As it turned out, learning the customs and excise regulations of Panama wasn’t as simple as I might have thought. At least it was keeping me busy, though.
Busy was good. Busy kept me from worrying about whether I’d already lost this job but just didn’t know it yet.
On Monday morning when I’d arrived, the receptionist had guided me to this office. She’d told me it was mine and that an interior decorator would be by to help me decide what I wanted to do with it.
It had been cool, and I’d been excited. But I’d also expected to see Marco at some point.
That hadn’t happened. The designer came, had a look through some catalogs with me, wrote down my choices, and left again. No appearance or input from Marco.
Tuesday morning when I arrived at the office, I found it completely decked out as per my discussion with the designer. I’d thought Marco would come by to take a look. He hadn’t.
His offer to get me the subscriptions to the publications I would need had been made through an email. As had all of the rest of his communication this week.
I’d seen him in the hall a few times, but on the rare occasion when I’d managed to catch his eye, he’d simply tossed me a friendly wave and carried right on with what he’d been doing.
My problem with his behavior wasn’t that I was feeling used. It did feel a little like that, but I could deal with it.
Marco hadn’t made me any promises before we slept together, but it was the one he’d made after that bothered me. I could handle having been used to scratch the itch he’d apparently felt from the first time he’d seen me. Hell, I’d been scratching that itch as hard as he had.
It was the professional aspect of our relationship that had me on edge. He’d said nothing would change, and yet it had, which was making me more than worried.
When I’d tried to go to his office to talk to him about it, I’d been given the runaround by his assistant. Apparently, he was always busy and didn’t have time to talk. Even the calls I’d been on with him this week had been just that. I took them in my office, and he took them in his. He emailed the brief to me before each call and had said in his first email that he would keep taking the lead but to jump in when I felt it necessary.
I’d done that, and it had gone well. But now it was Friday, a whole week since our night together, and I was over waiting for the big bad alpha male to dictate the terms of our relationship. Sure, he was the boss, but what I needed to talk to him about was personal and not professional. Therefore, the way I saw it, we were on equal footing with this.
A knock at my door signaled that he’d gotten my message to come see me. I hid a smile over how effective turning the tables had been. I smoothed out my expression and called out, “Come on in.”
Marco strode into my office like he owned the place, which he did, so that was fine. There was a confused frown marring his perfect forehead, a lighter lock of brown hair falling just slightly over it.
“You wanted to see me,” he said, raising a brow and crossing his toned arms. “That’s not really how this works, but Linda said it was about Panama. Those regulations can be confusing, so here I am. Hit me. What’s getting you down?”
I got up and sashayed my way to the door, shutting it with a firm click behind him. I crossed my own arms as I turned to face him, close enough to smell his masculine, woodsy scent. I’d have been lying if I said it wasn’t a turn on and that it didn’t make some very explicit memories come to the forefront of my mind, but this wasn’t the time.
“I’m very well. Thank you for asking. How are you?” I motioned for him to take my visitor’s chair, feeling a little rush of feminine power over how this was playing out.
Marco’s frown deepened, but he huffed out a breath and sat down, unbuttoning one of the black buttons on his jacket as he lowered himself into the chair. “I’m fine. What’s this about, Addy? I have a meeting in twenty minutes and I can’t be late.”
I folded my arms on my desk and gave him a serene smile. “Nothing is going on with me. The question is, what’s going on with you?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, a hint of irritation thickening his accent. “Did you have any questions about Panama?”
“Yes, but there’s something else we need to talk about first.” I didn’t give him the chance to say anything. “You said things weren’t going to be weird between us, but the way you’ve acted this week is anything but normal.”
He scoffed and dragged a hand through his hair, that same lock falling back into place over his forehead when he released it. If nothing else, it told me it wasn’t the first time he’d done it today.
“On the contrary, this is me being normal. Last week was me acting out of character. It was necessary to see if and how you would fit into the company. Now I know you will.”
My eyes met his, searching first one and then the other. “Is that so? Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. I think it’s because we’ve done the horizontal mamba and you’re letting that get in the way of our professional relationship.”
For the first time all week, I saw that sexy smirk of his forming on his lips. The annoyed boss demeanor cracked, and the man I had gotten to
