by Holly Rayner
I smiled, genuinely this time. He looked so self-conscious and genuinely remorseful.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It is quite the anomaly.”
He laughed, “That’s not the word I would use,” he said. “Mine would be much more flattering. But thank you for not slapping me for touching you uninvited. It won’t happen again. Speaking of uninvited however, you were coming to see me for something?”
It was my turn to laugh, “Did you just say I was “uninvited” to your office?”
With a slow grin he said, “It did sound that way, didn’t it? I’m not sure what’s wrong with me tonight. That was not my intention. You’re always welcome in my office Erin, consider it an open invitation.” He was flirting again; I could tell by the way his voice changed. It got deeper, sexier somehow. It made me feel all tingly inside and I tried to chastise myself about how ridiculous I was and how unproductive mutual flirting with the boss would be to my cause. I was still talking in my head when I heard him say, “I was going to step out for a bite to eat. Why don’t you join me?”
Before my inner voice shut up, I heard my outer one say, “Sure, that sounds great.” On my way back to my own office to get my bag I tried to lie to myself again. I was only distracting him from having the time to really consider why I would be reaching for his office door handle. I knew that I was lying. Something about being close to Seth made me want to forget that I hated him and his father and everything they stood for. Grant was right. I was playing a dangerous game…
“There’s a little Italian place up the street that I really enjoy. It’s a nice evening, would you mind a walk?” he asked. Again, I should have said no. The cool evening breeze coupled with the big, full, silver moon and the stars made it all even more dangerous.
“That sounds great,” my stupid self-replied yet again. It was almost like I was on auto-pilot around this guy. I kept telling myself that it was all about the cause.
The restaurant was only a few blocks and I could hear the soft Italian music piping out of the speakers as we approached it. Seth opened the door and held it for me as I stepped in and was taken away to a village in Tuscany. The interior of the restaurant gave you no indication whatsoever that you were in the center of Manhattan’s busiest business district. The lights were low and candles flickered out of red glass vases at every red and white checkered table. There seemed to be plants and vines everywhere, all plush and green and adding an element of intimacy to each table.
The hostess greeted Seth right away and took us straight back to “his” table. It was in a far corner of the restaurant and the high-backed booth and potted plants cut us completely out of the vision of all of the other patrons. We took our seats across from each other and I sat quietly as Seth ordered our wine. When he finished the waiter left and he turned his eyes on me. I tried not to notice how sexy they looked in the candlelight.
I didn’t even realize I was staring and time was passing… too much time for me to be staring mutely at him. His lips quirked up and he gave me one of the heated glances that I’d been getting from him at work. Here somehow it seemed hotter. I swear my clothes were melting right off. I had to say something but I was at a loss.
“So are you from New York?” he asked. Thank God!
“Yes, born and bred,” I told him.
“You don’t sound like a New Yorker when you talk,” he said.
“You mean like someone who grew up in Brooklyn, or the Bronx… or Queens?” His comment had insulted me. It felt like he was saying that he expected me to be talking like a sewer rat because I had to have undoubtedly grown up on the wrong side of the tracks.
My angst seemed to amuse him. “I wasn’t casting stones,” he said. “I don’t have a “New York” sound to my voice either, but that’s because I spent a big part of my life at boarding school in Switzerland. I was going to ask if maybe you had done the same.”
My mind went back to the posh private school I had attended in the Hamptons until my seventh grade year. At that time I was forced, because of his father, to attend an inner-city public school. I adjusted quickly. I was smart enough not to let my former upbringing get in the way of making new friends and learning new customs.
“No,” I said finally. “No boarding schools for me. Private school.”
“Ah,” he said, as if that explained everything.
The waiter returned then with a tray and presented a bottle of wine to Seth. Seth nodded and my glass was filled with a cool amber liquid. Seth nodded again and the waiter filled his. He left the bottle chilling table-side and disappeared again.
I picked up my wine and before it made it to my lips he held his up and said, “To new acquaintances.”
I went through the motions and toasted with him, still feeling like somehow his question had been designed to put me in a lower place than him. After he finished his drink of wine he looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said, “What are you thinking, Erin?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was just enjoying my wine.”
He laughed and said, “I was honestly not trying to insult you.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I think it’s just past my bedtime and I’m getting cranky.”
He laughed again and said, “So by now you would be home in your pajamas… doing what?”
“Probably commiserating with my roommate about our days.”
“Is she in business as well?”
