by Layla Holt
Aunt Maureen laughed. “Let me worry about that. Have a seat.”
“Thanks,” Sean said and sat down.
Jaime walked in and Corrine jumped to her feet. “Hi, you can have my place while I set up another one.”
“There’s a space here next to me,” Lance said to her and when she hesitated, he added, “unless you’re frightened that I actually bite.”
“Leave Corrine alone,” Jaime said and took Aunt Maureen’s hand. He turned it over and kissed the back of it.
“Now I’ve seen it all,” Aunt Maureen said. “This is a circus not a class.”
“We’ll behave ourselves, honest,” Lance said.
“They will,” Ruby said firmly and turned to Jaime. “Come and sit down. We’re ready to begin.”
“Bossy,” Jaime mumbled as he sat down. “I don’t know how Dean puts with you.”
Ruby took her handkerchief and hit Jaime with it on the side of the head. He let out a cry. Corrine erupted into giggles.
“You scream like a girl,” Dean said to Jaime.
“I’ll get you for that,” Jaime said to Ruby.
“Hey, I don’t want any of those rough games you and Ruby play. They’re dangerous, especially now,” Dean said.
“Why now?” Jaime said.
“She’s pregnant,” Dean said.
“The secret’s out,” Lance drawled.
Max whistled. Sean clapped and cheered.
“Dean!” Ruby cried out. “You weren’t supposed to say!”
Dean looked sheepish. “Sorry.”
Ruby smiled. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Congratulations,” Aunt Maureen said and went to Ruby. “The paint is safe for you and the baby.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Ruby said and sat back grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“Congratulations,” Corrine said. “How exciting.”
Ruby smiled. “Thanks. It is.”
“All right, let’s go back to work. You’ve paid for this so you might as well listen,” Aunt Maureen said.
She talked about beauty and everyone’s concept of it. “For now, we won’t concern ourselves so much with technique. I just want you to have some fun and depict on paper your idea of beauty.”
“That’s easy,” Lance said.
“Create your own fantastic masterpiece,” she said with flourish. “Start painting.”
Ten minutes into her work, Corrine sneaked a glance at Lance’s painting. It was a red mess and she clapped her hand on her mouth to stop the giggle from escaping. He looked at her and narrowed his eyes.
“What are you painting?” she whispered to him.
“Your hair. It’s red and rich and soft to touch,” Lance said solemnly.
Corrine stopped breathing.
THEY’D ALL COMPLAINED and whined when he asked them to sign up for the art class and in some cases, Lance had been forced to call in favors owed to him. Dean had resisted the most but Ruby had been the deciding vote and she’d wanted to attend the class.
But after class, they’d all raved how good it had been, including Max’s airhead of a girlfriend. He must remember to ask Dean where Max got his women. He leaned against the car after he and Corrine had seen everyone off.
The sun lit Corrine’s hair like a flame and the wind tried to unravel it from the ponytail she had fastened it with.
“I don’t know what to say,” Corrine said later as she and Lance stood on the street outside his BMW. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It was fun,” Lance said.
“You’re lucky to have such a fun family,” she said with a laugh.
Lance knew how lucky he was, even though sometimes they exasperated him. He liked how Corrine had fitted in seamlessly with them. She and Ruby had stood to the side to talk when they got a break.
“Who haven’t I met?” she said.
“Let me see. You haven’t met Leah and Matt, that’s Adrian’s wife and son and then of course there’s my parents and my sister Megan.”
“I’m sure I’ll meet them at some point,” Corrine said.
“Hey, how about you come for dinner?” Lance said. “Everyone will be there.”
He felt her slipping away. She crossed her hands across her chest and her face grew solemn. The Corrine who had been joking with him a few minutes ago was gone. Lance could have kicked himself. People did not invite their secretaries to family dinners.
He had crossed a line. They’d had such a fun morning that he’d started to view Corrine as a friend rather than an employee.
“I can’t—” she started to say.
“It’s fine,” Lance interrupted. “It’s completely fine. See you on Monday at work.”
“YOU’RE A FOOL CORRINE Roberts,” Aunt Maureen said after she told her about turning down the invitation for dinner. “Who says no to such a fine specimen of a man?”
Aunt Maureen had insisted on treating Corrine to a celebratory lunch after a fantastic art lesson.
Corrine giggled. Her aunt had the funniest expressions. “He’s my boss. It’s never a good idea to date your boss.”
“Says who?” Aunt Maureen asked. “When I was younger, I worked in an art gallery and I dated my boss. He was the gallery owner.”
Corrine spooned a generous helping of Chinese fried rice and prawns into her mouth. She closed her eyes and made appreciative noises as she chewed. Only when she’d swallowed her food did she speak.
“How did it end?” Corrine said. “No wait, let me guess. You broke up and lost the job.”
“True,” Aunt Maureen said. “So what? I had fun and I learned something. I don’t have any regrets and I don’t want you to either.”
“I won’t.”
Her aunt stared at her. “You’re really not going to call that young man and accept his invitation?”
Corrine shook her head.
