The Boss's Proposal, page 12
“A little louder, please,” Max hissed.
“I mean really,” Glory said more moderately, “you think I should be even a little surprised after the way you guys were practically swallowing each other’s faces when you were here last?”
“We were not.”
Glory grinned. “Did you think it was just coincidence that you heard me making noise and coming out of the house after you broke apart? I timed it. I saw what was going on the minute you drove up. It was so obvious just watching you together what was going on.”
It hadn’t been to her, Max thought. Perhaps she’d just been so busy trying to avoid the truth that she’d managed to miss it entirely.
“Let’s see, he’s gorgeous, talented, funny, successful—” Glory glanced over at Max “—am I missing anything? What’s the problem with getting involved with him?”
“Glory, come on. I work for him. I just spent all of last night having sex with my boss.”
Glory frowned. “Wait a minute. Dylan’s running the proposal team now, right? Now, at the gala, you specifically told me Jeremy was not your boss, and Dylan took over for Jeremy, ergo, Dylan is not your boss,” she finished triumphantly.
“I report to him on the project, I work with him.” Max dragged her hands through her hair. “It’s the same difference.”
In the field, the photographer knelt in front of the wave sculpture to snap a shot.
“I still don’t see the problem,” Glory said. “I mean, so what, you’re working together. It’s completely short-term. He doesn’t work for the company and he’ll be gone before you can blink.” She looked at the expression on Max’s face. “Oops.”
“No, it’s true,” Max said, willing herself to believe it. “I mean, that’s the good thing about the situation, right? It can’t go anywhere. I’ve got a built-in failsafe.” That was what she’d told herself before she’d gone to bed with him; why didn’t it help now?
“It seems to me that as long as the two of you are professionals, there shouldn’t be any problem with the whole work thing.” Glory climbed up to sit on the fence facing Max.
Max shook her head. “That’s the problem. It doesn’t matter how hard we work or whether being involved with each other affects anything. What matters is what people think.” She stepped up to the fence to rest her arms on it. “Architecture is a really tough profession for women. It’s hard to get ahead. The minute anyone in the office finds out I’ve been sleeping around—especially with the boss’s son—my credibility goes straight out the window, along with any authority I have. Especially when I’m working under him—”
“So to speak.” Glory grinned.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Max flared. “I don’t want to turn into an office punch line.” She knew how easily it could happen. She knew better and yet that hadn’t stopped her. All it chad taken was that persuasive mouth and those talented hands and she’d turned to mush. “I tell myself I’m too smart, I tell myself I know better than to do this and then…”
“What?”
She shook her head. “And then he looks at me and touches me and suddenly none of that matters anymore. And it scares the hell out of me.”
“I think it sounds delish,” Glory said.
“Wait until it happens to you.”
Glory patted her shoulder. “I think you’re getting spun up over nothing. I mean, you said yourself, he’s going to be gone in what, a week? Two?”
Max shrugged. “I think it depends on when his client yanks his chain.”
“Either way, the chances of anybody finding out in that span of time are minuscule. It’s not like he’s going to say anything. I don’t think you have a problem.”
Max’s cell phone rang and she stared at it as though it were a scorpion. “Then what do I do?”
“It comes down to what you want out of it.” Glory hopped down off the fence and stood next to her again. “You’ve got a gorgeous man who drives you wild in bed and is house trained. The way I see it, you’ve got three options. Option one, you can keep it going for the rest of the time he’s here and store up enough orgasms for the rest of your life. Option two, you can keep it going for a couple of very busy days and cut it off, or option three, put the brakes on right now. You tell him it’s over, you’re done, that once was enough.” Glory looked at her. “Was once enough?”
Max thought of the feel of his hands, the taste of his mouth, the way his eyes glinted with mischief when he smiled at her. And the bubble of joy she felt when they were finally together. She thought of it all before she slowly, unwillingly shook her head. “No.” She could feel the smile spread over her face. “Once is oh, so very far from enough.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Glory said. “I think we have a winner.”
Chapter Ten
“I’m so glad you could make it.” Susan Harding, the red-haired nurse, bustled up as Max and Dylan walked into the oncology department. “Like I said, we’ve got the go-ahead from the higher-ups, so as long as the patients agree to talk to you, you can just walk around the ward.”
If he ever had to appoint a goodwill ambassador, he would choose Max, Dylan thought. She had a genuine skill. She didn’t just walk up to people and start grilling them, she got to know them. It only took a smile, and she got them to relax and open up. Instead of asking questions, it became a matter of letting them talk.
“I’ve been in here for a week.” Joanie Benjamin rolled her eyes. “I am so starved to see something green and growing I can actually touch, I could scream. I mean, it’s high summer. It’s gorgeous out there but I’m stuck behind these walls. Even with the windows, I might as well be looking at a photograph or something on TV. I’d just like to get outside but…” She gestured to the tubes and machines connected to her. “Can you do anything for someone like me?”
Max glanced at Dylan. “I don’t know. We’ll do our best.”
