He scrubbed a hand over his face, then startled her by reaching out and wrapping his fingers around her arm, pulling her a little closer. “I know. And it’s to my discredit that I haven’t really done anything to help you, I’ve just let you go, thinking you’ll get tired or bored and move on.”
“Because that’s what I’ve always done. Move on.”
“I’m sorry, Kenna. You deserved more from me.”
She had no idea that a man uttering those two little words,
And empowering. “Don’t be sorry. Make it up to me. I have research and cost projections-” She opened up her spreadsheets to show him. “See?”
He leaned over her shoulder, so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “Where did you get all this?”
“I got some studies off the Internet for comparison. Here’s a draft of where I see the presentation going…” With bated breath, she waited while he flipped through. “What do you think?”
He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. “What do I think?”
She’d never cared what another person had thought about her, but she cared now.
Far too much. “Yeah.” Suddenly they were much closer than she’d realized, and she became breathing- challenged.
“I’m not sure I should say what I’m thinking,” he said softly. “As it has nothing, nothing at all, to do with work.”
12
KENNA HELD her breath and stared at Wes, mesmerized by the look in his eyes, the feel of his large, warm hand on her arm. “It…doesn’t?”
“No.” They stood like that, only inches apart, so close she could see his eyes weren’t solid blue, but had specks of dark gray dancing in them. A strand of her long hair clung to his throat, another to the light stubble on his jaw.
“I think,” he said very quietly. “That I’d be better off taking this back to my office to look it all over without distraction.”
Or temptation.
He didn’t say that, but she liked to think he was thinking it. In any case, it wasn’t quite the unequivocal yes on her proposal that she’d have liked to hear, but Weston Roth wasn’t impulsive. He was a sharp, methodical thinker who couldn’t be rushed.
Not even by lust. “Thank you,” she said, gathering all the papers close. “But I’m not done yet. I’d rather polish it first.” She moved to leave.
He put his hand on her arm. “You do realize that the report was done by me only because I’ve been here since the beginning, and that point of view is crucial.”
“Maybe my point of view is crucial.”
“Tell me when you’re done and I’ll read what you’ve got.”
Knowing he meant it somehow added to the pressure to get it right, to actually have a crucial point of view. “Thanks,” she said, liking it better when she’d thought him a jerk.
THE NEXT DAY was a scheduled managerial meeting. Wes showed up a few minutes early, wanting to be alone long enough to breathe without an audience, but when he entered the conference room, he wasn’t alone at all.
Kenna had beat him there.
Engrossed in reading, she didn’t even look up when he entered. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
“What are you up to now?”
Her expression closed itself off, and he wanted to kick himself for sounding so antagonistic.
Not surprisingly, she said, “Nothing.”
Nothing…Kenna was never up to nothing. He wondered what she was tackling and would have asked her about it, but Serena swept into the room.
“Your latest staff memo on the importance of customer service was brilliant,” she informed Wes. “I thought we could discuss your strategies-”
“Strategies?” Josh came into the room behind her. “I’ve got strategies. Want to discuss them with me?”
Serena lifted a brow. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Baby, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Believe me-”
“Children,” Wes chided. “Wait for recess.”
With a snort, Josh turned away and poured a cup of coffee.
Serena smiled sweetly at Wes. “So…where were we? Oh, yes, your memo-” She broke off when Josh handed her a mug of coffee. She stared down at it, then blinked at him.
“Say ‘Thank you, Josh’,” Josh said.
“Thank you, Josh.” She sounded confused.
Josh just smiled.
Kenna had buried herself back into her reading, making the occasional note, studying fiercely, and Wes wondered if he should be excited about their next confrontation…
Or worried.
She glanced up at him and moistened her lips, which caused his body to jerk to attention. Damn, but the line between work and feelings was being crossed.
And double crossed.
Worried, he decided. He should be very worried.
THE CLOCK in the huge, gleaming hotel kitchen chimed the hour. Twelve times. Midnight took a good long time to sound off, and since the place was empty, and also dark, the sound of it echoed eerily.
“Good thing I’m not Cinderella,” Kenna muttered around a huge bite of chocolate cake. She stood in front of the large island, fork in hand, digging through a leftover cake with abandon.
It was what happened to frustrated, confused, over-stimulated and unfulfilled women, she supposed. Women who were frustrated at not being quite as good as they’d expected to be, women who couldn’t tolerate their own learning curve, women feeling just a little pathetic because she…because she wanted her co-VP in an entirely inappropriate way.
In the name of comfort, she took another four-thousand-calorie bite of cake.
And then another.
WES WORKED LATE that night, hunched over his computer, hitting the keys hard, trying to keep his mind focused, but it kept circling back to Kenna.
When his phone rang, it startled him. Who could be calling at…He checked his watch. Midnight. “Mallory Enterprises.”
“Weston Roth?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Ray Panziera, a friend of Kenna’s. Listen, she’s not in her room, I was wondering…is she there in the offices?”
“Hold on.” He jogged down the hall but Kenna’s office was dark. He went back to his. “She’s not at her desk.”
“Well, who in their right mind would be?”
