The Boss's Proposal, page 13
“I don’t care.” Max bent down and fused her mouth to his. The moment stretched out and she sank down into his lap, twining her arms around his neck, a bubble of something very like joy growing in her. Finally, with a sigh, she broke away, resting her forehead against his. “I don’t want to say it—”
“Then don’t.” He took her mouth again with his, his hands warming her skin through the thin silk of her robe.
Gathering her resolve, Max broke away again, this time rising to her feet. “But we should really get over to the office if we’re going to get this all done.”
“After all that hard work and I don’t even get a thank-you gesture?” Dylan asked aggrievedly.
“Well…” Max caught the sash of her belt in her hands and unfastened it. “Come on up to the shower and I’ll see what I can do to demonstrate my appreciation.” Turning toward the stairs, she let the robe slide off her shoulders and whisper down to pool around her feet. Dylan rose and she raced for the stairs, giggling, as he gave chase.
“I’m going to get you.”
“Promises, promises,” she said.
He’d been out of his mind, plain and simple, Dylan told himself as he sat at the computer the next night, rubbing his eyes. “Nobody in their right mind completely redesigns a project two days before the proposal deadline, you idiot,” he muttered aloud.
That was what love did to a man, he thought, but he knew that wasn’t it. No matter how much he cared for Max and wanted her happy, he would never have made the changes if the concept had been unsound. He’d redesigned the plans because she’d been right, because she’d understood what people needed, and that ability to understand—that caring—was one of the many things he loved about her.
The thought ambushed him, the same way it had all day. Dylan shook his head. It wasn’t what he’d planned for his life, not yet and certainly not now. He hadn’t expected to find himself in so deep. And yet in some ways, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he known almost from the beginning that things with her wouldn’t be ordinary? Hadn’t he realized that what was between them went beyond chemistry?
So he was in love; he’d spent the night thinking about it as he worked on the drawings. And over the hours, he’d come to accept it, even embrace it. The question was, what the hell was he to do about it?
Dylan crossed to his worktable where the model sat. He and Max had put together the main elements of the structure. What remained now was the time-consuming process of adding surface finish, detail work and landscaping. He picked up a plastic bag of little fake trees, weighing them in his hand.
Max walked in, lovely and golden, and he felt as though someone had just filled the room with oxygen. “Hey, you,” he said.
She pinkened. “Hey.”
“Eleven-thirty and still going strong. Who says we don’t know how to have a good time.” He grinned.
“Well, at this point we’re the only ones who do. Eli and Grant headed out a little while ago. It looks like they’re about done with the animations. Eli said he might do a little bit more on it at home.”
“Does that mean I can kiss you?” Dylan asked.
She glanced out the door. “Only if you’re quick.”
He stepped in toward her, settling his hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t know if I can guarantee quick.” He nipped at her lower lip. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that I can’t.” He licked at her earlobe. “But if you want long and slow, I can definitely oblige you.”
He pulled her to him and pressed his mouth on hers, taking his time, savoring her flavor, her softness, the curves he’d come to know, marveling at the fact that they somehow felt different now. Now that they were his.
“Not here,” Max scolded.
“Why not? There’s no one around. You said yourself, they’re gone.” He drew her over to his chair. “You can surely spare a little bit of time and affection for someone who slaved away last night…oh, and also redesigned the entire project.”
Max laughed and let him pull him pull her onto his lap. “So you’re telling me it’s a labor to make love with me?”
“Oh, it is, but I’m a man who loves my work,” he said. “And I’m dedicated to perfection.”
There was magic in his mouth. For a few endless moments, Max let herself sink into the warmth of his kiss, feeling those lips trail over her cheek to her ear, where he started doing delicious things. Every part of her wanted to simply relax back and enjoy it, but she forced herself to break loose. “Much as I admire your dedication, we are still in the office.” She resisted the urge to lean into him again and instead made herself rise and turn toward the door.
“Not so fast.” Dylan caught her up against him and walked her backward toward the frosted glass wall. “I think we need to do something about this habit you have of always saying no,” he said against her lips. “I thought I’d taken care of it already.” He ran the tip of his tongue down her throat, pressing her arms up against the wall so that her bracelets clinked against the glass. “I guess I’m just going to have to see what I can do to convince you.” He dropped his head down, licking his way over her collarbones and down to the tops of her breasts.
Max groaned. She needed to stop him, and she would in just another moment, but it felt so good and the tension was curling up deep in her belly and he was stroking her with his marvelous strong hands.
“If we were somewhere else, I know exactly what I’d do right now,” he mused, “but since we’re in the office, maybe I should just stop with this.”
He ran his hand along her thigh, sliding it up under her skirt, trailing the tips of his fingers up to sensitive inner skin to find her where she was already slick and ready. “Did you say quick?” he murmured against her lips.