“He… Grant is an MBA like me. He works as an accountant at a law firm here in the city.”
He raised an eyebrow again and said, “Your roommate is a male. So, are you two…?”
“Involved? No. Grant and I are just friends.”
“Is he gay?”
“No, why would you ask that?”
“Well I was picturing you in your pajamas…”
“Excuse me?”
“You did bring it up.”
I had to admit that was true. “Okay, so I brought it up. What does that have to do with Grant being gay?”
“I was just wondering how any red-blooded man who was privileged enough to sit with you while you were in your pajamas being able to maintain a “friend’s only” relationship.”
I felt my face go hot when I said, “Well then, I doubt you’re picturing the same pajamas that I wear when I go home.”
He chuckled softly and said, “You’re probably right about that.” The way he said it made me blush again. I was saved once again by the waiter who came back then to take our orders. I hadn’t even glanced at the menu. I opened the menu quickly and ordered the Chicken Alfredo, the first thing my eyes landed on. Seth looked amused… again. It was obvious that he’d flustered me… again.
“I’ll have the Manicotti,” he said, handing his menu to the waiter. I handed him mine and he once again disappeared. As I watched him go, I was beginning to think the waiter was the lucky one.
When I looked back at him, he was still smiling at me. I was beginning to think he did that just to unnerve me. “So, you grew up in New York when you weren’t away at boarding school. Two parent home, rich, privileged upbringing… you’re comfortable in those clothes.”
He looked down at his suit and said, “I suppose I am. Do you not like my clothes?”
“No… I mean yes, I like them… the question wasn’t really about your clothes, it was more about your upbringing…” Flustered again I said, “Your clothes are fine.”
He made a face and looked down again. “Only fine?” This man was too much.
“You know what I mean,” I said.
“No, I don’t really. If you had to describe me, what one word comes to mind?”
Gorgeous, sexy, hot… “Arrogant,” I said.
Seth threw his head back and laughed. “There’s that feisty red-head. I could see her simmering on the surface since the day we met. I’ve been dying for you to bring her out.”
With my own raised eyebrow I said, “Really? Why is that?”
“I like your spirit. I could honestly feel it th
e first time we met. You were interviewing for a job you seemed to really want and really be qualified for. Yet you seemed almost… perturbed with me.”
“And you liked that?”
“I did,” he said, simply.
“You have issues,” I told him. He laughed again.
“Yes I do. But my arrogance is only skin deep. I need constant reassurance.” He leaned across the small table then and when he spoke again he was so close that I could feel the heat of his breath and smell the wine there. Lowering the pitch of his voice he said, “Since you seemed to misunderstand the question, I’ll clarify it for you. If you had to describe how I look in my clothes using only one word, what would that be? I’ll get you started, handsome, debonair, cultured…”
“Rich and spoiled,” I said.
He put his hand over his heart and said, “Harsh,” but his tone was soft and he was laughing. “I still like it.”
“So you’re a masochist?”
Still laughing he said, “Not quite, but sometimes when you’re the boss’s son, or the boss you get tired of everyone kissing up and saying what they think you want to hear. Your honesty… although a bit brutal, is refreshing. Not to mention that I love to watch your face turn the color of your fiery hair.”
I chose not to comment on that. Instead, I took a sip of my wine and then said, “So Harlan tells me that your father has handed the reins to you, unofficially. What is he going to do with his time now? It would have to be hard to go from sixteen or twenty hour days to… nothing.”
Seth’s face changed when I mentioned his father. It was a subtle change, but it was there. I think his eyes even darkened a bit as he said, “I doubt that my father will ever fully retire. He doesn’t want the sixteen hour days any longer, but he has his issues relinquishing control as well.”
“And will you have issues with him keeping his fingers in the pie?”
Seth took another sip of wine. He shrugged, it was designed to look casual, I think. But the intensity of his eyes gave a completely different answer. There were definitely issues there between him and his father. I was beginning to see my “In.”
I was about to ask him another question when the waiter once again interrupted, this time to bring our dinner. He sat down the plates and then placed a platter of delicious smelling bread between us and said, “Can I get you anything else?” Seth looked at me and I smiled at the waiter.
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
Seth nodded at him and he went away. He looked at me then and said, “My father and I have a complicated relationship. Business only serves to make it more complicated. Now that he will only have his “fingers” in as you say, instead of his arm up to his elbow, I am hoping for less issues.”
