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“Good. Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“Do you realize that it’s been over two weeks since you started and we’ve yet to get to that review?”
She shrugged. “It’s been a busy time.”
He agreed. “It’s always busy around here.”
She suggested, “Maybe … next week?”
“How about right now?”
Her stomach lurched, which was absurd. He was happy with her work. He’d made that abundantly clear. She had nothing to worry about.
“All right.” She settled back down into the club chair. Her palms were actually sweating. She had to resist the need to rub them on her skirt. What was her problem? They both knew he was going to offer her a permanent job.
Didn’t they?
He said, dark eyes knowing, “Zoe, are you nervous?”
She considered lying. She’d made up a fiancé, for heaven’s sake. To lie about being anxious should be nothing next to that. But then, in the end, she told the truth. “Yeah.” She let out a careful breath. “Whew. It’s crazy, because I know I’m doing a terrific job for you. But I am nervous.”
“Why?” He was looking at her so steadily. With real interest. Maybe more interest than he ought to have in his assistant—his engaged assistant. She wished he would stop looking at her that way.
But he didn’t.
And perversely, she loved that he didn’t.
Her nervousness turned to something else. Something a lot like excitement.
She told the truth again. “I love this job. I’ve finally found something that suits me. There’s never a dull moment. I can handle this job, but it doesn’t bore me.
There’s always something new, something to challenge me. I wake up in the morning and I look forward to going to work. Until Great Escapes, I never felt that way about anything—at least not for more than ten minutes or so.”
“You want to stay.”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“You did. And I’m glad you did.” He stared at her some more. Her cheeks felt warm. She had this … glowing sensation, kind of fizzy and happy and so very lovely. “Now is the time I should tell you where your work falls short.”
She wanted to be the best, which meant she had to be open to criticism, to ways she could improve. “Yes. Good idea.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“Uh.” Alarm jangled through her. What was he trying to say? “You are?”
“Because your work doesn’t fall short.”
Her alarm turned to satisfaction. Was she grinning like an idiot? Probably. But so what? She worked damned hard and it was good to hear how he appreciated that.
He said, “You’re a self-starter, but you have no problem asking for help when you need it. You take criticism well, and you make use of it. So far, I only have to tell you once when I want you to change something you’re doing.”
The fizzy, bright feeling was back. And getting stronger. He kept on looking at her. Admiringly. Almost hopefully. She stared at his mouth and wondered what his lips would feel like touching hers. She thought about how she really would like, someday, to find out.
And then the phone rang.
Dax didn’t answer it. In fact, he had the thoroughly unreasonable urge to pick the damn thing up, rip the cord free of the jack and throw it hard against the wall.
For a minute there, he’d almost thought Zoe was about to make a move on him. And being human and male, he’d wanted her to. A lot.
Which made him pretty damn stupid now, didn’t it? If the phone hadn’t rung, if she had made a move on him, he would very likely have taken her up on it.
And then, one way or another, he would have ended up losing the best assistant he’d ever had—even better than Lin.
The phone rang a second time. And a third.
When Zoe started to rise, he said low, “Don’t. The front desk can take a message.”
She sank back into the chair, a slightly stunned look on her face, those very kissable lips of hers parted, breathless. She knew exactly what had almost happened.
Did she regret that it hadn’t? He couldn’t help but hope so.
The phone jangled once more. And then it was quiet.
Neither of them said a word. He was aware that the tension between them was dissipating, that the dangerous moment had passed. They would not become lovers. And he would not have to try to find someone to replace her.
He wasn’t sure whether he was relieved.
Or furious.
Zoe started to lick her lips, caught herself doing it and made herself stop. Her heart was suddenly going a hundred miles an hour, just galloping away in her chest, like wild mustangs on steroids.
That had been close.
Too close. Lucky for her, the phone had rung. If not, she might have …
She cut that thought dead.
No. She wouldn’t have. She had her priorities in order. The job was what counted. Yes, she had a thing for the boss. A minor thing, a totally get-overable thing, just like every other woman on the planet.
She would get past it. Over time, the attraction would fade by itself. And when it did, she would still be working at Great Escapes.
Dax started discussing her salary.
She had the sense of having passed some important test, of having chosen the job she loved over the man everybody loved. She knew she had made the best choice.
And yet, she still couldn’t completely deny a certain sadness, a touch of tender melancholy. She caught her left hand with her right and turned the big, fake diamond idly back and forth as she and Dax discussed his expectations of her—and hers, of the job.
She knew what she wanted and she had it in her grasp: her dream career. And it—this, now—was only the beginning. She was going to go far. She knew it. She was absolutely certain of it. She could go to Sunday dinner at Bravo Ridge for the rest of her life and not care what thoughtless remarks her dad might toss off at her. The free spirit of the family was all grown up now, taking on a professional woman’s responsibilities and loving every minute of it.
Uh-uh. She was not sad. Not sad in the least. She would never know what it would feel like to kiss Dax Girard. And that was fine. It was right.
She had made her choice and she was at peace with it.
Chapter Three
The next week, on Thursday, Faye showed up again.
