by Lauren Layne
His eyes flicked to hers, and she thought she read something like dismay. The stony gray depths were somehow warmer than usual, and they seemed to ask, So this is what you think of me?
She looked away, unsettled.
He picked up the pizza purposefully with both hands. “I’m trying to make sense of Martin’s shorthand,” he said, gesturing at the multiple piles. “There are about eight hundred different-colored file folders, pen ink, and highlighters. But I don’t seem to be any closer in deciphering the method behind the color coding.”
“I think maybe he just thought black ink and standard manila folders were boring,” she said around a huge glob of cheese.
He picked up his cup of wine and stared at her over the rim. “Boring? You’re telling me I’ve wasted hours trying to figure out what blue highlighter was supposed to signify and he just was trying to add some color to his life?”
Sophie shrugged. “Yeah, his secretary left a couple of notebooks behind with commentary on Martin’s quirks. I just found them this afternoon.”
That was a lie she didn’t feel particularly guilty about. The notebooks had been there all along, but the thought of helping Gray before now just hadn’t appealed.
Not when he looked like he wanted to call an exterminator every time he looked at her.
“What else did these notebooks have to say? Anything else that can save me time? Despite what you probably think, spending Friday night in the office isn’t exactly my idea of the good life.”
“Oh? Did you have big plans?”
Sophie instantly regretted her question. She’d forgotten that he and Brynn were originally planning to see a play tonight. Probably something scholarly. She hadn’t meant to rub the breakup in his face.
“Did you speak with your sister?” he asked after a pregnant pause.
Sophie nodded as she picked at a piece of pepperoni. “I didn’t really get the details, just that, you know…you guys decided it wasn’t working out.”
He didn’t say anything more, and Sophie was unsettled by his lack of reaction.
Was he more torn up about the breakup than she’d expected? He hardly looked like a man glad to be done with a going-nowhere relationship.
“Do you, um…want to talk about it?” she asked. Please say no.
“Talk about what?”
She sucked in a breath for patience.
“The fact that you just ended a relationship? That usually registers a blip on the human emotional scale.”
“Oh. No, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No problem,” she said, happy to dodge that particular conversation. “Shall I go get Martin’s assistant’s notes? We can go over them while we eat and see if there’s anything that would help you.”
“Your sister’s great,” he blurted out.
Oh, here we go. She sat back in her seat and grabbed for her wine. Sophie wasn’t exactly in the mood to hear yet another person begin a tirade about Brynn’s excellence, but she couldn’t cut off a guy who’d just been dumped. Or at least she was assuming Brynn had done the dumping. Her sister’s message hadn’t exactly been clear, and she doubted she’d get all the gritty details from Gray.
“Yes, Brynn’s wonderful,” she replied warily.
“We just didn’t suit.”
“‘Suit’?” she repeated. “You do realize that phrase went out of style back around the time of Prohibition?”
“You know what I mean,” he said as he stared into his wine. “Everything worked on paper, but in person, nothing clicked.”
That’s because you two are the same uptight, overachieving, perfectionist freak. Suddenly her good intentions began to evaporate. The thought of Brynn and Gray in all of their sophisticated and successful glory made her stomach churn.
“Are we having a bonding moment here, boss?” she asked snidely. “Shall I grab some tissues and ice cream to go with the pizza and wine?”
“Never mind,” he said gruffly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling like crap. There was no need to take out her personal issues on the poor man. He shrugged and reached for the pizza box. He slid another piece onto her plate before getting one for himself.
So much for just having one, she thought as she dug in.
“So what’s real the story with you and Will? Is it like one of those on-again, off-again things?” he said, breaking the companionable silence.
“What’s with all the talking?” she teased gently.
Gray shrugged again, suddenly looking less like the powerful, disinterested boss and more like a shy new kid in town. “I don’t usually enjoy your variety of constant rambling—”
“Nice, Gray, just when I was starting to kind of like you.”
His eyes met hers and he continued. “But I don’t know anyone in Seattle, and you seem to be the only person I can talk to.”
Oh. Oh. And just like that, her irritation evaporated and was replaced by something downright melty. She pushed the uncomfortable sentiment aside. The last thing she needed was to start letting her guard down around her boss.
“I’ll grab those notebooks,” she said, almost knocking over her wine in her haste to stand.
“Sophie.”
“Yeah?”
“You never answered my question about you and Will.” His eyes burned into hers and she suddenly wished she’d had a couple fewer sips of wine. Or maybe a few more. Everything was fuzzy.
What was it he’d been asking?
Oh, right. Will. Best friend.
“Oh, Will and I are just friends. We’ve always been just friends,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“Then why did you tell me he was your date at your parents’ house?”
Sophie snorted. “Well, let’s see, I’d recently endured the humiliation of being stuck in an elevator with a man who assumed I was a whore, while wearing little more than a thong. And then the same man shows up at my parents’ house as my perfect sister’s perfect new boyfriend. So after that, did I want you to think I was single and lonely as well as pathetic and slutty? No, not really. So, I let you think I had a fake boyfriend. Sue me.”
