Chapter 8 - Clem
The next few days were such a flurry of activity that I barely had time to think about the fantasy shopping spree.
Or the diamond ring that now graced my finger, along with a stunning gold wedding band encrusted with even more diamonds.
I was supposed to wear them to grow accustomed to them, but I still found my thumb seeking out the big stone.
Its weight was oddly comforting, and feeling the cold edges of the sparkling facets reminded me of how far I had come from that night in Vermont.
Everything in my life had changed for the better since then.
Of course, I wouldn’t be keeping the clothes or the rings, and that was fine as long as I had my job. What bothered me enough to have me sometimes drifting off to another world was that almost kiss at the jewelry store.
He didn’t almost kiss you.
Yes, he did. What else could that have been?
His eyes were so intense. They drew me closer, made me rise on my toes, so ready for it.
“Miss Gardner? What do you think?”
The Japanese chef who was cooking the dinner for our meeting with the Koboyashis broke through my embarrassing thoughts.
We were having it at Khoroshiy, but brought in a specialty chef to really pull out all the stops, though Rurik’s cousin’s wife would be doing one of her famous desserts for the American touch.
“It’s delicious,” I said, turning to Miko, who worked on the advertising team and whose parents were from Kyoto. “What do you think?”
“Perfection,” she sighed. “I loved all of it.”
I approved the test menu, and after Miko went back to the office, I went into the private dining room where we’d be hosting the Koboyashis, just Rurik and me and the older couple who held our fates in their hands. Well, they were older than me, closer to Rurik’s age.
As I sat down and went over my list, my thumb nudged the ring again.
It really was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
There was no insisting on a smaller one or something with a plain band.
It was like Rurik could tell exactly which one I liked the best. As if he really wanted to buy me my dream engagement ring.
And he did look like he wanted to kiss me.
But did I want to kiss him back?
Certainly not. Not at all. The warm glow I kept feeling was my confidence being restored to me, the joy of being appreciated instead of denigrated. I could finally breathe again.
A big hand squeezed my shoulder. “Looks like it belongs,” Rurik said. The second time I’d been caught unawares while senselessly daydreaming, my cheeks flamed, and I gasped, pretending I wasn’t admiring the ring.
Then I gasped again when I saw my boss had a shiner. What the hell? My upstanding, straight-laced, book-loving boss was in a fight? By the state of his knuckles on his right hand, it looked like he gave as good as he got, too.
“What happened to your eye?” I shrieked, jumping up to reach for the puffy purple bruise that extended down his cheekbone.
He neatly dodged my probing fingers, the same as he dodged the question.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said, grinning rakishly.
How did a black eye make him more handsome? That shouldn’t be possible.
“Nothing to worry about?” I scoffed. “How’s that going to look to the Koboyashis?”
He frowned, clearly not thinking about that. “It’ll be gone by then.”
I scowled at the blossoming bruise, the burst blood vessels in his eye. That had definitely hurt. Wincing as if the pain was my own, I shook my head in exasperation. “Not in two days. Not unless we do something about it. Hurry and do your inspection; every minute counts.”
He seemed to find that funny, but it was true. We’d both been so busy, I didn’t see him at all yesterday. Before I could ask him when he’d taken the punch, he raised an eyebrow at me.
“Inspection?”
“Aren’t you here to check everything?”
He shook his head. “No, I trust you. I came to give you a ride back to the office. The room looks fine. Love the Taikan prints.”
That was high praise from the man who was never satisfied, and it momentarily made me forget the emergency of his eye.
“You don’t think that’s veering into sucking up territory?
” I asked, looking at the beautifully framed pictures of misty mountain scenes, one of his thousand cousins had brought over from a high-end art gallery.
“Nat thought they’d go well with the flowers I ordered, which will arrive on the morning of—”
His hand rested on my shoulder again, the heat of his fingers sinking through my blouse. “Clem, relax.”
“How can I when you’re out here getting into heavyweight fights two days before… Let’s get to the nearest pharmacy.”
He chuckled as he led me to his car, the Ferrari this time. He followed as I briskly set forth in the drug store, searching out my tried and true remedies. He finally admitted he’d ‘knocked his face into a door’ the night before last.