That time, Zoe acted fast. She jumped up and blocked the way to Dax’s door. “Let me just check.”
A slow sigh and then the sexy, husky voice. “If you insist.”
“Have a seat. This won’t take a minute.”
Faye made an impatient sound low in her throat, but then she did go over and drop into one of the chairs by the enormous potted snake plant in the corner. Zoe turned and tapped on Dax’s shut door.
“What?”
She opened it and stuck her head through. “Faye is here.”
“Faye,” he repeated blankly. Then he blinked. “Oh. Where?”
Zoe tipped her head toward the chair by the snake plant. “I’ll show her in.”
“No.” He rose and came around the desk. “I’ll come out there.” Zoe moved aside and he emerged from his office. He aimed a practiced smile at the brunette. “Faye, I wasn’t expecting you.”
Faye stood up. “You ought to check your voice mail now and then.”
He went to her. She reached to embrace him. He smoothly slid from her grasp, simultaneously taking one of her hands and tucking it around his forearm. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
The Bambi eyes shone with tears. “Oh, Dax …”
He led her to the elevator. They got in and the doors slid shut. Zoe heard the faint whoosh and lurch as the car started down.
Was he dumping Faye? It sure looked like it.
Zoe didn’t know what she felt about that. A little sorry for Faye, maybe, which surprised her. A little annoyed with Dax.
How old was he anyway, thirty-five or thirty-six? Old enough to stop jumping from one woman’s bed to the next. If he didn’t watch it, he’d end up ancient and wrinkled, wearing a satin bathrobe, with a blonde young enough to be his granddaughter on his arm.
That image made her wince. And then she couldn’t help but laugh. Dax was Dax. A woman was only begging for trouble if she started expecting him to change his ways.
Dax really hated it when a woman cried.
When a woman cried, it made him feel crappy and powerless. Tears were the one thing a man had no idea how to fight. You couldn’t win an argument with tears. You couldn’t punch a tear’s lights out.
You just had to sit there and try to think of the right thing to say, try not to make promises you had no intention of keeping.
He took Faye to a bar not far from the office. A nice, dark, quiet place where few of his associates ever went. He guided her toward a booth in the back.
Business was pretty slow. The bartender came over and took their drink order. Faye wanted a Cosmopolitan; Dax just had club soda. He had work to do back at the office and he couldn’t afford to be fuzzy-headed when he returned.
The drinks arrived. The bartender went off to mind his own business.
Faye sipped her pretty pink drink and sobbed. She told him she loved him.
He felt like a jerk.
He probably was a jerk, but that wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was Faye and how it was over with her and how he had to get her to see that, to look on the bright side, to remember what a good time they’d had and realize she was ready to move on.
Faye kept on sobbing. He didn’t have any tissues handy, so he passed her a cocktail napkin.
She delicately dabbed her wet eyes with it. “You’re such a jerk.”
He wasn’t offended. It was only what he’d just been thinking himself. He spoke gently, “Come on, Faye. Don’t. It’s going to be all right.”
She sniffled and delicately dabbed at her eyes some more, trying to mop up the tears without smearing her makeup. “I knew. From the beginning. It’s not as if I wasn’t warned. Love never lasts with you.”
Love. He hadn’t mentioned love. Not once. He kept love strictly out of his vocabulary when he dated a woman. It was ingrained in him, a nonnegotiable rule. And he never broke a nonnegotiable rule.
He said, “I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together.”
She sniffed, sobbed, swallowed. “Enjoyed. Past tense. Oh, Dax …”
“You’re young and so beautiful …”
“Is that supposed to make everything all right? Well, it doesn’t, okay? It just doesn’t.”
He tried to think of the next thing to say. He was usually reasonably glib when it got to this point. But he didn’t feel glib today. He only felt … sorry. Really, really sorry. “I’m sorry, Faye. Truly.”
She dabbed at her mascara some more. “Sorry doesn’t do me any good.”
“I know.”
“They say that you end up friends with most of your ex-girlfriends.”
“I like to think that’s true.”
“Well, I don’t want to be friends, Dax. I really don’t.” She picked up her Cosmo and downed it in one long swallow. Then she set the stemmed glass down hard. “I guess that’s it. Goodbye, Dax.” She slid out of the booth and headed for the door.
After Faye was gone, Dax stayed in the booth alone for a while, sipping his club soda, thinking about how he hated ending it with a woman. Endings were depressing. He liked beginnings a lot better.
Too bad beginnings never lasted. Too bad the nature of a beginning was to move along toward another ending. And the only way to stop the endings was to stop enjoying the beginnings.
Unless a man decided to settle down, to find someone he could share a lifetime of middles with, so their story had no end. But a lifetime of middles wasn’t on his horizon. He was never getting married again.
For no particular reason, he thought of Zoe. Of her too-good-to-be-true fiancé who had yet to show his face around the office. Of what a great assistant she was. Of how he would never have to end it with her—well, except when she moved up the next rung of the editorial ladder, which was bound to happen, and probably sooner than later.
