“Sorry,” she mumbled, running out of places to look, without him realizing she was deliberately not looking at him.
“Something wrong with that shirt?” he asked.
She was still clutching the shirt she had picked up from the hamper, and she realized he must have seen her sniffing it. What could possibly be more embarrassing?
“I was checking to see if it was dirty,” she said, cringing inwardly at that ridiculously flimsy excuse.
Charles grinned. “Well then, for future reference, I don’t make a habit of keeping clean clothes in the hamper.”
“I’ll remember that.” And she would make a mental note to never come into his house until she was entirely sure he wasn’t there, or at the very least fully clothed. “Well, I’ll get out of your way.”
She turned and grabbed the rest of the clothes from the hamper, stacking them in her arms. He stepped out of her way and she rushed past him and through the doorway.
“Might as well stick around,” he said.
She stopped and turned to him, saw that he was leaning casually in the closet doorway. She struggled to keep her eyes from wandering below his neck. “Why?”
“I was going to call my driver, but since you’re here, I’ll just catch a ride into work with you.”
He wanted to ride with her? “I would, but, um, I have to stop at the dry cleaners first. I don’t want to get you to work late.”
“I don’t mind.” He ran his fingers through the damp, shiny waves of his hair, his biceps flexing under sunbronzed skin. She stood there transfixed by the fluidity of his movements. His pecs looked hard and defined, and were sprinkled with fine, dark hair.
He may have been an arrogant ass, but God, he was a beautiful one.
“Give me five minutes,” he said, and she nodded numbly, hoping her mouth wasn’t hanging open, drool dripping from the corner.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” he added, then he turned back into the closet, already loosening the knot at his waist.
The last thing she saw, as he disappeared inside, was the towel drop to the floor, and the tantalizing curve of one perfectly formed butt cheek.
Charles sat in the passenger side of Victoria’s convertible two-seater, watching her through the window of the dry cleaner’s. He would have expected her to drive a more practical car. A sedan, or even a mini SUV. Not a sporty, candy-apple-red little number that she zipped around in at speeds matched only on the autobahn. And it had a manual transmission, which he found to be a rarity among females. Sizewise, however, it was a perfect fit. Petite and compact, just like her. So petite that his head might brush the top had he not bent down.
She was full of surprises today—the least of which was her reaction when he greeted her wearing nothing but a towel. To put it mildly, she’d been flustered. After her chilly reception last night in the office, he was beginning to wonder if she might be a bit tougher to seduce than he had first anticipated. Now he was sure that she was as good as his. Even if that meant playing dirty. Like deliberately dropping his towel before he cleared the closet door.
Victoria emerged from the building with an armload of clean clothes, wrapped in plastic and folded over one arm. She tucked them into the trunk, then slipped into the driver’s seat. Her skirt rode several inches up her thighs, giving him a delicious view of her stocking-clad legs.
If she noticed him looking, she didn’t let on.
“They got the stain out of your jacket sleeve,” she told him, as she turned the key and the engine roared to life. She checked the rearview mirror for oncoming traffic, then jammed her foot down on the accelerator and whipped out onto the road, shifting so smoothly he barely felt the switch of the gears.
She swung around a corner and he gripped the armrest to keep from falling over. “You in a hurry?”
She shot him a bland look. “No.”
She downshifted and whipped around another corner so fast he could swear the tires on one side actually lifted off the pavement.
“You know, the building isn’t going anywhere,” he said.
“This is the way I drive. If you don’t like it, don’t ask to ride with me.” She took another corner at high speed, and he was pretty sure she was doing it just to annoy him.
If she drove this way all the time, it was a wonder she was still alive. “Out of curiosity, how many accidents have you been in?”
“I’ve never been in an accident.” She whipped into the next lane, cutting off the car directly behind them, whose driver blared its horn in retaliation.
“Have you caused many?”
She shot him another one of those looks. “No.”
“Next you’ll try to tell me you haven’t gotten a speeding ticket.”
This time she stayed silent. That’s what he figured.
She took a sharp left into the underground parking at his building, used her card key to open the gate, zipped into her assigned spot, and cut the engine.
“Well, that was an adventure,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt.
She dropped her keys in her purse and opened her door. “I got you here alive, didn’t I?”
Only by the grace of God, he was sure.
They got out and walked to the elevator, taking it up to the tenth floor. She stood silently beside him the entire time. She could never be accused of being too chatty. Since they left his house she hadn’t said a word that wasn’t initiated by a question. Maybe she was in a snit about the towel. She had enjoyed the free show, but didn’t want to admit it.
The elevator doors opened at their floor, and as they stepped off he rested a hand on the small of her back. A natural reaction, but she didn’t seem to appreciate his attempt to be a gentleman.
She jerked away and shot lasers at him with her eyes. “What are you doing?”
He held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Sorry. Just being polite.”
“Do you touch all of your female employees inappropriately?”
What was her problem? Here he thought she’d begun to warm to him, but he couldn’t seem to get an accurate read on her.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Well, you did.”
A pair standing in the hallway outside his office cut their conversation short to look at him and Victoria.
“Why don’t we step into my office and talk about this,” he said quietly. She nodded, then he almost made the monumental error of touching her again, drawing his hand away a second before it grazed her shoulder.
He couldn’t help it; he was a physical person. And until today, no one had ever seemed to have a problem with that.
Penelope was already sitting at her desk, tapping away at her keyboard. The only hint of a reaction as he ushered Victoria to his office door was a slight lift of her left brow. He liked that about his secretary. She was always discreet. He also knew exactly what she was thinking. He’d lost another assistant already. Not all that unusual, until he factored in that he hadn’t even slept with this one yet.
“Penelope, hold my calls, please.” He opened the door and gestured Victoria inside, then closed it behind them. “Have a seat.”
Her chin jutted out stubbornly. “I’d rather stand, thank you.”
“Fine.” He could see that she wasn’t going to make this easy. He rounded his desk and sat down. “Now, would you like to tell me what the problem is?”
“The