“Even though being a secretary is not your line of work and there’s nothing to worry about even if you lose the job?” her aunt pressed on.
“Correct,” Corrine said. “I don’t want to date Lance Cohan.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t want to be disappointed,” Corrine mumbled. She didn’t want to pretend that she was a regular girl because she wasn’t. She was an eyesore and she wasn’t going to act on her attraction for Lance.
She had been burned once because of her scars and she wasn’t going to allow herself to get burned again. Words, she’d discovered, hurt more than the pain of scalding water on your skin.
Chapter Six
THE CAFETERIA WAS HUGE, taking up the entire floor, but with everyone who worked at Candin Inc crammed in there, it shrunk. A buzz of conversation had gone up as soon as Jaime announced what would happen in the next couple of months.
There was a schedule showing upcoming matches. There would be two or three games per day, spread out between the two tables. The tournament would be set out over the next couple of months until everyone got a chance to play.
Then there would be quarterfinals, a semi-final and finally the finals.
“Okay people,” he said, cupping his mouth to make his voice louder. “Now for the rules. If you lose a game, you’re eliminated until we get to the quarterfinals.”
A boo erupted and Lance laughed. He shifted his glance to Corrine as Jaime spoke. Her face was flushed and she looked happy and carefree. She’d made friends with the other secretaries and now she sat with them near the front.
“We’ll pair bosses with their secretaries,” Jaime continued.
"I need a secretary," a grey-haired man in the white overalls that production line workers wore shouted and everyone laughed.
"I was getting to that," Jaime said good naturedly. "As for everyone else, you’re free to pick your partners. Give your names to Corrine over there. Corrine stand up so everyone can see you."
Lance found himself smiling as she stood up, smiled and waved. "I'm your man," she said and people laughed.
She wore a navy-blue dress that sh
owed off her curves and her hair was held in a pony tail. A few errant tendrils escaped, falling to her forehead, giving her a tender sweet look. No one would mistake Corrine for a man.
"We won't have any matches today but anyone who wants to practice is free to do so. Our first match will be tomorrow," Jaime said.
Cries of 'why not?’ filled the room.
Lance laughed again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a good time at work. After Jaime finished speaking, a crowd formed around Corrine. Other people had moved to the ping pong tables and two were playing. Lance turned to Adrian. His older brother wore an amused expression on his face.
"Father would have a fit," Adrian said and laughed.
Lance laughed too. It was true. Their father was old school and believed that a work place was exactly that. A place to work, not play. But times had changed and employers recognized a need for employees to enjoy their jobs.
Lance thought about Jaime's 'bring your family to work day’ idea and realized that it was not such an outrageous idea. He was at risk of turning into his father Lance thought, remembering how he had reacted.
Forty-five minutes later and the cafeteria had emptied. It was just him and Corrine remaining.
"Everyone seems excited," Lance said.
She nodded, her face flushed. "We all are." She stared at him. "Are you any good at ping pong?"
He hadn’t played in years but had been quite good in college. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. "You’ll have to wait to find out."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you serious? It's better if you tell me now so that I can practice with you."
Lance chuckled. Corrine was very competitive. "No time, we have to get back to work."
“I wasn’t talking about now," she protested as they left the cafeteria.
"Maybe I need help or maybe I don’t," Lance said.
Her heels clicked on the tiled floor as they walked side by side to the elevators. The doors slid open and they entered. When the doors shut, the atmosphere in the elevator changed. Lance became conscious of Corrine and how close she was. If he took one step forward, he could take her in his arms.
He was relieved when the elevator came to a stop and he followed Corrine out. They walked to the office and parted ways when he entered his office.
A low and pleasant hum warmed his blood. Fighting his attraction for Corrine was going to be harder than he had imagined. She was fun and she did everything with so much energy.
He wanted her so much. What if he got her transferred to another department, could he date her then? Would she be interested? He remembered that she had refused an invitation to dinner with his family.
That had not been too smart on his end. No one wanted to meet a man’s family on the first date. What if he was assuming that she was as attracted to him as he was to her?
He recalled how her breathing changed when he was close to her and how he had caught her staring at him several times. No one could deny the electricity that sizzled between them when they were alone in a room. That was not his imagination.
The attraction was mutual and it was spiraling out of control. He needed something to stem it. Remembering Dean 's warning was not enough.
Then a thought crossed his mind as he sat behind his desk. What if there was a boyfriend? Maybe that was why she was keeping a distance. Just because she was new in town didn’t mean that she hadn’t left someone special back home.
His breath came out faster and coarser at the thought of Corrine with another man. Lance hated that he couldn’t march out there and ask her. It was really none of his business.
Lance turned on his computer and resolutely switched his mind to work mode. He hadn't become the CEO of Candin Inc or his father’s right-hand man by indulging in daytime fantasies.
CORRINE WAS BUSY TRANSCRIBING recordings from a meeting Lance had had the previous day with his managers. She loved the sound of his voice. It was commanding with a hint of amusement every so often.
She went still and tried to decipher what one of the managers was saying.
“What are you doing?" Lance's voice said above the recording. She looked up and yanked the headphones off.
