by Lucy Monroe
Besides, he didn't want to give her the option of hanging up again.
Isabel's pleasant, welcoming office looked just as it had the day he'd first met her, with two exceptions.
Isabel wasn't in it and the roses he had sent were. She had placed them on a small table next to the pink sofa.
Other than a few papers lying on her desk, the room was tidy. Where had she gone? She couldn't be very far. Her meeting with Marcus was in fifteen minutes. Alex strolled over to the desk to check her calendar, looking for a clue as to where to find her.
According to Isabel's schedule, she was supposed to be at her desk making phone calls right now. He let the papers fall back in place before idly glancing at them. He sighed over the fact that she would leave work out on her desk for anyone to read and her office door unlocked. She was too trusting.
It slowly dawned on him that he wasn't looking at work related to Isabel's job. It was some kind of list.
What the hell? Isabel had written "Character Traits Necessary for a Potential Husband and Father" across the top of the paper. Everything inside of Alex froze. Isabel was planning to get married? Why had she accepted his invitation to dinner and then breakfast?
He took a closer look at her list and realized that the word potential said it all. Isabel was looking for a husband, someone to father her children, if the words she'd written were to be believed. He could not believe it.
What woman went husband-hunting in this day and age? Even more unbelievable than Isabel's actions was the surge of possessiveness that coursed through him. No one was going to marry Isabel and make babies with her. No one, except him.
"Alex. What are you doing here?"
Stepping away from the desk and her list, he looked up. "I'm here to talk to you."
Isabel stood across the room, a look of resigned irritation on her face. Her short jacket and ankle-length skirt the color of green heather emphasized her small waist and feminine curves, the same curves that had haunted his dreams last night
She frowned. "You could have called."
"A man's ego can only take getting hung up on so many times."
Her brows rose at that. "I would have thought that your ego could take a hit from the reigning heavyweight champion without a noticeable bump."
He let the barb slide. "Marcus said that you're still planning to meet with him."
She came farther into the room, taking time to put her purse in a cupboard and her coffee cup down on the desk before answering. "Yes."
"Why?"
She sat down at her desk and raised her head to meet his gaze. "Unlike you, I do not have devious motives for everything I do. I confirmed Mr. Danvers's appointment because under the circumstances, I thought it was best to do so."
Alex sat on the edge of her desk, only a few inches from her list. She darted a look to the papers on her desk and then back to his face. It was obvious she was trying to gauge whether he'd noticed them or not. He waited to see if she would ask. She didn't.
He didn't feel like enlightening her. "Under the circumstances, it would seem that meeting with Marcus would be a waste of your time."
"On the contrary, it is never a waste of time to do my best for my clients."
Disappointment swirled through him. She was after revenge after all. He couldn't blame her, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "Don't be too disappointed when it doesn't work."
"When what doesn't work?" she asked.
"Your little revenge plot. Marcus isn't going to leave CIS."
Her eyes widened. "You think I'm doing this to get revenge? For what?"
"For what you think I've done to you."
"Just what is it that I think you've done to me?" The saccharine sweetness of her voice did not reach her eyes. They had narrowed, their emerald depths brilliant with anger.
He wanted to reach out and brush her hands, which were clenched in a stranglehold on top of her desk. "You think I used you. You think I put my desire for information above my attraction to you."
"I don't just think those things. That's exactly what happened," she said between clenched teeth, "and now you are accusing me of using my position to get revenge for it. I can't believe this. If you came over to work things out between us, you're doing a very poor job of it."
He gave in to the urge and reached out to touch her.
She jerked her hands away, hiding them under her desk in her lap. "What about you?" she demanded. "I have only your word that Mr. Danvers called me in order to obtain information for you. For all I know, he's interested in leaving your company and you're trying to prevent it by making me distrust my client."
Anger that she could believe him capable of acting so dishonestly welled up inside. He had no problem keeping employees. He didn't need to resort to trickery to do so.
"You're accusing me of lying?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm pointing out that both our motives are suspect."
"I did not lie to you."
She angled her chin proudly. "I didn't lie to you, either, and I'm not interested in petty revenge games."
He brushed his finger down her cheek. This time she did not flinch. "Where does that leave us?"
She sighed and looked away. "There is no us."
"There could be."
Chapter 6
« ^ »
Isabel tried to ignore the sensations pooling inside from Alex's touch.
She reached up, intending to remove his hand, but ended up placing hers over it instead. "What are we going to do, Alex?"
His eyes turned dark with the desire that seemed just under the surface whenever they were together. "Right now, I'm going to kiss you," he said, as he lowered his mouth to do just that.
She wanted his kiss. She needed the feel of his lips pressed firmly against hers. She didn't care if it made sense. She didn't care if he thought she was capable of petty revenge. Right now, all she cared about was the taste and texture of his mouth against hers.
She moaned, allowing her lips to part. He didn't hesitate to take advantage. His tongue swept inside to mate with hers and everything in her coalesced into one thought.
