Page 70 of The Prime-Time Experiment

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Exploring it.”

“Yes.”

“And by ‘it’, you mean...”

“I mean I would like to kiss you again.” She waited patiently, clearly expecting an answer.

Declan stared at her for another second before shaking his head, a smile finally breaking through despite himself. “Jesus Christ, Riley.”

Her expression didn’t change. “Is that a no?”

The smile widened. “No,” he said. “That’s very much not a no.” He stepped back from the doorway, holding it open for her. “How about you come inside before we end up making out like teenagers on the front porch?”

Chapter 16

Controlled Variables

Riley

Riley had brought the data home because she stopped trusting herself to complete it at Declan’s house. The conclusion was irritating.

For months, his home had functioned as an effective working environment. She had completed reports there, analysed data there, written entire research sections while he moved through the background of the house without disrupting her concentration.

That was no longer the case. Their arrangement remained surprisingly uncomplicated.

Nothing had been redefined since their conversation at his front door. They were not dating, no expectations were established beyond the ones Riley had explicitly outlined, and Declan accepted those boundaries with an ease she was still trying to understand.

The parameters themselves were straightforward: they spend time together. They talked; they kissed. That was all. Which, from a purely practical perspective, should not have any measurable impact on her ability to complete client reports.

Unfortunately, reality appeared uninterested in reasonable measures.

Because now, whenever she attempted to focus on her work at his house, Declan developed an unfortunate tendency to exist.

He would walk in from the kitchen with fresh coffee for her, and her attention would follow him. He would sit beside her on the floor while she worked on her spreadsheet in the corner of the gym, and she would become aware of his shoulder resting against hers. He would lean over to ask a completely innocuous question about her day and suddenly she would find herself thinking about his mouth instead of her spreadsheet.

It was deeply inconvenient. Worse, she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to fix it.

Riley stared at the half-completed data set on her laptop, aware that she had spent the last several minutes thinking about Declan rather than analysing behavioural trends. Again.

The irritating part was that she genuinely enjoyed being distracted by him. They settled into a pattern over the last few days that Riley had made no attempt to disrupt. They remained purely professional from when she arrived in the morning until after her own personal training session was completed. But at some point afterwards, usually while discussing something entirely unrelated, one of them would close the distance.

Riley discovered she liked kissing Declan considerably more than was practical, which was precisely why her work was currently spread across her dining table instead of being completed at his house.

Because every time she sat down intending to analyse data, she somehow ended up making entirely different use of her time.

Across the table, Dee watched her for a moment before setting down her coffee. “You know,” she said, “most people who stare at a spreadsheet for twenty minutes without typing anything are procrastinating.”

Riley looked up from the screen. “I am not procrastinating.”

“I know,” Dee replied immediately. “That’s what worries me.”

A small furrow appeared between Riley’s brows. She wasn’t avoiding the work, the work simply wasn’t holding her attention in the way it normally would. Every time she attempted to refocus, her thoughts wandered elsewhere. To a conversation, a smile, the feeling of Declan’s hand settling against her waist before he kissed her.

The distraction itself was distracting. Dee seemed to follow the direction of her thoughts without difficulty. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

Riley considered the possibility of denying it before discarding the idea. “Yes.”

Dee looked insufferably pleased with herself. “You’re making such good progress.”