“Okay. I’ll double your current salary.”
“No! It’s not about money.”
“If it’s not money then what would it take to get you to come to me?”
“Nothing!”
“Don’t say such things to a man like me, Emma,” he warned with a lazy grin. “I’ll see it as a challenge I can’t resist.”
I tried to step around Gabriel again. He blocked me once more.
“Gabriel! Let me pass!”
“Not yet.”
“But I’m due back from lunch.” I hated the whining quality of my tone. I tried again. “I have to go.”
Gabriel approached me. I took one small step back before hitting the wall. His arms caged me. Leaning forward, he mused, “What happens if I keep you with me? Let’s say I don’t let you off this elevator and instead take you to my floor. Then I keep you in my office for the rest of the afternoon. What do you think will happen to you then?”
Given the intimate cadence of his tone, I wish I could say I didn’t imagine lots of exposed flesh, but I can’t. Memories of our one night together rose up to possess me once more. Gabriel may have only been a boy back then, but he’d still given me the best pleasure of my life. What would it be like now?
Dizzyingly intense. We’d make love for hours, stopping only to catch our breath before beginning again. Gabriel could take me on his desk, floor, and wall and it still wouldn’t be enough for me.
Lust sank deep. I wanted to tangle my fingers in the hair curling sweetly at his nape. I wanted to rise up on tip-toe and feather my lips across his, teasing and tempting him to take what I feared to give.
Gabriel whispered my name, yanking me away from my seductive, self-destructive side. Flushed with suppressed passion, I shook my head. Once again I could barely remember what he had asked. “I don’t know.”
“Here’s a scenario—they’ll fire you.”
“Why would you even want that?” Gabriel’s unrepentant grin sent a shiver through me.
“So you’ll be free to work for me.”
“Well, they wouldn’t fire me and even if they did, I still wouldn’t work for you.”
Gabriel stepped back and crossed his arms. He looked at me so long that I had to fight the urge to fidget. “Challenge it is.”
I looked around and noticed Gabriel’s assistant. I was embarrassed to realize I’d forgotten all about him in the last minute. “Is your boss always like this?” I asked him in exasperation, expecting to receive a discreet eye-roll.
Instead, the older man removed his attention from the ceiling, looked me straight in the eye, and emphatically answered “Never.”
Oh. Awkward didn’t even cover it.
Gabriel called over his shoulder “Rick, go on without me. I’ll be up after seeing Ms. Adams to her floor.”
“Sure thing, Gabriel.”
“I don’t need you to see me—”
“Hush, Emma.” He erased the distance between us until his shoes touched mine. Keeping his muscular body firmly in the way between me and the still-open door, he stated, “We’re in negotiations.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Rick?”
Rick paused just inside the elevator. “Yes?”
“I still have my plus one for tonight, correct?”
“Of course.”
“It’s just been filled.”
“I see. I’ll call ahead and have her put on the list.”
“Have who put on the list?” I asked Gabriel, already knowing the answer but unable to believe the audacity.
“Why you, silly.”
“You’ve got to be joking!” Things were moving too quickly. I couldn’t keep my bearings straight.
Gabriel shook his head gravely. “I never joke when it comes to you, Emma.”
My gaze once again darted over his broad shoulder to catch Rick’s attention. Unfortunately, he’d already exited the elevator, holding his hand up when a couple tried to get on. “I’m sorry but this one isn’t going down.”
“We’re going up.”
“Ah, so am I. We’ll just catch a ride on this one over here.”
The doors closed, leaving me alone with Gabriel. He turned away from me and inserted a key into the panel. The elevator remained on my floor. Gabriel looked up at the ceiling and made a motion across his neck with his hand. He then sauntered back to my spot in the corner and smiled.
“Now where were we?”
“Who were you signaling?”
“Security.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want Security gawking at us.” The expression on my face made him laugh long and hard. “Don’t worry, Emma. I’m not going to molest you in the elevator. Yet.”
Oh my God!
I was left tongue-tied, much like I was in school when Gabriel would say something outrageous. “Why did you have your assistant leave?” I managed to ask in a terse whisper.
“Because I wanted to talk to you in private,” he mimicked.
Now he wanted to talk to me in private? “About?”
“About you.” Gabriel studied my mouth, fixating on it like he had the night of our first kiss. “Only about you.”
I blinked quickly, feeling overwhelmed by his presence and my delicious memories. “Gabriel?”
“Yes, Emma?”
God, how I always loved the way he said my name! Warmth drizzled over me. “Where are you going with this?”
“As far as I can go. And then further than that.”
