7. Rachel
7
RACHEL
“ N ate? What is it? Why are you smiling at me like that?” I wiped my mouth, worried I had dressing on my lips. He stared at them, hungrily, and I felt my heart beat faster.
This was how clueless I was. I had no idea how to look cool, how to react to a sexy, handsome man staring at me with lust burning in his eyes.
“How about I teach you?”
It was my turn to choke on my food. I had no business taking a bite so soon after I asked him anything. How about he taught me what ?
“I can show you,” he added, calm and relaxed.
As I coughed and turned red in the face, he leaned over to pat my back.
Really sexy, Rach. So smooth.
I gulped water, then a few more coughs got me closer to speaking. “What?” That was all I eked out. “You’ll show me—you’ll teach me what?”
“I’ll show you how to flirt. How to find a boyfriend.”
I shot my hand up to ward him off. Shaking my head, I said, “No. No boyfriend. I just had one.” I didn’t want to be bogged down with someone again, not when I could be so eager to want to be loved that I couldn’t tell when they weren’t actually into me.
“Okay. How to find a guy for a holiday fling.” He nodded, like this made perfect sense. It didn’t. He was talking in a bizarro, nonsense language. My boss wanted to help me with this impulsive Christmas wish? My brother’s friend was interested in, what, showing me the ropes?
Out of pity?
“I’ll be your mentor.” He set his napkin aside, finished with his food.
“My mentor?” I asked, still so lost. I couldn’t understand how he’d jump to offering to teach me about anything like this. Sure, we knew of each other, but this offer stunned me.
“Yes. I’ll be your mentor.”
“Why you?”
He furrowed his brow. “Ouch.”
“I mean…” I blinked and searched for words. Looking at my half-eaten lunch didn’t provide me with any clues. “Why you? Because you feel like… like a big brother to me?”
“No.”
I reared back with how quickly and firmly he’d shot that reply back at me. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was no mistaking the finality of his reply. “No. I don’t look at you like that. Like you’re a younger sister. Hell no.”
Hmm. That synched with that budding awareness that seemed to build between us. It felt a lot like desire, so it was no wonder he’d immediately dismiss a sibling suggestion between us.
He didn’t look at me like I was a sister. But as a woman he wanted…
A woman he wants to mentor?
I frowned. “But why you? How are you not taken?”
He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, hesitant.
“How are you not available?” I asked, genuinely lost. He was sexy. Successful. Charming and all-around likable. He had that golden retriever sort of energy in some of those books I used to read.
“I’m not,” he admitted. “Not emotionally or romantically available, at least.” He raised his warm gaze to me, and I hated the pain that lingered there. “I was married before.”
“You were?” I gawked at him. “How did I not know that?”
“It was a small ceremony. Very quiet. Very simple and businesslike.”
I winced. “An arranged marriage?”
He laughed a bit. “No. Nothing like that. Yasmin?—”
I snapped my fingers. “Okay. That rings a bell. I know Brandon mentioned her before here or there.”
“Yeah. Yasmin was her name. We were married for six months, and I found her cheating.”
“Ooh. I’m so sorry, Nate.” I set my hand over his, wanting to offer sympathy, but the touch seared me. Just that little contact sent electricity up my arm. It was too much, too soon. Or ever. He was my boss and shouldn’t have been on my mind to touch at all. I snatched my hand away.
“Ironically, I found out about her infidelity in a lousy way. A public way. And she’d dumped me just before that revelation of her cheating was shared.
“What do you mean, public ?”
He glanced away, perhaps uneasy about sharing this much.
“Sorry. I don’t want to pry for details. I only want to wrap my head around this.”
“You’ve heard about the holiday party, correct?”
I nodded. “I vaguely knew about it before coming here to work. My parents went one time, I think?”
“Yeah. They’ve come as guests. Brandon usually comes. It’s a big to-do. Lots of staff bring friends and family. The Malley, Inc. holiday party is a legendary affair, not a typical potluck in the breakroom with a white elephant gift exchange.”
My brows spiked up. I couldn’t control my surprise. “Wait. She dumped you at the Christmas party?”
When he nodded, another chunk of my heart cracked for him. That had to have been so terrible, cruel and just nasty. Who’d do that but a heartless person?
“In front of lots of people,” he confirmed. “My parents were there. Her family was there. Just about every family friend and business acquaintance. You name it, they were there.”
“Damn, Nate. That is harsh.”
“So harsh,” he agreed, “that I am still unavailable because of it. Everyone saw me at my worst moment. The hardest moment of my life. It’s been six years, and I still can’t help but dread when the party is coming up.”
“Wow.” I shook my head, sad and mad on his behalf. “You, of all people, to dread a party. Brandon always said you were the life of a party, no matter what.”
