Beautiful Secret

Our dinners finished, our drinks consumed, Ruby picked up her clutch and stood from the table. I watched her hands wrap around the leather, watched her neck stretch as she reached up and untangled her necklace from where it caught on the neckline of her dress. I watched her tuck her hair behind her ear and then turn to look up at me.

She caught me staring; I was mesmerized with every movement she made.

“That was delicious,” she said, giving me a cheeky grin.

Dear God in heaven.

“Every bite,” I agreed, helping her with her coat.

“Do you bite?” she asked, making her way through the restaurant and out onto the street.

The air was bracing between blasts of steam from vents, and a cacophony of noises rose from the street.

“I imagine I might,” I began, and we turned onto Greenwich. “Depending on the circumstances.”

My skin hummed, my fingers twitched at my sides until, finally, I gathered the nerve to place my palm at the small of her back. Beneath my touch, she straightened and then shivered, before reaching behind her and taking my hand.

Her long, thin fingers weaved between mine and she pulled me into step with her. “Are you worried about work?” she asked quietly.

“About work . . . ?” I asked, confused.

“About this, and work.”

I felt my brow lift in understanding. “Ah. Well, no, not at the moment.” I raised a hand and hailed a taxi, holding the door for her. “I think we’ll need to be clear on what we’re doing, and then make sure that it doesn’t interfere with our ability to do our jobs but”—I followed her into the car, noticing her amused smile as I babbled—“I don’t think what we’re doing is forbidden according to company policy.”

“It isn’t,” she said, leaning into my side and looking up at me. “I checked forever ago.”

“ ‘Forever ago’?”

She pulled her lip between her teeth and bit down as she smiled. “Maybe four months ago?”

We drove in silence for a few blocks. “Four months ago I didn’t . . .”

“Know I existed,” she finished for me, “I know. I think I was hoping to talk myself out of liking you,” she said, laughing. “Maybe I’d see it was forbidden and, well, that would be that.”

“Or maybe you’d want it more,” I said, and ran my thumb along the side of her jaw.

“Maybe,” she asked, turning into my palm. “When did you notice me?”

“The day Tony told me you’d be accompanying me in his place was the first day I really noticed you—”

She touched her finger to my chin, drawing my eyes back to her face. “You’re getting nervous needlessly here. I know you were oblivious to me before. It doesn’t hurt my feelings.”

I swallowed, studying her sweet, pink mouth, her calm, green eyes. “I wasn’t oblivious to you but, ah . . .” I struggled to hold her gaze. “You see, and this stays strictly between us . . . Tony may have suggested I use this trip to get a leg over.”

“ ‘Get a leg over’?” she repeated, shaking her head. I stared at her and smiled wanly as realization struck and she burst out laughing. “He is such a pig.”

Her reaction calmed me immediately, until a thought occurred to me. “He’s never touched you, I hope.”

Tilting her head, she said, “No, he’s just a creep. The way he looks at me and Pippa sometimes . . .” She shook her head, shivering.

I grimaced, not wanting to confirm that much of the time I felt the same way about how he looked at women in the office. On more than one occasion I’d been inclined to carefully request that HR keep an eye on him.

“But I do love that phrase,” she said, blinking away. “ ‘Get a leg over.’ It’s hot in a crude sort of way. I like the idea of your long legs over mine, pinning me down.”

I closed my eyes, steadying myself with a deep breath. “I assure you his suggestion carried little weight with me. But I’m a man, after all. And even if he hadn’t said that, just knowing we would be traveling together would have sent me into a spin.” She laughed, and I registered again how well she seemed to know me, how much she had picked up simply by observing. “I ran into you in the lift and—”

“And I was a maniac.”

“Yes, you were. A menace, really,” I teased. “But I wanted to get out only because I felt somewhat disoriented being that close to you.”

“My derpy awkwardness overpowered you?”

“Without a doubt,” I murmured, reaching to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’re joking, but I’m not. Something about you . . .”