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You’re a grown man, not a prepubescent teenager.
His body ignored the lecture from his rational mind as blood pumped through his veins. He should turn away, needed to get back to work.
One more second. Just one.
She stopped, frowned. Threw one last look of longing at the flowers before she moved back to a table on the patio and sat down with a sheaf of papers. Working, no doubt. Trying to figure out how to convince him to sign those damned papers.
The woman wouldn’t know how to have fun if it bit her.
You could show her.
No, he couldn’t. That part of his life was over.
The sound of a chime drifted up through the open window. He saw her glance at her phone, could sense even from here the sudden tension that gripped her. The occasional phone call or text message would still occasionally slip through.
Who was reaching out to her? Her boss? Her parents? Perhaps a boyfriend? Just the thought of another man talking to her, kissing her, touching her, filled him with an unexpected pulsing rage.
Cursing, he turned away from the window and went back to his desk. Was he so desperate for connection, so starved for physical affection, that he had taken to spying on a guest, no matter how unwelcome she was? To creating imaginary lovers to vent his frustration and anger on? Succumbing to jealousy, an emotion he’d never experienced before?
He managed to refocus on a proposal from a board member about expanding their shipping routes to include the Northwest Passage the following summer. A move that would save ships currently navigating through the Panama Canal thousands of miles, not to mention time, fuel and money.
The proposal, well written and well-thought-out, drew him in. So deeply engrossed was he in reading that it took him a moment to realize someone was knocking on his door.
He looked up just as the door swung open. Rosalind stood in the doorway. Her fingers plucked at her skirt as she hesitated on the threshold of the room he’d told her to avoid.
Shocked that she would defy a direct order, furious that she had done so, he remained seated. Let the silence stretch between them.
“I...” A deep blush crept over her cheeks. “I need to speak with you.”
“I told you to stay away from my office.”
“I know. I—”
“But you decided to invade?” He stood then, a thin thread of humor beneath the quiet anger in his voice. He slowly circled around the desk like a predator stalking its prey. “Trespass? Ignore any and all common decency because you wanted something and damn anyone else who might get in your way?”
She swallowed hard as he prowled toward her. But she didn’t back down. He hated that he liked her for that. Hated that even with fury pounding through him he noticed details he shouldn’t, like the swell of her breasts pressing against her shirt, the rapid pulse dancing at the base of her neck.
“I need to talk to you.”
“So you said. And I told you I had no interest in speaking to you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Did you ever stop to ask me what I wanted? Or do you just toss out orders and expect people to obey them without question?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not how I operate, Mr. Lykaois. I talk to people, ask them what they want, engage with them.”
“Then you’re in the wrong business, Miss Sutton.”
Her lips parted as something flickered in her eyes. She glanced away, then back at him so quickly he would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking right at her.
“I’m good at what I do.”
He walked back around the desk, put much-needed distance and a physical barrier between them.
“Apparently not good enough.”
Instead of bursting into tears or responding with fiery words of her own, she merely cocked her head to one side and pinned him with that mossy green gaze that saw far too much.