I was impressed by the simple honesty of that answer. I watched him as he put his napkin in his lap and took a bite of his chicken. By the time he’d chewed and swallowed it, his eyes had lost some of their intensity.
“I’m sorry if I brought up a sensitive issue,” I told him.
He smiled and reached across the table again. I closed my eyes when he touched me. It was an automatic reaction, but it felt so intimate and familiar. He ran his fingers across my brow line and said, “I don’t like that worry line there. I like it better when you’re being feisty, or blushing. You didn’t say anything wrong. You couldn’t have possibly known about my relationship with my father.”
This guy was killing me. As soon as he pulled his hand away I opened my eyes. The way he was looking at me made me shudder. I wasn’t supposed to like him at all. He wasn’t supposed to be so… human. He finally tore his eyes away and returned his attention to his plate. I stuffed a much too large bite in my mouth just in case I was going to say something stupid in response to that touch.
~
CHAPTER SEVEN
~
After our dinner that night Seth walked me back to my car. In the dimly lit parking garage he leaned past me to open the door and I thought he was going to kiss me. Shamefully, I have to admit that I was horribly disappointed when he didn’t. He did run the back of his hand along the side of my face again just before I got in. That simple touch in and of itself started a fire raging in the pit of my stomach. I got in the car and drove home, trying to remember what I was doing here. If I’d had too much trouble grasping it, Grant was there for me when I got home and I told him, as always.
“Hey doll face. Where ya been until ten o’clock on a school night?”
“Ha ha! You’re hilarious,” I told him. “I worked until late and then I had dinner.”
“With?”
“With what?”
“With whom?”
“Is it whom? I would have gone with who.”
“That’s because you were a business major. It’s all numbers, no English.”
“Look whom is talking,” I said with a smile.
“Knock off the Laurel and Hardy routine and answer the question.”
“I had dinner with my boss,” I said. “It was strictly professional.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I said.
“Hmm, then why did you hem and haw and blush, and why is your hair all down and pretty around your shoulders? You never wear it like that in a professional capacity.”
I yawned and said, “Oh wow, look how late it’s getting. I should get to bed.”
When I reached the hallway he said, “Erin.” I stopped and turned around to face him. He had his serious face on now. He was no longer playing as he said, “You’re going to get hurt.”
I know he loves me, but I didn’t want him taking away my happiness tonight.
“How do you know that, Grant?”
“Because this is about family, baby. You want revenge for yours and he will undoubtedly be willing to go to great lengths to protect his. Family is one of those things that have torn couples apart for centuries. Please be careful.”
“I am being careful,” I lied. I had completely let my guard down tonight and had not once considered the fact that I intended to destroy everything that Seth held dear. I went back over to where Grant was standing and he opened his arms. I folded myself into them and as he hugged me I said, “I’m trying so hard not to feel anything for him.”
“Sometimes chemistry, or love, or whatever you want to call it, can’t be overridden.”
I pulled back and looked at him and said, “So then what do I do?”
He wiped the loose curls off my forehead and looked into my eyes and said, “You have to decide which one you want more because I’m afraid that you can’t have both.”
I went to bed that night with Grant’s words ringing in my head and Seth’s gentle touch resonating in my heart. Grant was right, it was doubtful I could have this man if I also chose to destroy his family. But how could I give up something I’d virtually lived for over the past eleven years? The warm, cozy feeling I had left Seth with that night morphed into a pounding headache and very little sleep. I went to work the next morning resolving to keep my distance from Seth. I think he is genuinely a good man and my attraction to him was strong, but I owed it to my father to take back what he had intended to be mine. I couldn’t do that if I was emotionally involved with the enemy.
Several hours after I had that thought, I was sitting at my desk pouring over some documents that Harlan wanted my opinion on when there was a knock on my half closed door. Without waiting for an invitation, it was pushed open and Seth appeared.
“Good morning,” he said, with that smile that drove me wild.
“Good morning,” I said, returning his smile. I tried to make mine less enthusiastic, but my body reacted in strange ways when he was around.
Seth came in and closed the door behind him. I expected him to have a seat in the chair on the other side of my desk. Instead, he came around to where I was sitting and took me by the hands, pulling me to my feet. I was standing with my head tilted back, looking up at him wondering what in God’s name he was doing. He didn’t make me wait long to find
out.
“I barely slept at all last night,” he said. “I kept thinking about our dinner and walking you back to your car and the one thing I should have done, but didn’t.”
I was pretty sure I knew what he was talking about, but just because I’m a glutton for punishment I said, “What was that?”