ХеленКей Даймон – Reunion With Benefits (страница 2)
As if he sensed his behavior was under a microscope, the man glanced up and turned. Spence got a full-on view of him. He looked like every blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in his midthirties who hung out in bars around the city looking for young Capitol Hill interns to date. Good-looking in a still-brags-about-his-college-days kind of way. That sort of thing was big in this town, as if where you went to school defined you a decade or so later.
Point was, Spence knew the type. Charming, resourceful and looking for an easy lay. He knew because he’d been that guy. He just grew out of it well before he hit thirty.
The other man’s eyebrows rose and he hesitated for a second before hitting Spence with a big flashy smile. “Good afternoon.”
At the intrusion, Abby spun around. Her expression switched from surprised to flat-mouthed anger in the span of two seconds. “Spencer.”
It was not exactly a loving welcome, but for a second he couldn’t breathe. The air stammered in his lungs. Seeing her now hit him like a body blow. He had to fight off the urge to rub a hand over his stomach.
They’d worked together for months, every day with him wanting to break the office conduct rules and ask her out. He got close but backed off, sensing he was crossing a line. Then she made a move. A stolen touch here. A kiss there. He’d battled with his control and waited because he needed to be careful. But he’d wanted her from the first moment he saw her. Now, months later, the attraction still lingered...which ticked him off.
Her ultimate betrayal hadn’t killed his interest in her, no matter how much he wanted it to.
“Spencer Jameson?” The guy walked toward Spence with his arm extended. “Excellent to meet you.”
“Is it?” Spencer shook the guy’s hand as he stared at Abby. He wasn’t sure what was going on. Abby was supposed to be here with her team. Working. This felt like something else.
“I didn’t realize you’d be joining us.” Her deep voice stayed even, almost monotone.
If she was happy to see him, she sure hid it well. Frustration pounded off her and filled the room. The tension ratcheted up to a suffocating degree even though none of them moved.
Spence tried not to let his gaze linger on her. Tried not to show how seeing her again affected him. “Where are the others?”
The man did a quick look around the empty room. “Excuse me?”
“Derrick told me—”
“Rylan Stamford is the environmental engineer who is performing the site assessment.” She even managed to make that sentence sound angry and clipped.
The job title didn’t really explain why Rylan looked ready to jump on Abby a second ago. Spence sensed Rylan’s mind wasn’t only on the job. “Our assessment?”
“The city’s,” Abby said. “Rylan isn’t employed by us.”
Rylan’s smile grew wider. “But I’ve been working very closely with Abby.”
Yeah, Spence kind of hated this guy. “I’m sure.”
Abby exhaled loud enough to bring the conversation to a halt. She turned back to the table and started piling the paperwork in a neat stack. “Did you need something, Spence?”
She clearly wanted to be in control of the conversation and them seeing each other again. Unfortunately for her, so did he. And that started now. “We have a meeting.”
She slowly turned around again. “We do?”
“Just the two of us.” The idea was risky and maybe a little stupid, but he needed to stay in town until his soon-to-be sister-in-law gave birth. Derrick’s fiancée’s pregnancy was high-risk and Spence promised to help, to take some of the pressure off Derrick.
“Oh, I see.”
That tone... Abby may as well have threatened to hit him with her car. She definitely was not happy to see him. Spence got that. “No, you don’t.”
She sighed. “Oh, really?”
If words had the force of a knife, he’d be sliced to pieces. She’d treated him to a prickly, unwelcome greeting and, if anything, the coolness had turned even icier since then.
The reaction struck him as interesting, infuriating even, since
Spence glanced at Rylan. He stood there in his perfectly pressed gray suit and purple tie. He had the right watch. The right haircut. He’d shined his shoes and combed his hair. Nothing—not one damn thing—was out of place on this guy.
Clearly Rylan hoped this was a date or the prelude to a date and not an informal afternoon business meeting.
