Inappropriate - Vi Keeland Page 0,20
in before I turned my head. Grant Lexington stood just inside the door with the VP of the News division, Kate Benton, my boss’s boss, who was also his sister. He scanned the room, and his eyes stopped upon finding me—as if he’d found what he was looking for, which was crazy.
His gaze was so intense that it made me want to fidget in my seat.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Thank you all for coming.” He turned to his sister. “I’m sure you all know Kate. She’s the Vice President of Broadcast Media.”
People thanked him for inviting them, but I stayed quiet, observing.
There were a few open seats: the head of the table, one down at the far end of my side, one directly across from me, and one to my left. Without discussion, his sister moved to the open seat a few spots over—I got the feeling this man took the power seat in every room he walked into.
But then he surprised me. He pulled the chair from the head of the table and held it out. “Kate.”
His sister seemed just as surprised, but she turned back and took the seat anyway. Grant unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out the chair next to me. He leaned close as he settled in and whispered quietly, “Good to see you, Ireland.”
I nodded. No one at the table seemed to notice anything strange—certainly not that he’d taken the seat next to me and moved it a little closer than it had been before, and luckily not that my mind was reeling from the way he smelled: clean, but with a masculine, woodsy edge.
For the next half hour, I tried to ignore the man sitting next to me and tried not to fidget. But I had to look at Kate while she spoke, which meant Grant’s profile was directly in my line of sight. It also meant I noticed how tanned his skin looked, and that he had a slight white line on the sides of his head from sunglasses. I wouldn’t have taken him for the outdoorsy type. But it looked like he spent a lot of time in the sun. His skin was bronzed, his hair slicked back, and it could use a trim at the edges where it reached his collar. He had the start of a five o’clock shadow, even though it was only ten in the morning. I wondered if he shaved at night or if he just had so much testosterone that a beard started sprouting just a couple of hours after he put down the razor.
My gut said it was the latter.
Possibly feeling eyes on him, Grant turned and looked at me. His eyes immediately dropped to my lips, and I lost the battle I’d waged not to fidget. I forced my attention back to Kate, but I didn’t miss the slight lip twitch from the man next to me before he refocused on his sister.
“Why don’t we go around the room and open the floor for possible agenda items for our next meeting?” Kate said. “I’d love to hear what you all think are some of our most pressing women’s issues here at Lexington Industries.”
“That’s a great idea,” Grant said.
Some of the women were more enthusiastic than others. One woman spoke about the need for a breastfeeding room. Another spoke about mixing family responsibilities with work and how flexible hours in the workplace would be a great asset to working moms and dads. An older woman advocated for equal pay for women, which had been the issue I’d planned to speak about since I had personal experience with it. Two women passed on speaking, saying they needed to give it some thought, and then it was my turn. I’d been about to second the other woman’s comments on equal pay when I felt Grant’s eyes on me. At the last second, I decided to screw with him.
“I think sexual harassment needs to be addressed. Things like a boss or a boss’s boss’s boss asking a woman out to lunch.”
Grant kept his face stern, yet I caught the slight tick of the muscle in his jaw.
“Absolutely,” Kate said. “Things like that should never happen.”
Grant cleared his throat. “I do a lot of business over meals. It’s partially out of necessity because there are only so many hours in the day. Are you saying we should put an end to the practice of people sharing lunch altogether?”
I addressed him directly. “Not at all. But it’s a slippery