He held out the hanger, the black fabric beckoning her to touch it. “You’re probably about Lily’s size. Why don’t you wear it tonight? It would make me feel better for inconveniencing you.”
At first he thought she would refuse, but then she took another step forward. Her hand reached out and he sucked in a breath, thinking that she was going to touch him, and then he would really lose his mind and do something like haul her against him and kiss her.
But instead, her fingers slid over the curving neckline of the dress before they dipped inside and lifted out the tag. Ralph Lauren Collection, 6, 100% silk, it read.
He heard her take a deep breath before she sighed out, “Yes. Yes, I’ll take it.”
***
Her fairy godmother’s name was Lily.
The second her fingers had closed around that dark-purple tag, Meredith had known. The fabric felt like heaven and the dress was in her size. She had to have it, or she’d die.
And that was the moment that she’d finally admitted that, yes, possibly, some kind of magic was at play, because in the past half hour she’d never felt more sexy and powerful in her life. Andrew was looking at her like he wanted to eat her up. She hadn’t fallen or spilled something or broken anything since she’d stumbled into his arms back in the elevator. Something was changing in her, and she simply couldn’t say no.
So she’d said yes, instead.
Andrew had grinned as though she’d given him the best Christmas present he could think of, and told her to take it home with her that evening, then. And then he’d hung it back in the closet and joined her at the table and pretended that everything was normal.
But it wasn’t. She wasn’t. She could feel it.
Her mind kept wandering away from the spreadsheets in front of her. She was wound up with excitement and nerves and…something else. Something hotter and more sensuous and—
“Want some coffee?” Andrew rose as he spoke, and she blinked. Had her thoughts been somehow transmitted to him, but gotten jumbled a bit along the way? She blushed. If so, thank God some mystical static had rendered the message all choppy. It was one thing to imagine a connection between them. It was another thing altogether to pursue it. To ask for it.
But he was doing the offering, even if it was just coffee, so it was okay for her to nod and say, “Yes, please. Three-quarters—”
He interrupted her. “Three-quarters full, one packet of sugar, then cream until the cup is seven-eighths full. Don’t stir. Which is weird, I will add.” He smiled at her in that way that popular high school boys smile at each other—mischievous, happy, and full of life, and Meredith couldn’t hold back a smile in return, her heart swelling with pride in him and, strangely enough, in herself. He’d noticed how she liked her coffee. And he was gorgeous.
But just in case she was completely misreading the situation, and he was just being nice while she was acting like a silly fool on some six-day trip to Crazytown, she wiped the goofy grin from her face and gave a perfunctory nod, instead. “Exactly. You’re so—” She fumbled for words for a moment. Handsome? Sexy? Lickable? “Observant,” she finished lamely.
“Thanks.” He said it slowly, drawing out the word into a couple of syllables while giving her a strange look, but he didn’t say anything else after that, just turned and walked out of his office. With him gone, the air seemed suddenly too thin, as though some vitally important element had just been sucked out of it.
Had he noticed that, too? The way she drank him in so deeply? He saw so much…
“It’s just coffee,” she whispered to herself, before sighing and turning back to focus on her work.
***
Several hours later, Meredith was shaking her head at her laptop screen. “I don’t understand how we could have lost this much money in just a few months. I can’t believe it didn’t show up in any of the overview reports, either.”
She sat back in the chair and looked at Andrew. It was just past one o’clock, and except for an hour while he’d had a conference call, they had been talking back and forth about the financial history of Harbor all day. Even when he had gotten on the call, he’d insisted that she stay, and they had communicated with a series of small touches. Her fingers ghosting over his as she pointed out an incorrect entry, his hand on her shoulder to get her attention, foreheads furrowing, mouths smiling…
She could draw him in her sleep now. Could trace the outline of the hard muscles in his forearms in her dreams. She was drowning in him. Working side by side had been a terrible, awful mistake. Because while she was nearly melting into a puddle under the table, he was completely unaffected. Business as usual, that’s what it was for him, while that black dress kept calling to her from inside the closet.