She wanted more.
She stood, plastering her body against his. Gripping his shirt, she pulled him closer yet. He groaned and fit her body to his. Proof that the rapid-fire desire plaguing her affected him, too, rubbed against her stomach. His mouth went from hot and demanding to volcanic in the space of a second, and she went under like the trees on Mt. St. Helens when it erupted.
She didn't know how long the kiss lasted, but the laughter of a coworker drifting in through the open door brought her back to the present, where they were and what they were doing.
She tore her mouth from Alex's and he let her go, looking as dazed as she felt. His mouth wore a pink tint from her lipstick and she touched her own lips, wondering if they looked as bruised and swollen as they felt.
She leaned across her desk and pulled a tissue from the box on the corner and handed it to Alex. "Pink's really not your color."
"Thank you." He swiped at his lips, wiping away the evidence of her kiss.
She sat back down at her desk. "You're welcome."
Needing a moment to focus, she averted her gaze from Alex to the papers on her desk and felt her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment rather than with passion. Had he seen the list? What must he be thinking? It made her look like a desperate Victorian spinster. He couldn't possibly understand her desire for a baby when she was hard-pressed to do so herself. Before she could begin to formulate an explanation she was far from having, a discreet knock sounded on her open door.
Marcus Danvers had arrived on time.
"Hello. I'm Marcus. I see you've already met my boss."
She forced a smile and stood, extending her hand. "Good afternoon, Mr. Danvers. It's a pleasure to meet you."
The wiry blond giant walked forward and shook her hand, and then gave his boss a questioning look.
Alex shrugged. "I don't know why she wants to meet
with you. I told her why you called, but apparently she needs to hear it from your lips. She thinks I might have made it all up in order to ruin your chances of leaving CIS."
Isabel let out an indignant gasp. "I did not say I believed that. I said that I could have believed that."
Marcus smiled, blue eyes twinkling. "I see."
Alex said nothing. She wished she knew what he was thinking. Unfortunately, she'd have to wait to find out. She had work to do right now.
Isabel put her list in a drawer and then walked around her desk. "Please follow me, Mr. Danvers. My coworker Bettina Fry will be conducting your evaluation."
"What's going on, Isabel?" Alex's voice demanded an answer. Now.
She took a deep breath and let it out before turning around. "I asked Bettina to take Mr. Danvers's case because I didn't feel that I could give him unbiased service."
It had been hard to admit, but whatever was going on between her and Alex, it would affect how she handled his assistant's situation. Marcus seemed to ask Alex another silent question.
Again, Alex's shoulders rose and fell in a gesture of acceptance. "You might as well meet with her as long as you're here."
Marcus mimicked his employer's shrug. "Guess so." He turned to Isabel, his mouth curved in amusement. "Lead the way."
Isabel nodded with what she hoped gave the appearance of professional efficiency. She took Marcus to Bettina's office and left him in the hands of her very capable friend. If Marcus was there only to glean information, Bettina would figure it out. If he matched the job, she'd be able to discern that as well. Regardless, a confusing mixture of emotions centered on Mr. Danvers's current employer wouldn't hamper Bettina.
* * *
Isabel walked back into her office, not sure whether she hoped that Alex had left or stayed. When she saw him sitting at her desk, reading her list, the list she had put away before leaving the room, she made up her mind.
She really, really wished that he had gone. "What do you think you are doing?"
Alex looked up from the papers. "I stack up pretty well against these requirements, honey. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to tell me you don't want to see me again."
Since she had no intention of saying anything of the sort, she didn't bother to argue. Why did he think she had asked Bettina to take on Marcus Danvers?
"I put that away in my desk before I left." She pointed accusingly at the papers on the desk in front of Alex. "You took it out."
He didn't look in the least repentant. "Yes."
"That's an invasion of privacy."
"You should have locked your desk."
"I should have realized I had left an information shark in my office. Silly me." The words came out in a sarcastic drawl that hid her inner turmoil. What was he thinking? That she was crazy or merely desperate?
He looked down at the papers and then back up at her, his almost-black eyes giving nothing away of his thoughts. "Is this why you were so worried about what you called my 'schizophrenic courtesy' the other night?"
"I don't know what you mean," she hedged, instilling her voice with a haughty edge. Which was easy, considering how mad she was.
"You were sizing me up, weren't you? Trying to decide if I'd make good husband and father material according to your little list of requirements."
The list was three pages long. "It's not little."
He held her gaze captive. "No, it isn't Damn it Isabel. What do you think you're doing? You can't go looking for a husband like you would a job applicant."
She didn't see why not. It beat dating jerks. "It's really none of your business, Alex."
"Everything you do now is my business. Why did you make the list? Are you pregnant? Do you need a husband?"
She stared at him, appalled. "Of course not I made the list because I want a baby. I want a family." Once the words were out, she realized the truth of them. She didn't just want a baby. She wanted it all, the family she'd never had.
