Tailored for Trouble (Happy Pants #1) - Mimi Jean Pamfiloff Page 0,16
to take a seat. To demonstrate her lack of fear, she sat as close as she could to his armchair, maintaining eye contact.
Several awkward moments passed, and then he smiled. Just a half a smile, but it was beautiful.
“So, Ms. Reed,” he leaned back in the chair, “what brings you to my office?”
“I came to deliver that.” She set the envelope on the glass table and clasped her hands in her lap.
“Tell me why you’re really here,” he said in that oh-so-deep and inherently male voice that made the air vibrate all around her. Or was that her body quivering?
“I just told you; to deliver that. There’s a letter inside, apologizing for the way I behaved.” She looked him straight in the eyes, trying to ignore the thick curtains of lashes that somehow made the blue of his eyes more intense. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you when we last saw each other. It was wrong.” She made a point to apologize only for the plane crash incident. When she’d yelled at him for hijacking her, he totally had it coming.
He slowly leaned forward, and Taylor noted how the man seemed to own and command the space around him. He took up way more room than just what his body occupied.
How does he do that? Again she felt her body quiver.
He threaded his hands together, and she wondered what they might feel like gripping her bare hips while he thrust his—
“What if I were to tell you, Ms. Reed, that you didn’t say anything wrong that day? What then?” Bennett dipped his head ever so slightly, giving him a wolfishly hungry look.
He thought she was right? She hadn’t expected him to be the sort of man to admit that. Not ever.
He did text and say sorry. Maybe his head wasn’t so big after all. Are you sure? Because given the size of that bulge in his pants, his head seems pretty damned big and sexy and I bet it would feel really good sliding—
Stop. What is wrong with you?
She straightened her spine. “I guess I’d say it’s irrelevant. We’d just survived a plane crash. The only thing that mattered was making sure everyone got to the hospital. It wasn’t the time or the place to share my opinions about how I believe people should treat each other.”
He kept his hypnotic gaze pinned to her face. “Apology accepted. Now I’ll ask again; why are you really here?”
“I thought we just covered that.”
“You could’ve mailed the envelope,” he said. “So what do you want?”
“Would you stop?”
He tilted his head a notch. “Stop what?”
“Stop trying to bulldoze this conversation,” she said. “I get it, okay? You’re a hard-ass. You’re a big, powerful man.” But if they were going to get down to business, he needed to back off with the whole intimidation vibe. ’Cause he’s really good at it, and it’s making me hot.
What? No. No, it’s not.
He chuckled, and his dimples deepened into delicious little semicircles.
“Hard-ass? I thought I was an immoral, heartless ‘pig in a suit’ whose only goal in life is to make money and demean the masses in an effort to elevate my sense of self-worth.”
“W-we-well, I know I said something like that but—”
“Which is priceless coming from someone like you,” he said, cutting her off.
“Someone like me?”
“You’ve put yourself on a pedestal so high that no one could ever hope to live up to your soaring standards of perfection.”
“That’s not true. I’m intimately acquainted with my faults and trust me, they’re there.” Not that she had many, if she were to be honest with herself. Her body was a bit too thick around the hips, she wasn’t the best salesperson in the world, and she obviously wasn’t impervious to Bennett’s insane masculinity. But aside from that, she wanted to help people. She wanted to change things.
“You’re a hypocrite,” he said bluntly.
No. I am open-minded and self-aware. “Then why in the world do you want to hire me?”
He looked down at his palms for a moment before meeting her gaze. “Because you and I are the same—we see the world in terms of ideals. Black and white. Right and wrong. Success and failures. Never any grays.”
“So you’re saying we’re both hyper-judgmental and rigid.”
He held up his index finger. “We’re good at sizing up people and situations. Of course, what we do with our insights is where we differ.”
Now this she had to hear. “Oh please, do go on.” She crossed her arms.