The Expectant Secretary

“I wrote the letter,” she said, anger tinting her words, “because I thought you would want to know.” She hoped to end this conversation as an uncomfortable heat enveloped her.

“Yeah, right.” His cynical tone nettled her. He took a step toward her. His casual stance changed. Suddenly his gaze was hot, intense. A nervous vibration rippled through her, making the back of her neck prickle. “But you didn’t think,” he said, his voice rough, “that I’d want to give you—” his mercurial gaze focused on her mouth “—a goodbye kiss?”

She gritted her teeth and squared her shoulders. When she’d realized she’d made a mistake marrying James, she’d wanted to reach out to Brody because she still loved him. Even after he’d broken her heart. Yet she’d also wanted to punish him. “If you don’t think you can work with me, Brody, fine.” She shoved away her regrets and buried them beneath other painful experiences. “I’ll let Dawson know you need a different assistant.” She turned to go, anger pumping through her veins. No job was worth this.

“Jillie.” He grabbed her arm, spun her back around to face him. “Wait. Just tell me why. Dammit! Why’d you bail?”

His hand curled around her wrist, his touch as warm and familiar as an old flannel shirt. Yet his grip wasn’t soft or cozy. It felt more like a harsh, ever-tightening vise. A quick flash of heat made her scalp tingle, her skin flush. Stiffening her resolve against him, remembering how he’d hurt her, how used she’d felt, she jerked her chin upward in challenge.

He leaned toward her, piercing her with his blunt gaze. He stood so close that the bold masculine scent of his cologne wrapped around her, captivating, cloying, confining. Blood drained out of her head and pooled in her feet. His face blurred. A whirring noise inside her head made her ears ring.

“Brody, I—” Her words slurred together. Her knees buckled. She reached for him and missed. Her hand swiped at the space between them, catching only air. A swirling vortex of colors spun her around and around. Until she felt herself falling…falling…

Stunned, Brody watched as Jillian began to crumple like a paper doll. Without measuring the consequences, he knelt to grab her before she hit the carpet. He cradled her limp body in his arms.

He looked around for help…for someone. No one was in the hallway. Turning, he sought a place to set her down. The conference table? The floor? A chair? Damn! Now what?

She lifted her hand to push him away—or clutch at him, he wasn’t sure which. As if in slow motion, her hand fell, heavy, lifeless, across her stomach. He noticed the soft rise and fall of her breasts. Okay, she was breathing. Still, she was definitely unconscious.

Panic seized him. You, fool! he cursed himself. You pushed her to this. You pushed too damn hard!

“Jillie?” Concern edged his voice as he gave her a light shake.

Pale and placid, her features frozen, she looked almost peaceful. Her shimmery blond hair splayed out across his shoulder. She stirred, a jerky movement, as if she were struggling to climb back to consciousness.

Not knowing what else to do, he lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the conference table. Her slight frame felt as light as a biscuit his mother used to make. Her eyelids fluttered open. Once more he was struck by the vibrant blue-green color. The rich, vivid hues reminded him of the Coral Reef, beautiful to view, but sharp and dangerous.

Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? Why can’t you get her out of your mind? And heart?

That’s one reason he’d agreed to come to Texas. He’d needed to see her again, needed to for his own survival. So he could go on with his life. Without her memory haunting him. Without his desire for her consuming him.

“Jillie,” he repeated. He’d used that nickname today, hoping to irritate her, hoping to hurt her as she’d hurt him so long ago. Memories assaulted him like a cyclone, sweeping in and destroying the protective walls he’d erected. His gut clenched.

“Jillie!” he demanded. “Wake up.” He had to put her down and get help.

Before he could move, she shifted restlessly, arching her back against his arm and blinking against the harsh light. “I—I’m okay.”

“I’ve got you.” His arms tightened around her shoulders and beneath her legs.

She pushed a lock of honey-blond hair behind her ear but it fell back to curl just below her earlobe, softening the squareness of her jaw. “I’m okay,” she repeated, her voice weak and unsure. “Put me down.”

“Not till I’m positive you’re all right.” He did as she requested and lowered her into a buttery-soft leather chair. “I’ll call for medical help.”

“N-no.” Panic stretched her voice into a squeak. “I’m fine. Really.” She clutched the sleeve of his jacket. “Please, Brody.” The plea in her voice and the insistence in those startling blue-green eyes made him doubt his better judgment.