He looked skeptical. "You're too young for your hormone alarms to have gone off."
She'd heard it all before from Bettina. She wasn't going to listen to it from him. "How would you know? Are you some kind of expert on women's biological urges?"
"I don't have to be an expert to know that most women don't plan this kind of attack on the males of their acquaintance because their biological clock starts ticking at the age of twenty-eight."
Of course he knew how old she was. Alex knew everything, darn him. Except what it felt like to have a biological clock that sounded like Big Ben, telling her it was time to have a family. "I'm not planning an attack against the men in my life. That's a ridiculous thing to say."
And she wasn't the first twenty-eight-year-old woman in history to want a baby, either.
He lifted the papers and waved them. "What would you call this?"
"I would call that insurance against another poor choice!"
Alex's eyes went from enigmatic to interested in a heartbeat. "What poor choice?"
She didn't want to have such a personal discussion in her office in the middle of the day. "Do we have to do this now?"
He studied her and she felt like he could see into her soul. "What time are you finished here?" he finally asked.
"Four-thirty. Why?"
"I'll meet you at your place at five. We'll go to dinner."
"Make it six and I'll feed you." If they had another argument—which seemed likely, based on the amount of stuff left unsettled between them—she didn't want to have it in front of witnesses.
He stood up and walked around the desk, stopping in front of her. "I'll be there."
She had no doubt. The man was tenacious.
He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. "See you then, sweetheart."
By the time she'd gathered her wits enough to turn around and face the door, he had already left. She didn't realize that he had taken the list with him until she sat down at her desk and saw that the papers were gone.
* * *
Alex cradled the phone to his ear. "Yes, Mom, I remember I promised to come for lunch on Sunday. You had Miss Richards put it on my calendar."
He had barely walked into his office when his secretary put through the call from his mother.
"She's a very efficient secretary, Alex, but even she can't make you remember a social obligation on her day off."
His mother said something else, which he missed as he looked down at the pile of papers he'd taken from Isabel's office. He bet she'd been furious when she realized he'd taken them. He wanted time to study them, time to fit them into the information matrix surrounding her.
"Alex?"
"I'm here."
"Is something the matter?"
Genuine concern tinged her voice. Since his father's death two years ago, Alex had seen a marked change in his mother. She expressed emotion more freely and she worried about Alex. At first the worry had disconcerted him. Then, he had learned to deal with it, just as any son dealt with his mother's concern—with as much patience as possible.
"No."
"You weren't listening to me. Did I call at a bad time?"
He looked again at the papers before him. "No."
She met his one-word response with silence. Motherly silence. He still wasn't accustomed to how she could pack an entire conversation or a string of questions into well-placed silence. He stifled a sigh. "Would it be all right if I brought a guest to lunch on Sunday?"
"What kind of a guest?" Her voice held undisguised curiosity.
"Does it matter?"
Her laughter, another aspect of her nature he was getting used to, floated across the phone line. "No. It does not matter, but that isn't going to prevent you from answering me. Is this an old college friend, a date … what?"
"A date."
The silence that greeted this statement could only be described as expectant
"Her name is Isabel," he finally offered.
"That's a lovely name. Where did you meet her?"
"She
works for A.A. Placement Agency. She tried to hire Marcus for one of her clients."
"She's a headhunter?" The shocked tones of his mother's voice almost made him smile.
"She considers herself a career guidance specialist."
"You say she tried to hire Marcus away from your company?"
"Yes."
"And you want to bring her to lunch on Sunday?"
"Yes."
"Didn't I teach you that 'yes' and 'no' are not always appropriate responses, Alex?"
"She's John Harrison's daughter."
Alex winced at his mother's shocked gasp. "You're seeing John Harrison's daughter? Why?"
"Why do men usually date women?"
"Don't." Her voice came out strained and she took an audible breath before continuing in a softer tone. "Do not give me that flippant answer. I know you, Alex. You blame Mr. Harrison for what happened to your father. I will not stand by while you hurt an innocent woman in order to exact revenge."
"Isabel has nothing to do with Hypertron or what happened to Dad. She doesn't even know who I am."
"But you know who she is, Alex."
Alex heard the concern that tinged his mother's voice, but this time it wasn't for him. Her worry about what he planned to do with Isabel came across the phone lines loud and clear.
"Isabel is the woman I'm seeing. That's it."
"You said she has nothing to do with what her father's company did two years ago," his mother probed.
"Right. She's nothing like her father." Isabel would never have made the choices John Harrison had made in dealing with Ray Trahern.
"You're really dating her?"
He would be once he had talked Isabel through her current irritation with him. "Yes."
"Is it serious?"
Letting his hand rest on Isabel's list, he made a decision. "Yes, very."
* * *
Isabel tossed the pasta and fresh green beans in the light pesto sauce. The stuffed chicken breasts she'd prepared earlier were warming in the oven while the white wine she'd bought to go with dinner chilled in the fridge. Everything was ready for Alex's arrival, everything but her.