Joanie laughed. “That generally means no. After three years of this damn disease, I’ve gotten very good at detecting nonanswer answers.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Max said. “Once we get the design and get it finalized, we’ll get you an answer.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
They moved down the hall to the next patient and before Dylan knew it, the woman had opened up her wallet and was showing Max photos of her grandchildren.
“I had my surgery, and my kids were here around the clock,” the woman said.
“What would you have different about the building if you could have anything, Florine?” Max asked.
“Besides a decent waiting room? Easy. A whole host of handsome young men like this one running around.” Florine gave Dylan a lascivious wink.
The atmosphere at the center surprised Dylan. He’d expected it to be somber but, on the contrary, there was laughter, and a great deal of happiness. Perhaps the people who went there were extra-aware of the need to grab life with both hands.
The way Max was.
Dylan knew he was there to talk to the patients but over and over, he found himself watching Max instead. She moved around the ward, her eyes holding kindness, understanding, sympathy without pity.
They walked along some of the pediatric rooms. Max glanced into one open door and stopped. Inside, a little girl maybe seven years old sat on her bed, watching them with bright eyes. She held a coloring book.
Max knocked on the door. “May I come in?”
“Sure,” the little girl said.
“What’s your name?” Max asked.
The girl had a hot-pink scarf wound around her head. Underneath it, Dylan glimpsed the white of a bandage. “I’m Val,” she said.
“Short for Valerie?”
“Short for Valentine,” the little girl informed her.
“Well, I’m Max and this is Dylan.”
Val giggled. “Max is a boy’s name.”
“My parents didn’t like me very much,” Max said in mock sorrow. “They must have known I was going to be trouble.”
“You don’t look like trouble,” Val said.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Dylan put in.
“I like your scarf, Val,” Max said.
Val waggled her head. “I like yours, too. Max,” she added and giggled again.
Max had wound a strip of gossamer blue and green silk around her throat that morning. Dylan remembered lying in bed, watching her dress.
“When’s your birthday?”
“February 14,” Val said. “My mom always says I was their Valentine’s Day present.”
“I bet that’s why you’re dressed like a valentine, huh?” Max slipped off her scarf.
“Yep.”
“Well, February 14th is a long time away, isn’t it? I always hated waiting for my birthdays, so I’m going to break the rules.” Max leaned in next to the little girl. “You can’t tell anyone, but I’m going to give you your birthday present today,” she whispered, and wrapped the scarf around Val’s neck. “What do you think?” she asked Dylan.
“I’d say you look pretty glam, kiddo.”
Val’s eyes squinched up and she giggled.
“Here.” Max dug in her handbag and pulled out a little pocket mirror. “You can admire yourself. Now that’s beauty.”
Val posed in the mirror, for all the world like a fashion model. Then she handed it back. “Thanks,” she said, stroking the scarf. “But I don’t have any thing to give to you.”
“You don’t need to give me anything,” Max said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Val argued indignantly. She looked around her bed table and then her eyes brightened. “Here, you can have this.” It was a little angel with its skirt formed of a seashell. A tiny face had been glued on top, complete with a gold cord halo. Val pressed it into Max’s hand. “You should put it up somewhere so it can watch over you,” she said earnestly, “because everybody needs an angel on their shoulder. That’s what my mom says.”
“I guess your mom knows a thing or two,” Max said lightly, but Dylan could hear the faint strains in her voice that matched the sudden tightness in his own throat.
“Picture time,” someone sang out from the door, breaking the spell. They turned to see Susan Harding come in with a digital camera. “On my right, everybody lean in close together.” Max put her arm around Val, and Dylan leaned in close to Max.
“Everybody say cheese.”
The camera flashed and Harding came over to the bed. “Here we go, this is a nice shot. Look at you guys.”
Dylan looked at the image on the camera display and blinked. It didn’t look like people visiting a kid in the hospital. They looked like a family. Something twisted then in his chest, a tug that he’d never felt before.
Max walked over to Susan Harding before they left. “Can I have you e-mail me a copy of that picture we took with Val?” she asked, handing Susan a business card. “She’s a great kid.”
“Yeah, isn’t she? She’s doing really well. She’s supposed to go home early next week.”
“I can’t thank you enough for setting this up.”
“Did it help you?”
Harding had lovely eyes, Max noticed. “Yes, and we’ll do our very best to get the patients what they need.” She leaned in and gave the nurse a hug, then turned to Dylan. “We should go.”
Outside, the air had turned a little cool. Max walked out the front steps but instead of heading toward the parking lot, she turned down the sidewalk, following it out to the end and staring toward the sea. Dylan came up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“You know sailors used to be able to see the hospital from the open sea,” Max said quietly. “She was the tallest building in Portland. When they saw the spire, they knew they were home.”
“Home is a good place to be.”
“We have to do something for them.” She turned and looked up at him.
“You already did something for them. You did something for Val.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Sure you did. You made her smile. You’re good with her. You were good with all of them.”