"I'm sorry?" She hadn’t heard him leave his office.
"You were doing this thing with your mouth," Lance said and he proceeded to imitate her actions.
Corrine’s face grew hot. She liked to run her tongue over her teeth when she was lost in thought. It was a habit she’d tried to stop and failed.
"Oh that? I was counting my teeth with my tongue," Corrine said flippantly to cover up for her embarrassment.
Lance looked genuinely puzzled. "Why? Are you worried that you might have swallowed them?"
She cocked her head. "It doesn’t hurt to be extra careful."
He laughed. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
She decided to ask him what she'd been dying to ask. "Are you busy after work? I won’t have to leave so early and if you want we can put in a bit of practice for the match tomorrow."
Aunt Maureen had called her and said she would make her own way home. She’d sounded excited and said that she’d met a nice gentleman and was going out for coffee with him.
"You want to practice ping pong?" he said.
He wasn’t taking the competition seriously enough. "It’s important to me."
He grinned. "Or you're very competitive."
That too. She'd always been competitive. She’d actually played competitive table tennis in college. Mark had liked to comment about her competitive nature as if it was a dirty word.
"Sure, why not?" he said and sauntered out.
The rest of the afternoon flew by and at quarter after five, Lance emerged from his office wearing his jacket. "Ready?"
She stood up. She’d been ready ten minutes earlier. "Yes."
They left the office together and took the elevator to the cafeteria on the first floor. The ping pong tables were on the left side of the cafeteria away from the main cafeteria floor. Corrine shrugged off her jacket and kicked off her heels.
When she looked up, she found Lance's gaze on her. For a moment, it was just the two of them in the room. His gaze pierced her soul and she wondered how it would feel like to be his woman. To belong to him.
She snapped out of her reverie. That was one fantasy that was never going to come true. Lance seemed like the kind of man who never committed to a single woman. And if he did, definitely not for a long time.
With his animal magnetism, she was sure that he attracted women left, right and center. She had just joined that queue. And she was at the end of it. The difference between her and his legions of women admirers was that Corrine knew her place.
She wasn’t going to allow Lance Cohan to capture her heart and, when he was done, trample on it.
"Are you ready?" she said briskly and picked up a paddle.
He unbuttoned the wrist buttons of his shirt and carefully folded the sleeves, revealing his hairy well-defined arms. Arms that looked strong enough to support a woman when he was kissing her. Corrine swallowed hard.
"Do you want to flip a coin to serve?" Lance said.
"No, go ahead and serve."
Corrine had forgotten how much she enjoyed playing ping pong. She and Lance were evenly skilled and the ball flew across the table at breakneck speed and all that could be heard was the sound of the paddles as they hit the ball.
Sweat formed on Corrine’s skin, making her dress cling to her body. She lost her concentration for two seconds and the words happened. She missed her shot and the ball went hurtling across the room.
"Dang!" she said, irritated with herself.
Lance came around to her side. “Hey, it’s just a game.”
She didn’t realize that he had come so close to her that their bodies were almost touching. She looked up at his dark eyes and all her anger evaporated. She should have felt ashamed of her childish outburst but all she could think of was how shapely his lips were.
He l
ifted one hand to her face and caressed her cheek. She found herself leaning her head into his hand. His woody masculine scent wafted up her nostrils. Corrine suddenly felt carefree. For once, she wanted to be a regular young woman.
The kind of woman she had been before her accident. A woman who impulsively kissed a man she was attracted to without a care for the consequences. She was the first to move. She went on tip toe, placed a hand on his shoulder and angled her mouth to his.
A groan escaped his lips before their mouths met. There was no teasing of lower lips or capturing another’s lip gently between teeth. Their lips meshed together almost violently, like two people who had thought of nothing else for weeks.
Corrine rested her hands on his shoulders, just as she’d dreamed of doing, so many times. Massaging, caressing, kneading. Lance slipped his hands around her waist and she let out a sigh of pleasure.
Warning bells went off in her head. She pushed them away. She couldn’t stop kissing him. Her whole body came alive in his arms. Her heart broke into a gallop as the kiss deepened.
Corrine was so lost in the kiss that it took a while to realize that Lance had stopped kissing her back. His hands were no longer around her waist. She grew still and looked up at him, afraid of what she would see in his eyes.
Hi eyes were dark but expressionless. “We can’t do this,” he said.
Humiliation washed over her. What had she been thinking, allowing her emotions to get the better of her? She'd made a fool of herself and worse, with her boss. Someone she had to face every weekday.
“I understand,” Corrine said quickly, bitterness swirling in her mouth. “I get it. I’m ugly.”
He looked at her in surprised shock. “What? Who told you that?”
She closed her eyes and looked away. Mark’s face floated to her mind on the day he had broken up with her. It had been the day they had removed the bandages from her face. He had stared at her in undisguised horror.
It’s not that bad, she had said in a shaky voice. He had not responded but then he hadn’t needed to.
Then he said the words that were ingrained in her brain. The words that destroyed any hope that she would find love in the future.