You couldn’t just let that thought go, could you?
She snapped her posture upright, arming herself against the feeling of being completely exposed to him. No one else had ever made her feel quite this naked, even though his expression was completely neutral. His voice came out low and quiet. “What do you think would happen if you had meant something inappropriate?” he murmured, not taking his eyes off hers for a moment.
At the responding images that rose up in her mind, she could almost feel her panties disintegrating beneath her skirt. This was so wrong. She forced herself to look away from him, to be professional. “I—you would have to report me, of course,” she whispered, directing her words to the wall, focusing on the blank whiteness while she composed herself, then turned back to him, clearing her throat. “Luckily, though, that’s not the case.”
His eyes flashed briefly with—was that disappointment? Then it was gone, and he merely nodded, rising, moving away from her and dropping back into his chair with a sigh. “Time to call the bank. And we should put in an order for lunch. You must be famished.”
That was it? She was tying herself up in knots and he dismissed the entire thing as though it had never happened and asked her about lunch?
Definitely not affected. Meredith forced herself to nod. She usually ate earlier than this, but she hadn’t wanted to interrupt for something as trivial as eating. Except that now, between the stress of dealing with the fund and the way her mind and body were playing tricks on her, “famished” didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. Turned inside out, about to self-combust, maybe.
“Lunch sounds great,” she managed.
“Any preference on restaurant?”
She shook her head. Truth be told, she wanted to eat alone, to get some time by herself to regroup. It wasn’t anything personal against Andrew. Being in such close quarters with someone else, especially when she had this many feelings to deal with, just wasn’t something she was used to. But she wasn’t about to say such a thing to him.
This was how her life had been when she’d been fostered, anyway. When there was nowhere she could go in those homes to have a few minutes of quiet. There were always too many kids, too many demands, and to ask for time alone would have resulted in being laughed at, at best. Being punished, even, sometimes. She’d learned to cope as best she could.
He stared at her for a moment. “I hope you know that you should always feel free to tell me what you want without feeling like you’re imposing,” he said.
For a moment, she thought he was talking about her need to have some time alone. But then she remembered that they had been talking about restaurants, and nodded politely. “Thank you. Truly, anywhere you choose will be fine.”
She wasn’t about to tell him what she really wanted. Him.
Chapter Six
By five o’clock, Andrew felt ready to break something. Or worse, lose his temper and shout out his frustration.
Who had made Meredith this way? Who had beaten down her own desires until she was afraid to voice something as simple as what kind of food she wanted for lunch? He could tell she didn’t really like the Italian place he’d chosen, but she’d simply accepted it as her due. But for what?
Before today, he’d never realized how terrible she was at asking for things for herself, because she didn’t seem to have a problem asking for things for others, or for Harbor. Until today, that had been the extent of their interaction, too. But working in such close quarters like this, he had finally seen that when it came to things that were just for herself, she retreated. Clammed up, disappeared, avoided, as though she were trying to make herself invisible.
Leanne, his executive assistant, appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me.” She nodded to both of them in turn. “The senator is here, Andrew.”
Damn it. He had forgotten about the meeting.
“Of course, Leanne. We’ll only be another minute. Do you mind showing him to the conference room?”
Leanne nodded and walked away, and Meredith jumped up immediately, gathering up her things and stuffing them into her laptop bag. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have remembered that you had a meeting. I—I’ll head to my office and try to keep going through the other account statements, since I haven’t gotten anything back from the bank yet. The manager said she’d try to send me information by Monday at the latest, but I was hoping to get something by now.”
What a mess. Poor Meredith looked frazzled, and he didn’t want her to carry the stress into this evening. She was doing him a favor by going as his date, and he wanted her to enjoy herself.