Romantic Acquisition Page 0,17
She was aching for it. She felt like she’d been waiting for it ever since she’d first met him in the lobby of the office over three weeks ago.
The first touch of his lips against hers made her gasp. His lips weren’t stone after all. They were definitely firm, but very persuasive. His lips moved over hers slowly, persistently, telling her to open her mouth. The moment she complied with his unspoken request, his tongue entered and the kiss escalated.
The passion soared, Kate’s mind was already blank but it was unable to stop him or to understand that this was too dangerous to continue. His mouth moved over her lips and her hands gripped his lapels, holding onto the only solid force in her world.
The kiss ended abruptly but he didn’t move away from her. He couldn’t, of course, because she was still holding him, unable to stand on her own feet since her head was still spinning.
When she realized what she was doing, she immediately released him and took a step back, taking deep breaths as she tried to control her body that only wanted to step back into his arms and continue with the earth shattering feelings he delivered with his mouth.
“I’d better get inside,” she said and quickly turned around. She closed the door and leaned against it until she heard his car drive away. Only then did she breathe more easily.
Kate was late getting to work the next morning. She’d lain in bed tossing and turning, worrying about how she was going to face Carlo the next day. But her worrying was pointless she found out when she walked into the conference room. Only Jeff and Peter were working there.
“Where’s your boss?” Kate asked as non-challantly as possible.
Jeff glanced up from the report he was reading and smiled. “He’s out for a while. We’re not sure when he’s going to be back.”
“Oh,” Kate said, and ignored the sharp stab of disappointment.
The day turned out to be boring. Without Carlo there to spice up her day, she had to push herself to go through the motions. Jeff and Peter asked questions that she was easily able answer. With Carlo, not only was she physically attracted to him, she was mentally and intellectually challenged by him. His questions were difficult, forcing her to think through several issues in order to answer his question. She tried to keep a few steps ahead of him as well, anticipating what he might need and providing it before he asked. She researched issues that Jeff or Peter had already asked about, knowing that he would be the next to challenge her data so she turned it every which way in order to make sure she understood what she was presenting to the team.
To add to her fatigue, in the middle of the morning Matt threw a tantrum in the conference room about all the work that was piling up on him. It was the first time that day that she was glad Carlo was not there. She didn’t want him to witness a member of her team behaving poorly. Jeff and Peter were witnesses, but they just continued with their research after the initial outburst from Matt.
As soon as Matt started in on his paroxysm, she tried to placate him and ease his concerns. “Okay, let’s take this into my office,” she said quickly, trying to calm Matt down and hide the fact that her deputy was obviously unable and unwilling to handle more responsibility in her absence.
She pulled him into her office and listened with hidden frustration as Matt listed the issues that were piling up. Kate wrote them down on a notepad, then handed the list back to him. She went over the various ways Matt could handle each of the situations, then explained to him that he really needed to step up and take care of the problems until this period with the ATI due diligence was over. Once the researching was over, she’d be able to step back into her role as the director of purchasing and ease some of the burden. But until that time, he had to assume the role.
Matt took her list and wrote down all his options. He was clearly relieved to have guidance on how to handle the problems. “Okay, but as long as you’re still the boss, I’ll be good to go. I definitely don’t want your job, Kate. Too much pressure,” he said and walked back to his own office to