Feeling silly, she gripped the rubber band holding her hair back and tried to pull it free. It caught, and when she pulled harder, it snapped, unraveled from her hair, and landed on the floor. She worked the strands apart with her fingers and then loosened the top buttons of her shirt. Her face peered at her from the phone screen, but she looked . . . different. She didn’t look like regular Stella. She looked like Secret Stella, the girl who was going to see her lover tonight.
Her finger accidentally hit the camera button, capturing her face as understanding hit. That was what they were. They were lovers. She liked the sound of that, quite a lot.
She sent the picture to Michael.
Almost instantly, her phone vibrated.
Damn, Stella.
Sexy. As. Hell.
A laugh bubbled free, and she was half tempted to send him something really sexy. Except she had no clue how to go about it. There was probably an art to the camera angle and body positioning, and her office was surrounded by windows. Either her colleagues would get an eyeful or she’d have to figure out some way to stuff her phone inside her fitted clothes.
She set her phone down in defeat and made herself focus on her work, which she still loved. As she waded through the data, she ran across an interesting finding: The vast majority of married men didn’t buy underclothes—not even for themselves. Their wives did. Screening and filtering the data, looking back through the many years of numbers provided, she discovered they quit purchasing underclothes even before public records announced their marriages.
What was going on there? What kind of anthropological phenomenon was this?
The thrill of a new puzzle simmered through her veins, captivating her. She plotted the data against several different variables, analyzed the curves and seemingly random scatter graphs, looked at the statistics. She could not figure it out. She loved when she couldn’t figure it out.
Her phone buzzed, and the screen read, Dinner with Michael.
She sent a longing glance at her computer monitors, but she didn’t let her hands touch her keyboard again. There was no such thing as five more minutes for her. If she went back to work, the next time she surfaced from the data would be well after midnight. That was why she set the alarms.
Also, Michael was just as interesting as the data, and he made her laugh. He smelled good and felt good and tasted good and . . . She hugged herself as her feet danced over the carpet. This was almost too much perfectness. Exciting work during the day. Exciting Michael at night. She wanted this every day, forever.
She saved her work, powered down her computer, and gathered up her things. Walking down the hallway while people were still in the office was something she did rarely, but her coworkers didn’t usually think much about it. Tonight, however, the unusual attention she got as she passed by confused her. The top econometricians in their offices paused in the middle of writing formulas on their whiteboards. The younger analysts in their cubicles gave her startled looks.
As she strode past Philip’s office, he looked up from the papers on his desk and did a double take. She waved at him and went to the elevator banks. Just as the doors began to close, Philip jumped inside.
“You’re heading out early today,” he said.
In the process of adjusting her glasses, she realized her hair was down. This was why everyone was acting so funny. She rolled her eyes. It was just hair. “Dinner plans.”
Philip’s light eyes tracked over her in a thorough sweep. “Meeting someone?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yes.”
“Took my advice, huh?” he said with his usual smirk.
“I did, actually. Thanks.”
He blinked, and his eyebrows climbed. “You’re surprising, Stella, and you look good with your hair down.”
The appraising nature of his gaze made her thoroughly uncomfortable, and she itched to refasten her top two buttons. “Thanks.”
“So who is he? Do I know him? Is it serious?”
She tapped her fingers on her thighs. “I don’t think you know him. I hope it’s serious. It’s serious to me.”
“Don’t ask him to marry you too soon, okay? That scares the crap out of guys.”
She scowled at him.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, that came out wrong. Just go slow. That’s what I meant to say.”
When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, he pressed a hand to the door sensor to keep it open. “Ladies first.”
She marched out, hoping a fast gait would help her leave him behind, but he speed-walked to her side.
“Where are you two going?”
“A Thai place.” She spotted her car in the parking lot and wished she could teleport herself directly inside. She was never wearing her hair down at work again.
“So you like spicy food?”
“I do. I’ll tell you if this place is any good, and you can take Heidi there.”
“Not dating Heidi anymore. She really is too young for me. No common ground. She said I have to work on how I communicate with people. Apparently, I come across condescending. It’s frustrating. I can’t help it if I know things.” He coughed. “Forget that last part.”
That gave her pause. She knew what it was like to have trouble communicating. Did that mean Heidi had broken things off? Underneath his obnoxious exterior, was Philip sad? Was he capable of being sad? “I see.”
“You and I have common ground.” By the look in his eyes, he meant it. He was actually interested in her now.
Stella stopped at her car. “We do.”
Her mother thought they were perfect for one another. If he hadn’t inspired her toward out-of-the-box thinking with his asshole advice, she might actually be interested back. At the very least, she might have let him be her fourth disastrous sexual encounter.
Not any longer. The only one she wanted now was Michael.
“I have to go, or I’ll be late.”
He stepped back. “Have a good night, Stella. Not too good, though. See you tomorrow.”
After she got inside her car and buckled up, she caught sight of him getting into his own vehicle. A brand-new, bright red Lamborghini. Not her style at all. She would have hated it on sight if it weren’t for the fact that Michael liked them.
Sighing, she headed to meet him. The drive was quick, and it wasn’t long before she walked into the humid interior of the restaurant. He was waiting for her at a table for two by the window, looking edible himself in black slacks, a striped button-down, and a black silk vest that fit his trim waist to perfection.
His eyes twinkled, and he tapped his lips with an index finger as he watched her walk between rows of tables toward him. When she reached the table, he stood up and wrapped her in a tight embrace, pressing his lips against her neck as he wove his fingers into her loose locks. “All this hair. My Stella looks gorgeous tonight.”
She breathed him in and molded herself against him. A sense of rightness locked into place, and her resolve hardened. She was going to seduce him. If she could just figure out how. “My rubber band broke when I took it out earlier. Now everyone at work thinks I’ve taken up stripping.”
His shoulders shook as he laughed.
The waiter approached, and they reluctantly broke apart to sit.
“You could, you know. You’ve got the body,” he said with a teasing grin.
“With my coordination, I’d concuss myself on the pole.”
He stayed wisely silent on the topic of her coordination.
“Is this another Michael original?” she asked, indicating his vest, which she loved to distraction.
“Of course. By the look in your eyes, you want to touch it. My work is complete.”
That was when she noticed she was reaching across the table toward him. She pulled her hands back and sat on them, adjusting her glasses with a wrinkle of her nose.
“You can look at it more closely later.” He held a palm out on the table and cocked his head to the side, waiting, and she realized he wanted to hold her hand.
How was she supposed to seduce him when he seduced her so well?
She withdrew her hand from underneath herself and settled it in his. He closed his fingers around hers and stroked his thumb over the back of her hand.
“H-how was your day?” As the words left her mouth, she recognized it was the first time she’d asked him that. It wasn’t the first time she’d wanted to know. Was it too personal? Could she ask him things like that?