Page 27 of Lovesick

“You didn’t barge in on me in the ladies’ room to tell me that. Get on with it.”

He took a step forward. “It’s not like that. I . . . feel too strongly for you not to give this a try, but . . .”

She’d known there was a but. Hated the word but. Hated him right now for reducing her to a scared, sick, desperate, nearly middle-aged woman.

“You know, Max, forget about your but. This is all too complicated, isn’t it?” There was anger in her voice, but it didn’t put him off as she’d thought it would. It made him smile, of all things. And it made him draw closer, put his arms around her, and hug her to him so that her face rested on his solid, warm chest.

Unable to stop herself, she slumped, then wrapped her arms around him.

“I was going to say that, although I’m not ready for a serious relationship—because I have Tim and he’s too important to me not to consider him. He—we’re not ready for the complication of a woman in our little family.”

“But?” she said.

“I can’t deny that I’m—”

“Smitten?”

He laughed. “Not the word I’d have chosen, but it’ll do.” He loosened his arms and backed up a smidge. Then he lifted her chin to look him in the eye.

“I’d love to have an affair with you, if you’re all right with that. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Yes. I thought that’s what we were doing? Never mind. I’d love to have an affair. After the vote.” She held his eyes, felt herself almost drooling, saw his hesitation, then added. “Oh—to hell with the vote. It’s only one week. Who’s going to know between now and then if we . . .” She trailed off, not wanting to say the words make love, but feeling it, knowing he knew.

He smiled. “We can wait.”

“You can?”

“I don’t want to, but—”

“Then let’s not.”

“But logistics are not on our side with everything going on.”

“Sunday, then. The day after our event. My place,” she said.

“You’re on.”

She smiled at the total absence of hesitation, not one pause for thought, to contemplate his schedule or consider the wisdom.

Wanting him to kiss her, she didn’t dare make the first move. Not this time. But when someone jiggled the handle on the door, she almost dropped to the floor in horror at the implications of what would happen if someone found them in here. She’d never be taken seriously again as a manager in her own family company. She’d be the woman people snickered about behind her back.

“I locked the door, but we should get out of here,” he whispered, banishing her panic. For the moment. The scare left her shaky though, and brought home the need for discretion, the thing she seemed to have forgotten about in her lovesick bubble.

She left the ladies’ room first to check if the coast was clear. Holding her breath until one woman walked by her, she knocked once on the door behind her then took off down the hall. They would both be heading toward the elevators and she wanted to make sure they weren’t on the same one.

As she approached the elevator lobby, she heard Sosi’s voice and stopped. Peeking around the corner, she saw the woman talking on the phone, standing in front of the bank of elevators. In her current compromised state of mind, there was no way was she taking an elevator ride with Ms. Iceberg.

Louise darted into an office to her right and stood behind the open door to wait her out.

“Dr. Pendleton,” she heard Sosi say. “How fortuitous that I ran into you. I wanted to have a word with you and it may as well be now.”

* * *

“I don’t thinkthis is a good time, Ms. Petrov,” Max said as he reached the elevator. This woman made him feel cold and uncomfortable. The opposite of how Louise made him feel. And yet they were both successful businesswomen. He folded his arms across his chest and prayed for a quick elevator.

“Are you sure? I have a proposition for you. It involves a lot of money.”

He snapped his eyes away from the elevator arrows and faced her.