From Boss to Bridegroom. Victoria Pade

would he put his hands? Those big, adept, blunt-fingered hands she’d been mesmerized by all day and evening. Would they be warm? Tender or strong?

      Would she forget everything in one perfect moment of bliss that would make everything right with the world? One brief, perfect moment she could lose herself in the way she hadn’t in so, so long?

      Or would it be more than one moment? Would it go on and on until her lips were numb and every ounce of her was alive with wanting…?

      Lucy realized suddenly that she’d actually leaned forward. Just a hair. But maybe enough to be sending a signal that relayed what was going through her mind. A signal she knew better than to give.

      She sat up straighter. She leaned back ever so slightly but enough to overcompensate if she actually had leaned forward in anticipation of being kissed.

      “So, what time on Monday?” she blurted out, her effort to sound businesslike sounding abrasive to her own ears.

      But all Rand Colton did was smile. A small, secret smile that made her think he knew exactly what had gone through her mind. Knew exactly what she was fighting. Knew exactly what his impact on her entailed.

      “I think we’ve earned a later start. I’ll pick you up at eight instead of seven-thirty.”

      The car came to a stop at the curb in front of her house just then and Lucy silently thanked the fates for that bit of mercy.

      She opened the door before the driver could put the car in park and do it for her. “Monday at eight,” she repeated much too brightly.

      “Lucy?” Rand said to stall her escape.

      “Hmm?” she responded over her shoulder, one foot already on the sidewalk outside.

      “Thanks for today and tonight. If you’d consider taking the job on a permanent basis, it’d be yours.”

      The job.

      So he hadn’t lost sight for even a moment of the fact that they were boss and secretary. Only she had.

      “No thanks,” she said curtly. “In fact I’ll see if I can’t light a fire under that employment agency Monday to arrange some interviews right away.” Before the fire he seemed to have unwittingly and without effort lit inside her singed her for real.

      “Good night,” she said then, getting completely out of the car. “Thanks for dinner.”

      He acknowledged her gratitude with another lift of his chin before he said, “See you Monday.”

      Lucy fled the car, leaving the door to be closed by Frank and fighting the impression that there had been some sort of promise in Rand’s parting “See you Monday.”

      It was only her imagination, she told herself. Just as all those thoughts of him kissing her had only been in her imagination.

      And as she let herself into her town house she couldn’t be sure which presented more danger to her—her own wayward thoughts or the potent appeal of Rand Colton.

      Three

       R and Colton was on Lucy’s mind. He’d been there when she’d gone to bed Friday night, he’d been there the moment she woke up Saturday morning, he’d been there all weekend and he was still there Monday morning even before her alarm went off, as she lay in bed.

      It was very troubling.

      Not only couldn’t she stop thinking about him, but her thoughts…

      Very troubling, indeed.

      She’d had no business thinking about him kissing her. Vividly thinking about him kissing her. No business at all. She had to be out of her mind.

      He was her boss. He was a workaholic over-achiever who didn’t even want a single mother working for him, let alone in any more personal role. And she had better not lose sight of it just because he was a fascinating man.

      And he was that, she had to admit.

      A fascinating man who also happened to be great-looking, more man than she’d ever met and a brilliant attorney—the kind she’d wanted to be herself before fate had stepped in and made that impossible.

      Rand Colton was a fascinating man who also happened to be charming and suave and sophisticated, with a good sense of humor and an admirable strength in his convictions.

      What are you, his biggest fan? she asked herself.

      Maybe he should have hired her to do his public relations work instead of his secretarial work.

      Oh, yeah, her thoughts were troubling, all right.

      She’d just met him and here she was ticking off enough attributes to make him sound like Superman.

      It just wouldn’t do.

      But then none of the places her thoughts were leading her would do.

      She had enough on her plate taking care of Max and trying to support them both, she reminded herself. She didn’t have time for daydreams like she’d fallen into all weekend. Let alone time for a relationship or a romance—even if a relationship or a romance was what Rand Colton was offering.

      And it wasn’t.

      So why was she having such a hard time getting him off her mind when she knew better?

      Maybe it was a result of deprivation. There was no denying that she was a young, vital woman who hadn’t had a date in almost five years. And not only that, she also spent most of her time in the company of a four-year-old. It wasn’t even unusual for her to go days without so much as speaking to another adult, especially since quitting her job at the Bar Association library a month ago to make this move to Washington.

      So she could make an argument for having been deprived of contact with people her own age, along with being deprived of contact with a man.

      Given that, it only made sense that a few hours out in the adult world with someone like Rand Colton would go to her head.

      But that was all there was to it, she tried to convince herself. A rebound effect of social and interpersonal deprivation.

      And when the man she was out in the adult world with was a man like Rand Colton—a man impossible for any woman not to find attractive—of course she was attracted. Of course her mind was doing some natural wandering. Some natural wondering. Some fantasizing.

      But fantasizing was harmless enough, she reasoned. As long as she didn’t act on any of it.

      And as long as he didn’t know what was going on.

      Or did he?

      She hoped not. But she had escaped her own kissing ruminations to find him smiling that smile at her, as if he’d been able to read her every thought like closed-captioning at the bottom of a television screen.

      No, that was just silly. He could have had any number of things on his mind to cause that smile.

      Still, he’d been looking at her, studying her, which meant the smile might have been an indication that he liked what he saw.

      Now that was a dangerous possibility, Lucy realized, annoyed with her once-again-wandering thoughts.

      Worse than being attracted to him was the idea that he might have been attracted to her.

      She didn’t need that.

      Oh sure, it would be a nice boost to her ego. But look what the last boost to her ego had gotten her— Max and raising him alone.

      Only this time she wouldn’t be able to say she hadn’t been warned about what the man was all about. Rand Colton had made himself perfectly clear. No kids. Period.

      “So stop thinking about him,” she whispered to herself in the pre-dawn darkness of her bedroom as if the spoken word would have more impact.

      She really had to stop thinking about how much