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His eyes glinted with amusement, and she felt that strange trip inside her chest again. “They all fit,” he assured. “Close as sardines, but they fit.”
“I wouldn’t want to have to park one,” she admitted, eyeing the wingspan of the plane.
“Just takes some muscle and some careful attention. We’ve also got some planes outside on tie-downs.” He finally stopped walking and leaned against the long tail of a white plane with a propeller on its nose. “Have you ever been up in a small plane?”
She eyed the airplane behind him. He was as tall as the top of the wing. “Depends on your definition of small.” There’d been plenty of times she’d flown on a private jet for business, but it had still been a jet. Multiple engines and all. “That thing there practically looks like a toy.”
“Pretty expensive toy.” He glanced at the plane and she couldn’t help but see the distinct fondness in his expression.
“You look at it like she’s a beautiful woman.”
“Well.” He ran his palm along the edge the wing. His gaze, though, didn’t move from her face. “She does give plenty of pleasure.”
Even though she was the one to bring it up, she felt her face turn warm. And there was no point in denying it. He could see her blush just as easily as she could feel it and a faint smile flirted around the corners of his lips.
It wasn’t a full-on smile, but just then it seemed wholly worth the price of her silly blush.
“All right, then.” She clapped her hands together. “Maybe it’s time we go to your office and we look at the marketing materials. If you want to see the mock-up I did, I can pull that up for you, as well.”
His head dipped slightly in agreement. He pushed away from the plane. “That’s what you’re here for.”
Yes. That was what she was there for. Help out with some advertising tips and get back to her own priorities. All she needed to do was keep herself as focused as she’d always been.
Then Max touched her arm, guiding her away from the plane.
She quickened her step toward the hangar door. But she couldn’t walk fast enough to outrun the shivers flitting down her spine.
Chapter Two
“I’m serious,” Emily insisted, several hours later. “There’s no earthly reason why you can’t learn this design program if you want to.”
They’d started out at the conference table in Tanner’s office, but had ended up in Max’s closet-size office where she was hunched on a little stool next to his chair beside his desk. Even though his office was cramped, the computer humming on the desk in front of them was state-of-the-art.
Max just shook his head, though. Despite what she’d found to be an incredibly creative mind as they’d brain-stormed various advertising themes and she’d plugged some of the ideas into the sample website, now he just seemed adamant that he couldn’t also learn the graphics program that she, herself, personally favored. “Tanner’s always had his brochures and stuff designed by a company that specializes in that sort of thing.”
Feeling frustrated, Emily pushed her fingers through her hair, getting caught in her ponytail. She absently tugged on the band until it slid free. “That doesn’t mean they have to be,” she countered. She was focused on the computer screen where she’d been able to pull up her own computer at FortuneSouth over the internet, so she could show him some examples of the projects her department worked on.
She leaned closer to tap the oversize monitor screen. “This is a full-color brochure that we did a few months ago for a special corporate promotion we offered to one of Atlanta’s larger construction firms. We wanted it specifically targeted to their employees. So we did a small print run that we easily handled in-house.” She reached for the computer mouse, unintentionally brushing her hand against his before he quickly moved it away.
Ignoring that, as well as the way her hand tingled, she clicked a few times. Opened a second project so both were displayed. “Same exact brochure layout used again last week with redesigned messaging for a corporate law firm in Boston. Small print run again, minimal time spent revising the variables.”
Max was leaning back in his chair. He’d folded his arms across his chest. “I get the advantage of it,” he said. His voice was flat. “I just don’t know if it’s something I’m going to be able to master. I’m taking care of other stuff around here, too, that I can’t ignore. And if Tanner goes for all those website ideas of yours, I’m gonna be updating that every time I turn around, too.”
“We can minimize the effort of updating,” she assured. “And I admit there are entire courses designed around learning this graphics software.” She scraped her hair back and pushed it through the band. “But I could teach you the basics.”
His lips twisted. “You got the next six months available?”
“Don’t be so negative,” she chided. “It’ll take a few afternoons. It doesn’t have to take you away, entirely, from your other duties. I’ve got the time if you do.”
“Tanner’s going to owe you big.”
She sat up, stretching her back. It felt like she’d been hunched over his desk, sitting on that little stool, for hours. But as fond as she had become of Tanner, she knew she hadn’t made the offer because of him.