Her voice pitched up at the end and she felt her cheeks flushing as she stared him down. Her attempt at cute and snarky had derailed into melodramatic and lame. She stood abruptly and walked quickly from his office, annoyed to feel the prick of tears as she gathered the notebooks from her desk.
Sophie took a deep breath. She needed to get out of there. She’d just hand over the notebooks and let him continue with his loser evening. Alone. She marched back into his office and nearly collided with his solid form. He put his hands on her shoulders to steady her, and she jumped back from the heat of the contact.
“Sorry,” Gray said quietly, flexing his fingers and putting them back to his sides, as though even the briefest of contact with her made him itch. He cleared his throat but didn’t move out of the way. “Look, I’m sorry for prying about Will. I was just curious what a woman like you would be doing with a guy like him.”
“You mean what would a rich entrepreneur want with a lowly secretary?”
“Stop it,” he said sharply, sounding very unlike his usual calm self. “Quit talking about yourself as if you’re toilet paper.”
“Perhaps if you quit treating me like an irritant I wouldn’t be so defensive!”
“This has nothing to do with me,” Gray said. “I made one single misassumption about you in a dark elevator. It was a mistake. I hadn’t slept, I hadn’t eaten all day, I hate confined spaces, and frankly, I really wasn’t at my best that night in Vegas, okay? But ever since learning that you weren’t a prostitute I have treated you with nothing but respect. And yet you continue to goad me and verbally sabotage yourself every chance you get. Why is that, Ms. Dalton?”
He took the tiniest step forward and she swallowed hard, resisting the urge to move away from him.
Her brain was struggling to think of a retort, so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Don’t
call me Ms. Dalton.”
“Why, is it too respectable for a screwup like yourself?”
Sophie flinched, knowing his sarcasm was only playing off her own words, but it still stung. “It has nothing to do with respectability,” she snapped. “I just want you to think of me as a person. I want to hear you say ‘Sophie.’”
Oops. That had not come out right. Now he was going to think she was partial to hearing her name from his lips. At the thought of his lips, her gaze fell to his mouth. What was wrong with her? The wine was messing with her head.
But he still hadn’t moved away. And he didn’t exactly look repulsed.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Sophie, then.”
As if the moment needed to be any more charged, the lights in the office turned off as they were programed to do every few minutes in the evening unless their sensors detected movement.
It would only take the slightest step to trigger the lights back on, but they stood still for a moment longer in the darkened office. The air felt thick with conflicted electricity, but Sophie wasn’t sure what was at the root of the weirdness.
Just minutes ago they’d been talking about Brynn, and now…
Now she wanted to kiss her boss. Badly.
She could just imagine his horror if she leaned into him. Here he was trying to intimidate her, and she wanted to jump his bones.
Except…Gray seemed to be doing a little leaning of his own. And was it her imagination, or were his lips a lot closer than before? All she had to do was move a couple of inches and…
No.
Sophie sidestepped quickly to move around him just as she saw his arm reach for her. They stared at each other as the fluorescent lights flickered back on.
“Yikes, that would have been awkward to explain to HR, right?” she asked brightly. “Us standing alone in the dark, you about ready to strangle me for being a silly little twit.”
“I’d never hurt a woman.”
“Jeez. Calm down, I was kidding. Where should I put these notebooks?”
“Just leave them on the desk. I think we’re probably done for the evening.”
“Meaning?” she asked.
“Meaning I appreciate your willingness to help, but I can’t take up any more of your weekend time. It was already inappropriate to let you order pizza. Which, of course, you can expense, by the way. The wine too.”
“Another HR strike against us,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “Company money going toward booze for two.”
He ignored her.
She moved past him and set the books on his desk. “Fine, I’ll leave these for Monday, but only if you promise to do the same.”
“I still have a couple things to wrap up,” he said, not moving from the doorway.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Go home. Go watch baseball or drink beer or whatever it is you do for fun. Throw darts at children. Boil bunnies…”
She glanced over at Gray as she began piling up their plates and froze. His mouth looked different. Lopsided just slightly. Almost as if…
Grayson Wyatt was smiling. Sophie’s world tilted just slightly.
I must really need to get laid, she thought. All it took was some dark lights and a pathetic excuse for a smile and she was ready to hump the one man on earth who could barely stand her company. Definitely time to get out of there.
“Well, okay, then, I’ll take off, if you’re sure you’re okay with me ditching you,” she said flippantly. “You know me, any chance to put off work sounds great.”
His smile faded, and the gray eyes turned back to dull slate. “I’ll see you on Monday, then,” he said.
“Monday,” she agreed with a forced smile.
Sophie quietly gathered up her gym bag and took one glance back at Gray, who was staring out the window. She ached to go to him.
Instead, she walked away.
CHAPTER TEN
To say that Gray’s life had been disorderly for the past couple of months was an understatement. His once-calm routine had been turned upside down, and no matter how carefully he planned his days, fate continued to throw him one curveball after another.
And he knew exactly when the turn from comfortable to chaos had occurred.
