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“Induct me then,” she snaps back, furious.
She’s flipped a switch on me and I’m struggling to keep up. Twenty minutes ago she was a pink-cheeked sweetheart. Now she’s twenty lawsuits waiting to happen.
Is this because I accidentally grabbed a handful of her lingerie? I already got a prolonged look of disdain from the teddy snuggled between her sheets and I was kind of hoping that that was the end of the matter. That it could be pushed aside and forgotten. But that was before I knew that she was actually thinking of living on this construction site and that I’d actually have to make eye contact with her every damn day.
Get this under control, Coleson.
I try to placate her, praying that I’m not coming off as patronising. She’s still glowering up at me in defiance, but there’s a slight tremble in her chin that I’m going to pretend I didn’t just see.
“I think we may have got off on the wrong foot, and it doesn’t need to be this way. I work long, and hard, and fast. I want to see this project through with no accidents or delays, for the sake of your company and mine.”
I look intently into her eyes, trying to show her how sincere I’m being. Maybe she really is concerned about her family’s site but I wasn’t lying when I told her that this project was in the most capable hands.
Something wavers behind her pretty irises and suddenly I’m getting a better read of her in this silence than any amount of talking would have uncovered. She looks vulnerable as hell, like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She doesn’t trust me because she doesn’t know me, but for some reason she’shererather than in the safety net of wherever it is that she came from. Which means that wherever she came from is even less safe thanhere.
I frown at the realisation and she puts her shields back up.
“I’m staying in the bungalow and I’m overseeing the rest of this project.” She states it like a cold hard fact. Somehow it still sounds honey-sweet in that sexy breathless rasp of hers.
Suddenly her hands are sliding across my desk and I watch as her graceful fingers climb onto my work folder, grip it and then snatch. She flips it open until she’s found the project calendar and then she’s snapping a photo of it on her cell, quick as lightning.
I jerk my chin at her. “What’s that for?”
She squishes the phone into the front pocket of her jeans. “So I can get myself nicely acquainted with your very busy schedule.” She thinks for a moment. “Maybe I ought to get myself an office, too.”
I flip the binder shut and shove it back to my side of the desk. When her eyes meet mine they’re crackling with heat.
I shake my head at her and her energy sizzles wilder.
Just act like she’s not here. Keep this professional.
I give her a curt nod of my head – polite, civilised – and say tightly, “I look forward to having you around.”
She dips her hands in the back of her jeans and says, “I look forward to my long thorough induction.”
Hot damn. There’s nothing polite or civilised that I can say to that so I just nod again and swallow thickly. “See you around,” I say conclusively, meaning:get the hell out of my office.
She looks at the stitches on the left side of my shirt and reads the text.
Coleson Joinery. Mitchell Coleson, Team Lead.
Then her eyes are back on mine and she gives me a casual shrug, likeyeah maybe.
“See ya,” she says at last, that raspy caramel voice settling low in my abs.
I wait for her to turn around and then I lower my body down onto the seat, wary and unsettled. There’s another feeling too but I refuse to acknowledge it.
It’s been a couple of years since I last got entangled with a woman and there’s absolutely no need to break that pattern now.
I hear her shoes hit the top step and I let my eyes glance up at her, my body still crowding over the paperwork on the table.
The last thing that I see as she leaves my office are her delicate golden hands tucked in the back pockets of her jeans, involuntarily tugging the denim slightly down at the back.
And I swear that, for the briefest of moments, I see a lightning flash of red lacy underwear.
Chapter 5
Harper
