Caroselli's Baby Chase. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ had a strict rule of never sleeping with a coworker. Especially one she would be working with directly. And definitely not one whose work she would be putting under the microscope. She’d made that mistake once before, on her first high-profile job with a previous client. Previous because the affair had ended in disaster, the aftermath ugly.

      It wasn’t necessary for the entire team to like her, but maintaining their respect was crucial. When she recalled the things she and Ron had said to one another, the things she let him do…the sheer mortification made her want to curl inside her own skin and hide, or slide down out of her chair under the table.

      As he rounded the table she kept her eyes on the folder, pretending to read, afraid to lift her head. Maybe if it was Ron, he wouldn’t recognize her. They had both been pretty drunk.

      “Rob,” Demitrio said, “this is Caroline Taylor. Caroline, this is my son Rob, our director of marketing.”

      She had no choice but to look up, to meet his eyes, and when she did, her head spun and her heart sank.

      Unless “Rob” had an identical twin, he was in fact Ron, her New Year’s bang.

      Rob blinked, then blinked again. In the conservative suit that hid her pinup model figure, with her granny hairstyle, he almost didn’t recognize Carrie. But the slightly too-large clear gray eyes were a dead giveaway.

      She sat frozen, watching him expectantly, and his first thought was that this had to be some sort of prank. Were Nick and Tony screwing with him? He’d bragged to them about the blonde beauty he’d spent the night with. Which his cousins knew was completely out of character for him. He didn’t do drunken one-night stands. Typically, he didn’t do drunken anything.

      Was this some twisted practical joke? Had they gone to the hotel to look for her, maybe paid her to pose as Caroline Taylor to mess with Rob’s head?

      He looked from Nick to Tony, waiting for someone to say something, for everyone at the table to burst out laughing. And when they didn’t, when they all watched him, looking increasingly puzzled by his lack of a response, he began to get a very bad feeling.

      “Rob?” his dad said, brow creased with concern. “Is everything all right?”

      “Fine,” he said, a bit too enthusiastically, and forcing a smile that felt molded from plastic, he told Ms. Taylor, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

      Not.

      When he’d slipped out of her bed, he’d had no intention of ever seeing her again. Talk about dumb freaking luck.

      Caroline nodded in his general direction, her head held a little too high, her shoulders too square and her back too straight, as if she’d been cut out of cardboard and propped up in the chair. She was clearly no happier to see him than he was to see her.

      “Well, why don’t we get started,” his dad said, and everyone opened their folders. Rob tried to concentrate as they went over the contracts, and discussed Ms. Taylor’s credentials and her projected time line, but he found his mind—and his eyes—wandering to the woman across the table. She downplayed her looks for work, he assumed in an attempt to gain respect from men who might otherwise objectify her or see her as too pretty to be smart. But he knew what she was hiding under that shapeless suit. The siren’s figure and satin-soft skin. He knew the way her hair looked cascading down her bare back in silky ribbons, pale and buttery against her milky complexion, and how it brushed his chest as she straddled him. Even though parts of that night were a bit fuzzy, he knew he could never erase from his mind the image of her lying beneath him, wrapped in his arms, her breathy moans as he—

      “Rob?” his dad said.

      Rob jerked to attention. “Yeah, sorry.”

      “It seems we’ve covered everything.”

      Already?

      “Why don’t you take Caroline on a tour of the building while the rest of us have a short discussion. I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

      They had covered everything, and he hadn’t heard a word of it. Now they would make the final decision, and they were going to do it without him. He’d been clear from day one that he considered her presence there a waste of time and money, and he had never once swayed from that opinion. Still it was a slap in the face to be excluded, not just for him, but for the entire marketing staff that he represented.

      Or maybe, getting her alone for a few minutes wasn’t such a bad idea. And meeting her wasn’t “dumb luck” after all. Maybe a little time alone would give him the opportunity to make her see reason. See that she didn’t belong here. Then she would no longer be his problem.

      With a smile—a genuine one this time—he rose from his seat and said, “If you’ll follow me, Ms. Taylor.”

      She stood, spine straight, shoulders back, flashing the others a confident smile, as if she already knew she had it in the bag. “I look forward to your decision.”

      Rob held the door for her, then followed her out, closing it firmly behind him. He turned to her and said in a low voice, “I think we need to talk.”

      Her eyes shooting daggers, her voice dripping with venom, she said, “Oh, you think so…Ron?”

      He gestured down the hall. “My office is this way.”

      They walked there in silence, but he could feel her anger reverberating against the walls like an operatic vibrato.

      His secretary’s chair was unoccupied as they walked past, and when they were in his office he shut the door. He turned to face her and thought, Here we go. “I can see that you’re upset.”

      “Upset,” she said, her voice rising an octave. “Not only did you lie about your name, but did you have to skulk away in the middle of the night?”

      If that’s all she was mad about, he considered himself lucky. “First off, I did not lie to you about my name. I said it was Rob. you called me Ron and I saw no point in correcting you.”

      “I can’t believe you didn’t make the connection. Carrie Taylor, Caroline Taylor? You didn’t at least suspect we might be one in the same person?”

      “It was loud in the bar. I didn’t even hear your last name. And we never discussed what we do for a living, so how was I supposed to guess who you were? I’ve met a lot of people named Carrie. You don’t have a monopoly on the name.”

      “And as for skulking off in the middle of the night?”

      “It was not the middle of the night. It was early morning and I didn’t want to wake you. You were so drunk I’m not sure I could have if I tried. And I did not skulk. I got dressed and left, end of story.”

      “First off, I wasn’t that drunk. And didn’t it occur to you to at least leave a note?”

      “Why would I? We agreed it would never be more than one night. It was over.”

      She rolled her eyes. “You know nothing about women do you? You could have said goodbye, told me that you had a good time.”

      “I assumed, in our case, actions spoke louder than words.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