She leaned forward and purred, “Beloved, as happy as I am to see you, I must go back to work. I’m swamped. Simply swamped.”
Out of all the endearments she could have picked, she kicked herself for choosing that one! Hopelessly dated. And fraught with emotion. Beloved.
To lean toward him and mean it. To let it be the last word on her lips at night and the first in the morning, to let it form in her mind when her eyes rested on him, even from a distance…
“Go away,” she snapped at him, when he didn’t seem to be getting it.
Another gasp from Bitsy. It was like working with her grandmother. Sophie turned and gave her a glare that she hoped would send her scuttling, but Bitsy stood her ground.
Feeling her hand was being forced, she leaned even closer, and tried to take the sting out of the “Go away.”
“I’ll make it up to you later.” She blinked at him in her best version of the type of girl who had graced the back of his motorcycle.
A smile tickled those handsome lips. Unfortunately she couldn’t tell if she’d managed to amuse him or intrigue him just the tiniest bit.
“I can help you with your work,” he suggested, “and then we can go for lunch. Or we can go some place where you can make it up to me, whichever you prefer.”
Done playing, Sophie picked up the sweet peas, opened the gate that separated the inner office from the outer one and let him through. She pointed down the hall and then marched behind him.
“That one,” she said tersely.
He went into her open office, and she slid in behind him and then shut the door. With a snap.
She leaned against it trying to marshal herself.
There was no room for them both in her office, he had turned around to face her and was now leaning his rear up against her desk, arms folded over the solidness of his chest, eyes dancing with mischief and merriment.
At her expense.
His largeness made the room seem small and cramped. His vibrancy made the space—and her whole life—feel dull and dreary.
Her office was never going to feel the same now. Something of his larger-than-life presence was going to linger here and ruin it.
“What are you doing?” Sophie demanded.
He lifted a big shoulder, smiled. “Getting things started.”
“We were supposed to start with a bike ride. To Maynard’s. For ice cream. Tomorrow.”
Every word sounded clipped, a woman in distress, a woman who had had a plan, and that plan included somehow needing a whole day to prepare to be with him.
“Ah, Sophie,” he suggested, “lighten up. Be spontaneous.”
“I don’t like being spontaneous!” Wait! Remember the new Sophie!
“I seem to remember that,” he said sympathetically, “Never too late to learn.”
“I don’t want to learn!” Which was a lie. The new Sophie thought spontaneity could begin with throwing herself at him and tasting his lips again.
That would wipe the smug look off his face!
“That’s sad,” he said.
“I am not sad! I will not have you see me as pathetic!” The urge to kiss him grew, just to prove something.
But it could backfire. It could prove she was even more pathetic than she thought.
“I don’t see you as pathetic, Sophie, just…er…a little too rigid.”
Rigid? This was turning into a nightmare. The world’s most glorious man saw her as uptight and rigid? The new Sophie had to do something!
“Let’s have some fun with this,” he coaxed.
What could she say to that? She didn’t like having fun? Now she felt driven to prove to him that she was not uptight and rigid!
That she could be flexible and fun.
And of course she could be.
Taking a deep breath, Sophie launched herself over the distance that separated them in a fashion that allowed no chickening out. She caught the widening of his eyes, his quick lean backward, but the desk prevented escape. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.
She took his lips with hers.
There, she thought dreamily. That should show him. Nothing rigid or predictable about her. She could be spontaneous! She could have as much fun as the next person.
For a moment his lips softened under hers, and the word fun dissolved. Fun was a Fourth of July picnic or a new puppy or a good game of Scrabble.
This wasn’t fun. It was intense. And dangerous. As exciting, as challenging as riding the rapids of an uncharted river or jumping from an airplane with a parachute that might or might not open.
This was part of her absolute gift for doing the wrong thing around him! She had set out to prove he didn’t have any power over her anymore.
And proved the exact opposite. Beloved.
Not that he had to know. Ever.
That his lips tasted to her of everything she had longed for when she had said yes to the wrong man and bought a wedding dress and collected pictures. Brand Sheridan’s lips tasted of honey and dreams, of dewdrops and hope.
She had said to Gregg that she needed time to think, that something was missing.
Sophie reeled back from Brand, feeling aquiver with recognition. The rest of the truth she had been trying to hide from herself slammed into her.
The truth was she had nearly married Gregg because she had never wanted to feel love as deeply as she had felt it within her family again. She had wanted to have the security of that place called family, without the emotional investment that could devastate so totally. That could shatter a person’s heart into a million jagged pieces. That could steal any semblance of remaining faith or hope from their soul.
Ultimately, Gregg had been safe. He would have never required her heart or her soul.
This man in front of her?
He would never be safe. And he would never accept less from the person he called beloved than their full heart, their complete soul.
Of course, with her gift for getting everything exactly wrong, here she was falling in love with the man least likely ever to call anyone beloved. The man who had made his work his built-in excuse for not loving anyone.
“There,” she said, hoping she did not sound as shaken as she felt. “Spontaneity requirement met?”
“Not unless we were talking about spontaneous combustion,” he muttered, his eyes as piercing as a pirate’s on her face. Still, Sophie could tell she had managed to shock him.
What she couldn’t tell was if it was in a good way. His eyes were unreadable, the mischief had gone from them.
She suddenly just wanted to hide.
If he had just followed the rules! If he had waited until tomorrow to go for ice cream instead of invading her world, he would have seen her at her most flexible. And fun.
She might have even managed flirty.
She might not have launched herself at him in a full-frontal attack! The sweet geek rides again! Gets it exactly wrong every time!
“Back to work,” she said firmly. What she meant was back to her hidey-hole: words and dusty archives, glimpses into worlds long past that triggered