I have to admit my heart skipped more than a few beats. Still, I had to ask. “Why? You didn’t even know I was here until a few minutes ago.”
“Yes, a terrible shame that. You should’ve come up to see me on your first day instead of hiding.”
I wanted to squawk that I hadn’t been hiding but we’d both know it for a lie.
“I would never have done that, Gabriel.”
“I know.” He reached out and played with ends of my hair.
“Do you do this with every girl from your past you come across?”
“No.”
“Then why me?”
“I’ve spent enough time living with regret over you, Emma. I don’t fancy spending any more time with it.” Bringing a heavy lock up to his nose, Gabriel inhaled deeply. “Your hair smells wonderful.”
I didn’t know what to say. Ten minutes ago all I could think of was the data import scheduled for three. Now Gabriel stood before me and neatly decimated my understanding of the world and apparently also liked my shampoo.
“Gabriel…I…what the hell!”
“Well, that’s a promising start,” he teased. Gabriel flicked his chin with my hair before releasing it. “Now onto the negotiations.”
“You’re serious?”
“Absolutely.” He leaned against the wall across from me and put his hands in his pockets. His casual position was at complete odds with the steel running through his words. “I’m going to see you everyday. You can either work for me to facilitate that or you can eat at least once a day with me. Your choice.”
“Everyday?” I had no intention of leaving my job to satisfy his whims, nor did I eat lunch out everyday, so why was I even indulging him?
Because you like it. Because you want him to chase you again. Because you’ve always missed him since saying goodbye.
“Unless I have an appointment. In that case, you’ll join me for dinner.”
“And if I have plans?”
“Work or personal?”
“Either.”
“Work is unavoidable until you’re under my employ. Personal will have to be cancelled unless there is a very good reason not to. Any other questions?”
His bossiness ruffled my feathers, probably as intended. “That’s pretty damned arrogant of you, Gabriel.”
“We already established that personal trait, Emma.”
“Yes, but you still take it as a compliment when it’s not.”
He preened, polishing his nails on his lapel. “So what’s your answer?”
I sighed. “Okay, one lunch and maybe one dinner.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Unacceptable. I want all your lunches and dinners.”
My hands found their way to my hips. Damnable pride reared up to cause me more problems. “My significant other would have a problem with that, Gabriel.” I didn’t know why I said it, especially considering I’d never really had a significant other, but now it was too late to backtrack.
Damnit, damnit, damnit!
“I’m sure he would…if he existed.”
“Excuse me?” Heat crept up my neck. Was I just that bad of a liar or did Gabriel think it was impossible for me to find a boyfriend? Either option didn’t feel all that great.
“You heard me. You. Don’t. Have. One.” He smirked. Smirked! “I checked your ringer finger, Emma. Beautifully bare. As far as anything less serious than a husband, if you did happen to have a special guy, it would’ve been one of the first things you said to me. And if by chance you actually do have one, I doubt you’ll keep him for long now that you’ve reconnected with me.”
The nerve of this man! I bristled because it was true. Most of it. A lot of it. Enough of it. Defeated, I tipped my chin up and attempted to cobble together a veneer of dignity. “Fine, there is no significant other.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Could you please not rub it in, Gabriel?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now, an answer please.”
I re-crossed my arms. “For how long?”
Gabriel inhaled deeply, looking over my head as if he were seriously considering the question. The tiny grin playing about the corners of his mouth let me know he already had an answer long before I asked the question.
“How about for a month?”
“A month.”
“Too short? Very well—two months.”
“I didn’t say it was—”
“Too late. Two months of lunch and/or dinner.” When I remained silent, Gabriel cajoled, “Come on, Emma. Say yes. You know you want to.”
“That’s hardly going to make me say it, Gabriel.”
“Ah, I forgot. Your pride is so damned prickly. Let go about it another way then.”
I lowered my brows and glared at him. Gabriel only laughed.
“It’s just two months, right? If it makes a difference, see it as a friendly reconciliation of two friends.”
“We weren’t friends,” I pointed out softly, unable to stop myself. “How could we be? You were you and I was me.”
“Really?” Gabriel shrugged and admitted, “I always thought of you as the only real friend I made back then.”
It felt as if the floor was crumbling beneath my feet. I never even considered he thought of me as anything other than the one irritating girl that turned him down. The conversation had suddenly taken a sharp turn into territory I wasn’t ready to visit.
Gabriel continued as if I hadn’t inadvertently insulted him. “Scratch friendly reconciliation. Think of it as two acquaintances attempting to be friends. Or maybe—”