Right about the time he’d encountered a certain blonde firework in an elevator. He no longer thought it was coincidence. Fate had apparently delivered Sophie as some sort of trial, and the woman was turning out to be absolute hell on his nerves.
She’d become both invaluable and intolerable as an assistant. She anticipated his every need before he asked. Her cheerful social skills on the phone easily smoothed over any feathers he inadvertently ruffled by his lack of inane social niceties. And she’d apparently read Martin’s secretary’s notes cover to cover, because in addition to her intuition about every single business deal, she now knew staff birthdays and the names of potential clients’ children and had memorized the menus of every business caterer in Seattle.
But as much as he relied on her, most of the time her presence soured his mood. Sophie was just too much. Too much energy, too many smiles, too Goddamn infuriating.
As if all that weren’t enough, he had yet another frustrating woman to reckon with.
Jenna was due at the Seattle airport in an hour, and Gray hadn’t a clue how he was going to pick up his little sister and manage his meeting with the Blackwells. Hell, he didn’t even know how he’d double booked himself in the first place, other than that he’d avoided giving Sophie access to his calendar after she’d begun booking thirty-minute “mental breaks” into his work schedule.
“Sophie!” he barked.
She threw him an arch look through the glass and took her precious time strutting into his office. She was wearing some sort of dress that looked like cotton candy and her shoes had bows on them. Bows.
“Why are you yelling?” she asked.
“I don’t yell.”
“Your voice was raised.”
“I had to raise my voice to get your attention,” he ground out.
“You’ve never raised your voice before to get my attention when I’m at my desk. I can hear you just fine with your normal voice-of-doom volume.”
“Sophie.”
“Gray.”
“You are possibly the most annoying assistant ever. I should fire you.”
Her blue eyes narrowed as if daring him to try. “Did you call me in here just because you’re cranky?” she asked.
Her impertinence should have rankled him, but instead he felt the odd urge to smile. But smiling would only encourage her, so he scowled instead.
“I need a town car.”
“Has Seattle driving become too much for you?” She studied her fingernails.
“It’s not for me. I need it sent to the airport to pick up my sister.”
She stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Your sister is coming to visit, and you’re having her picked up in a town car instead of meeting her yourself?”
He flinched. “I’m busy.”
“With what, world domination? Practicing your glare? Take an hour off, for God’s sake. I’ll clear your calendar.”
“I would, but it’s the Blackwells. Remember them? You had them eating out of your palm and now they’re coming back to discuss a potential deal. Today, of all days.”
“Don’t get pissy with me. If you’d let me manage your calendar like assistants are paid to do, you wouldn’t be in this pickle,” she said primly.
“I’m not in a pickle. Just get the damn town car, would you?”
“Is this sister your only sister?”
“Yes,” he said wearily.
“Your baby sister, right?”
“Yes, she and Jack are twins. I can sketch you a family tree later, but for now I just need you to get me the car.”
“Doesn’t Jack live around here? Why can’t he pick her up?”
“Because he has an exam today. She’s twenty-four, not in junior high. She can manage to get home from the airport wi
thout a big brother escorting her.”
Even as he said it, his gut gave a sharp twist of guilt. Of course Jenna would be fine in a town car, but he wished he could pick her up personally. Their relationship was cordial, but he’d never had the closeness with the twins that they had with each other. Something he’d been meaning to rectify for years, but could never quite find the time. Or the method. He just didn’t have the ability to easily converse in the way that came so naturally to Jack and Jenna.
Sophie got that assessing look that Gray now knew meant trouble. He wished for the hundredth time that the assistant assigned to him was someone uncomplicated and professional. Someone like Brynn.
Although if Brynn had been his assistant, he wouldn’t have been able to date her. Because CEOs did not date their assistants unless they wanted a lawsuit on their hands. Something he’d nearly forgotten the previous Friday night. It was amazing what months of celibacy could do to a man. He’d almost pulled a page from the How to Be a Sleaze handbook and made a play for his secretary.
Thinking about how close he’d come to kissing Sophie made him uneasy.
Neither of them had mentioned it, but if the sexual tension had been simmering before, it was nearing a boil.
He didn’t like it.
She opened her mouth again, and his strained temper exploded. “Whatever you’re thinking, just drop it,” he snapped. “All I need is for you to make a simple phone call and have them pick up Jenna Wyatt. Her cell phone number is in my contact database. Nothing weird. No limo, no flowers, no welcome committee.”
“You got it,” she said with suspicious calm. “I’ll order some sandwiches and have them delivered to the conference room. You should meet them in there instead of your office. They won’t be as intimidated if it doesn’t feel so much like your turf. You’ll get further with men like them if they don’t feel threatened. “
Gray just shook his head. Most of Sophie’s ideas on social manipulations were beyond him, but as long as she continued to help the business, he’d humor her. Plus, it would get him out of this atrocious orange chair. He hated the thing almost as much as he’d hated the uncomfortable rocking chair that Martin had left behind, but he wasn’t about to give Sophie the satisfaction of complaining. The woman was at her best when she goaded him into talking, snapping, or yelling.