’ll see you at eight,” Monroe said, breaking the standoff.
The sensation of his warm breath on her face gave Kim a ridiculously flushed and tingly few seconds. The look in his eyes doubled that. What kind of boss was he? The kind that wouldn’t mind breaking a few laws in order to get his way? The kind with a casting couch?
Had her mother been right about overly attractive men being saps, after all?
She broke eye contact. Her lashes fluttered.
“Eight o’clock. In the bar,” he said in a tone that gave her an electrical jolt and made her clothing feel completely inadequate as a barrier against the sleek, seductive hoodoo he had going on.
Excuses for her reaction beat at her from the inside. The air around her visibly trembled with the need to shout “Go to hell!” Yet she stood there, helpless to get out of this, speechless for once, before backing up and turning abruptly.
She left Chaz Monroe, knowing that he stared after her, feeling his heated gaze. That scrutiny was so hot, she had an absurd longing to run back to him and get it over with. Just press her mouth to his in a brief goodbye kiss, then laugh maniacally as she headed back to her cubicle to clear out her things.
The strangest bit of intuition told her that he wanted that same thing. In those insane moments of confrontation and unacceptable closeness, her senses screamed that Chaz Monroe had wanted to kiss her.
She knew something else, as well. Because of the fire in her nerve endings and the way her heart thundered, meeting Chaz Monroe at the bar tonight was a very...bad...idea.
Chaz faced the distinct possibility of being in serious trouble before Kim McKinley had left him standing in the open doorway. He had very nearly just breached every rule of decorum in the book. Well, he had thought about it, anyway.
She hadn’t helped any.
Resisting the urge to loosen his collar, which was already loosened, he cleared his throat and looked to Alice, who was watching him with a raised eyebrow. Only practice allowed him to keep his expression neutral when he felt an annoying shudder in the abs he had worked so hard on in the gym before his takeover of this company shot down his regular routine.
Nodding to Alice, he stepped back into his office.
“Damn.”
He had gotten up close and personal with an employee. His idea to dish some of that haughty attitude of McKinley’s right back at her had backfired, big-time.
Not only were her body and her sexy scent tantalizing as hell, Kim’s face and voice were undeniably appetizing. She had an accent, a slight Southern drawl that resulted in a slow drawing out of syllables. Her voice was deep, sultry and a lot like whispered vibrations passing through overheated air.
As for her face...
It was the face of an angel. The pale, silky-smooth, slightly babyish oval wasn’t in any way indicative of her crisp attitude.
He could feel the residual intensity of her expressive hazel eyes, and didn’t