Jessa

Mid-way through answering the phone, I stopped and stared as Roman Thatcher pushed through the glass doors leading into the reception area where I worked. I felt the heat in my cheeks as they pinkened, which wasn’t a surprise considering how my heart raced at the sight of the man I’d been crushing on ever since he’d been hired a month ago. I should have been used to being surrounded by hot, alpha males since pretty much every guy Xander Gray, my boss, hired fit that description to a T.

Roman took that hotness to a whole new level—at least as far as I was concerned. He commanded attention when he walked into a room, and it wasn’t just because he was six-foot three inches with lean muscles. He had piercing blue eyes that appeared to catalog every detail around him in a split-second. His dark hair was about an inch overdue for a cut, and he only bothered to shave on days when he had a meeting with a new client. It was the only concession he made, though, because I’d never seen him bother with a suit like the other guys did when they were trying to impress a bigwig because there was a lucrative security contract at stake. Except for today, when he showed up in a three-piece, black suit that looked like it’d been tailored for his body and stole the breath right out of my lungs.

The buzzing in my ear finally pulled me out of my stupor, and I realized that I hadn’t gotten past saying “good morning” to the caller who’d just hung up. Staring at Roman might have been my favorite new pastime, but it was also heck on my concentration. “Darn it,” I muttered to myself.

Roman stopped in front of my desk to stare down at me. “Everything okay, beautiful?”

“Uh huh.”

He tilted his head to the side, studying my face with laser focus. “You sure?”

“Uh huh,” I repeated because actual words were beyond my ability at the moment.

“Thatcher, my office. Now,” Xander barked out from behind me, startling me since I hadn’t heard him open the door. I jumped in my chair, swiveling around to look at him as I let out a little yelp. Mid-turn, my elbow smacked into a pile of folders on the corner of my desk and knocked them onto the floor. Scrambling out of my chair, I knelt down to pick them up and barely stopped myself from falling over when I lifted my head and realized I was eye-level with Roman’s pants seam and could see his hard length pressing against it.

I quickly dropped my gaze, the blush in my cheeks turning into an inferno, and swallowed nervously when he bent down to help me with the mess I’d made. “I’ve got it,” I whispered.

“I’m not gonna walk past without helping you.”

“Uh huh,” I breathed out. Again.

“Those the folders I asked you for yesterday, Jessa?” Xander asked.

I tore my gaze away from Roman and nodded at my boss.

“Bring those files in with you, Roman,” he ordered, turning on his heel and leaving us alone.

Roman tugged the lone file I’d picked up out of my hand, added it to the stack he already had, and then helped me to my feet. His masculine scent wrapped around me, turning my legs to jelly. I dropped down into my chair and stared at his butt when he turned to follow after Xander.

“Thank you,” I finally managed to squeak out as the door shut behind his broad back.

“Hey, Jessa,” Calista called out to me softly. I turned to find her looking at me with a teasing look in her eyes. “You want to work out with me tonight? Run through some more self-defense moves? Give you a little boost of confidence, so maybe you’ll do something about those looks you keep giving the new guy?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” I agreed. Calista meant well, but it didn’t matter how many lessons she gave me, I’d never get the nerve up to flirt with Roman. I was too shy to ever make the first move with anyone; let alone a guy who was so far out of my league that it wasn’t even funny.

That wasn’t the reason why I’d asked her for help, but I’d avoided telling anyone about what was going on. I knew that if I talked to Calista about it, she’d fill Xander in on the story because he wasn’t just the boss to her—he was her doting husband. But they had their own things going on with their beautiful two-month-old baby, and I didn’t want to be a bother at a time when they should be focused on their family.

Besides which, my situation wasn’t anything to panic about. I’d received a couple of notes that weren’t signed. And one weird voicemail message that I wasn’t too sure about. Plus, there was a middle of the night hang up on my cell last night. It wasn’t anything to worry about, or at least that’s how I’d tried to rationalize it.

At first, I thought that maybe I had a secret admirer, and for a brief moment, I’d hoped that it was Roman. But then reality had set in, and I knew it couldn’t be him because he was the kind of guy who’d take the direct approach with a woman he was interested in dating. I’d gotten hints here and there that maybe he was kind of, sort of attracted to me, but nothing had come of it so I was sure it was just wishful thinking.

Forcing a smile on to my face, I tried for a change of topic to get the focus off me before I blurted out the jumbled mess of thoughts swirling around my brain. “No Madison this morning?”

Calista had only started back to work for a few hours a day a couple of weeks ago, and she always brought the baby in with her. She and Xander weren’t ready to send her to daycare, and neither of them liked the idea of hiring a nanny. Considering his experiences in the Secret Service and hers with the CIA, I couldn’t really blame them. They’d seen too much to trust strangers with their baby—not even with the kind of background checks they could pull.

“Margaret came over to the house to watch her for me this morning. Xander has a meeting offsite, so I’m going to hang around and play boss while he’s gone,” Calista explained.

“It isn’t playing when you really are one of the bosses,” I pointed out. And it wasn’t like any of the guys gave her a hard time because she’d more than proven herself to them when she’d shot a client’s stalker after taking a bullet in the shoulder. “Why am I not surprised that my grandmother is putting her retirement to good use? Sneaking in all those baby cuddles while I’m not around to steal Madison away from her.”

“We’re lucky that she’s back from Europe and available to help out.”

“Lucky, my foot,” I mumbled. “I’m willing to bet she planned it that way.”

“That’s not a bet I’d take,” Calista laughed. The two women had gotten to know each other fairly well after my grandmother had recovered from her appendectomy and spent a couple of months training me as her replacement before she retired as Xander’s assistant. She was the only person who’d been allowed to babysit Madison so far—on the night she’d turned six-weeks old, so Xander and Calista could have a night out. Since I’d moved in with my grandmother to be closer to work, it meant I’d gotten to spend some time with the baby, too. But only a little.

“She’s greedy when it comes to Madison. I think she let me hold her for a grand total of maybe fifteen minutes when we watched her for you guys.”

“My baby girl might be my favorite topic in the world, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to forget about our workout session tonight,” Calista warned. “Or—”

She was cut off by the ringing of the phone. “Saved by the bell,” I mumbled as I grabbed for it. Without Roman around to distract me, I was able to get my full greeting out and give a new client directions to our office without sounding like a bumbling idiot. If only I could figure out how to manage that when he was around.