Unfinished Business

“I’m flattered.”

Was she really? Her tight lips told a different story. “Don’t be. I’m sure I get to you the same way.” He plowed on, not giving her time to voice the protests bubbling in her eyes. “It’s just a chemical reaction between us. Something ageless and undeniable. We can burn it out, but I don’t see it just fizzling out.”

“I really don’t have the energy for this,” she groused.

“Good. Stop fighting me and conserve your energy. I have a much better use for it.”

Her arms fell to her sides. “Max, please be reasonable.”

She’d stooped to pleading. He had her now.

“When have you ever known me to be reasonable?”

That wrung a grimace out of her. “Good point.” She inhaled slow and deep; by the time the breath left her body, she’d changed tactics. “What’d you have in mind?” she questioned, retreating into humor. “A quickie in the copy room?” Pulling out her smart phone, she plied it like a true techno geek. “My schedule clears a bit at three. I can give you twenty minutes.”

Max cursed. He should have anticipated she’d use humor to avoid a serious conversation. “I’ll need more than twenty minutes for what I have in mind.”

“You want more than twenty minutes,” she corrected him, letting her thick southern accent slide all over the words. “You probably don’t need more than …” She paused and peered at him from beneath her lashes. “Ten?”

Max rose from the couch and prowled her way. She turned her back as he stepped into her space. He loomed over her in order to peer at her phone’s screen. So, she wanted to mess with him. Two could play at this game. A minute quiver betrayed her reaction to his proximity. Tension drained from his body. The chemistry between them was textbook and undeniable. His palms itched to measure her waist, reacquaint themselves with her breasts.

“I wasn’t so much thinking of my needs as yours,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “I know how much you like it when I take my time.”

She sized him up with a sideways glance. “I thought this was the sort of thing you were trying to avoid doing with your assistant.”

Max shook his head. “I was trying to avoid losing my freedom in one of your matchmaking schemes.”

“You were trying to avoid marriage?” She slipped the phone back into its cradle at her waist. “Or falling in love?”

“Both.”

“Because they don’t always go hand in hand, you know.”

“I’m all too familiar with that truth.”

As she well knew. The four days they’d spent together hadn’t been limited to learning about each other physically. Max had shared his soul, as well. Whether because they’d been two strangers sharing a moment with no thought of a future, or because being with her had thawed places long numb, he’d told her everything about his childhood and the problems with his family, delving into emotions he had no idea lurked beneath his skin.

She’d been a damn good listener. Made it easy to be vulnerable. He’d felt safe with her. And she’d left him. Gone back to her husband.

What an idiot he’d been.

“I’ll go get Chuck Weaver on the phone,” she said, retreating from his office.

It wasn’t until he sat behind his desk and answered the call she put through that he realized she’d completely distracted him from getting answers about what sort of financial mess she was in.

Four

By six o’clock, the offices and cubicles around Rachel were dead quiet. Executing a slow head roll to loosen her shoulder muscles, she gusted out a sigh and saved the spreadsheet she’d been working on for the last couple of hours. Max had asked her to analyze the operations budget for one of the companies Case Consolidated Holdings owned in Pensacola, Florida. The company had been struggling with profitability for the last five years, and Max wanted her to figure out where they could trim expenses.

Whether Max knew it or not, she was the perfect person to figure out how to cut the fat. Ever since she’d lost her father and taken on the responsibility of her sixteen-year-old sister, money had been tight. She’d learned how not just to pinch a penny, but to turn it inside out and scrape every last bit of value out of the thing.

She cast a glance toward Max’s office. Should she sneak out or say good-night? The kiss earlier had rattled her more than anything else she’d experienced in the last seven days and with Brody’s unexpected reappearance and outrageous demand, it had been a doozy of a week.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Max appeared in the doorway.

“Leaving?” His low question boomed into the silence.

“It’s six o’clock. We’re the only ones here.” She gulped as her words registered.

Pointing out to him that they were completely alone was probably not the brightest move after what happened between them today. The discovery that he intended to rekindle their affair made maintaining her cool a big challenge. If he’d decided this would be the perfect time to assault her willpower, it wouldn’t be much of a skirmish.

That he still wanted her both worried and excited her. The heat between them remained as fierce as ever, and as much as he seemed to despise her for not being truthful five years ago, he was right when he said the passion between them hadn’t been allowed to run its course back then.