No, if she hadn’t set the limits on their one night of the hottest sex he’d ever had or believed possible, then he would’ve.
“Joshua, I’ve been buzzing you,” Haley announced from behind him. He pivoted sharply, bemused. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard the phone intercom or his assistant enter his office. “Where were you just now?”
He shook his head, slicing a hand through the air to wave away her question. “Just going over my eleven o’clock appointment with Clark Reynolds from Venture Investments. What’d you need?”
Haley tilted her head, studying him through a narrowed gaze. She didn’t outright accuse him of lying, but the speculation in her hazel eyes did. “Nice try. But deflection has never worked with me. Are you sure you weren’t just mooning over Sophie Armstrong?”
He snorted, striding back toward his desk. “I’ve never mooned a day in my life.”
“I know. And that’s your problem.”
“My problem?” He sank into his chair. “I wasn’t aware I had one. Well, other than a bossy executive assistant who doesn’t know when to let stuff go.”
“Oh, you have one,” she drawled, folding into the armchair across from his desk. Leaning forward, her dark blond eyebrows drew together in a frown. “When was the last time your life didn’t revolve around this company, the employees or paying back the families affected by the scandal?”
“Haley,” Joshua said, stiffening. “I don’t—”
“I know you don’t want to talk about it. You never do,” she cut him off. “That’s another problem. You might be the savior of Black Crescent, Josh, but that’s not all you are. You deserve more. You deserve to have time to yourself, take a vacation. Leave this place at a decent hour. Have a private life. Yes, you’ve had relationships in the past, but when was the last time you just let yourself fall for someone? Let them interfere with your carefully regimented schedule and order? Let them make your life messy with laughter and love? I know the answer to all those questions. Never.”
Joshua clenched his jaw, trapping the heated words that threatened to burst free. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Haley might be his assistant, but she was also family. Like his younger sister. But this topic was off-limits. “Haley, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But this is—”
“None of my business, I know. But this—” she stood and set down the tablet she held on the desk, sliding it toward him “—makes it everyone’s business.”
He stared at her for several moments before dropping his gaze to the screen. His irritation evaporated, dissolved by shock.
Pictures from Saturday night’s art gala. Some depicted him and other partygoers, including the redhead he’d been seated next to at dinner, who’d propositioned him with a nightcap after the event. Those images didn’t ensnare his attention or had his heart pounding like an anvil against his chest. Didn’t have desire flaming bright and hot inside him.
The photograph of Sophie, so beautiful in the silver strapless gown that had molded to her slim figure and highlighted every curve, and him standing outside the museum had him battling back the surge of lust brewing low in his stomach.
Unlike with the redhead, he’d lost the polite but aloof mask he usually donned at those occasions. Though a small distance separated them, he stared down at her with an intensity—a hunger—that was anything but polite. And Sophie, head tipped back, exhibited a vulnerability that he immediately hated the photographer for capturing.
He tore his gaze away from the image and scanned the caption underneath.
Black Crescent Hedge Fund CEO Joshua Lowell and mystery guest...or date? Could it be the famous—or infamous—businessman is finally settling down?
Flicking a glance to the top of the page, he glimpsed the name of the site. And fisted his fingers next to the tablet. A notorious gossip website that focused on dishing dirty on high society. If he had a dollar for every time his or his family’s names had been mentioned in this column, he’d have been able to compensate the bankrupted families years ago, and with interest.
Dammit. Had Sophie seen this? Possibly not. She might be a reporter, but she was also an investigative journalist. Not some gossipmonger.
“What’s going on between you and Sophie Armstrong?” Haley asked softly.
He jerked his head up, having momentarily forgotten she stood across from him. “Nothing. She happened to attend the same gala as I did, and we were leaving at the same time. She wasn’t my date.”
“The columnist mentioned you two left together. That she got into your car,” Haley persisted.
Dammit. Anger pulled hard and tight inside him. Fucking media. “I gave her a ride home since we were both headed back to Falling Brook. End of story.” If the end of the story included his driving into Sophie’s sweet body on a rug that he wouldn’t ever be able to walk by again without seeing her coming apart on it.
Haley silently studied him again, her scrutiny too seeing, too knowing. “Neither of your faces say ‘casual acquaintance’ or ‘friendly ride home.’” Before he could snarl a reply, she continued, voice soft, “And I’m glad.”
He frowned, taken aback. “You’re glad my privacy was invaded and I’m now a topic of speculation and gossip? Again.”
Haley straightened, a flicker of emotion rippling across her face. But before he could decipher it, she arched an eyebrow, her eyes direct and unwavering. “No, I’m positively delighted that someone has managed to get through that thick layer of ‘back the hell off’ that you’ve wrapped yourself in these past fifteen years. I’m happy that you’ve found someone that you would let down your guard long enough to be captured by some random photographer. Because whether or not you want to admit it—or are ready to admit it—she is important to you. Now I’m just praying that you don’t mess it up by pushing her away.”
She turned away and strode across his office and left, closing the door behind her with a quick snick. But her warning reverberated