Well, that was enough of that.
“Are you done here?” Spence asked Rylan, making sure his tone suggested the answer should be yes.
“Absolutely.” Rylan’s sunny disposition didn’t dim one bit. He put a hand on Abby’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll call you tomorrow so we can go over the list of concerns.” His hand dropped as he faced Spence again and nodded. “Mr. Jameson.”
Spence watched the engineer leave. He’d never had such a sudden negative reaction to a person in his life. Rylan could have said anything and Spence would have disliked him.
Abby leaned back with her hands resting on the table on either side of her hips. “Heavy-handed as always, I see.”
Facing her head-on, without a buffer, tested the defenses he’d thrown up against her. He shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t mean anything. If only his brain and his body would listen to that order.
Despite standing ten feet apart, Spence felt a familiar sensation spark inside him. Desire mixed with lust and a bit of confusion. The intensity hit him full force.
“Did I interrupt your date?”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Because I’m incapable of meeting with a man without crawling all over him.”
“You said it, not me.”
She exhaled loud enough to let him know she had better things to do. “What do you want?”
She didn’t back down. He’d always loved that about her. The boss-employee boundaries didn’t mean much to her. If she had a thought, she said it. If she disagreed, she let him know. She’d been tactful in not making angry announcements in the office lunchroom, but she wasn’t the type to coddle a man’s ego, either.
He’d found that sexy. So sexy even as his life crumbled around him and his relationship with his father, which had never been good, disintegrated.
“Is that how you talk to your boss?” He figured he may as well try to reestablish the lines between them. Like it or not, they had to figure out a way to tolerate each other.
For him, it meant ignoring the way she walked and the sound of her voice. Forgetting that he once was willing to go against his father to be with her. But he had to smash all of those feelings, all that vulnerability, now.
“Is that what you are? Last I checked, you ran out of the office and never looked back. If this were a cartoon, you would have left a man-size hole in the wall.” She smiled for the first time.
“I’d had a surprise.” As if that was the right word for seeing the woman you wanted locked in the arms of a father who turned out to be a constant disappointment.
She pushed away from the table. Without looking at him, she finished straightening the stacks of files. Made each edge line up. “You still think you’re the victim then?”
“You were kissing my father.”
She glanced over at him again. “Why are you here, Spence?”
No denial, but just like the last time they’d talked—yelled and argued with each other—and a hint of sadness settled in her big brown eyes. Her shoulders fell a bit and for just a second, she didn’t look like the confident, in-charge woman he knew her to be.
He had no idea what that meant. But he did have a job to do. “This is an important project and—”
“I mean in DC.” She picked up the stack of files and hugged them tight to her chest. “Are you back permanently?”
He hated that question. Derrick had asked it. People at the company had asked. The guy at the rental car company wanted to know. Spence gave her the same answer he’d given to everyone for three weeks. “Derrick needs some help.”
“Huh.” She frowned at him as her gaze wandered over his face. “I don’t really think of you as the type to drop everything and come running to assist someone else.”
“I guess not.” She bent down and picked up her bag. She looked cleaned up and ready to bolt.
“Derrick’s fiancée has a health issue,” he said.
The anger drained from Abby’s face. So did some of the color. She took a step forward with her hand out, but dropped her arm right before she touched him. “Did something new go wrong with the pregnancy?”
“You know about that?” Sure, the pregnancy had been on the gossip sites. One of the playboy Jameson heirs settling down was big news. Their lives had been followed and dissected for years. Every mistake highlighted. Every girlfriend photographed. The rumors, the lies. But the family hadn’t confirmed the pregnancy because it was too soon and too personal. “Are you two friends?”
Abby’s expression went blank. “You sound horrified by the idea.”
Admittedly, he was acting like a jerk, as if everything was about him. Ellie, Derrick’s fiancée, needed support. Spence got that. But still... “Well, it will be a bit uncomfortable, don’t you think?”