But then, she’d undermined his sanity for years. When he’d learned his father’s half brother lived in Texas, when they’d decided to merge the family’s two companies and he was needed here, he’d come with an ulterior motive. To see Jillian again.

He’d called her several months ago, reached her at her home in Amarillo to tell her he was coming. But something had been wrong. She’d sounded so far away, so distant, so sad. Maybe it had been the thousands of miles or simply the ten years deeper and wider than the oceans separating them. He’d hoped just hearing her voice would prove to him once and for all that he was over her. But it had done the exact opposite.

He’d known then he’d had to find her. Even though she’d hung up on him, cutting him off before he’d had a chance to tell her he was coming to Texas. Now she was here. In San Antonio. In his arms.

“Something could be wrong,” he said to her, having the same anxiety as that day he’d briefly spoken to her over the phone, the same panic he’d experienced ten years ago when he’d gone to pick her up for a date and discovered she’d left for America. Something was wrong. Or maybe he was the one who needed help. “You should be seen by someone.”

She shook her head. “It’s my fault. I didn’t have time to eat this morning. It’s just low blood sugar. That’s all.”

He studied her for a moment, his gaze flicking over her from head to toe, noting the softer curves where once she’d been skinny with the flat lines and planes of a girl. Now she was a woman. And his reaction was that of a man.

“We really should call somebody.” She unnerved him, as no lawsuit or high-profit business deal could.

“N-no, please. Really, I’ll be all right. I just need a minute.” She touched her hand to her forehead. Her hands were delicate and soft. He had a sudden memory of her smoothing her palms over his chest and sifting her fingers through his hair.

Heat rushed through him. He shook loose the memory and focused on her. Here and now. She looked so pale, so fragile. He had an overwhelming urge to protect her. Her soft, floral fragrance floated up to meet him. He knelt beside the chair, looping an arm behind her. Her lips were parted, vulnerable, tempting. He remembered their sweetness. He remembered too damn much.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he said, his voice as rough as the raw emotions coursing through his veins.

“I’m sorry. I’m all right.”

Was she? Was he? Seeing her again, he knew he’d never fully recover. Anger snapped inside him. Why couldn’t he forget her? What was it about Jillian Hart…Tanner?

He tipped up her chin, lifting her gaze to his. Her skin was as smooth as a rose petal. He’d been with more beautiful women. Women he’d dated to try to erase Jillian from his mind. But no woman had come close to her. And he somehow wanted to make her pay for all the suffering and sleepless nights she’d caused him. Staring into those troubled eyes of hers, he felt himself falling…and he could almost forget she was married. To someone else.

“Are you really sorry?” His voice was intentionally cutting for she’d so easily sliced a piece out of his heart.

She didn’t answer. His gaze slipped to her hand, still folded around his lapel. She wore no wedding ring, no declaration of her married status. Questions plagued him. Questions he didn’t take the time to have answered.

An overwhelming, irresistible urge grabbed him and wouldn’t turn him loose. He wanted her to be sorry. Sorry she’d left. Sorry she’d hurt him. Sorry she’d shown back up in his life. He wanted her to know exactly what she’d missed. He wanted her to know, for one second, what she could have had with him.

He kissed her then, hard, fast, relentless, claiming her mouth, blocking out his anger, his pain, his concern. He didn’t want to care about her anymore. He had to get over her. Once and for all.

He kissed her as he once had, as he wished he’d been able to ever since. It was a lusty kiss to make her regret leaving him for the rest of her days. Feeling her soft lips, her mouth opening to him in surprise, all the pent-up pain inside him subsided, replaced by pure, red, pulsing desire. He focused on her mouth, their heat, his need.

Hell! What have you done now?

Before she could slap him, before he did something more that he knew he’d regret later, he broke away. Pulling back, disgusted at himself for kissing her, and at her for kissing him back, he sucked in a deep, ragged breath. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

She released his lapel, her fingers curling toward her palm. “No,” she said, her voice as shaky as his resolve to never let that happen again, “you shouldn’t have.”

He was in big trouble. He wanted her just as much as he had when they were twenty. Maybe more. Definitely more.

How the hell was he going to work with her every day?

His brain felt fuzzy, stunned by his need, his foolishness. She’s married, you fool!

He pushed to his feet and gave himself some much needed breathing room by walking to the door. “That won’t happen again.”

“Was that the goodbye kiss you said I owed you?” she asked, her voice girded with anger and steel.

“No. That was just one more mistake.”