That offer came because of Max, himself, and she wasn’t going to lie to herself by pretending otherwise.
“Advertising’s my business. I’m actually good at it,” she said. “I enjoy it. But I usually end up spending most of my time sitting in meetings, directing everyone else’s projects while they get to do the fun stuff.”
His eyebrows shot up. “This is fun?”
She couldn’t help but grin. She had enjoyed coming up with the website as a surprise for Tanner. But she focused on Max. “Don’t pretend you don’t have a creative bone in your body.” She waved at the notes covering his desk. They contained just as many scribbles as hers. “You’re able to focus on the essentials, but not get your thinking locked into a box. Not everyone can do that, you know.”
Instead of smiling himself, though, he compressed his lips. He shifted and his desk chair gave a soft squeak while his gaze focused again on the computer screen. “Are you hungry?”
She blinked. “What?”
“I should’ve closed up shop two hours ago. It’s supper time.”
“Oh.” Of course. Her gaze flew guiltily to the small window that was all his office possessed. The sky was nearly dark. “I’m sorry. I got caught up in what we were doing.” She quickly pushed off the stool and carried it from behind his desk. He’d gotten it from the break room just down the hallway. “Of course you want to be done.” How many times had her assistant, Samantha, back at FortuneSouth had to remind Emily that the employees had lives beyond the walls of the company?
“All I asked was if you were hungry,” he commented before she reached the doorway.
She hesitated. “Well, I guess I am,” she admitted. She hefted the stool a few inches. “I’ll put this back in the break room.”
“Emily—”
She stopped in her tracks again, realizing that it was the first time he’d actually spoken her name.
She liked it.
“I was thinking we could continue this over dinner.”
Surprise held her still. She liked that idea, too. Probably more than she ought to, since it wasn’t exactly a date. Not that she wanted a date.
He was interesting and attractive and smelled incredible, and if she was interested in having a date with anyone, Max’s name would be at the top of a very short list. But the only dates she had planned in her future were those designed to put a baby in her arms.
It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that mentioning that plan to him would put the kibosh on him wanting to spend anything other than a business dinner with her.
“Um, okay. Sure. Unless you’d rather I just come back another day?”
He was already pushing back from his chair and gathering up the papers strewn over his desk. “Nope.” He stuffed the pages into a folder and opened the top drawer of his desk to pull out a set of keys. “Just leave the stool,” he said.
Feeling a little slow in the face of his sudden motion, she quickly set the stool out of the path of the doorway and grabbed her purse from where she’d left it on top of the filing cabinet that stood beneath the little window.
“Wait here while I lock up the front,” he suggested. “I’ve got more doors to take care of out back.”
In minutes, he returned and led the way back to the classrooms, checking doors and light switches as he went, plunging the hallway into darkness. “Hold on.” His hand reached back when she bumped right into him.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
His hand unerringly found hers. “My fault. Nearly there. Two more doors and we’ll be out of here.”
She opened her mouth and let out a silent breath as she followed behind him. She felt as silly as a schoolgirl with her first crush from nothing more than the heat of his fingers against hers.
Too quickly, he’d finished his rounds and they reached the back door. He let go of her hand as he pushed it open. Light from the lampposts outside flooded over them and she waited while he set the security system and locked up. “Do you have a problem with break-ins?”
“No. But Tanner doesn’t take chances, either.” He pocketed his keys and they walked around the building until they reached the parking area near the front of the office.
Aside from the luxury rental car that she’d had since March, the only other vehicle in the lot was a dark pickup truck.
She stopped at her car. “Shall I drive, or follow you?”
His gaze seemed to hesitate on the Mercedes. “What kind of food do you like?”
“How about Red?” Wendy’s husband, Marcos, managed the popular restaurant.
He nodded and headed toward his truck. “See you there.”
Which answered that, she thought, feeling a little pinch that she knew she had no business feeling. She rummaged through her purse, hunting for her key fob. She finally found it and unlocked the car, aware that Max was already in his truck and waiting. She quickly started the car and drove out of the lot, ridiculously conscious of his headlights in her rearview mirror.
By the time they made it to the restaurant and she found a parking spot in the crowded lot, she had her emotions well in hand again. She could see him driving through the lot, and she went inside to get their names on the waiting list while he hunted for his own parking spot.
