“I think it’s supposed to wear you down.”
Kelly sighed. “That, too.”
* * *
Jordan was beginning to wonder if Kelly was right, that he had lost his mind. For the past month he’d spent an awful lot of time trying to outguess a woman he had known forever, a woman he’d been certain he understood completely. It was a damned confounding turn of events.
Not that he didn’t love a challenge. He did. He’d just never expected his old pal Kelly to provide it. To his everlasting chagrin, he had expected her to say yes to his proposal without giving the matter a second thought. The plan was so sensible, he didn’t see how she could say anything else.
As for that kiss they’d shared, his body hardened every time he thought about it. Who would have guessed that good old Kelly had that much passion inside her? Once he’d recovered from the shock, he’d realized that it was a benefit he hadn’t even considered when he’d made his choice. Discovering that he wanted her physically was a hell of a bonus.
Years ago, when he’d experienced the first faint stirrings of desire for her, he’d forced them aside. His father had always told him there were women for marrying and women for dalliances. He had known with certainty even then that Kelly was the kind of woman a man married, not the kind he experimented with. That kiss a few weeks back, though, had hinted that she might have shared that early attraction. There had seemed to be a lot of pent-up emotion behind it.
He glanced up just in time to see Ginger taking her usual place on the corner of his desk. Her skirt hitched up a practically indecent three inches, exposing shapely thighs. Her attempt to tug it lower failed dismally. One of these days he really was going to have to have a talk with her about office decorum.
“Don’t you ever sit in a chair?” he grumbled.
“Sure,” she said easily. “At my desk. At yours, this is better. So, what’s it going to be today? Roses? Candy? Balloons? A trip to the moon?”
Jordan sighed. He was running out of ideas. “What would have worked on you?”
“I’m easy. I’d have caved in after the first two or three dozen roses,” she said readily. “Of course, DeVonne did have to get a little creative. He actually told me he loved me. Have you mentioned anything along those lines to Kelly?”
He could feel patches of color climbing into his cheeks. Ginger’s expression told him she could interpret exactly what that meant. She regarded him with a mix of disgust and pity.
“You haven’t, have you? Jordan Adams, you don’t deserve a woman like Kelly. You’re some kind of throwback to another era. You think you’re doing her some great favor just by asking, don’t you?”
“Of course not.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “Work on that delivery, boss. It’s not believable. You probably told her something romantic like how she’d never have to work another day in her life or how she could attend teas with all the hoity-toity people in Houston society, am I right?”
It was close enough that Jordan could feel another rush of blood up the back of his neck. He scowled at his secretary. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Just taking care of your love life. Once you make up your mind what you’re sending today, I’ll place the order. Then I’m out of here. I’m taking the afternoon off.” Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. “DeVonne is taking me in-line skating tonight. It’s our anniversary. I intend to look sexy as hell for the occasion.”
“In-line skating? And you call me unromantic,” Jordan muttered.
“We met in-line skating,” Ginger informed him huffily. “Bumped smack into each other. Believe me, when you smack into a professional linebacker, you’re down for the count. When I finally caught my breath, I took one look into those big blue eyes of his and it whooshed straight out of me again. The man is awesome.”
She wagged her pencil at him, obviously hinting she was ready to take notes. “So, what’s it going to be today?” she asked again. “Try to be original, boss. Even I’m getting bored and I’m not on the receiving end.”
“More roses, I suppose,” he said, sounding thoroughly defeated even to his own ears.
Ginger shook her head. “Enough with the roses already. She’s bound to be sick of them. I think I’ll make it orchids. And if you don’t have anything better to do this afternoon, I’d suggest you go to the mall and pick out some outrageously expensive perfume to send tomorrow.”
He stared at her blankly. “What kind?”
“Something French and sexy. Something that will drive you wild when you get a whiff of it.”
He thought Kelly smelled pretty good as it was, fresh and clean. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to smell like a Paris whorehouse. This might be another of those times when it would be best to go with his own instincts and ignore Ginger’s. “I’ll look around,” he promised.
An hour later, after wandering through a mall indecisively, he walked past a lingerie shop. He stopped in his tracks and stared openmouthed at the display in the window. All that silk and lace would definitely drive a man wild. He tried to imagine Kelly’s reaction if she opened a box and found something like that inside. Would she slap him upside the head? Laugh at him? Or would her imagination kick into overdrive the way his was doing? Would she finally realize that he truly thought of her as a sexy, provocative woman? He figured it was worth the risk.
After glancing around to see if he was being observed, he sucked in a deep breath and marched
