as I got back.”
“I told her,” Aidan admitted to Logan, then flashed Ellie a half smile. “Before he left on his honeymoon, we talked about the fact that he would be gone for three weeks. That can be a long time in this business. It got us thinking that it was time to bring someone in who knows the business as well as we do and who we respect and have complete confidence in.”
“That’s you, Ellie,” Logan said.
“Thank you, Logan,” she said. She hadn’t thought about it until that moment, but it was no wonder she’d received the partnership agreement so quickly. The lawyers had probably had it written up and waiting for the past few weeks.
“No, thank you,” Logan insisted. “We consider you an essential part of the team.”
“I consider myself that, too. Thank you both for placing your trust in me. I won’t let you down.”
“You never have,” Aidan said, watching her closely.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, I can only take these compliments for another hour or so, then I think we should get to work.”
The men laughingly agreed and soon they were dealing with Logan’s agenda for the next six months. First new business was a time-share project they planned to discuss with their investors next month. It would mean a trip to New York and Ellie’s mind wandered to an image of her and Aidan spending a romantic weekend in New York City. Walks in Central Park, a romantic dinner at—
“Ellie can handle that right away,” Aidan said.
“Good.” Logan nodded as he read over his agenda and made notes. “Cross that off the list. What’s next?”
“What?” Ellie said, suddenly aware that she’d missed an entire agenda item. “Handle…sure, I can do that. Um, what?” Good grief! Ellie wanted to crawl out of the room. This was so not a good time to turn into a flake. She cleared her throat, tapped her pen on the table surface and tried to sound businesslike. “I apologize. I was trying to calculate what size advance team we’ll need to line up for the New York trip.” She turned to Aidan. “Exactly what would you like me to handle?”
The look he gave her was provocative enough to make her squirm in her chair. Had she really asked that question out loud? Double entendre, anyone?
“I’d like you to handle the Bryson project,” Aidan said softly, his subtext unashamedly obvious. To Ellie, at least. She only hoped Logan was too busy taking notes to notice.
Was this tingling, yearning feeling going to crop up every time she was in the same office with Aidan? How would she ever get her work done? Would Logan regret offering her the partnership if he caught her making moon eyes at his brother whenever they sat at the same conference table together? Good grief. She had to straighten up and get back to business. Otherwise, she was doomed.
Twenty minutes later, the lunch meeting ended and Ellie couldn’t run out of there fast enough.
*
Two weeks later on a Saturday morning, Ellie paced barefoot on the cool tile floor of her sunny kitchen, waiting, watching, wondering how five minutes could seem like six hours when one was anticipating that a little pink cross might appear in the window of the pregnancy test stick.
But five minutes passed and there was no cross. Ten minutes later, she checked again. No cross. No nothing.
So she wasn’t pregnant.
“Okay,” she whispered, tossing the stick into the trash can under the sink. “Just means we’ll have to keep trying.”
Naturally, a big part of her was disappointed to know there was no tiny person starting to grow inside her. But she tried to be philosophical about it. She would get pregnant when it was meant to happen.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t been trying hard enough. That wasn’t the issue. In fact, the opposite was true. She and Aidan had been almost fanatical in their effort to accomplish their mission by having sex as often as possible over the past few weeks. By now Ellie should’ve been exhausted and ready to call it quits, but she wasn’t crazy. There was no way she was about to stop having sex with Aidan.
At the very thought of Aidan with his broad shoulders, dark blue eyes, windswept hair and long legs stalking across the office to yank her into his strong arms and ravish her, Ellie felt a tingle of excitement zing across her shoulders and down her spine. Another flashing image had him