Romantic Acquisition Page 0,28
that wasn’t unusual. It was the beginning of autumn so the mornings were pretty dark anyway. She didn’t think too much about the time and ignored her now constant state of fatigue. Kate wasn’t sleeping well anyway. She stayed up late either trying to finish up her own work by answering e-mails, sending out instructions to her staff, or she was sleepless thinking about Carlo and the way his kisses made her feel.
Last night was a combination of the last two. She’d come home and logged into her e-mail in an effort to get her mind off of Carlo’s last kiss. There were over three hundred unanswered e-mails with questions ranging from a price quote on the latest line for a designer to videos of the newest fabrics.
Once she’d gone through over fifty of them, she decided she was tired enough to go to sleep without thoughts of Carlo swirling through her mind. She was wrong. As soon as her head hit the pillow, her mind relaxed and thought back to that last kiss. It had been so tender, so undemanding. What was he trying to say to her?
Kate was definitely confused. She wanted to ignore him. Each day, she thought of new ways to either avoid him, ignore him or convince him to let them just be friends. But he just wouldn’t let any of her options happen. When she avoided him, he sought her out. When she ignored him, he asked business questions that forced her to speak to him, acknowledge him and interspersed with the business issues, he’d pop in a personal question. She found herself answering those as well, simply because she found that she enjoyed talking to him too much. And the two times she’d asked him to not pursue a physical relationship with her, he’d kissed her. That was the worst thing he could do since any sort of touch from that man had her body betraying her mind. She turned to putty in his hands, then into a demanding woman, needing more.
She let the hot spray of the shower ease the tension from her body and finish the job of waking her up. She worried about how she was going to get through the day, in close proximity to him on a plane. If it weren’t for this silly attraction she felt for him, she was sure she could convince him that friendship was the best route. She had dozens of male friends. Some of them she’d even met as boyfriends but when things didn’t work out, she’d convinced them to remain as friends. Why wouldn’t Carlo accept that she wasn’t dating material? Why couldn’t he leave her alone?
Because she didn’t want him to, she told herself honestly, stepping out of the shower and toweling herself dry. She wanted a physical relationship with him but was terrified of any unintended consequences.
What would he do if they had sex and she accidentally got pregnant? She knew there were ways to prevent that, but nothing was one hundred percent.
Did he want to have children? She doubted it. Why would a man who had everything, his freedom, tons of money and his pick of any woman around, want to be tied down to one, scared-of-intimacy woman who ran from everything she could?
Kate pulled on a red sweater dress, black tights and black patent-leather pumps. She added a floral scarf around her neck and piled her hair onto her head, letting small tendrils fall along her ears.
Did she need to pack a bag? Were they coming back to Washington, D.C. tonight or would they stay over in Texas? She didn’t want to pack. She hated traveling. It was exhausting and she hated flying. But if the potential boss-man said she had to fly, she packed her bags and got ready for flying. She assumed she’d only be gone for one night, possibly two if he wanted to visit the Dallas store.
She sighed as she zipped her small carry-on bag closed. It was more of an overnight bag than a carry on. She didn’t think she’d need anything else for one night, just a simple change of clothes. She worried about the flight. Although she didn’t have a phobia about flying, she didn’t really like the feeling of not being in control while at high altitudes. At least they could drive to the Dallas store from Houston. It was only an hour’s drive away.
Kate got into her car and drove to the airport. She had no idea what