And he was touching her with his fingers, those wonderful, clever fingers, until she couldn’t even think of stopping him, she could only move against him and concentrate on the feeling, stifling the urge to cry out. And the next moment, she was stiffening and gasping against him with the flood of pleasure, quaking until her leg muscles became liquid, able to stand only because Dylan held her up.
“Was that quick enough?” he asked. With a wink, he walked over to the worktable and begin putting trees onto the model. After a moment, on jelly legs, Max followed.
Making a model was exacting work, but somehow with Dylan it became fun. But then again, most things with Dylan were fun. She’d grown used to the teasing, the laughter, the sweetness. She hardly noticed the time passing until they were gluing on the last two trees.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that,” Dylan said.
Max glanced at her watch. “My God, it’s nearly two in the morning. We’re going to be wrecks tomorrow if we don’t get to sleep. I’m going to—”
The ring of Dylan’s cell phone interrupted her. He drew it from his pocket with a frown. “What the—” And then glanced at the display, annoyed. Letting out a breath, he answered the call. “Hello.”
“Good afternoon, Dylan.” The voice brayed out of the phone loud enough for Max to hear. “The prince sends his regards and his best wishes for your continued health.”
“Please extend my best wishes to the prince,” Dylan said. “Nabil, are you aware that it’s two in the morning here?”
“But I see that you have answered the phone,” Nabil responded.
“Only because I happen to be working late.”
“If you were living here in Dubai where you belong, it would be two o’clock in the afternoon. You would be wide-awake.”
At the mention of Dubai, Max felt herself tense. Dylan paced across the office. “But I’m not in Dubai,” he pointed out.
Yet.
“You should be. And how is your unfinished business?” Nabil asked. “Is it now finished?”
“Not completely.”
“You must finish it soon, my friend. The prince has completed his refinancing and the project is on a sound footing. We begin construction operations on Monday. The prince expects you back.”
Her stomach twisted. Of course, it was time for him to go. She’d known it was coming, it wasn’t like it was any sort of surprise.
What was a surprise was the way it felt.
“The prince will get me back when I am ready.” There was an edge in Dylan’s voice. “My business is not quite complete.”
“If the business cannot be completed in the time you have been there, perhaps you are better off abandoning it,” Nabil said sharply.
“I’m not prepared to do that,” Dylan said.
“Nevertheless, the prince expects you here in one week.”
“What if I am not able to return?”
“Then the prince may find himself forced to make a change. If you wish to retain the project, I would advise you to do the prince’s bidding.”
“I don’t respond well to threats, Nabil.”
“What is the saying? It is not a threat, my friend, it is a promise.”
Dylan stared at the phone in his hand. Nabil, apparently, had hung up.
A week. Max felt the words shiver through her. One week. Seven days and Dylan would be gone. And suddenly it was as though a chasm had opened within her.
She’d tried so hard to be careful, she’d tried so hard to be smart. She’d kept her distance, kept her guard up. The problem was that she’d kept it up so high that Dylan had sneaked right underneath.
And she’d fallen in love with him.
“Okay, it takes fifteen minutes to get to Portland General,” Mindy said to the team at the end of the dry run the next day. “Allow ten minutes for traffic and five for parking and you need to leave here no later than ten-thirty. Dylan, Henry will have your car idling out front. Jason’s got a van. He’ll drive the model over separately and carry it in for you. I want you guys in the elevator and heading downstairs at ten-fifteen,” she added briskly. “Any questions?”
The meeting adjourned. Max rose mechanically and left the conference room with the rest of them.
“You look like you could use some coffee, Max,” Eli said, winking at her as he passed.
It would take more than coffee to fix what ailed her.
She’d known from the beginning that Dylan was going back, Max reminded herself. It wasn’t as though it was news. On the contrary, she had depended on it. The time limitation had given her the confidence to take the involvement deeper, sure in the knowledge that he would be gone before she could really get in trouble.
Except that she’d been in trouble from the moment they’d met.
And now she—strong, independent, capable Max McBain—had to figure out how the hell she was going to live without him.
Dylan walked quickly by with the box of briefing books. “Meet you at the elevator in fifteen minutes,” he said.
The ache she felt as he headed away was nearly physical. She gave her head a brisk shake. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t let herself fall apart. The proposal presentation was an hour away. She had to focus. She couldn’t let this consume her, not yet.
The thing to do was focus on what she had to do next. If she did that, she could get through the next minute, and the next, and the next until he was gone. And then the days would pass without the reminder of his presence, and they’d turn into weeks, and the weeks would become months, and eventually it would stop hurting so damned much.
Resisting the urge to rub her chest, she headed toward the break room. She had to get some coffee or she wasn’t going to make it. Maybe if she were more awake, it wouldn’t all seem so impossible. Then, as she came around the corner, she heard voices. She froze. “Dude, I am not lying. I’m telling you, he had her up against the wall.”