Max moved her shoulders. “I can’t do anything to help them. I felt like a fraud in there, listening to them, going through the motions when I know we’re not going to use any of their input.” She walked out on the grass, the wind blowing her hair around. “Remember Carl the janitor? He gave me the idea for the family suites. His grandson was very sick with spinal meningitis. They watched over him for days, camping out in the waiting room.” She swallowed. “This is personal with me, Dylan. I want to help these people and I don’t know how.”
She stared into space for a moment, then shook her head. “Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m just in a funk. Let’s go.”
“Where?” he asked.
She reached out to touch his cheek. “It’s the end of the day. Let’s go back to my place.”
The afternoon shadows stretched across her bedroom as they stood beside the bed. Always before, they’d come together in fire and passion and impatience. This time the flash had turned into radiant heat that warmed without flaming. They’d seen much that day, joy and sadness. And somehow what they needed in this moment was to draw from each other, draw strength, affirm life.
He wanted to show her that she was treasured. He wanted to make her feel the tenderness he’d felt watching her that day. This time wouldn’t be about speed and urgency. He wanted this time to be different. Unbuttoning her blouse, he drew it off her shoulders. Slowly, he ran his hands up the satiny smooth skin of her sides, feeling her tremble at the touch.
She was so sensitive, he thought as he finished undressing them both. He was so accustomed to the strong, confident woman that he had ignored this part of her. He laid her back on the cool sheets, then moved on the bed to lie beside her, pressing kisses on her forehead, her eyelids, trailing his fingertips over the length of her body.
He gave her sweetness, he gave her gentleness, as though she were fragile enough to break. Max was used to feeling female but rarely feminine. He brought that to her.
The heat built, but slowly. Instead of hunger, she felt longing. There was desire, but not as she’d known before. It wasn’t a craving for physical pleasure, it was desire for this particular man, this particular moment.
Once, it had been a question of control, for her, for him. Now, control became irrelevant as they came together. In some way they became one, their bodies moving, flowing, the sensation that began in her body flowing into him. When they quickened, it was with grace and gentleness. And some part of her that was hers alone became his.
Dylan gave, and he discovered that in giving there was a greater arousal than in taking. When he heard that soft catch of her breath, when he felt the shiver run through her, it ran through him, too.
He moved up over her and slowly into her. And she was beautiful, luminous, lovely in the fading light. And he felt that twist within him, that breathless moment when something let go inside. For just a moment, when they were joined, he stilled, staring down at her, his hands cradling her head, locked in this moment and its meaning. And then he began to move slowly, gently within her.
And she was around him, under him, within him. When he bent down to kiss her, open mouth to open mouth, they breathed one another’s air. Together, their systems quickened. It was as though they were rising up as one, suspended by some emotion neither could name. He felt her tighten around him even as he felt need begin its slow build. And when they rose to a peak, they did it together.
He wanted to hold her, just hold her, Dylan thought, and absorb what had just happened. Because he knew right down to the fiber of his being that something essential had changed within him and that some part of him would now always be hers.
Max rolled over against him, draping her arm across his chest and resting her head on his shoulder. “’Night,” she mumbled sleepily. He pressed his lips to her hair while her breathing deepened and she slid into sleep. For long moments he simply held her, listening to the sound of her breath, watching her face in the moonlight and thinking, wow; he thought about what to do next.
While he absorbed the fact that he was in love.
When she rolled over onto her back, he slid out of bed and pulled on his trousers. Padding downstairs, he pulled a couple of sheets out of the printer in her office. And he sat down at the kitchen table and began to draw.
Chapter Eleven
The morning sun streamed through the windows as Max walked down the stairs, yawning. Dylan sat shirtless at her dining room table, a coffee mug by his hand. She paused a moment just to look. Seeing him in her house was still new to her, and strange. It felt good in a way that she wasn’t at all comfortable with. She could get comfortable with this, Max thought suddenly.
Dylan turned around. “Did you sleep well?”
God, he was gorgeous, she thought. “Like the dead. You should have woken me when you got up.”
“You looked like you needed to sleep. I kept myself busy.”
She walked up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing?” she asked.
A ruler and compass lay to one side, along with pens and pencils. Before him lay sheets of printer paper taped together and covered with confident pencil lines. And then she realized she was looking at drawings of the addition. Frowning, she pulled them toward herself and studied them for a moment—and then she realized what she was looking at.
“Oh, Dylan,” she breathed.
Somehow, he’d done it. The drawings showed the lobby atrium and the concourse that ran along the addition. But through some magic, some flash of brilliance, some “pow,” he’d figured out a way to bring back the family suites and the balcony gardens. He’d figured out a way to make it work. Something tightened in her chest.
“Like it?”
She bent over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Like it? I love it. You must have been up all night to do this,” she said lightly, then took a closer look at his face. “My God, you really were, weren’t you?”
He shrugged. “That’s what coffee’s for. Besides, I wanted to get the ideas down while they were fresh in my mind. There’s a lot more work to do, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it in,” he warned her. “And Eli’s going to have a fit because we’re going to make him redo the animation.”