He chuckled. “Well, frat parties in college were a whole different vibe.”
I smiled a bit. It didn’t shock me that he’d resort to humor, especially during a somber conversation like this. He relied on smiles and laughter to get through life. That wasn’t to say he was an airhead, an idiot who couldn’t be serious. He was, but his love language was humor and happy comments, not this.
“Which brings me back to my deal.” He cleared his throat and sat up more. His physical tells told me plenty. He was not in the mood to go any further down memory lane about Yasmin or how she'd ended her marriage with him.
“Your proposal for a deal.”
“Correct,” he said. “Do we have one?”
“For you to mentor me?” I pointed at my chest. “Out of the goodness of your heart? Just because?” I huffed. “That doesn’t sound like a deal. What would you get out of it?”
The long, lazy look he gave me had me wondering what he envisioned. When he said he wanted to teach me, was he talking about rehearsing pickup lines? When he insisted on being my mentor, did he mean guiding me through the bases? Demonstrating things… physically?
My skin felt too tight, and once more, I felt the damning warmth of a blush spreading up my cheeks.
“What do you want out of this supposed deal?” I asked. My voice was breathy, and I didn’t try to repeat myself with a clearer, more professional and no-nonsense tone. Professionalism had left the chat the moment I told him I was a virgin.
I’d been so determined not to think about him, not to dwell on what seemed to be instant attraction between us. Yet, here we were, talking about a naughty sort of tutoring and mentoring to make me less clueless about finding a man.
“I’ll teach you how to find a man who can pleasure you,” he said slowly, “and you can be my plus-one at the party I am not looking forward to.”
He watched me, not saying a word. I waited. Then I waited some more. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he confirmed.
“Wait. I’m not sure I’m hearing this right. You are offering to be my mentor about getting a guy—which is totally, irrevocably inappropriate to begin with since you’re my boss?—”
“And your brother’s friend,” he added. “Completely inappropriate.”
Well, we’re on the same page there.
“And all you want in return for, uh, that service, is my presence as your plus-one to the company’s holiday party?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“That’s it ?” I scrunched my face, wondering where the catch was.
“Yes.” He leaned closer over the table. “Were you hoping to offer me something else?”
Now that he’d said it, so many filthy, naked things filtered through my mind’s eye.
I licked my lips and fanned my napkin at my face. “Does your mentoring abilities include teaching me how to avoid blushing like this when a man says something… like that?”
He grinned, slow and sexy, like he was having the time of his life. Like the devil, wicked and naughty. “Your blush fascinates me.”
“If you say it makes me adorable …” I warned, narrowing my eyes.
“No. I know better than to call you adorable. That’s TDAH’s mistake, not mine.”
“You don’t think I’m adorable?”
“I think you’re sexy, Rachel.” He smiled wider, raking his hungry gaze over me again. “Gorgeous. Alluring. Tempting. Not adorable.”
Oh, shit. He was going to make my panties wet at this rate. It wasn’t just the fact that I was hearing a man tell me these things. It was the utter conviction that shone on his face as he said them, as if he truly believed them.
“Your blush is pretty,” he clarified. “It’s the sort of reaction that shows me how much I affect you. How much my words affect you.”
I laughed nervously. Once. You’re affecting me, all right.
“That blush,” he said as he cleared his throat and shifted his weight in his seat, “makes me curious how far it spreads down your?—”
“Okay. Okay.” I held up my hand again to silence him as I gulped water. “Slow down.”
He chuckled as I recovered and tried to cool down. It was taboo to think of him inappropriately, but to know that he was doing it as well felt risqué.
“But yes, Rachel. All I ask is that you’ll be my plus-one to the party.”
“I’m just surprised that you wouldn’t have a date already.”
“I told you. I haven’t been emotionally or romantically available for six years.”
Damn. And he seemed like such a happy-go-lucky guy. That just showed how everyone could hide behind a wall and act like nothing was wrong.
“Be my plus-one so I don’t have to drink the night away like a pathetic loser. One that everyone remembers being dumped like I was.”
I watched him glance away, realizing that he wasn’t in any better shape than I was. Even though he’d married Yasmin, and the end of their relationship happened six years ago, he was in no better state than I was after being with my high school sweetheart in a sexless relationship.
“A pathetic loser?” I asked. “I don’t think that term can ever apply to you.”
“Do we have a deal, then?” he asked, not replying to my comment and vote of confidence in him.
I looked at the hand he offered me and decided not to think about it. Not to debate.
I followed my heart, that stupid organ that had failed me already, and went with what it suggested.
“Deal.”
I clutched his hand and shook it, thinking after the fact that we probably should’ve laid down some rules to this mentorship.
Because I felt like I’d just signed up for a deal with the devil. And I had no clue what the rules were so I could break them.