It was like having ice thrown down her back. Eli, Max thought numbly, it was Eli’s voice.
“Man, it was late. It was just them. The only reason I was there was because I forgot one of my files.”
There was a buzzing of a whisper that Max couldn’t make out.
“Come on, I have my ways of getting into this place. No, I couldn’t see exactly what they were doing but from the sound of things and the way she was moving up against the glass, they were having a pretty good time.”
Horror filtered through her. They’d been seen. They’d been seen, not just together but…but…
It made sense now, the looks she’d been getting all morning. She’d assumed it was because she was tired but it hadn’t been that at all. She knew, God, she knew, just how fast the office grapevine worked. And after a dozen years of being smart, she’d put herself at its mercy once again.
Of course, she’d had help.
She wanted to get miles away from Dylan. Miles away from any reminder of what had happened. Miles away from the person who had instigated it. It didn’t matter that she’d been a willing participant. In that moment, she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
“You’ve got to hand it to the guy, he’s here for, what, less than three weeks and he makes off with the hottest merchandise in the store?” Eli’s voice continued. “I’d like to know his secret.”
There was probably more, but Max couldn’t hear it through the roaring in her ears. Her stomach churned as she walked away. She wanted to drop to her knees. She wanted to throw something. She wanted to run as far and as fast as she could. Instead, she just felt vaguely nauseous.
How had she let it happen? How had she let it happen all over again? Some mistakes, apparently, were worth repeating or maybe it was just that she couldn’t learn.
She took pride in never doing anything that would make her sorry. And suddenly, for the second time in her life, she had. Suddenly, her private life had become public fodder. Again. She was no longer Max McBain, architect, she was the hot babe who had done it in the office. Or who had been done.
How long before Hal heard? she wondered miserably. How long before her status at the firm was compromised for good?
Or had it happened already?
She ducked into her office to get her things and headed for the lobby. Dylan walked up behind her, whistling. He took a closer look at her and frowned. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
If she was pale, it was because of him. A surge of anger ran through her. This wasn’t the place for the discussion they needed to have, but they needed to have a discussion, and soon. “Just lack of sleep,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
The waiting was endless, Max thought as she stood next to Dylan and Jason outside the hospital conference room. She paced, but not out of nerves over the presentation. She paced because it was the only way to keep from screaming.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Dylan said.
But they wouldn’t be fine. As soon as she could manage it, there would be no “they” at all, and the sooner it was done, the better.
The doors opened and a quartet of men in suits filed out. The team from New York, she realized. An assistant beckoned to them. Dylan nodded to Jason. “Let’s go.”
Dylan pulled open the second door to the conference room and Jason walked in carrying the model. When he put it on the table, there was a little stir.
“Haven’t seen one of these in a while,” Fischer grinned. “It’s kind of nice, though.”
“The computer renderings never look like the real thing,” Avery Sherwin agreed. “We spent all kinds of time going over computer models for our new head quarters and I was still surprised at the way it came out when it was actually built. This is better.”
Dylan had been right, the model gave them their wow factor. The committee connected over it, walking around it, touching, talking about it. When Dylan finally stood up at the front of the room, looking heartbreakingly polished, he had their full attention.
“Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting BRS to submit a proposal on this project. As a local company, we think we have a unique perspective to offer on health care design in Portland. The proposal book lets contain full details on our team and our partners. But really, gentlemen, let’s get to what’s important here—a building that will serve your patient community in the most modern, effective and innovative way possible.
“Let me draw your attention to some of the unique features in the floor plan….”
She listened to him talk about the balcony gardens, the family suites, saw the committee nodding as he explained to them why it was the right approach. It had all been worth it, she thought. No matter the personal cost of working on the project, it had been worth it to have a chance to bring these innovations to the patients of Portland General.
If only their gain hadn’t meant her loss.
“I thought that went well,” Dylan said as the three of them walked out into the open air. Their one-hour presentation window had been stretched to nearly two, driven in part by an extended question and answer session.
“They asked to keep the model,” Jason said. “I figure that’s got to be a good sign.”
“We’ll know in a couple of weeks,” Max said. You did your best and you waited to find out. It was kind of how life went.
Except sometimes you just got blown out of the water.
They crossed into the parking lot. “Okay, guys, this is where I peel off,” said Jason. “I’ll see you back at the office for the debriefing.”
Max stayed quiet while they walked to the car and got inside. Dylan turned on the engine. “I’m glad that’s over.” He backed out of the parking spot.
“I can imagine.” Her voice was cool. “You’re done with the proposal and you can head on back to Dubai.”
“This is about that phone call I got last night?”
“You mean the one with the prince yanking your chain?”
He moved his jaw. “Just because he’s demanding that I be there doesn’t mean that I jump.”
“You were only here as an emergency fill-in,” she said. “It’s no secret that you have another life. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go back to it.”
