“What?” I croaked out, a mix of wild emotions slamming into me from every side. Despite knowing he was engaged and there being that barbed-wire wall and mile deep line that I knew he would never cross, a sweet burst of anticipation lit up my chest. Seconds later, a bitter acid washed it away, because I was not her. I was not the kind of woman to get involved with a man who was already with someone else, not even if it was the man I’d spent the vast majority of my life being in love with.
Not that I was still in love with him or anything.
He knocked his knee off mine. “We have a dinner date.”
“I heard that, but I . . . I don’t understand.”
“We’re going to that steakhouse in Martinsburg. The one right on Queen Street?” he explained. “We’re going to leave work and head straight there.”
I put my coffee down on his desk so I didn’t drop it, because my hand was starting to tremble. “Okay. I have no idea why you think we have a date, because I clearly do not remember you asking me, and you have—”
“Just found out about it this morning actually,” he explained, and my eyes narrowed in confusion. “Two potential endorsers are visiting the Philadelphia location today and tomorrow, and they would like to see this location on Wednesday before they head back out West. We’ll be taking them to dinner.”
Oh.
Oh.
He wasn’t asking me out on a date date. Duh. I mean, why would I even think that he was? He was engaged, and Brock had never been interested in me in that way. It was just a momentary lapse of intelligence.
Feeling about seven different kinds of idiotic, I tucked my hair back behind my ear and muttered, “Well, I guess I’ll be canceling my date then.”
“You’ll thank me later for it.” He winked when I looked at him. “Trust me.”
“Okay. This conversation has gone way off track,” I said.
“Those are the best kind of conversations.” He reached behind him and curled his large hand around the mug.
I ignored the comment and refocused. “The reason why I’m in your office is because I wanted to see you—”
“It’s about time you admit that,” he replied smoothly, and those eyes of his, dark and endless, took on a lazy quality that had my pulse once again pounding all over the place. “Have I told you lately how much I like it when you wear your hair down?”
“No,” I whispered.
“I do. You have beautiful hair.” His jaw tightened. “Never noticed that before. You always had it pulled up, didn’t you?”
“Um.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Always pulled up.” With one hand still wrapped around the coffee cup, he picked up a piece of my hair, running his fingers along the strand. His voice deepened when he said, “You’ve always been a pretty girl. I know I’ve said that to you before, but you’ve become such a beautiful woman.”
I wanted to laugh, to ask him if he’d been drinking this morning, but my heart was beating too fast. I had no idea how to process what he was doing and saying. Brock had told me I was beautiful before, but he’d always said it back then in a way that it was just a passing compliment, one tossed out and not really meaning anything. Hearing it come from his mouth now was nothing like before.
Lifting my gaze once more to his, I found that I was unable to look away. Brock was one hundred percent a grown man now and he never, ever had looked at me like he did in this moment, like he was . . . he was starving, and I didn’t understand how he could be staring at me like that. It didn’t make sense, not in the world we lived in.
Brock let go of my hair and his fingers brushed over the curve of my cheek. My skin tingled from where his fingers had touched, like an electrical jolt to my system. His gaze slipped from mine, coasting and lingering over my mouth before going even lower, and a sweet, heady flush of heat spread. Under the sweater, I could feel my nipples hardening.
Slowly, torturously, he dragged his gaze back up to mine. A shadow passed over his striking face and he swallowed once more, then lowered his chin. “Jillian, I—”
“Am I interrupting?”
I jumped at the sound of an unfamiliar female voice. A flicker of surprise skated over Brock’s face and then his jaw hardened. I glanced over my shoulder, and nearly fell out of my chair as I whipped back around, my eyes wide.
It was the fiancée.
Kristen Morgan.
Oh my God.
My face caught fire, and I immediately wanted to explain that however this looked didn’t mean whatever she could be thinking, but I didn’t get a chance because Brock was rising and when he spoke, his tone was as hard as a polished diamond.
“What are you doing here, Kristen?”
Oh wow, that did not sound friendly at all, and I couldn’t remember a time when I’d heard him sound like that.
“Is it really that much of a surprise?” she asked, her tone just as snappy, and I thought it was a really, really good time for me to exit his office.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” I said to Brock, whose gaze flitted to mine. His expression was now locked down, completely unreadable.
Picking up my coffee, I took a deep breath and turned, finally laying eyes on Kristen for the first time in many, many years.
We both gasped at the same time.
Obviously for different reasons.
Time had been extremely kind to Kristen. She was more beautiful than I remembered. Tall and slender, her shoulder-length blonde hair was cut in a trendy way, slightly longer in the front than in the back. Her features were flawless—high cheekbones and a perfect, pert little nose, and smooth golden complexion. She was wearing white skinny jeans. Never in my life would I ever squeeze my ass and thighs into that pair of white pants, but she did it and did it wearing flats and a tight turtleneck.