“And then you got revenge?” I asked, giving his knuckles a pointed look. He didn’t laugh, just slid his scraped hand into his jacket pocket and muttered something about his boxing workouts. Yeah, he did those regularly and never had cuts on his hands.
“Okay, Arnica gel, vitamin K cream, hot packs… let’s head over to the makeup aisle.”
He must have thought I was going to try new lipsticks, because he balked when I began holding up foundations to his face to try to match him.
“It’s just in case,” I said. “Happily married men don’t usually get into fights… with doors. There’s a lot at stake here. No one will know you’re wearing makeup.”
“Because I won’t be,” he said, but I added the foundation to the pile anyway. “How did you get to be such an expert at this?” he asked as he handed over his card.
I paused too long before answering. “First-aid class a long time ago,” I said, fidgeting with the ring.
He took my hand, squeezed once to stop me, and let it go. We returned to the office, where I insisted on showing him what to do to erase that nasty bruise fast.
“I’ve been using ice,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk while I emptied the pharmacy bag.
“That’s fine for the first day or two, but now you need to use heat. That’ll help the blood flow. Take aspirin regularly, even if it doesn’t hurt, and alternate the Arnica and Vitamin K; don’t be stingy with them, either. Sleep with your head elevated if you can.”
He gave me a long look as I gently dabbed on the gel, and I found I was looking into his green eyes instead of concentrating only on the bruise. “Yes, Nurse,” he said, voice low, eyes intense.
I was back to feeling suddenly too warm, exactly as I had been when he slid the rings on my finger. We were all alone in the office, that late in the evening. Everything was so quiet I feared Rurik would hear the rapid thump of my heart.
My hand lingered at the side of his face, his stubble rough against my palm. “I forgot eye drops,” I said. The contrast of the broken blood vessels turned his already clear green eyes the color of fresh spring grass.
His lip quirked up. “I have some at home. Are you worried about me or the deal falling through?”
I swallowed hard. I hadn’t thought about the meeting since I walked into his office. I had been concentrating on not noticing how close together we were, or about the heat that radiated off of him, but now my brain kicked into overdrive. Only wanting one thing.
His hand rested at my waist, tugging me infinitesimally closer. Almost imperceptible, to give me the chance to back away, pretend it didn’t happen. His mesmerizing eyes dropped to my mouth, and as if in response to the heated glance, my tongue darted out.
This was not my imagination.
His hand moved higher, I leaned closer. It had been a long time since I was so attracted to someone. I was beginning to think it was over for me, at only twenty-two. That I’d never feel safe enough to allow myself to experience this heady rush that usually led to giving in and letting go.
The heat of his hand slowly edging up my side, and then the other one, as he slid it behind my neck, made me forget everything that could have held me back. His fingers gently glided through my hair. My eyes fluttered shut.
His mouth was hot and firm; the low sound of the groan deep in his throat was gratifying. An answering sigh swept out of me as he tugged me flush with his body, half onto his lap as he leaned against the desk.
I gripped his shoulders, rock hard under my fingertips.
Memories of him shirtless flashed in my mind as I held on tighter.
He broke the kiss for a split second to tug my head back by a handful of my hair.
His rough stubble scraped against my cheek as he brought our mouths back together again, parting my lips with his tongue.
This was the first time I caught a hint of spicy cologne as the heat of our bodies mingled.
I gasped it in as my mouth opened wider for him.
Okay, it was time to admit I had been thinking about my boss. Thinking about this in my lonely little apartment. But was I thinking about him holding me so tightly to him, his tongue tangling with mine to keep the memories that haunted me when I was alone at bay?
Was I trying desperately to make myself believe that not all men were the same?
I was still scared, still running. The burly guy who might have been watching me was a constant reminder of that.
This was my boss, whose hands were setting me on fire, whose kiss was making me cling to him for more. My boss.
I shoved back, stumbling to put space between us. “I’m sorry,” I said, still not quite in control.
“Clem,” he said, reaching for me again. Much too tempting.
I had to get further away. Almost blind from lust and shaking with mounting regret, I turned and ran. Everything in me screamed to turn back for more, but the fear that might never leave me kept me running.
If I was going to keep a continent between myself and the danger that was definitely still out there, I needed this job more than I needed Rurik’s amazing kisses.