A Clandestine Corporate Affair(34)

Ana followed them into Max’s bedroom and watched as he laid Max in bed and covered him. Max was so dead to the world he didn’t even stir. She tucked the blankets around him and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Good night, sweetheart. Pleasant dreams.”

They stepped out of his room and she shut the door, then they walked to the living room. “Thanks for watching him.”

“It was no problem at all.”

“So, everything went okay? Besides him waking up, that is.”

“Yeah. We had fun.” He looked at his watch. “I should get home. You have an early morning.”

She wanted to invite him to stay. Offer him a drink, maybe throw herself in his arms and beg him to make love to her.

All the more reason to let him leave.

“I really do need to get to bed,” she said, and to herself added, alone.

They walked to the foyer. “Maybe I could come by tomorrow afternoon to see Max,” Nathan said. “We could get dinner.”

Seeing him two days in a row was a bad idea, but she heard herself say, “Sure. We should be back from my dad’s place around one.”

“I’ll call you then.” He pulled on his coat, turned, and with his hand on the doorknob, he just stopped.

She considered saying something snarky, like the door isn’t going to open itself, but only to hide the fact that her heart was suddenly beating out of her chest. She wasn’t even sure why. She just…had a feeling. A feeling that something big was about to happen.

He let his hand fall from the knob and he turned to her. “I don’t want to leave.”

Her heart rose up and lodged in her throat. Tell him he has to. Tell him you have to get to sleep. Don’t tempt fate.

“I was going to make myself a cup of tea,” she told him instead. “Would you like one?”

“I’d love one.”



Nathan stood in the kitchen, watching as Ana put the kettle on to boil, got two mugs down from the cupboard and dropped a tea bag in each one. The truth was, he hated tea. But if choking down a cup meant spending a little while longer with her, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

He knew she had to be up early, and if she had told him to leave he would have without question. He had half-expected her to come on to him again. She’d had opportunity. And when she hadn’t, he’d felt almost…slighted. He knew they were supposed to be keeping their relationship platonic, for Max’s sake, but what if that wasn’t enough for him? What if he wanted more?

Which was exactly why he shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t fair to Ana to lead her on this way. The fact that she looked so damned sexy wasn’t helping matters. There wasn’t a single thing about her that he didn’t find arousing and irresistible. He wanted to believe that she’d dressed that way for him, and not some random stranger she had been hoping she might meet. After all, that was how he had met her. They happened to be at the same bar and Beth had introduced them.

That was assuming she had been at a bar tonight. She hadn’t actually said where she was going, just that it was a ladies’ night out. Considering the way she’d been dressed, that seemed the logical conclusion. But this was a woman who had worn spike-heeled boots to a six-year-old’s birthday party. For all he knew she’d been at a Tupperware party tonight.

“So, what did you and Beth do tonight?” he asked, keeping his voice casually conversational.

“We went with a couple of friends to a new hot spot downtown.”

Aka a bar. “How was it?”

She shrugged. “A typical meat market. But the DJ was decent and the drinks weren’t watered down.”

“But you had a good time?”

“It was…fun.”

How fun? he wanted to ask, even though it really wasn’t any of his business. But what if she had met someone else? Could that be the reason she was giving him the cold shoulder? If that was the case, it sure hadn’t taken her long to move on, had it?

The kettle started to boil, so she poured water into the cups. “What do you take in your tea?”

“Sugar.” Or for all he knew she could have been seeing someone else this entire time. The fact that she hadn’t slept with the guy didn’t mean she wasn’t planning on it. Maybe she was just taking it slow because of Max.

Or maybe he was letting his imagination get away from him. He’d seen no hint of any man in her life—no one besides Max, that is.