moment so I wouldn’t have to see his devastated expression. After I swallowed the lump in my throat, I looked at him again.
He dropped his hand from my hip, but the intensity of his expression didn’t wane. “I don’t want to sleep with you. I want to be with you.” His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked at my expression, as if the clarification were enough to fix the problem.
His words touched me, even though I already knew what his intentions were. I knew he would never put me in this position if it was just sex. And I knew, based on the feelings inside my heart, there was something real here. It wasn’t just physical. Our connection was much deeper than that. But we could never have that…because we wanted different things in life. “You’re my boss, Derek. I want to keep this relationship professional. I think it’s best if we just pretend this never happened…” It hurt me to say these things, to brush it off like it wasn’t the best kiss of my whole damn life.
His eyes narrowed, as if I’d slapped him across the face. “We can have both. We can have a professional relationship and a personal one.”
I would risk my job for him in a heartbeat because he was worth it. If we were together for years and then went our separate ways, and then it became so awkward that I couldn’t work for him anymore, it would still be worth it. But that wasn’t the problem. “You just…aren’t the kind of man I’m looking for.” There was one person in the world I would always love more than anyone else. I could never be with somebody who wouldn’t love her just as much. I hadn’t been in a relationship with anyone because I’d decided to wait until she was out of the house before settling down with a husband. I would make an exception to that for Derek, but I knew how he felt about my daughter without him even knowing about her.
Derek had nothing to say to that.
I turned away and picked up my purse from the table. I took my time because I didn’t want to face him. Whenever I looked at him, I would think about that scorching kiss. I would think that I’d just lost the perfect man.
He came closer to me and met me at the door. He wore an expression I’d never seen before, like he didn’t know what to make of the last thing I said. It was probably the first time in his life a woman had turned him down, and he had no idea what to do.
“I should go…” I moved to the door.
Derek let me go and didn’t touch me again.
Now this would be awkward no matter what I did, no matter what I said. We would just have to push through it until we stopped thinking about it. “Good night…” I walked down the hallway and didn’t look back.
Ten
Derek
I left the lobby and approached the black Escalade waiting for me. There was a heavy sense of dread in my heart, and with every step, that unease worsened. I didn’t regret my actions from the night before. I wasn’t ashamed of her rejection. I was simply bewildered by it.
I wasn’t the kind of man she was looking for.
What kind of man was she looking for? Why didn’t I qualify? What were her prerequisites? I examined the issue like she was a machine that required the input of specific data, but I had no idea what that data was.
I approached the back door and got inside.
Ronnie greeted me, like he did every morning. “Good morning, Mr. Hamilton.”
“Morning.” I knew Emerson was beside me without looking at her. I wasn’t a coward, but I didn’t want to address her directly. Our kiss from the night before was still on my lips. I could still taste her. I could still feel her. My unusual memory capacity made me relive things like they were happening in real time. I went over that moment over and over.
She didn’t greet me either.
It was a long, awkward drive to my office. I pulled out my paperwork from my satchel and got to work, pretending she wasn’t beside me at all. My work usually occupied my mind to the exclusion of all other matters, but in this case, it wasn’t strong enough to make me forget her entirely.
When we arrived at my office, we took the golf cart to