As they reached the car, Sam reached down to open the door at the same time Logan reached for the handle, and their fingers brushed lightly. The sparks that ignited between the two of them were instantaneous and almost visible to the naked eye.
Pulling back quickly, Sam managed to avoid his gaze. Her physical reaction to the boss was highly inappropriate, unprofessional and just plain wrong, but the heat that flamed around her threatened to turn her into a quivering mass of lust.
Maybe the best thing to do would be to refuse the job and go back to San Antonio as fast as she possibly could. Since that seemed a bit hasty, Sam hoped she could find a way to avoid him for the next few days. Some time to get her head on straight was what she needed and being within one hundred feet of him would make that nearly impossible.
As she slid into the car, Sam’s eyes met his once again, and she knew she had to stick to her plan. She wasn’t imagining the heat she saw this time. There was no way she could have predicted the storm of energy that ignited between the two of them, but she knew he felt it as much as she did. She’d seen that look on a man’s face before, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he wasn’t thinking about how well she would perform at the job. Neither was she.
That was the problem.
She let her hair drape her face as she broke eye contact, letting him shut the door. She avoided watching him as he moved to the driver’s side.
She truly needed to consider what she would be getting herself into if she accepted this job. This was her life. If she did something so stupid as to believe she could balance both her career and a man like Logan McCoy, she’d be setting herself up for failure.
Not only was he going to be her boss, which made him totally off limits, Sam wasn’t sure she could handle the firestorm he ignited within her.
Damn, she was in big trouble here.
Chapter Seven
Exactly two months to the day had passed since Sam formally accepted the VP job. Thankfully, Jeff agreed to stay on for a few weeks after her official transition, and in that time, Sam had managed to shadow him while she gathered her bearings in the organization.
She reluctantly agreed to go to the happy hour they threw in his honor and Sam received a warm welcome from most of her new managers as they all said their final goodbyes to Jeff. Only one, a tenured manager named Tricia Shoenrock, didn’t seem quite so ecstatic about her arrival.
According to Deanna, Tricia believed she was a shoe in for the position, and when she wasn’t even considered, the woman turned bitter.
That night, Sam shared a couple of drinks with her new team, spent a little time talking to Deanna, and managed, thanks to a tremendous effort, to avoid Logan for the most part. Their only interaction had been when he insisted on buying her a drink when she was attempting to say her goodbyes, hoping to sneak out early and avoid him altogether. His tactics worked and she stayed, spending half an hour talking to him.
When she finally managed to call it a night, she’d been relieved when he didn’t walk her to her car. She wouldn’t have been able to control herself at that point and for the entire time she’d been in the Dallas office, she’d fought hard to put the needed space between them.
Outside of what was absolutely necessary, strictly business of course, Sam tried to do most of her communication with him via email. He wasn’t making any extra effort to have face to face contact with her either and that both disappointed and relieved her.
She did find it difficult not to try and catch a glimpse of him as he came into the office each morning. Her office was at the opposite end of the building from his, but from her desk, she could see the third floor landing, where most employees came and went. That was the only indulgence she would allow herself though.
After accepting the offer, XTX had done what they promised to do. They bought out her apartment lease in San Antonio, allowing Sam to select a nice, comparable apartment relatively close to the Dallas office.
She didn’t want to do something as final as buying a house just yet, at least not until she was convinced Dallas would be the right place for her, so she figured renting would be the best avenue to take. It probably wouldn’t take much convincing for her to make a final decision to stay in the area, but until that moment came, she wanted to play it safe.
After a couple of weeks, Sam had gotten into the groove of things, established her routines and ensured her projects were on track. Every Thursday she gave a project update to the impacted vice presidents who also reported to Logan.
Luckily, with all of the work that surrounded her, she didn’t have much free time and while she was avoiding Logan, she still had to report to him.
Since she utilized Deanna’s assistance when she could, it didn’t take long before the two of them developed a close relationship. They’d consistently gone to lunch at least twice a week for the last month. So when Deanna left Sam a voicemail the night before to meet her at her desk first thing, it didn’t surprise her.