The phone call from Mia settled it. I was a bastard and a half. No, on second thought, make that two bastards. I was two bastards with a double helping of lying asshole.

I did not have all day meetings for the next three days. There was no reason for me not to have lunch with Mia instead of dinner. Hell, there was no reason for us not to meet at nine-thirty in the morning.

No reason other than I wanted to have dinner with her and I knew as soon as she accepted an offer of employment from me, that door would be closed. Even though I was two bastards with a double helping of lying asshole, I would not in any way, shape, or form, do anything remotely inappropriate with an employee.

“Wrong,” my best friend, Piers, said when I told him what I’d done. “You’ve never done anything inappropriate with an employee before now. All bets are off with Mia. You’ll rewrite the fucking employee handbook for her.”

I almost flipped him the bird, but doing so would only prove him right. Hell, I’d probably brought Mia up every time Piers and I talked since Dee walked into my office.

“I should cancel dinner,” I said instead.

“Yes,” he said. “As your corporation’s attorney, that is my recommendation. However, as your best friend since third grade, I know that isn’t going to happen, so instead my advice is, if you’re going to fuck her, do it before she officially works for you and don’t have her start until this time next month.”

“You have got to be the worst lawyer on the planet. I don’t know how you managed to pass the bar.” Was he actually suggesting I sleep with her for a month and then break it off so she could work for me?

He shrugged. “Truth hurts. That doesn’t make me a bad lawyer. It just means I know you too well to think I’d be able to talk you out of having dinner with her tonight.”

I stood with a sigh and raked my fingers through my hair as I walked toward the large window in my home office.

I’d worked from home again today, although work was a word I’d use lightly. Other than leaving my admin speechless over the fact that I was working from home two days in a row, the only thing remotely resembling work that I’d done was to call Piers over.

I told myself no matter what happened tonight, not that I planned on anything other than dinner happening, tomorrow would be back to normal. I’d wake up and go into the office and everything would be the exact same it always had been. And maybe, just maybe, Bachelor International would have a new employee joining, but that wouldn’t change anything.

Because even if something did happen tonight, which it wouldn’t, I assured Piers one more time, it would only happen once.

The hours seemed to trudge by, but eventually, it was time to leave for the restaurant. I’d asked Mia if she’d like for me to come by pick her up on my way, but she was quick to remind me that this was a business dinner, not a date, and that no, there was no need for me to do such a thing. She would meet me there.

Because of the way she showed up at my office so unexpectedly, paired with what I’d already knew about her, I fully anticipated her beating me to the restaurant, even though I was a good ten minutes early. However, a quick glance around the entryway showed me I was wrong. I checked in with the hostess, but told her I wanted to wait for the rest of my party before being seated.

When fifteen minutes had passed and Mia was officially late, I began to worry that she wouldn’t show up. Hell, she’d have called first wouldn’t she? Or was this her not so subtle way of telling me exactly where I could put my job offer?

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and groaned when I realized I’d turned it off after Piers left because he kept texting me smart ass comments. While he seemed to have given up on getting a response out of me, I’d also missed three texts and two phone calls from Mia.

Fuck. I was such an idiot. I pulled up her contact info so I could call her back, but her line rang a few times and then switched over to voicemail. I didn’t want to leave a message. With a sigh I hung up and told myself I had to wait four minutes before calling again. I’d negotiated with myself to wait three and a half when the front door opened and Mia breezed through.

“I saw where you called, but I knew I’d get here faster than it’d take for me to call you back,” she said. Other than breathing a bit heavier and quicker than normal, she seemed fine.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. “I’m so sorry. I never turn my phone off, but I did today because my lawyer was being a pain in the ass, and well, since I normally don’t turn it off, it didn’t register with me to turn it back on.”

I was prepared for her to pout or get upset. In my experience, that’s what women did when they thought you were ignoring them. Mia, on the other hand, tilted her head slightly and was looking at me with a curious expression.

“What?” I asked.

“Does that work?”

“Does what work?”

“Turning your phone off and ignoring your lawyer,” she said. “Because if it does, count me in.”

I gave her a tentative smile. It appeared I wasn’t going to have to deal with either a pout or an upset woman. “Not really. But in my case, the lawyer in question has been a friend since elementary school, so if I ignore him long enough he just stops by my home and refuses to leave.” She nodded, but didn’t say anything. “You never answered,” I reminded her. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I was just calling to tell you I was going to be a bit late. I went outside to get in my car and I realized I had a flat tire. A nail, of course. I swear, if there’s a nail in the road, I’m going to run over it. It’s a gift of mine.” She glanced down and then looked at me with a mischievous grin. “One call would have been enough, of course, but when you didn’t answer, I remembered our earlier conversation and wanted to be obnoxious.”

Her response was so unexpected, I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Thought to teach me a lesson, did you?”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean to make you worry. Sorry about that.”

I was so happy she wasn’t hurt and nothing was wrong, I didn’t think twice about being worried. “The only thing that matters is you’re fine and you’re here.” I glanced over to where the hostess of the restaurant waited discreetly. “And, of course, that our table is ready.”

She laughed and I held out my hand to her. “Shall we?” I asked.

With a nod, she took my arm and I led her to the front of the restaurant. As we followed the hostess to our table, I couldn’t stop myself from watching the woman at my side.

When she arrived a few minutes earlier, I’d been so worried something was wrong, I’d only focused on the fact that she wasn’t bleeding and nothing appeared broken. Now, however, I was able to take in all the details that made her, her.

She wore a smart-looking suit in a pale pink that fit and enhanced her figure instead of covering it up completely the way a lot suits did. Her hair was neatly styled and her makeup applied with a light touch. She was beautiful, even though every inch of her screamed that this was one hundred percent a business dinner and not a date, thank you very much, so don’t even bother to think otherwise.

Once we were seated, instead of reading the menu, she looked at me. “How were your meetings?”

“My what?” I asked while reading over the specials of the day.

“Your meetings,” she said. “The ones that lasted all day and were the reason why we had to meet tonight for dinner and not lunch.”

Oh, damn. Those meetings. The completely made up ones I’d obviously forgotten about. “Cancelled,” I said, with a smile. “Thank goodness. I hate day-long meetings.”

“Cancelled?” The corner of her mouth curled up, just a tad. Almost as if she didn’t know if she should believe me or not. Smart woman. “In that case, it must have been a very good day for you.”

“Regardless of the meetings,” I said. “The day is much better now.”

I’d love to say dinner was nice, but dinner was a fucking nightmare. Every damn thing Mia did was a turn on. Not that she did it on purpose. Seriously, people eat with a napkin because sometimes they needed to wipe their mouths. I knew that. More to the fact, I knew Mia was not wiping her mouth in an attempt to turn me on.

That didn’t mean my dick understood.

By the time our desserts came, I was in serious trouble. All these years, I’d only given thought to having Mia work for my company and now that it appeared it would finally happen, I had it all wrong. I didn’t want her for the company, I wanted her for me. Not as an employee, but as a girlfriend.

Looking as though she was completely content, which I couldn’t believe to be the case, she glanced up from the employment contract and gave me a smile before she continued to read. Moments later, she signed it and I should have been happy. Instead, I faked a smile and signed my name under hers.

And with that stroke of the pen, I ensured that the one woman I wanted, I would never have.