“Inside, or the courtyard?” the hostess asked.
Emily peered past the people waiting to be seated. The restaurant was located in a converted hacienda and possessed an open-air courtyard in the center of the building. “Courtyard, please.” The heat of the day had passed, leaving the evening temperature nearly perfect. And there were a few tables still available there.
The girl smiled and made a notation on her list before gathering a pile of menus in her hand and moving off with a well-dressed couple.
Emily went out in front again to wait for Max. He was just crossing the parking lot, his legs eating up the distance. “I requested the courtyard,” she told him when he reached her. “If that’s all right with you.”
“It’s fine.” He nodded toward one of the benches situated outside. “You want to sit?”
She made a face. “Feel like my rear end is still flat from sitting too much already.”
He pinched his earlobe. “Whatever I say to that is probably going to get me into trouble.”
She felt her face go warm again. “I wasn’t hunting for a compliment.”
“I wasn’t trying to look at your rear end all afternoon, either,” his voice was matter-of-fact. “Some things just happen when a woman looks like you.”
Her jaw loosened. She didn’t know what to say to that. So she said nothing, and the silence started to stretch awkwardly.
Max was wishing he could cut off his tongue when the hostess mercifully poked her head out the door and called their name, but the truth was already out there.
He followed Emily through the busy restaurant and couldn’t help but notice that she slipped into one of the chairs at the small table they were shown to in the courtyard so quickly that he didn’t even have an opportunity to pull it out for her. He took the other chair and waited until the hostess handed them their menus and departed again before opening his fool mouth again. “This is a business dinner,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
There was a candle burning in the center of the intimate table and her eyes looked huge and mysterious behind the glasses she wore. “Don’t worry about it.” She unfolded her menu. “Considering my brother-in-law is a manager here, you’d think I’d know the menu inside and out by now but I don’t.” Her voice had that too-bright pitch that told him she was bugged about something.
By his inappropriate comment in the first place, or the fact that he’d apologized for it?
“What do you like here?” she asked, her gaze on her menu.
Her. He liked her.
He held back a sigh and opened his own menu. “Everything’s good. You could close your eyes and point and you wouldn’t be disappointed.”
“Good evening.” A waiter stopped next to their table, and set condensing glasses of water in front of them. “Welcome to Red. Can I start you off with a cocktail?”
“I’d love a margarita,” Emily said. She pulled off her glasses and tucked them in her jacket again. “On the rocks.”
“Very good. Salt?”
“Is there a point to a margarita without salt?” she returned humorously.
“Not in my estimation,” the waiter allowed, grinning. He was young and good-looking and obviously didn’t have a problem waiting on Emily.
Max felt an urge to punch the kid.
“And for you, sir?”
“Lemonade. Lots of ice.”
The boy nodded. “I’ll get those right out to you.”
“Margaritas have no place in dinner meetings for you, I guess,” she commented after the waiter left.
“I don’t drink.”
Her lips parted. She hesitated. Then she shook her head a little. “I’m sorry. I’ve put my foot in it, again.”
He frowned and realized he’d sat forward, even though she’d leaned back in her chair. “What are you talking about?”
“I just thought maybe we could relax a little bit. I certainly don’t need to have a cocktail if you’re opposed to drinking for … whatever reason.”
“I don’t have a drinking problem,” he clarified bluntly. “Not since I quit. Is that what’s worrying you?”
Her head cocked. She slipped her glasses back on her nose. “I wasn’t worried. I just didn’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than you already seem.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
Emily eyed him, lifting an eyebrow. “Really? Smile much?”
For a beat, his handsome face looked surprised. Then his lips tilted. “Sorry. Better?”
She felt a definite dip inside her tummy at that crooked smile. “Much better.” Though her pride wasn’t too happy at the breathless way she sounded. She took a sip of her water, determined to follow the order of the evening. Which was business. “So, besides being tasked with the marketing materials, what else does Tanner have you doing around the school?”
Unfortunately, the question didn’t seem to relax him any. “Scheduling, billing, you name it. He handles all the stuff the FAA requires, but I’ve got the bulk of the rest of the paperwork.” He picked up his own water glass. “Lots of paperwork.”
“I can imagine. What’d you do before you started working for Tanner?”
