Emmy And The Boss. Penny McCusker

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t find her voice until he was long gone and she heard someone shouting at her.

      “Emmy? Are you there? Emmy?”

      She stared at the phone in her hand, wondering how it had gotten there and when she’d dialed. “Lindy?”

      “Emmy. What’s going on? Are you all right?”

      “No. Why did you give Nick Porter my address?”

      “So that’s why I hear panic in your voice. I thought that would be your reaction to him.”

      “Then why—”

      “Because you can use his kind of panic.”

      And that was why Emmy heard smugness in Lindy’s voice. “He tried to kiss me.”

      “Tried?”

      “I almost let him.”

      “Why didn’t you, Emmy? I think this guy is the guy for you. Your soul mate.”

      “You don’t believe in soul mates.”

      “For me. I think they’re fine for everyone else. And even if Nick Porter isn’t your soul mate, it’s about time you had some fun. You deserve it after Roger.”

      “Fun is highly overrated. You have fun all the time, Lindy, and frankly you don’t seem completely satisfied with your life.”

      “Oooh, the claws are out.” Lindy laughed, but there was a note of strain beneath the amusement.

      “I’m sorry,” Emmy said. “That was mean.”

      “It was also true, but we’re not talking about me. You’re afraid of Nick Porter, and you have good reason to be.”

      “What good reason?”

      “You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself.”

      “Thanks, Lindy. Someday I’ll return the favor.”

      She broke the connection, but she wasn’t really angry with Lindy. Because Lindy was right. Nick Porter scared Emmy. A lot. And it wasn’t as much of a mystery as she claimed. She liked the way he looked at her and the way he smiled at her, as if she were special. She’d never been special to anyone but Lindy—not to a man, anyway. Definitely not to Roger. Roger had left her each morning with a dry peck on the lips and a list of tasks he expected her to perform. Pick up the dry cleaning, reschedule his dental appointment, and wouldn’t it be nice to have meat loaf for dinner.

      When Nick smiled at her, she could tell she was the only item on his list, and he didn’t want anything from her. Okay, he wanted something. The problem was she wanted it too. But she couldn’t have it. Getting involved with Nick would be a mistake for too many reasons to itemize.

      She popped the yoga video out of the VCR and put in the most frenetic aerobics tape she could find. As tense as she was, it would take the Dalai Lama himself to meditate her into a state where she had any hope of sleep. Since she doubted he’d come down from his mountain to help her work off a case of hormonal overload, a couple of hours of exhausting exercise might do the trick. Or it might not. Maybe the only thing that could help her work off this much tension was the man who’d caused it.

      Nick Porter, however, was the one remedy she didn’t dare try.

      Chapter Four

      Most of the week passed in a blur. Emmy spent it hunched over her clipboard, nose to the grindstone, observing Nick’s employees and ignoring their commentary. Nick spent it behaving himself. Their paths crossed every now and again, but he made himself scarce to the point that when Friday afternoon arrived, and her weekly progress report was due, she had to go in search of him.

      For the first time in her life, Emmy saw the advantage in procrastination. There really wasn’t any progress to report, she told herself, unless she counted the rise in the hostility level. She’d worn jeans and an oxford shirt, hoping she’d fit in better. The only way she’d attract more attention was if she’d decided to show up naked.

      She’d ditched her clipboard in favor of her briefcase, laying it open on the high table where the shipping clerk signed in raw material and checked out finished goods. She ought to at least pretend to be busy, she decided, maybe take notes or something. So she retrieved a pen and pad of paper from her case and meandered aimlessly, stopping to lean one hip against a pallet of boxes, watching the activity and letting her mind wander. The employees were bustling around, pausing every now and again to shoot her fulminating glares. They didn’t bother her. What bothered her was Nick, and not in the way she’d expected.

      The last four days had been all about business. The few times she and Nick had interacted, he hadn’t mentioned the night at her house. Neither had she. He wasn’t making passes, he wasn’t trying to kiss her, or touch her hair or anything. He even listened politely to what she had to say about the company, although he didn’t do anything to implement change, and his employees had only become more sullen and resistant. But at least he was listening.

      Emmy was the one whose mind kept wandering.

      “Emmy.”

      She jumped, spinning around, one hand plastered over her suddenly pounding heart. Nick was standing a bit behind and to one side of her, just out of her peripheral vision before she’d turned around. The sight of him didn’t do a lot to calm her down, the upheaval just affected different parts of her. “How long have you been there?” she asked when she could manage to string words together and make them sound normal.

      He shrugged, smile polite, eyes distant. “Couple of minutes.”

      No wonder the death glares she’d been getting from the employees were worse than usual.

      “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

      She turned and set the pad on top of the pallet. Bad idea.

      Nick came over to stand beside her. He wasn’t touching her, or looking at her, or smiling, but the parts of her that hadn’t gone all soft and melty were tensed so tightly she was on the verge of a head-to-toe charley horse. Not that she was complaining, because the tense parts of her were keeping the other parts from jumping him.

      His comment about kissing her when she least expected it was getting to her. Not only was she expecting it constantly, she was on the verge of kissing him so she could get it over with before she went completely insane. Okay, that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to kiss him. The more she thought about it…

      And that was exactly what he wanted. Her thinking about it, wondering, giving in to the inevitable. He had no idea just how stubborn she could be.

      She blinked a couple of times to get her eyes to focus, unlocked her jaw and opened the file. “R-raw materials,” she stuttered out, her body slower to get with the program.

      Nick moved closer, still not touching her. But she could tell he was amused. And smug.

      It was that last reaction that put the steel into her backbone. “I’ll need a list of your raw materials, where they come from, how they’re ordered, how much at a time and how they’re delivered.” She made the mistake СКАЧАТЬ